Parshas Yisro - Excitement vs Inspiration

2:24 Vayishma Yisro. Yisro udì. Mashmu ashama uba. What report did Yisro hear? That made him come. This is a very strange Rashi. Remember, what did the pasuk say? As kol asher asa Elokim leMoshe ul Yisrael amo. What did Yisrael hear? Everything. Everything. What's Rashi asking? Mashmu ashama uba. What did hear that made him come? What do you mean? The pasuk tells us. What did hear? Everything. What's Rashi asking? And then Rashi says something very strange. Rashi says, "You know what he heard about?" Quoting Rashi's quoting Chazal, Rashi's quoting a Mechilta and a Gemara and Zvachim. Rashi says, "Kriyas Yamsuf uMelchem es Amalek." Rashi says it was Kriyas Yamsuf that he heard about, and Melchem es Amalek. Doesn't that go against the pasuk? The pasuk says, "What did Yisro hear?" He heard everything. What does the Gemara say? He heard about Kriyas Yamsuf and Amalek. Which one is it? Did he hear about Kriyas Yamsuf and Amalek, or did he hear everything? So what's going on in this Rashi? Those are the questions that we have for tonight.

3:34 And also, I forgot one last question: Why specifically these two things? What was it about Kriyas Yamsuf and Hamalik? If he only heard about Kriyas Yamsuf and the war with Hamalik, what was it that so compelled him that he said, 'I must come to be a part of Klal Yisrael'? I want to talk to you tonight about a concept that's very near and dear to my heart. Something that I think is exceptionally relevant to all of us. It's the difference between inspiration and excitement. People say inspiration doesn't last. It's not true. Inspiration lasts a lifetime. People confuse the word inspiration and excitement. What's the difference between inspiration and excitement? I'll tell you the difference. Imagine you have a rebbe who comes here. Who's speaking here tonight after me. Rav Gav Not Rav Gav tonight. We're not allowed to have a special speaker tonight. Imagine it's Rav Gav.

4:37 Let's pretend that I didn't say that. Let's pretend that you didn't do that, and pretend that I didn't acknowledge you doing it when I wasn't supposed to. Moving on. Thank you very much. So let's say Rav Gav comes here tonight and he gives you an awesome sheir and it's inspiring and it's a pump up and it's like you walk out of sheir and you're like. That's it. I'm in. I really want to work on my fill in the blank. After this, I'm really going to have to try a kavanah and davening. I'm really going to try to take upon myself not to speak lashon hara. Whatever it is that you're working on, what happens? You do it for a day, you do it for a week. Then what happens to the excitement? The excitement falls away And we get very upset at ourselves. We're like. I took it upon myself and really committed to myself that I'm going to do it. But in the end, I didn't. And I always do that. I always say that I'm going to, but then I don't do it. And I always feel badly afterwards. Many years ago, I had a girl in my shirr in a different seminary, and she dropped out of my shirr because she said your shirr makes me feel worse about myself.

5:39 And I was, I don't like to hear that. I don't want to make this a bigger issue than it is, but I don't want to make Jews feel worse about themselves. So I said, what was it that I was saying that made you feel so bad? She goes, no, it's nothing that you said. She's like, I would walk out of your shir and I would always say to myself, that's it, I'm not doing this thing anymore, and then that night I would always do it. And I just got tired of feeling badly about myself, so I decided that I don't want to be mekabel on myself to do it anymore, so I dropped out of the shir. So I said, okay, that's not so bad. I don't feel badly if you dropped out because of that. But what she was really saying was excitement doesn't last. You ever go to like an NCSY shabbaton and you have like a powerful kumsitz and like everyone's singing or a really powerful avdala. You ever have this and you're like. That's it. It's awesome. I'm in.

6:20 Three days later, a week later, or maybe that Shabbos. You have an awesome Friday night tish, and then maybe that Shabbos afternoon, something happens that's not super appropriate. You ever? I'm looking around the room. We're honest with each other. I would say about 50% of you know exactly what I'm talking about. 50% of you know what I'm talking about, but you don't want to acknowledge it. So I just want to say thank you to everybody in the room who both acknowledged it and let me know that you're not acknowledging it with acknowledging it. We're all on the same page. Thank you for coming with me on that. That's excitement. In today's Jewish world, we do an awesome job at excitement. We've made school awesome. When I went to school, school wasn't awesome. Today, school is camp. You go to school; some of these schools have student activities budgets that are hundreds of thousands of dollars. They made school awesome.

7:12 If you go to a modern Orthodox school that has a basketball team. Do you understand what that basketball game is like? I was just in America last week. That's why I wasn't here last week. Thursday night. It doesn't matter what school. Thursday night, I went to a basketball game, and it was senior night. I have never seen a basketball game like that. It was incredible. The pump up beforehand, the music, the layup lines. They had a video presentation. It was like going to an NBA game. The hype was off the charts. We've done a really good job at excitement. But when we did a really good job with excitement, it came with a price, and the price was education. I'll tell you what happened: we made school awesome. School used to stink. But there was real learning. And what we did is we made school awesome, and the price that we paid in many of these cases is that we're not doing as much education as we should.

8:07 And so kids are walking out, for example, of yeshivas today. Based Yaakov saying, I'm sure some of you will come with me on this. After 12 years of a Jewish education, maybe more in some cases, can a girl open up a pasuk in Chumash and just translate it and know what it's talking about? Can she open up a Ramban and know what's going on? Can she open up a Rashi? In some cases, yes. In many cases, the answer is no. Some yes, and some no. Some yes. We don't have to do this publicly. Some yes, and some no. We can agree to disagree and agree at the same time. Some yes and some no. Depends where you're coming from. And I want you to know that we hear from the boys, we hear this a tremendous amount. A boy comes to yeshiva and he's like, Rebbe, I just don't like learning Gemara. Why not? Because I'm not good at it.

8:55 I sat with a young man today. I said, How's yeshiva going? He said, Good. I said, What have you accomplished? He said, I came to yeshiva with a goal that I should be able to learn how to read a Gemara. 12 years of a Jewish education. I should be able to learn how to read a Gemara. I said, How's the goal going? He said, Honestly, not bad. Six months into the year, I'm not perfect, but I'm much better than I was. And he had a sense of accomplishment. I was telling this young man today a sense of accomplishment. Yeshiva is not easy. It's a grind. You're pushing yourself. It's educational. But when we make it so exciting at the expense of education, what we lose is inspiration. And that is a tragedy, because you know yourself that the excitement only lasts for a certain amount of time. Should our schools be awesome? Should our schools be places that are really fun that we want kids to go to? Absolutely, they should.

9:50 But if that's not there to enhance the education, if it overtakes the education, if kids feel like I'm in a glorified camp And we lost something very special. We're going to discuss what the education-inspiration relationship is in a minute, but I want to tell you a story. I was talking to a principal of a high school a couple of weeks ago. He came to visit Eretz Yisrael. I said, "How's it going?" He said, "Honestly, it's really hard." I said, "Why?" He said, "I'm having trouble getting kids to come to my high school." I said, "Why? You have such a good school. The kids coming out of your school are so sweet, they're so innocent. You have a great thing going." And he said, "Yeah, but you have to understand. We have a limited student activities budget." We're not a wealthy school, but there's another school not in the neighborhood, but there's another school in a couple towns over, and their board gave them an unlimited student activities budget. We always used to get kids from this one community.

10:42 But the kids say, "I don't want to go that school. I'd rather go the school that's not half an hour away, but 50 minutes away. I'd rather spend the 20 minutes extra on the bus because that school, it's like going to camp." So why would I, if I have the option, if I'm a 15 year old boy and I have an option of going to camp or I have an option of going to school, what would you choose? We all know the answer. Every one of us would choose going to camp. But we lose something very precious. What do we lose? We lose education. What's the difference between education and excitement? The answer is education inspires. Ideas inspire people. We need the tishes, we need the fabregians, we need the NCSY Avdallah, we need you to have a relationship with your rebbe. We need all of that in order to excite you, but the excitement is only there to facilitate the inspiration. I'm going to give you an example of this.

11:36 About 20 years ago, I heard a she'er. I'm going to share with you the basic idea of the she'er that I heard 20 years ago. The idea is still inside of me today, and the idea inspires me deeply. The idea was that everything has a body and a soul. The body can be measured; the soul cannot be measured. The body is physical; we can measure the amount of space that it takes up. The soul is immeasurable; it's infinite. We can't measure it. And this rabbi said it was a brilliant move. The rabbi said Anything that's real has more immeasurable than measurable. What did he mean? He said this. Is music measurable or immeasurable? What would you say? Music cannot be measured. Sound can be measured. But music cannot be measured. What's the part of music that moves your soul? Is it the sound or the music?

12:33 It's the music. It's not just the sound. When you look at a beautiful piece of art This rabbi said Is the art just color? Or is there a soul to it that makes it art? There's a soul to it. You know what moves you when you see a beautiful piece of art. I remember my father told me he was so upset at me because I don't appreciate art. So my father told me that he went to see the Mona Lisa. The Mona Lisa came to New York when he was 16 years old, and he came. He went to see the Mona Lisa, and he told me that it was so beautiful that he cried. And I said to my father Why? She's like an ugly girl. Why'd you cry when you saw the Mona Lisa? And my father said to me, "I can't believe I raised such a son who doesn't appreciate the beauty of the Mona Lisa."

13:24 I don't know if my father's right or I'm right, but I do know this: something about that picture stirred his soul, and it didn't stir mine. It's not about the color. There was something about that picture that moved my father to tears. Art can move a person to tears. I'll give you another example of this. Chemicals are measurable. We can measure how much dopamine you secrete and how much serotonin you secrete. But can we measure love? Just because somebody secretes dopamine and serotonin when they're with you doesn't mean that that's love. If somebody gets down on one knee and looks at you and says, "Marry me," nobody makes me secrete serotonin like you. What's wrong with that? Isn't he just saying the truth? The problem is that he's talking about the measurable and not the immeasurable. And this rabbi was giving this shir, and he started to expand this idea, and he started talking about relationships. And the idea started to penetrate not only my mind; it started to penetrate my heart. And he started to say things like When you're with someone Are you with their guf or are you with their neshama?

14:35 When you're in a relationship with someone, what's the part of you that's in the relationship? He said, "When you're a child, when you're a teenager, what attracts you to somebody else? It's the goof." But as you get older, you realize actually the goof gets in the way. It's almost like we need the body to pull back in order for the soul to come out. And he said, 'That's why you see beauty is in the eye of the beholder' Because sometimes a person could have a very beautiful goof But the neshama is like when they open their mouth, it's like gross. And all of a sudden, the goof becomes less attractive. On the other hand, you know that guy that you said nothing would ever happen with him because he's only my platonic friend And it would be weird if something happened because he's like my brother. You have to understand, he's like my brother's best friend, and we literally grew up together. And our parents are best friends. It would be inappropriate for something to happen. Obviously, Rabbi, nothing could ever happen between me and this boy. You remember that guy? You know that guy? Everyone here in the room, about sixty percent of you. Thank you so much for coming with me.

15:39 Who? You know exactly who. Don't say. No. It's. So you remember what happened when you realized you had feelings for that guy, who was your platonic friend and nothing would ever happen with him. Remember that moment when you realized, oh shoot How'd that happen? Because if somebody's neshama over and over again keeps coming out and you see the beauty of this person—not the external beauty, but the internal beauty—the neshama starts to connect, and all of a sudden the goof starts to become more attractive. And all of a sudden, when these guys come to me and they go, "So, Rabbi, I remember that girl that I told you about that nothing would ever happen. I don't know what happened" I just think I caught feelings. But I don't know what that looks like, this whole feelings thing anyway. But you know, and I say to him, "Well, what did you expect to happen" Because there's the reality, and then there's the measurable.

16:32 This idea was so inspiring to me that it started to define all of Judaism to me. Up until that point, I was reading all of the proofs of God books. I had all the books on my shelf, and I had Lawrence Kellerman's permission to believe and permission to receive, and I was reading like all these different books, like Proving God, The Science of God, Gerald Schroeder, and I was super into that whole thing. There was a website called SimpleToRemember.com. It's a very easy website to remember. SimpleToRemember.com. At least one person is paying attention. SimpleToRemember.com. That's why we love you, Sophie. SimpleToRemember.com. And I'm like pounding this website, and then it finally occurred to me You can't prove God. Because that would make God measurable And so this idea was so penetrating and it was so impactful that it changed the way I saw everything. And now here it is; it's been 20 years since I heard that shir, and that shir continues to inspire me. And I'm giving it over to you, frankly, with the same level of passion that I had for it back then. Because to me, this idea was so fundamental; I couldn't live without it. Changed the way I saw the world. The problem with education is that education can be boring when it's not relevant to our lives. I saw a meme. Girls know what a meme is.

17:51 I just needed you to come with me. I saw a meme that said, "Thank you for teaching me Pythagoras' theorem over how to do your taxes." Because the other day on Pythagoras' theorem day, I knew how to do Pythagoras' theorem, but when it came to doing my taxes, I had to hire somebody and spend thousands of dollars because I have no idea how to do my taxes. It's a funny meme, but what's the meme really saying? You gave me an education that was irrelevant. The reason why kids don't need education to be exciting, they need education to be relevant. Do we need excitement in our Judaism? Of course we do. I'm not saying we don't. Should you have a funny rabbi, somebody who can get up and tell a couple of jokes, keep you interested, to keep your ADHD at bay? Of course we should have that. But if you would have education, and the education would be relevant, and it would speak to your soul, not just your body.

18:43 You wouldn't need it to come with all the fancy frills. The Torah will do its work on its own. But you have to allow the Torah to seep through. And how many of us are getting a watered-down education because people think that we can't handle it? I want you to know that I believe right now. I believe as I'm looking around the room. I believe that every single person in this room knows what I'm saying to be true. That if you ever had a great teacher It wasn't because that teacher was dynamic or charismatic. It was because what would you say about that teacher? 99% of the time, it's because not. And by the way, not even the relationship that you had with the teacher. Because when they taught the material, these are the words you use. You ready for it? They made it come alive.

19:32 What does that mean? So I'll tell you. I had a really cool English teacher in high school. He was awesome. His name was Doc Harowitz. He became a doctor. He got his doctorate in literature while he was teaching in high school. So he went from being Mr. Harowitz, and then he got the. He said, "Guys, I want the nickname Doc." So we call him Doc Harowitz, and he was like a really cool guy. And this guy loved Shakespeare. And he would read with us. I remember he always sat in a funny position, and he was always jumping around the classroom. And when Doc Harowitz would teach Shakespeare, he wasn't teaching Shakespeare. He wasn't just reading the words and making sure we understood the old English. He would stop and he would say, 'What does this line mean to you?' And guys would like to throw out different suggestions. He would create a debate in the classroom. And I remember thinking, "Hey, we're actually learning something." The problem with so much of what we're learning is not just that it's not interesting to us.

20:28 Not like. What's it going to do for me in my life? There are people that love math because they're good at it. So for them, it's like a puzzle. Anyone here in the room good at math? You're good at math. My wife is good at math. I failed the math three regions twice. I'm terrible at math. I married my wife so that maybe my kids would have a shot, and Baruch Hashem, all my kids got her genes, and my kids are good at math. So you're good at math. So for you, when you do math, you get excited, that's cool. I figured out how it works. What's that math going to do for you? Nothing. Right now, there will be things that math will do for you, for sure. And there's critical thinking skills that are amazing in math that will help you develop a way of seeing the world. There's no doubt about that. But the truth of the matter is that when someone teaches you Torah, when someone says this is the blueprint of the world, this is how you're meant to live your life, this is what it looks like to be someone who brings Hashem down into the world. That information is so relevant that it doesn't need to be packaged up.

21:26 You could just give it to a person, and they go like this. They go, 'This is what happens. You give it to someone, they go, 'Thank you.' It changes the way you see the world. What's the litmus test if you're inspired or excited? The litmus test is what happens when it gets hard. If you're excited and something is difficult What do you do? You stop. It's called your New Year's resolution. They advertise crazy for the entire month of December for gym memberships. Do you know how many people sign up for a gym membership? They make a fortune. They have all these things like sign up. You only have to sign up for a month. Every month after that is up to you. They do whatever they can to get you in the door because they make a fortune. Come January first the gym is packed.

22:20 Everybody's in it. January fourth the gym is empty. You know why? Because they were excited, but it got hard to wake up at five o'clock in the morning. It got hard to juggle my schedule. It's not actually a priority to these people. So of course, why would I show up to the gym? It was just exciting, and then it got hard. How do you know if you were inspired? The difference between excitement and inspiration is that the inspired person goes to the gym even when it gets hard. I had a buddy of mine who was exceptionally overweight, about 500 pounds. He was struggling tremendously in his life. Baruch Hashem, he's lost a tremendous amount of weight. He had a surgery and did a lot of work. I spoke to him last week. I said, "How's it going?" He said, "Amazing." I said, "How'd you do the change?"

23:12 So he gave me this whole list. He has this list of five things that he did to create this change in his life. I said, 'Seriously, what made you do it?' He said, I wanted to live to see my kids' weddings. That's the difference between excited and inspired. Inspired means that he understood deeply. He came to an awareness. I can no longer live life this way. Let's go back to what the Torah tells us. Yisro comes And he hears everything that happened. And Moshe Rabbeinu says, "I want to tell you everything that happened," but he adds something in. What did Moshe Rabbeinu add in? He doesn't just tell him everything that Hakadosh Baruch Hu does for Klal Yisrael and everything that Hakadosh Baruch Hu does for the Mitzrayim. He added in a third thing. He tells Yisro, "Here were all the hard things that we went through." You're joining a nation that's not just excited. You're joining a nation that's inspired.

24:03 We saw something incredible. What did Yisro What did Yisro see in Klal Yisrael that made him come? Mashmu ashamu uba. That's what Rashi says. Yisro already heard everything. He heard all the stories, but there were two things that made Yisro say I cannot be in Midyan any longer. I have to be with Klal Yisro in the desert. What did he hear? Two things. Number one, Kriyas Yamsuf. Number two, Melchemes Amalek. Why those two things? So listen carefully. Kriyas Yamsuf was the most miraculous event in the history of the world. Kriyas Yamsuf. Every single person in the world heard that the greatest empire just got defeated by a nation that had been enslaved for 210 years. That they had only the thing they had left. They were stripped of all their riches. The only thing that they had left was their army. And their army followed Klal Yisrael into the Yamzuf, and then each one was destroyed. And we know what happened. Mida Keneged Mida. Every single Mitzri that died in that Kriyas Yamzuf died exactly according to the amount of pain that they inflicted on members of Klal Yisroel, and the entire world heard about it.

25:17 Yisroel heard about it too, but he did not get off the couch. He didn't leave until a second thing happened. Imagine the excitement that came into the world. There is a God. God saved Klal Yisroel. Unbelievable, right? Didn't move Yisroel. Then another thing happened. There was a nation that attacked Klal Yisroel. And Yisro said to himself, "Wait a second." What just happened? Not that long ago, God revealed Himself to the entire world and said, 'I am the God of the Jews, and I'm taking them out of the land of Mitzrayim.' We were all astounded by that. And still, there could be a nation that would start up with Klal Yisro. He realized something about himself. If I stay here in Midyan, I will be excited, but I will not be inspired. And ultimately, my excitement will fade. Just like it did for Amalek. Ultimately the bathtub will be cooled down. That's what Rashi says. Amalek jumps into a hot tub and they cool the bathtub down.

26:21 If I'm going to be real, I got to join them. I got to be part of it. So that's when he changes. Yisro heard everything, but there were two things that made him come. Number one, Kriyas Yamsuf. Number two, Melchamis Amalek. There's a question that you have to ask yourself this year. You're here in Sharfman's. You're having an awesome year, Baruch Hashem. I see on Rabbi Green's status you're on Tiyulim every other second. No doubt you've had an awesome time. I've even seen some of the videos. You're very talented at giving tours. I don't know who writes those scripts, but they're very funny. Here we have. You're like I'm The Price is Right. How much does this apartment cost? I'm sure it's I'm I'm sure it's a I'm sure it's a joint effort. Will this year be a year of excitement or a year of inspiration?

27:24 Will this year last or will it not last? It's a very simple question. There is no doubt that you have an amazing seminary here that does excitement like crazy. Awesome, awesome t'ulim. I'm sure that I see sometimes. What did I say? I think I saw. Did you girls have a make a Pokeball thing that I see? I was see like grow, connect, inspire, make a Pokeball. I've seen like the. I'm following Rabbi Green's status. The excitement here is awesome, and the excitement is necessary to grease the wheels to get to the inspiration. But I have a question. It's a challenge for all of us. Are we sitting on the sidelines? Are we fans or are we players? Are we sitting on the sidelines, going, "good shear, Rabbi" Nice shear, very nice. If it's that, if you don't get up, leave where you are and join something else, then it's academic.

28:25 It's not true education. It doesn't have inspiration. It won't last. All you got is that you got excited. Grow, connect, inspire. That's what it is. Be inspired. Connect, inspire, grow. I like that actually. That's the right way to do it. Connect Inspire. Connect. I assume it means to the school. To each other. Inspire to God. Sure. Why not? I don't know about that. Seminary. But inspire means if I feel connected, I'm looking for inspiration. I'm not looking for excitement. So here's what I want to recommend. What's the thing this year that you need to get off the couch? What's your version of you being Yisroh leaving Midyan and saying, "I'm joining." What's the thing this year that is your hardship that you're going to overcome That you're going to be making on yourselves to say, 'I know it's going to be hard, but I'm going to do this not because I'm excited, but because I know deeply, because I've been inspired, I've been educated to know this the way to live your life. This is the family I want to raise. This is the person I want to become.' And that's called growth. That word 'grow,' by the way, it doesn't mean anything.

29:35 It's like I did interviews last week in America for Mevasseret and he asked these boys What do you want to gain out of your year in Israel? Some of them are just very funny about it. I don't know. Want to grow? What does that mean? They're like grow. I don't know what the word means. What does it mean? To grow means to self-actualize. It means to become the person that you have inside of you. Grow doesn't mean just dumb, like do whatever, like better at this and better at that. I just want to be better at davening. I just want to be better at this. It's not what it means. Grow means to be self-actualized. Self-actualization only comes from inspiration. It doesn't come from excitement. Excitement is the preamble. Excitement is what you need in order to get started, but it's not inspiration, and we can't confuse the two.

30:22 Do you know how little time we have left this year? I'm going to talk about it. Wow, that's very specific. 121 days is a lot, but it's much less than that. I'll tell you what I mean. Next week you're going to Budapest? Poland. I won't be here anyway. I couldn't be here anyway. Worked El Baruch Hashem beautifully. I'm marrying off my daughter on Sunday of next week. Thank you very much, Sophie. And that means we have five classes left before Pesach. What? It's five classes left before Pesach. No. It's five classes left before Pesach. Do you know how many classes we'll have after Pesach? Tell me. Sovi, it's going to be okay. Five. Maybe eight. Oh my gosh. No. Maybe thirteen classes left. My heart is hurting. No. The reason I bring this to your attention is because remember when you came? Remember when you got off the plane?

31:30 Realize how fast it's gone. This is your opportunity to say, "the sands of time are dwindling through the hourglass." Am I really inspired? Have I made a move? Have I really grown? Have I really become what I'm meant to become? One thing I can say for certain about being here in Sharman's every year is that there is real growth here. You see it every year. Come back, you see the Shalem Beck girls. You see how they're working on themselves. You see how they're looking inside of themselves. And I remember what they looked like in the beginning. I remember when the girls in the beginning were sitting in the corners, sitting in the back, refusing to give in their phones, spending all the. I remember the Shabbat girls now are all Shtokk. They're all from. But I remember when you weren't so from. Not you, but you know you. Me. This is a place, though. I remember. I remember.

32:21 You were never on your phone. The I remember. But this is a place of real growth. The question is, when is it going to happen? So there's no doubt that it's been trickling in. There's no doubt this year that you can already see. But are we satisfied? Is this it? If your year ended today, would you be okay? No. You had dreams last year at this time when you were choosing a seminary. Last year you were saying, what's it going to look like next year when I go to Sharman's? What do I want to look like at the end? And I'm sure that has changed a lot over the course of the year. And maybe you've grown in your maturity. And maybe that goal looks different now than it did just even a couple of months ago. And maybe that's a good thing. But if you're gonna do it Now's the time. You have a month and change—not even. You have a month until Purim.

33:09 If you're gonna make a move, if you're gonna choose to get up out of your midyan and to join Klali Yisrael in the midbar, if you're gonna do hard things, look around in the world, girls. There are a lot of people that get excited by Kriyas Yamsuf, but there's a lot of Amalekites out there that kill that excitement. If you want inspiration to last, you have to make a move.