Parshas Vayishlach - Eisav's Kiss

3:00 The reason for these nekudos And Rashi says V'yichabkeu that he hugged him. Neska'gulu rachamav kesharo meshda'ave kol shda'ave ashalalu. Yaakov Avinu bowed down so many times he was mechabit Esav so much that the anger of Esav Arasha dissipated And so he hugged his brother. When it comes to v'yichabkeu, when it comes to the kissing. So Rashi says "Nekudalav." There's dots over the word. V'yeshchalken b'daver asa. It's a machlokas In the Brisa and in the Sefer. Yeshadarsha nekudosu lomar. There are those that say that the nekudos come to teach you shenlo nashku bchaliba. That Esav, while it's true that he was kissing Yaakov He was not doing so wholeheartedly. Amr of Shimbar Yochai Halacha he biadua. It's well known. She'asav sainel Yaakov that Esav hates Yaakov. Ella keshanimcheru rachamav But also shav and nishka bchalibo. In that moment it was bchalibo. Of course, that moment will not last.

4:25 So really, if you think about what Rashi is saying, it comes out that both according to the tzad that says that he didn't kiss him with his whole heart, and even the tzad that says he did kiss him with his whole heart, it certainly wasn't wholeheartedly. Meaning, on the tzad that he didn't kiss him with his whole heart, so obviously it wasn't wholeheartedly. And even according to Shem Bayochai, that he kissed him with his whole heart, it was only for a short amount of time. So there was not a peace that had come between Yaakov and Esav. It wasn't a wholehearted kiss that the couple had made up, so to speak. But what's interesting is that when it comes to the hug that Esav gives, there's no machlokus. Everybody agrees that the hug that Esav gave to Yaakov was genuine. Everyone agrees that there was an outpouring of rachamim, and he hugged Esav and Yaakov, and that was it. It was totally wholeheartedly.

5:23 So why do we only have a machlokas when it comes to the neshika, when it comes to the kissing, but we don't have any machlokas when it comes to hugging? Always, in order to understand these things, we need to go back to the penimias haTorah. The stories of the Torah are meant to be understood. Am pshat, remez, drush, and sod. And Chassidus teaches us. That of course Of course, this is a primer in how we should be confronting the nations of the world. But on a deeper level, it's a confrontation with the Asov that lives inside of us And especially in these times When I wouldn't say out of nowhere But especially as we're confronting the anti-Semitism that we're now confronting. Which, for most of us in our lives, is the most anti-Semitism that we've ever experienced. I was with a talmid Thursday night in Los Angeles.

6:33 And he told me for the first time in his life, walking in Los Angeles, he doesn't always feel safe. Pachad A Jew in los angeles in pico That's like central avenue for los angeles. You're off from the Five Towns. There's a whole world outside of the five towns. Many Jews live all over the place. When I left the five towns, I learned about all these Jews. It's amazing. Another guy told me that he went to buy sunglasses with his friend, and they were going to a certain neighborhood. And he said his friend said to him, "Do you think I should run home to get a baseball hat?" That he shouldn't walk in the streets with a yarmulke. The person that he was speaking to, the guy who I was staying by So he had been wearing a hat with a yarmulke underneath, and he took off his hat, dafka, and he said, "No, Adar, and now is the time that a yid needs to be most proud in the world."

7:32 The fact that we're dealing with these mishagoim, it's not even people are saying it's about Kanye. It's not about Kanye. It's not about Kairi. It's not about any of the chevrakedisha over there. They're not the that they're not important b'cholal. But when Kanye posts that mug and David with the symbol of the Rishon Miachshamam, and it gets thirty thousand retweets in forty five minutes and twenty eight thousand six hundred likes in forty five minutes before Elon Musk took it down The problem of anti-Semitism is not Kanye. It's this Meforsam. There's no Busha. Used to be we had Busha over anti-Semitism. You had to have an egg face on Twitter and you had to make up some anti-Semitic name. You're like Adolf Hitler three. And then you could post your anti-Semitic thing. Now it's like, no, what do you mean? I'm blatant anti-Semitism all over the place.

8:24 So especially now It's an important opportunity to look at the side of this sugya of this parsha. To be able to look inside of ourselves because we can't control the way that other people will react to us, but what we can control is the way that we look inside of ourselves, and it's an opportunity. There must always be when it comes to these things. If we are limited to If we're limited to talking about, relying on the ADL to call out the anti-Semites, and if we're only going to allow the lobbying organizations to talk about adopting the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, that means that a yid has missed the point. All things in the world, but especially those close to home, are designed for us to look inside ourselves. What can we take away from this? Medrash says that the purpose of the bria, the purpose of creation, is nisaveh Hakadosh Baruch Hu lios lo yisbarach diru b'tachtaynem.

9:29 Hakadosh Baruch Hu desires to have a dwelling place in the world down below. Which is a fancy way of saying that Hakadosh Baruch Hu desires to have a relationship with this world. But there's a There's a sensitivity that could be missed when you hear these words. Does Hakadosh Baruch Hu want the world to be physical or spiritual? It would appear that Hakadosh Baruch Hu would want the world to be spiritual. Because if you think about it, Nesava Hakadosh Baruch Hu, God desires Lios Loys Baruch, to have for Himself Dira B'Tachtonim, a dwelling place in the world down below. Could it be that Hakadosh Baruch Hu would dwell in a world that could be physical? Doesn't even make any sense. What does that mean? Hakadosh Baruch Hu is spiritual. If Hakadosh Baruch Hu would be present in our world, then our world by nature would be a spiritual place.

10:24 The problem with that logic is that if Hakadosh Baruch Hu desired to dwell in a spiritual place He doesn't need to create the world to begin with. Because he has a spiritual place. So if that was the case, Hakadosh Baruch Hu didn't need to create anything to begin with. The fact that Hakadosh Baruch Hu created the world tells us that Hakadosh Baruch Hu does not desire to have a spiritual world. He desires to have a physical world. So how do you merge these two ideas? On the one hand, Hakadosh Baruch Hu desires to have a physical world, but once he comes into this world, by its very nature, it becomes a spiritual world. To put it into relationship terms, because everything works in relationship terms when you're talking about the Tachlis Abriah. Since Hakadosh Baruch Hu desires to have a relationship, all of our relationships are just microcosms of the macrocosm, which is Hakadosh Baruch Hu's desire for a relationship with this world.

11:22 If you marry someone And you are such a strong presence in the home that they're no longer themselves. Then who are you married to? Right. If you marry somebody and your presence in the home is so dominating and overwhelming Then it could be that a person will lose themselves to the other person. This is what we call today in modern psychology codependency. And now the person has lost themselves within the relationship. So you have—I know it's funny speaking to women, but you have sometimes met these women. Not in a bad way, Chas v'Shalom. Just you know, I'm you know the you know who I'm talking. I'll say I'll say it straight. We should say it straight. We should be friends. There are certain wives that are like very chazak. I'm talking about, and they marry these loyots luch husbands who are Dear, and you knew that guy in yeshiva, and you're like, what happened to you? You were like a guy who had a backbone. So I don't want to get her upset.

12:29 And Chassidish on the other way also. You have certain women that the husband comes and they have this distorted notion of ezo he ishek sheira ha yisur tzon bila. And so somebody and somewhere along the way told the girls that the frumest thing to do is just to agree with their husband whatever they say, which is of course nonsense and ridiculous and a terrible lesson to teach women. And so the husband comes home and he says, "We're doing this," and the wife goes, "Oh, I have to be a good frum basic girl, so of course I'm going to do that." There's no dialogue. There's no communication. That and the other person is overwhelmed. And it's not a healthy marriage, right? You have this. I had once a girl call me up and she said "I really like this guy. The only thing is, he doesn't let me talk on dates." Why do you like him? Like I was, I didn't like.

13:15 She said, "Well, he's very interesting." I said, "Are you interesting?" She said, "I don't think I'm that interesting." I said, "Maybe that's the problem." Where are you in this relationship? Where's the space? A healthy relationship means That each side creates space for the other And the shared space that they have is where the relationship lives. The paradox of the relationship is: I am me. And you are you. And both of us together don't lose any of ourselves, and yet we've created this new thing called a marriage. So it's the way my wife says it. Which I think is very beautiful. She says, "I'm firmly planted, rooted." On this side of the ground, you are firmly planted, rooted on that side of the ground, and in between, the space in between is where the relationship occurs. I always tell my wife that's a good name for a book. If she would ever write a book on marriage, the name of the book should be the space in between.

14:13 Because that's if you think about it, that's really where that's where the relationship is. And whenever you have a couple who's fighting, the couple always says, "Well, she's doing this, or he's doing this." What we want to do is push back and say, what are each of you doing? What are each of you contributing to that space in between? If Hakadosh Baruch Hu creates a world and then He overwhelms the world with His spirituality That's not a healthy relationship. The world needs to remain a world; otherwise, it's not diro betachtonim. Because if Hakadosh Baruch Hu comes into the world with such dominating and overwhelming presence, it's no longer tachtonim, then you lose the purpose of the bria. The purpose of the bria is that the world remains tachtonim, a physical, low, coarse place. And yet Somehow, miraculously, in a way that a human being cannot understand, that diro betachtonim remains in its state of tachtonim but projects alokos.

15:19 The way we would see a computer is a good example. When we see a computer, we see what's happening on the screen. Of course, that's not what's actually happening. Behind that are trillions of lines of code. My daughter, I think Baruch Hashem, she's dropping out. But she was doing Machon Lev computer Like a computer degree And she didn't really like it. I kept telling her, if you don't really like it, don't do it. But she wanted to challenge herself, so she did it. I asked her When you're learning these things, do you look at a computer differently? She's like, yeah. Because when you see something and you understand its inner mechanisms, then it's like I chop what's really happening beneath. Where I know nothing about computers So when I'm sitting on a computer, old people type. I'm a bechinas old person. I'm doing that thing. This is not my world.

16:19 So I'm looking at a computer, and it's just whatever is in front of me. I'm not holding the inner workings of the computer. She sees the computer differently, or like a doctor. When a doctor sees a person, I had a doctor two years ago. I came to the Five Towns, and not even a doctor that I ever went to, but just the chaver who's a doctor. He looks at me and goes, 'You need to go to the doctor.' I was like, 'Lachaim, thank you very much. It's nice to see you too.' Messed me up for a good two or three months. He was a cardiologist. He's like, 'You're gonna die.' I was like, 'Okay, thank you.' " I hope not. You know Still going. Me, but when a doctor sees somebody, they don't just see the person. They're always making an evaluation. Is it? That's why it's uncomfortable to speak to therapists. Not to speak to a therapist who's your therapist, but to meet someone who's a therapist. And you ever see them do this when you're talking to them?

17:12 What are you thinking right now? If they had a pad, they'd be sitting there writing. That was Friday night when I was speaking by the Tish in Los Angeles. There was a therapist there. Somebody asked a parenting question. I saw the therapist out of the corner of my eye, and he was like, "I was just so all my feelings of shame and unworthiness revealed themselves in my life in that moment." "If we need to talk about my childhood, we could do it at the table." Like it was a very vulnerable moment. They see what's going on behind the scenes. That's what it will be in Olam Haba. In Olam Haba, when the world has reached its ultimate state of rectification So the world itself will maintain its presence as a physical world. But it will become transparent to the degree that the inner workings, the inner godliness of the world, will be obvious for all to see. And that's the goal of creation.

18:11 There is, of course. The opportunity to overwhelm the world with godliness, which is not a good thing, and that's why the Gemara says that Mashiach can come in one of two ways: beita or ba'achishana. Mashiach can come in its time, or Mashiach can come speedily. Growing up, what did we always think? It would be better if Mashiach would come faster. But the Balik Chassidus teach us that that's not necessarily true. That if Mashiach comes faster, it will be because we overwhelmed the world with godliness. But the world itself would not have received godliness. The world itself would not have From within itself, it discovered its own inner godliness. To what can this be compared? Can be compared to a drug addict. When you have a drug addict And the addict is On his way down So of course there's always the opportunity for a person to say I need to have an intervention, and we need to get this person to rehab right away.

19:25 Which logically makes sense. Why should somebody have to lose everything before they change? The problem is that if a person goes to rehab before they're ready You might get them sober. But the change that comes with hitting rock bottom hasn't occurred. A person only changes when things stop working for them. We all know this because none of us changed until things stopped working for us. Even ridiculous changes, even very small changes. I remember when I was a very little boy There was a boy who used to come to our house that my mother would babysit after school because his mother worked later. He's a very chashev arav today, so I don't want to say his name, but we were little, three or four years old. And his mother came to the house to pick him up. And she said to my mother, or she said to the boy, she said Yitzi, you need to come home now to take a shower.

20:28 And my mother commented that I still took baths. And I remember being very upset. I said, No, I don't. I take showers now. And my mother's like, oh yeah, you've never taken a shower in your life. I remember this. I was five years old, maybe four years old. And from that moment on, I was committed to never taking a bath because little boys, like babies, do that. It was very important to me to be big. And like as, but even as like a child, I didn't care honestly. But nobody wants to be seen as a baby, especially at that age. I have a five and a half year old son. The most important thing in the world to him is right. I'm big. That's the most important thing in the world. I would say you're very big, huge. The only thing, the biggest thing. So you know, the biggest thing. I said, what's the biggest thing? He goes, Hashem. He says, yes, that's the biggest thing. It's like it's very important to little people to be very big. It's a compensation.

21:29 In and especially in Israeli cheder boys, it's not like in America where there's rules and regulations and they teach them middos. It's survival of the fittest. This is like an evolutionary game that the boys play in cheder. And who's the strongest boy in the class is a very important thing. So my son says to me, he goes, "I take care of the boys that are not so strong." So I said, but he's not so strong. So I'm like, who takes care of you? So I said, he goes, there's one boy that they like. They pick on him, and I always say stop it. I asked his mother, and she said it's true. But it's like it's not because he's a balmidos. I wish I could say it's more like a dinin. I'm the biggest. I'm the strongest. We change when we're ready. I didn't want to be seen as little anymore. So Mameila, that was it. I started taking showers.

22:30 Everybody does that But the more the lower you fall The more obvious it becomes that it's not working anymore. The drug addict who's living under a bridge, who's doing despicable things to get that hit. Who's divorced from his wife, estranged from his children Homeless, jobless. This person is. They've discovered something that the person who hasn't hit rock bottom doesn't really know. I know I shouldn't be doing this. The person who's hit rock bottom says, "I'm gonna die if I continue to do this. One drink, and that's it. One more drink in my life, and I'll be dead." They live with a certain clarity that only comes from absolutely hitting rock bottom. That's the mila of Mashiach coming in its time. If Mashiach would come early, it would be because we would have brought so much godliness to the world that we would have, in a certain way, enforced our presence upon the world.

23:28 And that's not good. The world has to deteriorate; it has to lose all sense of any external trappings to reveal its true inner nature. Which is why the things that we're going through right now are so important. It used to be looking back, 70 years ago, 60 years ago, 50 years ago. What was the big debate in the world? The big debate in the world was communism versus democracy. It was about government. If you think about that, government is very chitzoni. It's very external. Today we're talking about things that we used to think were elementary, but the world is going through a phase where it has to question even the core things to reveal the inner godliness. So what gender you are is no longer obvious. I shouldn't do this. I do this thing just because I think it's funny. It's not like the nicest thing in the world. But when you fly a lot, and when you come into America, one of the options is you check your gender.

24:28 So there's male, female, and other. I always check other and then the TSA agent looks at the card. And there's a moment that the TSA agent and I share. It's a very special moment. He looks at the card. He goes like this, and I know that he's going to do this because I travel a lot. So I'm looking right back at him. You understand? And he knows in that moment that I'm messing with him. And I know that he can't say anything, and we're just stuck. So legally, he's not allowed to do anything. You have a question you want to ask me? Like you're not allowed to, right? It's a moshugna thing. You're not allowed to say it out loud today in the world. It's a moshugna thing. We can't agree on raise your children. This is the genderless raise your children. That's a real thing that's happening in the world. There's a value that if you tell your child what gender they are, that's an abusive way of being.

25:27 So we've lost. All sense, but it's a good thing. We've lost all sense of this internal like nature. It's now being questioned. And now it's being clarified. What is gender? And soon it's going to be the next question: what is human? And by the way, they're already asking the question. If you're paying attention, they're already asking the question: what is human? What's the difference between, if you have unbelievable artificial intelligence and a and in a robot, what will be the difference between that and a human being? And the answer will be the soul. That will have to be the answer because otherwise there won't be an answer. The AI will appear to be capable of experiencing emotions the same way we are. It will be as articulate as we are. They already have this AI machine making art. Like, the things that made us uniquely human are about to come under attack. So this is moving more towards the center.

26:23 As all the external trappings fall away, the world itself will get to a place where it naturally understands that there's a God. And that will be the fulfillment of Hakadosh Baruch Hu's desire to have a dwelling place in the world down below. Of course, like Chazal said, it's a very painful process until you get there. Because there's terrible destruction occurring in the world right now. Abuse of children is rampant. The nature of what is appropriate intimacy. And the entire pornography industry, as it exploded in the 90s with the advent of the internet, is causing terrible moral and physical destruction in the world. As Yidden, we're sitting and watching this. As people who believe in Mashiach, we're watching this and we're saying, yes, this gufa is part of the process. Rather than run away from it, it's our opportunity to address it and teach the world, which is, of course, our mission. The pasuk says, "Kisiv se'koen Yismerudas." It's our not only our opportunity but our obligation to teach the world what is a godly response to these things.

27:36 With this in mind Let's return to Yaakov Avinu preparing to meet Esav, which, of course, as we know, is Yaakov Avinu represents the Ish Tam Yosheva Holim. He represents Hakadosh Baruch Hu in this equation. And Esav represents the physical world. Esav was supposed to have the mission of Yaakov v'nu. Esav was supposed to be the one to reveal the spirituality within the physical world. But Rivki imenu saw that Esav was not Roi lekach And so Rivki imenu, in taking the coat away from Esav, which is of course the coat that Esav took from Nimrod. Esav killed Nimrod on the day that Avram Avinu died. Esav killed Nimrod and took his coat. And that was the coat that made Nimrod into a god. That all the animals of the world would come to Nimrod because he wore that coat. And Nimrod was the inheritor of that coat because that was the coat that was given to Adam Rishon.

28:35 When Hakadosh Baruch Hu clothed Adam Rishon, He brought him into the world. He said, "This is the coat that will allow you to impact the world. It will create safety. You'll be able to impact the world." So Esav had that coat because really that was his destiny. When Rivka Imenu took that coat from him and put it on Yaakov Avinu, she was taking not only was she dressing him up in clothing, but even more than that, she was taking the very mission of Esav, and she was saying now to Yaakov, now you have this mission of Esav, which is of course why Yaakov Avinu must go now to the house of Lavan. And he must confront the evil of the world and reveal the godliness in every single place. Racheli Menu took that to the next level. That's what it meant that Racheli Menu took the idolatry out of Lavan's house, and she was extracting all of the klipa, all of the tumma from the house to reveal only the inner godliness that was left.

29:27 But now, after all of this, Yaakov is going to confront Esav. The Torah tells us what's going to happen. The Torah tells us first he prepared for war. He split his family. There's going to be a fight, and I'm going to make sure that some survives. Then, of course I'm going to daven. Because only with Hashem's help can you win. A malei Hakadosh Baruch Hu oizr lo enu yachol lo. Hakadosh Baruch Hu does not help. You're not capable. And then finally Give gifts, pacify the enemy wherever you can. Make whatever concessions you can to avoid war. That would be the simple reading of the Torah. Comes along Rashi and says something revolutionary. Rashi says he wasn't being mechaneh himself for war. That's why Rashi doesn't use the lashon of heichin. He doesn't say that he was preparing himself for war. Hiskin atzmo. Yaakov Avinu goes through a tikkun process. That's what happens in the world. There's a rectification process that happens in the world. And if we're rectifying the world Then we're not going to go in the order of the Torah. We're going to go in exactly the opposite road.

30:34 Number one, we're going to give gifts. The idea behind giving gifts is treating yourself with kindness and compassion. Treating the animal self that's inside of all of us with kindness and compassion. Balshemtov said, "I'm sure you've heard this quote before. It's not the bite of the snake that kills you; it's the venom that the snake inserts in your body." When a person does an avera And then they beat themselves up over that avera, and they feel a deep sense of shame. That they're unworthy of love and connection because of the average that they've done That will only serve to root you more in that avera. You cannot hate yourself into change. If you want to change someone, you must treat that person, most importantly yourself, with kindness and compassion. The inner critic that we all have is a beautiful thing. But the inner critic that we have If it's not tempered with kindness and compassion It will do exactly the opposite of what you want it to do.

31:39 How do we know? Because if your friend came to you and said, "I did something I'm really not proud of" Your response would never be to use the voice that you use with yourself. You would never speak to a friend the way you would speak to your the way you speak to yourself. Would never happen. One time I gave the shir and a girl said, "Yes, I would." So I said, "Do you have many friends?" She said yes, and I tell it like it is. I said, I'm sure you're very well liked. Who wants? Nobody wants to speak to a person that way. When we come and we share vulnerably and we say, "This is what I did, and I'm not proud of it," and a person says, "Well, you shouldn't be proud of it. That was a terrible thing to do. I'm not going to talk to you anymore." Who would feel safe in an environment like that? We do that to ourselves all the time. In the name of frumkeit It's you have guys in yeshiva all the time. Rabbi, I'm honest with myself. You're not. Honesty comes with rachamim.

32:34 If you're not compassionate That's why we say in davening, "Amer rachem, rachem aleinu v'sein b'levenu lahavenu lahaskel." If you really want to know, if you want to have bina and seichel, it begins with rachamim. If a person doesn't speak to themselves with kindness and compassion, if they don't give themselves gifts in a certain sense, there's no opportunity for change. The ground of change must be watered with kindness and compassion. That's the first step in rectifying our animal soul. You're human. Hakadosh Baruch Hu understands better than you do the mistakes that you're going to make in your life. Then there's davening. In this case, davening doesn't just mean I daven so that I can win. It's more than that. Davening is in alignment with reality. Reality is not a simple thing. To know what's true and what's not true is not a simple thing at all.

33:30 When a person sees the world the way that Hakadosh Baruch Hu sees the world When they're aligned with reality, that's what tefillah is about. Tefillah from an hasid is tefillah from a lashon of tafel to nullify yourself. To recognize that really my ego, in the words of a friend of mine, your ego is trying to kill you. For those of you that know that friend Some of you see that friend. Your ego is trying to kill you. That's what he does after he says it. Tefila is about nullification of the ego to live in harmony with Hakadosh Baruch Hu. A person who davens three times a day is always aware of what Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants them to be doing in this moment. Not Not an hour ago, a boy reached out to me. A boy is in yeshiva now. Without getting into the particulars, it doesn't matter the case. It's a classic shana halef question, problem. There's a girl that broke up with this guy, and he knows that she's now coming for him, and so he says, "I wish I wasn't excited that she broke up with this guy." And I know the integrity move is when she comes to me to say, "No, I'm not interested," but she's going to be in my head. You've seen this story before. Everyone remembers the story? None of you remember the story. We had friends. None of us ever did anything wrong.

34:51 So he said, 'But Rebbe, how can I know that when the time comes?' He goes, 'This is all theoretical. How can I know when the time comes? I'm going to have the strength to make the right decision.' And he's right to ask that question because naturally the nefesh abahamis, the animal soul, seeking its gratification, seeking to just have those desires met, to feel that sense of wholeness, naturally he's going to make the wrong decision. But if a person davens The idea of davening is that you're asking yourself At every moment of the day, what does Hakadosh Baruch Hu want from me right now? I was in. I hadn't yet davened, so maybe this is why. I was in Hertz Rent-A-Car at 4:30 this morning. 4:30. Nobody wants to be in Hertz Rent-A-Car at 4:30 in the morning. Least of all the people that work for Hertz Rent-A-Car.

35:40 They don't want to deal with cranky people like me coming off of a plane where I didn't sleep and it's a red eye from the West Coast. And I come out, and I usually get pretty decent cars because of the amount that I travel. So you get bumped up. They had three cars in the whole section over there, and I went out and these cars are like you can't drive in the five towns in a car like that. Plus in Los Angeles I had a Ford Mustang convertible, so I wasn't going down. And she said no, I can't help you. You have to take from these three cars. And I took a car, and then I went to the gate, and they wouldn't accept my credit card because it was a debit card. I was just in Chicago, Seattle, and San Diego, and they took the credit card with no problem. He said JFK has different policies. I said, really? Of course you do, because it's New York, right? So we have to figure out every way that we can make it difficult. So I had to go back to this poor woman working behind the counter. It's four thirty in the morning. She doesn't want to be dealing with me, and I don't want to be dealing with her.

36:36 And so she says, I need your flight numbers. I'm like, I'm not going back to my car to get the flight numbers. Sorry, I can't put this through. And I admit I was not losing my cool. I wasn't chassid shom yelling at her. I wasn't machal shem shamayim, but I was like. Can we maybe just skip the flight numbers? We just like she's like no, and I have to go through my suitcase, and I was losing a bit of patience. But if a person is mespalo, they say, what's the opportunity in this moment to act in a godly fashion? Still put a smile on your face. You think she wants to be doing this protocol? She doesn't want me there any more than I want to be there. But we have a sense of ego, a sense of gaiva of like I don't want to do the thing that you want me to do right now. Tefila is about removing that sense of gaiva to do what Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants you to do in this moment.

37:23 And then, of course Yaakov Avinu prepares himself in the final way Which is he splits his family. And this is perhaps the most important part of fighting the nefesh avahamis. Every one of us is going to lose the battle with the nefesh avahamis. Not always, but often. We're going to make decisions that are not in line with the will of Hashem. Maybe we're not going to daven as often as we should. Maybe we're not going to make brachos with kavanah. Maybe we're not going to learn as much as we should. Maybe there are tayvos that come up, things that we do that we're not proud of. Yaakov Venu says I'm going to split my family. Even if Esav manages to defeat me There will always be something left. When we're metakin ourselves, when we're preparing ourselves, rectifying ourselves. To know that when you take a loss, the game is not over is huge.

38:16 Because how many people do we know in our lives that did the avera that they feel they can never come back from, and now the show's over? I was talking to somebody recently, and he told me that the younger brother of a chaver of mine He had like for a while he was like in yeshiva, he was doing great. Something happened, and he started going to fish concerts, and one thing led to another. He ended up getting a guyish girl pregnant with twins. And it was the Maccabepatish, and he's completely off the darch. And they were my friend and this guy were together And this guy really loved learning. He was in a very serious yeshiva, and a topic came up, and the guy started spouting. He's like, "Oh, that's that Rav Chaim," and he came alive again. He started talking about his Yiddishkeit again.

39:06 And this guy was like Still, care about Rav Chaim? He goes. Was that the best years of my life? But he feels for himself. He's making a terrible mistake because now he has these gausha children of his, and he feels like you can't be about tshuva if you literally have gausha children. And he's wrong. Of course you can. There's always something left in the tank. That pentalia never gets destroyed. It could be that Yaakov loses the fight with Esav. That's a real possibility. But Yaakov says, even if we lose this fight, there's still going to be Yaakov Avinu somewhere else. That a person has to know that no matter what avera they've done, even the worst possible avera in the world, even if it's the most embarrassing avera in the world, a person could always do tshuva. And other rabba, that tshuva could be the most incredible thing in the world. The lower you fall, the greater the tshuva.

40:00 See, Yaakov Avinu teaches us that as we're confronting the world in the battle with the world, so that the world should become a godly place. You will lose. That is a possibility. Remember when you were in seminary and you thought it would be perfect afterwards? Remember that. Remember when you were in twelfth grade and you saw those girls coming back from seminary and they have everything figured out. They're never going to do another avera again. Remember that myth. That fantasy. And now you're back and you know that it's not so pashat. And that's okay. Doesn't mean that it's gone. It just means that there's a piece in reserve. Now we can understand why Esav is willing to hug Yaakov wholeheartedly. But it is not necessarily willing to kiss him wholeheartedly. Because to draw close to something is not the same thing as to be intimate.

40:52 There's a difference between closeness and intimacy. Intimacy means to become one with something. It's different to be friends and to be married. Like Like all these high school kids. Remember those relationships you don't remember, but your friends remember those relationships they had with that guy, and they said no, we love each other, when they were in high school. And all high school kids get upset when Rebbeim say you don't love each other. Every high school kid gets deeply offended. How do you know what I feel? It's nobody's saying that you don't feel big things But because you're not married, it can only be a level of closeness. It can't be a level of intimacy. Intimacy is something that comes with a lifetime of work. Intimacy comes from us getting through difficult moments together. There were fights that we had that we overcame. There were trials and tribulations that our families suffered.

41:42 That we had the highest moments and we shared those highest moments together. I had my last Matzah Shabbos night yesterday, but a week ago my daughter got engaged. And then Sunday night left America. 150 people came to the chaim. It was supposed to be just friends and family, but everybody shows up. It's one of those things. And at some point, I just went and sat down on the couch. And I just wanted to take it all in. I didn't want to miss the moment. I just wanted to sit there. And you're watching your family, and there's a level. I told my wife afterwards. I don't think that human words have been created to express the emotion that I was feeling in those moments. It's so much greater than joy. It's so much greater than gratitude. And when you look at your family and you're living with your family and you're seeing this daughter is talking to that daughter. It happens to be that the boy that my daughter is marrying

42:41 Her his younger sister and my daughter are best friends. His younger sister and my sixteen year old daughter are best friends. And so they've been on shpilkas for two weeks, not being able to tell anyone. Originally, they both knew, but they weren't saying anything to each other. And now they both know, and they were saying something to each other. And everyone was like, "Why are they whispering?" And then they were literally dancing in the hallways, in ve'agefin ve'im ve'agefin. And girls were like, "Why are you dancing?" And they're like, "Come to it." They made a whole dance, and the whole school was dancing, and nobody had any idea why. It was like, and Rachely is like "Like they have to get engaged today. I can't hold it in anymore." And I'm like, "Yes, it's all about you, Rachely. That's what like." That's why they have to get engaged. Intimacy is so much greater than closeness. Esav In that moment of greeting Yaakov-inu, all the work that Yaakov-inu had done in the house of Lavan had an impact on Esav. The hug was legitimate.

43:38 And even the kiss was legitimate to a degree, But it wasn't wholehearted. Maybe it was wholehearted in that moment, like R' Shmuel Yochai says. Maybe it was halfhearted in that moment, but it wasn't wholehearted. Because the world is not yet ready. If Esav would have kissed Yaakov wholeheartedly, Mashiach would have already been here. The world was not yet ready to acquiesce to the godliness that's within. That's a process. And we are all in process. The Esavs in our life are very often willing to give us a hug. That when we do the wrong thing, the Asavs in our life are willing to say, "Yes" I don't want to be this way anymore. I'm not happy. I'm willing to have some level of chibuk and even some level of nishuk with the godly aspect of my life. But to give in wholeheartedly, to let that go, is a lifetime achievement award.

44:30 Not only on a cosmic level in terms of the universe, but even on a personal level. Doctor Palkowitz said that he met Rav Yashiv. And he asked Rav Yehoshu, as a man, when does the tayvas nashim get easier? When does a man's appeal for a woman? When does it get easier? Rav Yehoshu, at the time, was 101 years old, and he told Dr. Pelcovitz, "The first hundred years are the hardest." There's a process. There's a lifetime process that a person has to go through. And we're impatient with ourselves, and we think to ourselves, 'Yeah, but I'm like 22.' And it's cute because I remember being 22 and thinking at 22 I was like I have a kid already like now I figured everything out. A rasha shiva told me recently. He's like I was 38 years old. I was making such childish mistakes. This is a big rasha shiva. He's like at 38 you're a baby. I'm 42. So I was like at 38 you're a baby. He goes when you're in your 60s you'll understand.

45:27 So I said I hear you because that's the way I look at the kids in their 20s. They're also just figuring it out. They're also just going. Be patient with yourself. The chibuk and nishuk that you are feeling, even if it's not wholehearted, it's there and it's having an impact. It's like water on a stone. Allow it to be. And be'ez Hashem, if we can be patient with ourselves, if we can be kind to ourselves If we can know that we have the opportunity to align ourselves with Hakadosh Baruch Hu in this world, but also know that even as we fail, that spark of elokus will never be extinguished. Be'ez Hashem, we'll see tremendous growth. And blessed Hashem, the world will ultimately come to a place where not only will it accept Elokos, but it will reveal Elokos in this world in a way that a human being cannot possibly understand.