Pekudei - Building a Relationship with Hashem

2:15 So Rabbi Sacks said something very beautiful. And I think this is what he meant, and I hope I'll be able to say it well. Just as Hashem created a world for us We created a world for Him. There's almost like a passing of the torch. Where creation begins with Hakadosh Baruch Hu taking responsibility for the creation of the world, but it's almost as if Hashem says to us now, "I've created the world. Now you go create the world." I did mine, and now it's yours to build. And there's something very powerful about that because there's a deep sense of responsibility that we're meant to have when it comes to the way that we see the world. I think I was talking to the Shana Beck girls just a couple of moments ago. We were talking about whether guys today take responsibility for their lives. Am I going to marry a competent person?

3:16 Part of what creates competency, part of what builds a person to take responsibility, is the understanding that we were created not to be passive, not to just be receivers. Chazal say, the Zohar Kadosh says that a dog says hav. There's different there's different ways that we say what a dog says. I don't know how you grew up. I grew up with woof Some people grow up with bow wow. Is a comedian one of my favorite comedians? He has a bit. He's like, how did they hear bow wow? If you hear a dog bark, you don't go. He said bow wow. It doesn't sound at all like bow wow. The Zara Kadosh says hav Hav. What does hav mean? Hav means give me. The way of a dog is to be somebody who takes. That's the way of a dog. To be somebody who's just like I have no responsibility in this world. I'm just somebody who takes from this world.

4:13 That's very different than the Torah's communication to us. The Torah's communication to us is Hakadosh Baruch Hu built a world. Now it's your responsibility. He built a world for you. There's a reciprocity that exists here. You're supposed to do something back for him. He built you a world. Now go build him a home. And that's an amazing way of thinking about an ethic of responsibility that we have in our lives. That Hashem created us not to just be consumers. I know that today most of us, the way that we relate to Jewish society, is that we're consumers of Jewish society. This came up by COVID. Everyone stopped going to shul because they couldn't go to shul. It wasn't safe. So people started saying, 'Why should I pay membership to my shul if I'm not using the shul?' A rav in Oceanside, New York, wrote a brilliant article. He said Right now, we're going to see who the consumers of the shul are and who the partners of the shul are.

5:19 If you're a consumer of a shul, then what happens as soon as you stop consuming? Why should I pay for a product that I'm no longer getting? Imagine if you were paying for cell phone service, but your cell phone company, your cell phone provider, is not providing service for you anymore. You would say, 'I'm not interested.' So, people who were consumers within the Jewish community, when they said we can't go to shul, they said, 'Why am I paying membership?' If Sharfman's didn't have girls post Pesach, people said, why should I pay tuition? My daughter's not getting the service that's being provided her. But this Rav pointed out, Rabbi Muscat, he pointed out, it was a very brilliant article. He said that's not the Jewish approach. We're not meant to be consumers. We're meant to take responsibility for our community. What happens to a company when the company is going through hard times? If you're an investor in the company, what do you do? You don't pull your investment. You say, what can I do? To make sure that we're successful.

6:12 The goal of a Jew is to build a dwelling place for Hashem in this world. That's why Hakadosh Baruch Hu created the world. The Medrash says, 'Nisave Hakadosh Baruch Hu lios lo yisbarach dira betachtonim.' Hashem created the world because He wants to dwell here. He cannot dwell here without us. I know that sounds a little bit like a limitation on God, but when you think about it, what's the only thing you can't do in a relationship? The only thing you can't do in a relationship is force a person to choose you and call that a choice. Right? What's the what's when you're in a relationship with somebody? What's the beauty of being in a relationship that they chose to be with you? If you force them to be with you, is that a choice? What does that Kadosh Baruch Hu need from us? He needs us to choose him.

7:03 Not that he's lacking Chas V'Shalom without us. Hashem is perfect. But he creates this world. And that's almost like Hashem's invitation to us: do you want to participate in a relationship with me? And every day, and really every moment of every day, we have a responsibility to answer the call that Hakadosh Baruch Hu says. And when He says, "Will you participate in a relationship with me?" We say, "Yes." We're building a home for you down here in this world by being kinder, by doing more mitzvot, by being balei chesed. By engaging in healthy ways with people, we're making the world into a more godly place. The first thing that we see in the Torah is that Hakadosh Baruch Hu extends an invitation to us. The Mishkan is our response to His invitation. It's this is the home where we will dwell together. What does the pasuk say? Va'asulim Mishkan V'shachanti, v'socham. Make for me a mikdash. Make for me a Mishkan. And where will I dwell? Within you. Meaning, this is the meeting place. Between us and our Kadosh Baruch Hu. That's the first level.

8:08 There's a second level here that Rabbi Sachs highlights, and I'll say it in my way, but I think it's a super important point. Do you girls know what the idea of Simsem is? Have you ever heard that word before? Simsem means that Hashem's presence is everywhere So then there would be no opportunity for us to have a distinct identity from Hashem. Imagine, for example, if you have a match and the match has a little flame on it. If you would put that match to the sun That flame would be engulfed within the sun. That very small flame would be engulfed within the sun. We wouldn't be able to identify and point to that one flame of that match because it's been overwhelmed by the sun. So too, when Hakadosh Baruch Hu creates the world, Hashem has to pull Himself back, so to speak. To allow for us to exist. As with the feeling that we have an independent identity from him.

9:05 That's the goal. So Hashem pulls Himself back and He creates a void, chalal, a void where the world exists. There's a big machlokas between the Chassidim and between the Talmidim of the Vilna Gaon about the nature of that symptom. What does it mean that Hashem pulled Himself back? We don't need to enter into that. Everybody agrees that on some level, whether it's literal or non-literal, Hashem pulled Himself back, so to speak, to allow for our creation. There's something very precious about that language when you understand it, that you have to make space for somebody else to create a relationship. When Hakadosh Baruch Hu pulled Himself back to allow for us to exist, He's teaching us how to participate in a relationship with Him. There's something going on today in the world. It's very new. In some ways it's old, but in some ways it's very, very new.

10:03 How do we relate to serving Hakadosh Baruch Hu? For a lot of us, and this is understandable. I'm not Chassvah Shalom saying anything negative. For a lot of us, we say I'm not going to do something until I understand why. I'm not gonna put on tefillin. I'm not gonna daven. I'm not gonna keep Shabbos. I'm not gonna keep kosher until I understand why. There's obviously something very beautiful about understanding why you're doing something. It allows us to participate in the relationship in a more rich and a more full way. You understand why you're doing something. Obviously, you're gonna be more passionate about it. But imagine if that's how it looked with your husband. Imagine you asked your husband to take out the garbage and he said, "I won't do it until you tell me why." What's the feeling that you have around that? I thought you loved me.

10:54 If you put yourself at the center of the relationship, then who are you serving? When Hakadosh Baruch Hu pulled himself back So to speak, to allow for the creation of the world When he pulled himself back He was telling us that the way to create a relationship with somebody else is to be willing to set yourself aside for a moment to allow somebody else to participate in a relationship with you. That's why if you ever meet these guys, like you ever meet a guy who's like at first glance you look at him and he's like a very good-looking guy, and then he opens up his mouth and he's the most arrogant person you've ever met. You ever notice how it shifts? He's not good-looking anymore. I see a couple of girls in the back going, 'Yeah, I know that guy. You know that guy?' We all know that guy. It's always Jake. It's always some version of Jake. That's a very good call.

11:52 There's a reason why people are attracted to humble people. Why is it that someone who's humble is safe? Is somebody who's humble doesn't mean weak? Humble means that I'm able to set myself aside to give priority to somebody else. That's what it means to be in a relationship. When we create a mishkan, the mishkan has very specific parameters. Everything is measured in the mishkan. We know all the measurements of everything in the mishkan. Why is that? The answer is because we're pulling back from our space in this world, and we're saying here, Hashem, here's the space that you occupy. It's not our space now; it's your space. Participating in a relationship with Hashem means naseh and ishma. It means I'm pulling myself back. I'm not at the center of this relationship. If you're at the center of the relationship, then who are you serving? You're serving yourself.

12:56 That's like if you have a guy who says, "I'm gonna be a good husband, no matter what you want." That's that means that you want to be a good husband. You don't want to be serving your wife. I heard this once in a very interesting way. It was actually very meaningful the way that I heard it. What does a comedian get more pleasure from? From making people laugh Or from hearing their laugh? It's a very subtle distinction. Some people are making people laugh because when they get people to laugh, what do they get? They get all the good feelings of making somebody laugh. So really, the reason they get up to do comedy is self-serving. You might not know the difference. You might show up to that comedian and laugh your head off. But from the comedian's perspective, if he is just showing up to make you laugh so that he could feel good about himself, how self-absorbed is that?

13:54 A husband who says, "I'm going to be a good husband," isn't a good husband because a good husband prioritizes his wife. A good wife prioritizes her husband. That doesn't mean that we don't fill up our own cup in order to serve another. That's for sure true. But the idea that I am at the center of the universe—that's a very modern idea. It's not the way you should know. It's not the way that our grandparents and our great grandparents lived. They had a notion of community that was fundamentally different than the one that we have today. They lived in very small places, everybody knew everybody else. Everybody served everybody else. Do you know how they used to make weddings? They didn't make weddings with caterers and bands. Some people could do that. Some people could afford it. But what happened, as was often the case, people would die much younger back then. If you got strep throat, you were dead. It's not like today with modern medicine. People didn't live the same amount of time. So as a result, there were many more orphans. Orphans used to marry each other.

15:00 Who made those weddings? You know the answer. The town The town would make the weddings. People would get together and everybody would bake something. Everyone would make something. People would bring their own wine. A bunch of people who knew how to play music would get up and play music. The weddings happened in the town square. They didn't happen in fancy halls. We saw this. We saw this in a large way. After October seventh It was an amazing thing watching Klal Yisrael feed the soldiers. First of all, how Jewish a thing is that? That you're going off to war. Here, have brownies. I don't exactly think that's what the soldiers need, as they're running into battle strapped down. It seems to me all the soldiers eat beef jerky all day long now. It's like they're running into Gaza with beef jerky and they're in cargo pants. It's not exactly designed for war. But the idea that it was a crazy story. Somebody said we're collecting all the food for Shabbos. There was a base near Beit Shemesh.

16:00 We're collecting all the food that people made to bring it to the base for Shabbos. An hour and a half before Shabbos, that unit that was in Beit Shemesh got called into Gaza. And then somebody said, 'Everybody, come pick up the food. If anybody needs food for Shabbos, if anybody's making a simcha, we have all of this food.' There were cars and cars full of food because Klal Yisrael was serving those soldiers who were serving us. There is a notion of pulling my own needs back to serve another. I was having this conversation with a very dear Talmud of mine who's married now. He just had a baby boy. And Baruch Hashem, Kanain Haray is a growing family. He's a soldier in the army and he's going into Miluim. And he was sharing with me a very real experience that he's having, where he's saying I'm serving in the army, and I feel a certain sense. I totally get where he's coming from. He's pulling back his own needs.

16:54 And I just want to know if everybody is really behind me. Are all the communities in Kaliyos really behind me because I haven't been home for the last two years for the Chagim. Which is a crazy thing to think about. Imagine if you're a husband, imagine you're pregnant, and your husband is away for months at a time. And he's not home for Rosh Hashanah, and he's not home for Yom Kippur, he's not home for Sukkot, he's not home for Simchas Torah. Imagine how lonely you would be as a wife. These soldiers are heroes because they're pulling their own needs back. They're saying Klal Yisrael's needs come first. That's an unbelievable way of seeing the world. That's what Hakadosh Baruch Hu did for us. He pulled himself back. That's what we do for Hashem. We say this space, it's yours. This space is not ours. This space, Hashem, is yours. That's what it looks like to build, to be in a relationship. We meet Hashem on His terms, not ours.

17:49 We don't get to say, "But this is how I feel." I know that's not so nice to say in the seminary. All your feelings are valid. But halacha is halacha at the end of the day. A Jew has to step up and say, whether I like it or not, this is the halacha, and I'm mevatal myself to the needs of Hakadosh Baruch Hu in this world. If Hashem says this is what's meant to be done, then this is what's meant to be done. That's a very challenging thing because we all have things that we want to do, including myself. I just want to make it clear, I'm far from perfect in this area. Far from perfect. Most of the time, I think when it comes to a challenge that I'm struggling with, it's because I'm placing my needs above what Hashem says I'm supposed to do in this moment.

18:35 It's not easy. I imagine you girls struggle with this. It's not easy to wake up in the morning and daven. It's not easy. Why? Because when you wake up in the morning, especially now, Baruch Hashem, it's already spring here. But if you recall, just a month ago, it was deep winter here in Yerushalayim. How cold are the floors of Yerushalayim in February? It's not. There's no carpeting here. And your bed is so warm. The floors are so cold, and maybe I don't feel so connected to Hashem. How many of us, again, don't raise your hands? I imagine that everybody struggles. I struggle with this also. How many of us feel disconnected from davening? How many of us find it difficult to open up a siddur and say the same words every day? It's not easy to connect to davening at all. So maybe we'll say, why should I daven? I'm not getting anything from davening. You ever feel that way? I'm not getting anything from it. What's the answer to that question?

19:25 It's not about you. That's why it's such a dangerous answer when rabbis and teachers go Davening is not for Hashem, it's for you. What do the kids say back? If it's for me, then no, thank you. And then what do the teachers say back? They say, yeah, but you should do it anyway. But you just told me it was for me. If it's for me, then no, thank you. If it's for Hashem, that's already a different story. I happen to think your generation is ahead of my generation in this regard. Your generation is the generation that knows that the selfish thing didn't work. That trying to sell Judaism as something that's for you, you see that it didn't work. I happen to think your generation is the generation that steps up to the call of service. That says, I'm needed for something larger than myself. That's inspiring. That's why I think everybody today is inspired by these soldiers.

20:18 You see, somebody who's literally putting somebody else's needs before their own. And I think sometimes, again, if I'm being honest, this might not be the most politically correct thing to say, but I think it's worthwhile to say anyway. When we think about our educational system Doesn't it a little bit put us at the center of the universe? Like if you're growing up, and I'm not saying every community has its challenges, but one thing that I really admire about the Chabad community A kid grows up in the Chabad community, and what's his calling? Go stand on a street corner and ask people if they're Jewish and put tefillin on them. And if there's a girl, ask her if she has Shabbos candles. There's a notion of service that I think is very inspiring. What they do in the summers? These Chabad kids go to shulchim all over the world and help for the summer.

21:11 In some communities, we send our children to camp for ten, fifteen thousand dollars a summer. I wonder sometimes what the long-term product of that will be. Will that kid have an amazing summer? It will be the best summer ever. It'll be amazing. But I wonder sometimes what happens when we don't prioritize Chesed within our community? We're not teaching people to live godly lives. What is that? Sheolam Chesed Ybana, Kol D'Shmaru Hu. Pulls himself back, prioritizes us, and gives us space in the world. And we're supposed to do the same thing for Hashem. We're supposed to pull ourselves back and prioritize others. Does that mean that we shouldn't fill ourselves up? Of course we should. But why? We should fill ourselves up so that we could serve another. Imagine you know the famous Marshall. The girls, you guys know this Marshall. If you're on a plane and the plane is crashing, the oxygen masks drop down. What are you supposed to do first?

22:06 Put the oxygen mask on yourself first. Why? So that you can help the kid next to you who can't But if you put the oxygen mask on him first, you might not be able to help yourself. If you put the oxygen mask on yourself, then you're going to be able to help him. But the whole point is, you put the oxygen mask on yourself first. Why? To help someone else Today, there's this distorted notion of self-care. I'm sure you've heard about this. There's a lot of talk about self-love. Of course, if you don't love yourself, what are you going to be able to share with another? But love is something that you're meant to share with another. It's not meant. People talk about self-love, and what they really, again, I'm sure this is not what they mean. What sometimes happens is people just become exceptionally selfish. It's like prioritizing their own needs. Imagine you had a mother, and she's like, "No I'm not going to be a mother today. Today I'm involved in self-love. I'm not a mother today.

23:08 The whole point of taking you might need to take a step back. You might need to take a break. But why? Because you're moving towards something else. This brings us to the last thing that I want to discuss with you today. This is the thing that I think is particularly relevant for Bein Azmanim. I think it's a really important point. It's a little bit technical, so I hope you'll come with me on this. But basically, there's a contradiction in the pesukim. Girls, you know what the ananei akavod were? There were these clouds of glory, the ananei akavod, clouds of glory that would cover the mishkan. They would cover the mishkan, and when the clouds went up and they left the mishkan, then kallah yisrael would journey and they would move to the next place until they would stop in the next place. Then the Ananay Akavod would go back down upon them.

24:02 The Torah tells us Ki Anan Hashem ala Mishkan Yomam ve'Eshti alayla b'le'enei Kol Beis Yisrael b'chol Maaseim. The cloud of Hashem, the Ananay Akavod, the cloud of Hashem was over the tabernacle. It was over the Mishkan by day. And the fire was in the cloud by night. And look what it says, b'le'enei Kol Beis Yisrael, every Jew could see it. B'chol Maaseim. In all of their journeys, what's the problem? We're speaking about here when the Mishkan is resting If we're speaking about when the Mishkan is resting, why is that called a journey? This is when the Mishkan was resting. There's a very beautiful Rashi. It's a classic Rashi. It's a well-known Rashi. If you don't know it, don't feel badly about yourself, but it's a classic Rashi to know. Rashi says, 'Makom chaneason.' Afu Karay Masor The place where the Jews encamped was also called the Journey. What does that mean?

25:06 When I was a kid, I never had this. I had friends that had this. You ever go? Anyone here from New York? You ever go to Florida? It's like a Jewish thing to do. You go to Florida. When do you go to Florida? Pesach, winter break. So how do we get there? We fly. Somebody takes a train. When I was a kid growing up, it would never have occurred to me that people would drive to Florida. That's a very long drive. But I had a couple of friends that Baruch Hashem I did not grow up in a wealthy neighborhood at all, and I had a couple of friends that their family would go on a road trip to Florida. So I would see them in Florida, but I would get to Florida in a two-hour, two and a half-hour plane ride from New York, and for them it would take them two days.

25:52 Because you don't do all the driving in one day, you'll pass out. So you take turns driving and stop in different places along the way. Maybe you like certain tourist attractions on your way down to Florida. You stop in certain places and stay at the hotel for the night until you make it to your ultimate destination, which is Florida. This Rashi is telling us an amazing thing: the journey of a Jew is not complete. Until Hakadosh Baruch Hu has a dwelling place in this world There are a lot of stops along the way. There are pauses that we take. But those pauses are part of the journey. Nobody gets to the hotel when they're going to Florida. Let's say you left Sunday morning from New York and you're not going to arrive in Florida until Monday night. Nobody gets to their hotel on Sunday night and says, "We've arrived." What do you say? We stopped here for the night.

26:51 It's part of our journey. Everywhere that a Jew goes is part of their journey, even when we need to stop. Three important lessons. Lesson number one: Sometimes we need to hit pause on the journey to fill ourselves up, but it's not the end. We hit pause why? To fill ourselves up, to rejuvenate, so that we can move forward. There's a second lesson here. This lesson is super important. A Jew doesn't assimilate. Into their host culture Because what's the secret? Because we know that it's just a stop along the way until we come to Eretz Israel. It's a stop along the way until we arrive at our destination. A Jew who's living in America—it's a small difference, but it's very important. You're not an American Jew. You're a Jew who lives in America. You hear the difference? An American Jew is your identity. What do you mean? I'm an American Jew. America is one stop along the way until we return to Eretz Yisrael. That's why. What do we say in the Hagada? In the very, very beginning of Magid, what do we say? Hashda Hacha. Now we're here. Lashana Haba Ba'ar De Yisrael. What do we say at the end of the Seder? Lashana Haba Bi'Yerushalayim Habnu Yah. The whole goal is to arrive somewhere. The reason we never assimilated into our host cultures. Or the reason that some people were more successful.

28:15 I should say that not assimilating into their host cultures is because they never identified with those places. They never said, 'That's who I am.' It was just a temporary way station. So even when we encamped somewhere, whether it was Poland or Czechoslovakia, Iran, Iraq, America, Spain, it doesn't matter. We were never Spanish Jews. We were never American Jews. We were never Polish or Russian Jews. We were Jews who lived in those areas, but you should not think that this is the ultimate destination, girls. I know what I'm saying now sounds a bit extreme, but this place that you're living in right now is the destiny of the Jewish people. Doesn't matter where you're going back to. For those that are going back for Pesach to Los Angeles, New York, New Jersey, wherever you're from, Chicago, it doesn't matter. You should know those are temporary stops. The journey doesn't end until we're all here in the times of Mashiach.

29:06 That's a way that we have to calibrate ourselves for Bein Hashmashah and for those that are going back. You're going back, but you should know you're still journeying back to Eretz Yisrael. Wherever we go, we're heading back to Eretz Yisrael. Anywhere we go in this world, we're heading back to the ultimate point, which is this land. And the last point that Ratzak makes, which is an unbelievable point, I really just want to bring it out because I think it's super important. A people that never stops traveling is a people that never gets old and stale. When you look at people 20, 30 years from now, if you want to know why some people are stale in their Judaism. Why do some people just show up and they do it by rote? It's because they got off the train. A growth-oriented person is constantly in a state of travel. Let's take it away from Judaism for a second. You'll see it. You ever meet people that are very adventurous?

29:57 There's something very exciting about those people. There are some girls that like at the end of the year they don't just go back home. They say I'm going back home anyway. I may as well take a stopover. Where are you stopping over? You can stop over anywhere in the whole world, right? And like two or three girls get together, where they go? We're going to Italy. What are you doing in Italy? We're going to sightsee. Where are you eating? Chabad. Where are you staying? Chabad. Right? There's something you know, like there's something very adventurous, something very exciting about people that are always in motion. I'm not saying there's not value in being rooted. There is, but there's certainly value to a person having a destination in their life. I'm heading somewhere. The Mishkan teaches us that even when we're staying still, we're always moving. Even when we're in a state of being an encampment, Rashi says, we're always journeying. We're always heading somewhere. I want to speak for a second about my younger brother. His name is Avi.

30:48 Avi Berg is a real role model for me. He's always been a role model for me. Even when we were younger, he was like a very good boy. I wasn't necessarily as good a boy as he was. He always did the right thing. I look at my brother today. Baruch Hashem, he's living in Eretz Israel. He's raising a beautiful family. His children are all learning and davening. It's really wonderful to see how he's raising his kids. But the thing that I'm so inspired by is whenever my brother reaches out to me. He just reached out to me and he said, 'I bought you a sefer.' And he's like, 'I got really excited by the sefer. I bought you the sefer.' Anything that his rebbe is like a rebbe friend who's like a neighbor. I don't exactly understand their relationship.

31:23 But he's very inspired by this person. And any time this person puts out a sefer, he's like you got to see this person safer. Any time something comes up, he reaches out to me and he shares with me an idea. I'm very inspired by my brother because my brother is not in chinuch and he's not in rabbanus. My brother works for a living. He makes a parnasah. He takes care of his family. There's nothing wrong with that. It's beautiful. It's lichat chiloy. He's serving Hashem. He's a real deal guy. But my brother never got off the train. He's constantly traveling. He never arrived. He never said, "Here I am, and I'm done with my journey." He never got off the train. I think this is a foolish comparison, but you know how some parents get off the fashion train at a certain age. They just decided this is what I'm wearing. This is the clothing I'm wearing for the rest of my life. You know that dad who acts like it's still 1988. You have that dad.

32:12 You don't have to say it out loud. It's clearly your father, right? I'm that guy also. For me, it's black and white now, so it doesn't really make a difference. But at a certain age, you're like that's cool, and you're not moving on from that. There are people that arrive at a certain stage of their life and they go, 'That's me now.' That's who I am. I'm not moving on. There's no growth. There's no sense of like, there's no adventure in their life. There's nothing to look forward to. The biggest bracha that we could have in our lives is that we never grow old. Al tashli cheni le es zikne chazal say, "Don't throw me away to being an old person." Your Freifeld, Roshel Ma Freifeld used to say was the founding Rosh Yeshiva Shaya Shuv. He would say, "I know old people who are so young, and I know young people who are so old."

32:52 There are some young people. They showed up. I'm sure you saw it this year. I'm sure you saw that there were girls in shawls. Probably not very many. Maybe even one or two. But there were some girls that they were very old. From the moment that they arrived, they were old ladies. They were babushkas. They were with the walkers. They were with their baby carts walking along the streets of Yerushalayim. Very old people. They may as well have been in wheelchairs even though they were very young, because they came and they said, "This is who I am." There's no sense of adventure. There's no sense of ischadshus. There's no sense of life and vibrancy. They're just old people. There were some people that came this year. And it was amazing to watch. It was like children discovering a new world for the first time. That's the most wonderful thing about when you get to see your kids growing up. Every day is fascinating for children. You know that? Every day is fascinating. My grandson Ellie. I'm a little obsessed with my grandson Ellie. He's one year old. He's the cutest kid in the world. Never before has a grandchild ever been that cute. He's got like a little mullet situation. He can't grow hair on the sides over here, but he grows it long in the back and long in the front. I'm a big fan.

33:54 And he's up to it. He's going through the ages and stages of life now. He's a little bit over one year old, and he's discovered the pointing finger. When kids go like they go, he doesn't. He doesn't yet have this. When little kids point to a bird, and I remember when my son Mike used to go burt. Like everything was like a bird. So he's just at a stage where he goes. And everything that happens, he's pointing to it. He's living. I'm jealous of him. He's living in this world with a sense of wonder. Everything is like an adventure to him. When he goes outside, it's like yes, I'm going outside. We walk outside, and it's like we're outside again. There's something tragic about that. The mishkan. If we're going to build a relationship with Hashem, we need to keep it fresh. We need to keep it new.

34:39 In every relationship, it has to be like that. Every relationship, at some point with your husbands, will get stale. You'll be married for 30 years. You'll know this guy like the back of your hand. You'll know when he purses his lips. You'll know when he looks in a certain direction. You'll know all the things that he's thinking without him ever having to express them. Probably because he's never expressed the feeling before in your life. So you had to learn how to read him. But there's something exceptionally impressive about a couple that even after 30 years still have a sense of wonder about each other. They're still on an adventure. They're still working at becoming that couple that's going to be able to say we had an awesome marriage. It has to be the same in our yiddishkeit also. We arrive in certain places. We've encamped. We've arrived in certain places, but chas v'shalom that it should ever get stale. We're always in a state of journeying. Girls, I know this is the last class before Pesach, so I probably won't see you for about a month. But I want to wish everyone a chagkoshe v'sameach. We should have a meaningful Pesach, and blessed Hashem, we should be zayicha to a geulah shleima this Pesach.