Pikudei - The Power of Desire

3:00 Sir Avyosi Bar Chalafter responded to her, and we're going to understand the depths of this in a moment. He said, "Who do you lend money to?" Do you lend money to the wealthy, or do you lend money to the poor? If you lend money to the poor, what happens if they can't pay you back? You don't get paid back. So who do you lend money to? You lend money to people who need money. But if they can't pay you back If they lose the money, they could still pay you back. So you don't lend money to poor people. You lend money to people who have money but need your money in order to do something. If they lose the money, they could pay you back from the money that they have. Does that make sense? For example, when you buy a house, blessed Hashem, you all buy houses.

3:51 God willing, even here in Eretz Yisrael. If you buy a house here in Eretz Yisrael, the first thing you do is go to the bank and say to the bank, "This is my down payment." And I want to use your money to buy a house. Now, why does the bank do that? Because if you don't pay them back, what do they do? They take your house. That's how they make sure they don't lose their money. You don't lend money to people if they don't have anything to pay you back with. The bank is only willing to give you a loan because when you get the loan, you're buying something that they can then take back in case you don't pay back. Says R' Yosi Bar Chalafda to this woman He says Hashem doesn't give wisdom to fools because when they have wisdom They're not necessarily going to use it in His service.

4:39 Hashem gives wisdom to those who can pay Him back with the wisdom that He will give them. So if you're a person who's wise, what does that mean? Wise. It means you already know I'm here to serve God. Then what happens? Hashem will give you wisdom so that you can use it to pay Him back. Does that make sense? Could you say that again? If so, not really, because you can be wise and know that I want to do this, but I don't necessarily have the capacity to do that. Let's say, for example. Say I want to be a big Talmud Chacham. So you have a certain type of wisdom. We're going to call that for a moment, and I'll explain it a little bit deeper now. It's like a wisdom of the heart. I know what direction I want my life to go in But you don't necessarily have a high level IQ.

5:33 You're of average intelligence. How are you going to become a Talmud Chacham if you're of average intelligence? But since you already have the wisdom that you know what you want to do. Hashem says, "I'm going to give you the wisdom to go become a tamchacham." So now, when you learn, you're going to be, in a certain sense, even smarter than you naturally are, and you'll be able to learn more than you would naturally learn. I'm going to give you an example of this. Many, many years ago, I had the opportunity to learn from one of the great loamdim of the last generation, my Rebbe Shlito. His name is Rav Yehuda Parnas. Shabbosaychad Rafaushleima. He's 96 years old. I had the opportunity to learn from him for eight years. Five years I was in shir, and three years I was zocher to learn with the Rosh Yeshiva bechavrusa. And every night we would learn and we would prepare the shir together. Together is a funny word because obviously he was Ripharnis and I was whatever, but in the sense that I was like a sounding board for him. He would throw the ideas off of me and we would debate them back and forth a little bit. And obviously he was always right, and he would just use me to kind of clarify the ideas.

6:41 So Ripharnis. He had a boy in shear, and I was like, I guess maybe a good way of calling it was like a shiur assistant. Somebody who helps out. So Reb Parnas would tell me at night sometimes he's like, Mordechai is a boy in shear. I see he's a big mivakish. He's a big mivakish. Meaning he wants so badly to learn on the level of the shiur. My Rebbe's shear was a very, very high level shear, and this boy. Didn't have the skills to be in that she'er, and if I'm being really honest, he didn't have the intelligence to be in that she'er. You had to be smart to be in my rebbe she'er. Who put this water here so I could say thank you? Am I just drinking random water? Is it cold? I just want to say thank you. I'll thank Rabbi La. Not every night But for a while, my rebbe would say,"For a while, my rebbe would say, Mordechai You have to speak to this guy because he pasha doesn't understand anything that's happening in sheir. And I see he's a good boy and he wants so badly to be successful. He should go to a lower level sheir and build up his skills so that maybe he could come back to the sheir. But really, I just see he doesn't have it.

8:04 And I would say to him, Rebbe, I can't do it. It would break this guy's heart for me to tell him not to be in Rebbe Sheir because all he wanted to do was to be in my Rebbe Sheir. The guy worked insanely hard. And I'm sure it was frustrating for him because in my Rebbe Sheir there were guys that were so smart they could just get it right away, like it was nothing. Some of the guys in the Sheir were absolutely brilliant. Thank you, because now I'm not drinking random water. I'm gonna get you water for yourself. Thank you. It's clean, dirty. Such times, water. So what happened? This guy, you have to understand, in my rabbi Sheer, when I was in Sheer, there was a guy who came to America in fifth grade and he was a Russian immigrant who didn't speak a word of English.

8:52 In seventh grade, this guy won a statewide essay contest. He was an absolute genius of a guy, and honestly, he was so smart that it would frustrate me in shiur because he didn't really work hard, but he would show up, and as soon as my rebbe would ask a question in shiur He would just raise it, and he always got it right because his mind just worked that way. It was frustrating for me. I can't imagine what it was like for that guy. This guy was in the beis medrash all day and all night. He was working so hard. To try to chat my rebbe shir, and my rebbe would say to me, Mordechai, if he hears it from me, it'll kill him. But maybe if he hears it from you, it'll be better because if he hears it from you, it'll be like rebbe is not kicking you out. I'm just giving you like a piece of advice. I said, rebbe, I can't do it. The guy's whole life is to be in your shir.

9:42 This went on for months. One day, at night, after we were done learning, we would schmooze every night for about five to ten minutes after we were done learning. Rabbi said to me, "He said Mordechai" I have to tell you today in Sheer an open miracle happened. He said, "This boy raised his hand and asked a brilliant question." Even a broken clock is right twice a day. He said, "He said Mordechai, it was such a great question. I really had to think about it. Next day, Rabbi comes back to me. He goes. It was an open miracle again. It was an open miracle. This guy asked the question And it really, he really changed the direction of the She'er with his question. This started happening—not every day, but two, three times a week—and all of a sudden, the guy started chapping. He started getting it.

10:38 What changed? My Rebbe said, "I'm so glad that he didn't leave She'er. It clicked." I'm telling you It was this Gemara. The Gemara says a different Gemara says Yagati Yomatzasi. If you put in the hard work, you will find success. When it comes to Torah Success is guaranteed if you work hard. Every year we see it in yeshiva. Guys who come in, they work hard, guaranteed success. A guy who's chilling out might not be as successful, but a guy who's plugging, he will find success. And this guy, he was this Gemara. Hakadosh Baruch Hu noisin chachma le Mishia Yeshva chachma. This guy had a wisdom. He said, "I want to serve Hashem." Hashem said, "Fine. Then I'm going to give you the kalim. Listen what the Ramban says. I'm going to read inside. You girls are high level. Girls, I could read to you inside a Ramban. It's a short Ramban. The Ramban says as follows: L'karva elam alacha kilo haya b'hem shalamod es hamalachos ha'elamim lamed o misha iman."

11:43 He said, "What do we? Why does the pasuk say that? Who built the mishkan? Anyone whose heart was stirred to build the mishkan? It's because they had no one to teach them how to build a mishkan. There was no trainer there to tell them do this and then do that and then do this and then do that. It's like that's how you learn. You learn by going to somebody who teaches you. You go to a what do they call that when you go to like to apprentice by somebody? You apprentice by a master craftsman, and then they teach you. Do this and then do this. There was nobody in the Mishkan who taught Klal Yisroel what to do. Rather, had to go. This is what the Ramban says. Rather, a person came, and this is what they said: I feel in my heart that I have something to contribute to the Mishkan. I feel in my heart that I know I'm going to be able to build the Mishkan.

12:42 And then you know what happened, his heart would be lifted up because he has this chok maslev. He had the wisdom of the heart. He would be lifted up, and all of a sudden, he would know how to build the Mishkan. I want you to picture the scene, girls. Imagine you're Moshe Rabenu, you're Btzalal, you're Aaliyah, you're in charge of building the Mishkan. And you say, who's going to build the Mishkan? And everyone looks around, and they go, We're not builders. We don't know what to do. And how many chevra came forward? You're talking about there were 603,550 people that were counted in the census. How many people came forth to build the mishkan? A couple of chevra just walked up. It was a crazy room like this. A couple of chevra just walked up to Moshe Rabbeinu and said I think I could do it.

13:29 And then they did. All they said was, "I think I could do it" And then somehow they were able to do it. What's the pshat? The pshat is there's something called and this the this what we're going to learn tonight. There's something called ratzon. There's something called will. And Chazal say ain hadaver omeid b'fnei haratzon. There's nothing that could stand in the way of will. If you want something, nobody could stop you. I have an amazing line that I heard years ago. You want to hear this line? It's a life-changing line. You can do anything you want as long as you know what it is. Wow, it's not a simple line at all. Because the reason we don't do things is because we don't really want them. I gave an example. If somebody came to me right now and they said, Berg, I want to be a millionaire.

14:17 Do you really want to? I really want to be a millionaire. Well, if you want to be a millionaire, what do you want to do to be a millionaire? I want to go into business. Well, in order to make a million dollars in business, you're going to have to make tremendous sacrifices because you're going to have to work 24/7 to build up that business. You're gonna have to live and breathe that business. What's the first thing that person's gonna say to me? But how am I gonna balance being a mother? So you don't really want to make a million dollars. You really want to be a mom? I want to make a million dollars and be a mom. If you want to make a million dollars and be a mom, you know what's gonna happen? You're gonna figure out how to balance it. But you don't really want to make a million dollars because as soon as I said this is what it's gonna take, you said I don't know if I could do that. If you want, by the way, everyone in this room can tell right now what everybody's wants are.

15:02 I can tell you right now who's the girl who's locked in, taking notes, paying attention. You know what her wants are. She wants to be here. There's another girl that maybe doesn't want to be here. Maybe she's peeking at her phone because she doesn't really want to be here. Everybody is always doing exactly what they want all the time. It's just a question of knowing what you want. Growing up means deciding this is what I want, and I'm willing to make sacrifices to get the thing that I want. You know what confusion is? Confusion is I have two wants And one of them I have to kill. You know what the word decide means? What does the word decide mean? You know this word? Choose. I have to pick between. That's true. The word 'side' means to kill, suicide, homicide, genocide. To decide means I have three options in front of me, and I'm going to side with two of them and decide one of them.

16:04 That's what the word means. So the art of choosing is saying what I want. A girl comes here to bear Miriam, and this is a place clearly of exceptional growth. Which means that when you chose to come to Barem Miriam, you already made a decision about the type of girl that you wanted to be based on the program they have there. A girl who's not interested in growth doesn't come to Barem Miriam. It's what nine o'clock on a random Wednesday night. Beis Medrash is packed. Clearly, this is a place with people who say, "I want to be in the type of seminary that at nine o'clock on a random Wednesday night we're hearing a shir." That means you made a decision not to go somewhere where they're not going to have a shir at nine o'clock at night, where you're not going to be challenged and thinking. So you already knew what you wanted. But let's say, imagine a year ago, you were making the decision about where to go to seminary. Do you remember that decision? It was very anxious.

16:59 And let's say sometimes it's easy for you. You don't get into the places, so you only get into one place. It's like, that's where I'm going. But let's say a girl gets into three places. You know what she starts doing? She goes, I feel like if I go this seminary, it's going to be this. If I go this seminary, it's going to be this, and if I go this seminary, it's going to be this. When she's making the decision of what seminary to go to, you know what she's really asking herself? What do I want? So a lot of times people think it's like, no, she just chose to go where her friends went. She didn't Because if she chose to go where her friends went, it means she didn't really want to go to seminary at all. She just wanted to be with her friends. So she did what she wanted. If a girl says I'm not going to go with my friends because this seminary has what I want. They're saying something about themselves.

17:44 It's an amazing thing. Any time you make a decision, you're going through the clarification of who am I. And that's an awesome thing. Which is why it's so terrible. I don't know a nicer way to say this. I'm just going to say it straight. It's terrible. It's tragic when we don't let children feel the pressure of making a decision. Because that pressure builds a person. In today's generation, everything has to be over therapized. So these kids are feeling a lot of anxiety about this decision about where to go for seminary. We have to figure out how to remove that anxiety. You don't have to figure out how to make how to remove the anxiety. Actually, the anxiety that the kids are feeling is a good thing, because that's clarified. Anxiety is not a bad thing. Anxiety tells you something important is happening. Of course, you have to manage your anxiety so you don't go over to one side or the other.

18:37 But anxiety tells me something important is happening, and it's a question of who am I? I just missed something you were saying before you said. I probably missed it too. Every decision goes through. Every decision you're going through the process of discovering who am I. It might seem like a small decision. There was a girl that came to me a couple weeks ago. I was so moved by this. And she said, because of the shiur that we had a couple weeks ago, she had a decision to make if she wanted to go the place that sells ragalach in the morning. And she wasn't gonna. And she was thinking, maybe I should go the place that sells ragalach in the morning. And she decided not to. She clarified for herself, who am I? I'm not a person who goes to the place that sells ragalach in the morning when it gets dark. It depends on the person.

19:26 It takes. It takes a second. It takes a second. I myself just got it. There's a place that sells Rogaloff in the morning. Oh! I'm coming. I don't eat the I don't eat the food that my food eats. Let's try that again. It's not so much I don't know if it's a question, but it's like a bugging thought. This is not the first time that Beneful has had that rod song. Meaning like when yes Miss Ram, the only way that they got out was to I mean. What's the question? I don't know. I feel like I don't know the question. So I think what you're saying, push back if I'm not getting this right. What I'm hearing you say is We've wanted things before, right? But in order, let's say we got some of the way But we didn't get all of the way. By Yitzchias Mitzrayim, we had amazing levels of rachon, rachon that was able to get us out of Mitzrayim. But it didn't get us all the way to Yimotz Mashiach.

20:56 We had Ratzon when it came to building the Mishkan. A couple chavrus stepped up and they said We have no idea how we're going to do it, but we want to. If you want to, somehow you could do things that you're not capable of doing. So what would it take? I think this is what you're asking: What type of rutzon would it take to get us all the way across the finish line? Which is literally the topic of tonight's she'er. What a beautiful thought question, because that's what we're here to talk about. What will it take to bring Mashiach? How much rutzon does it take? And why does it work that way? That's what we're here to discuss. How do we build a mishkan? There's no beis hamikdash right now. How do we build a mishkan? How do we build a beis hamikdash? That's what we're here to do. We're here to make our world into olam haba. How do we do that? In order to understand this, we have to understand. So far, we learned two things. Number one, Hashem gives you the wisdom if you have the ratzon.

21:49 Number two When you have the ratzon, you could do anything you want to as long as you know what it is. If you don't do what you want, it's because you don't really want to. Guy says, why are you not waking up in the morning to go to shacharis? He says, look, it's not gonna want to go to shacharis. I just like. I don't want to go to shacharos. I'm like, okay. So you don't want to? He goes, I just told you I wanted to. I said, if you wanted to, you'd be there. You understand? If you wanted to, you'd be there. There's a part of you that wants to, and there's a part of you that doesn't. Once you shift and you get to the real core want You could do anything you want to. So far, you understand? You could do it. You just have to want to. What if you actually have something like ADHD, I can't.

22:36 So that's a perfect example. That's why I love this place. The question's perfect. Mammish takes me to the next step. Rabbi, I've got the letters. I've got all the letters. Like the like. I got all the ABCs. Everyone. They looked at me and they said, you have an A, you have a D, you have an H, you have another D, you have an O, you have like everyone's got the letters, right? So you can say, I have ADHD. I really want to. I just can't. And you couldn't have picked a better example than ADHD. I'm going to give you a gift. ADHD is a superpower. ADHD is a superpower. Don't ever think of ADHD as a disability. It's a superpower. People don't understand ADHD. They think it's attention deficit. That's not what it is. That's not what it is. People think ADHD is I can't concentrate. It's not what ADHD is. You want to know what ADHD is? ADHD is I'm in the middle of writing a paper. A squirrel goes by my window. And then I go squirrels, and then you start Googling squirrels, and for three hours you're hyper focused on squirrels. And at the end of those three hours, you know everything there is to know about squirrels. ADHD is a superpower because you actually have the ability to concentrate more than other people.

23:52 It's just a question of which direction you choose to concentrate in. That's my other favorite part about teaching here. It's like the shiur gets musical sometimes. Don't ever say I can't because I have ADHD. You have ADHD. You have a superpower. You're like driving a car with an enormous engine, and the steering wheel is a little bit hard to figure out which direction you want to go. All you have to do is master that steering wheel. I want you to know when I look at the guys in my class who were not ADHD, these brilliant guys that were in high school with me. One guy in my high school class got 1590 on his SATs. 1590 out of 1600. Poor kid, by the way. Because for the rest of his life, he's got to go around going like "I was ten points off. That's why I didn't try. I didn't want to be ten points off." You know what I'm saying? There's this guy going around. Rachmamus. This guy was the opposite of ADHD.

24:45 He was focused. And you know what? He's very successful today. He has a very nice job in the finance world. I'm sure he's making a couple hundred thousand dollars a year. But I have friends who were ADHD of the wazoo. In high school, these guys—they called—they had a room, their classroom. They called it the padded room. These guys were psychotic. These guys were so psychotic that the school had to move them to the basement. This is no joke. Because when they were upstairs, they were so out of control that they would literally break the building. One time, this is true. This is why they left their room. One of the kids—they put them in the science lab. One of the kids took one of those long poles that he found in the science lab. Took a rubber hose, attached it on both ends. Took a yardstick Bow and arrow And shot out the window of the class. The principal walked in. The principal walks into the room and he goes like this. He opens the door because there was a huge crash. He walks into the room, sees that everyone's okay, looks at the window.

25:49 Looks at the kid who obviously did it, and goes, Shimon, not again. This class was so crazy. There used to be a drink called Surge. Surge was like Excel on steroids. And they took it out of the school because if these kids had Surge, they were lunatics. And they moved them down to the basement. And these guys walked around saying, "We're in the padded room. I want you to know, those guys in that shear are making much more money than the guys who were in the top shear, who were like these really diligent, focused guys, because those guys were smart." But these guys had hustle. All they needed to do was figure out where they wanted to move that energy, and then they were superstars. And the wealth from my class—it's not from the smartest guys. They say the A students are there to challenge the teachers, the B students are there to challenge the A students, the C students are just there to pay tuition. But it's the D students who endow the entire high school, so that kids who can't afford to come can, and all their money is going to the scholarships. It's always those kids who are the best of the best. And I see it every year in yeshiva. You have a guy who can't sit still in class.

26:55 He can't sit still because it's really hard to sit still for three hours at a time. But all of a sudden he comes to yeshiva and he's got it's a gift, a sh tender. And you know what you can do with a sh tender in learning in a beis medrash? You can get up, you can walk around the class. When I was a kid, any time I was walking around the class, the rebbe would go sit down. All of a sudden when I turned eighteen years old, nobody told me to sit down. In fact Walking around was like encouraged. You see these guys. You ever see? You never saw, but in case you ever see, you'll see sometimes a guy in yeshiva. This is what they look like. You want to see what a guy in yeshiva looks like? He's learning, and all of a sudden he goes like this. They walk around, and it's the most beautiful thing in the world because nobody told them to sit. So all of a sudden, the thing that they failed in becomes the thing that they succeed in. Those guys become the biggest talmidei chacham. They're the best guys in yeshiva. I see it every single year. It's just a question of tweaking the energy just a little bit. Don't ever speak about that way.

27:49 Speak about yourself that way again. You have a superpower. You're driving. You're driving the world's most powerful car, but you're saying because you were told your whole life, I don't know, you need extra time. You need extra time. You just need to use that superpower to focus. And as you get older, you should know. And with good diet and exercise, you could become a person who focuses tremendously. I want you to know. You see, the speakers that get up here in Bear Miriam, I'm sure they're great speakers. Every one of those guys who gets up here and is a talented speaker is some ADHD kid who was roasted in school. That kid, the one who makes the smart alec comment who's sitting in the back, is just a speaker waiting to happen. Everyone has their like person they're thinking of right now. I have it in my head also. I want to explain why this is though. I want to teach you girls this last piece. Ready? Because we have to finish up.

28:41 What is a person? This is a deep question. When we think about ourselves, who are we really? It was a beautiful ADHD moment And I celebrate it. I want you to know, in Tomer Devora tonight, I lost to a cat. Tonight, I'm losing to a moth. It's been a wild night. The cat died. I know the cat died. Go out. Speaking of ADHD They're both ADHD. Meet the next. Oh my God, perfect duo. Grew up. Oh my God That's great. I'm just saying a simple thing. What is a person? We tend to think of a person as maybe we're our intelligence Maybe we're our emotions. In Kabbalah In the Spheros of who we are. The highest point of who we are, the most innermost point of who we are, is called Ratzon. When you want something, the reason why nothing can stand in your way is because that's the time you're most in self.

29:50 So I'll explain to you what it looks like. There's something called flow. Have you ever heard of that word before? Flow, like being in flow. Did you ever do something where you almost like it was so good that you lost yourself to doing it? The time flew by and you were just so locked in. It's what? What'd you say? So that's a bad example. But I want to explain to you why it's a bad example. Watching a movie, even reading a book, is something that's happening to you. So you're sitting there, and you can lose yourself. A movie could be so great. The acting could be so phenomenal that when you're in it, it's like when you're watching the movie, you're not watching the movie, you're in the movie. That's why after a great movie, when the movie ends, you see people literally come back to life. You see, when people walk out of the theater, they go. When the movie ends, they go like this. They go if it's great.

30:41 Whoa, because I was in the movie. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking. Music is a great one, right? If you, if a person like really loves to play, and they really want to And then they develop the talent. They started off. They didn't know how to play guitar, but they said, I want to play guitar. Something inside of me tells me I'm a guitar player. And so they tap into who they are, and now the want comes out. So the first time they play, they get calluses, you get bloody fingers, right? To me, right when I started playing guitar, because I didn't really want to play guitar, but I wanted to play guitar because I thought it was cool, but I didn't really want to. So as soon as what's cool, as soon as I started playing guitar, it hurt too badly, and I was like, I'm out. What's the difference between the people that push through and the people that don't? They want. One of them wanted it. It's not just that they want to.

31:31 The want is them. And when you're present, you're totally in flow, and you can imagine something so hard that it actually becomes a reality. I'll explain. If you have an imagination, let's say you're sitting here and you have a vision for yourself, a dream. If you dream that dream really hard, because it's really you You can actually make it a reality. There are people in this world that, at young ages, sometimes even 12, 13, 14, or 15 years old. You ready? You got it. It's hard to compete. I'm ADHD myself, so I totally get it. Let's say they were 15 years old and they dream a dream. They say, I want to be a dancer. I want to be a teacher. I want to be this. I want to be that. They really have it in their mind. They say, I'm going to do this.

32:19 And now challenges come up along the way. Those challenges are just obstacles. The difference between the people that make it and the people that don't is how much you dreamed that dream. That's all it is. There's something inside of you that said, 'My home could look like this.' That's what it is. My home could look like this, and some of you might be saying, 'But can my home really look like that?' Maybe you have in your head that you're like, I come from somewhere, so maybe I won't be able to leave the place where I come from and build this thing that I want. The difference is only going to be how badly you want it, because if you really want it, if the dream is so real to you Then that obstacle. It's just an obstacle. It's just a challenge. It's just something to jump, but you'll get there.

33:05 But some people, the first sign of distress, they go, "I fold. I'm out." It's because it's not really you You have to get that to a point where it's really you. I kind of answered it. One of our teachers told us that a lot of people chase after basically the wrong things, and there's some things that people are just not good at. Let's say someone wants to learn, really loves music, wants to sing. I'm betting that if I took that guy whose voice is just mid You like that? I'm telling you, I spend a lot of time with 18-year-old boys. I know all the words. And when he gets up to sing, he bricks, right? I'm telling you, I know all the words. I'm telling you, I'm having to pay attention to these guys. They have a whole different language. It's beautiful. I'm betting that if you asked him, 'Are you really a singer? Is that really what you want?' I'm betting he would naturally go I like singing, but I'm not going to do it professionally because it's not what I love.

34:03 But when you find out what that guy really loves You see, they just take off. They start to soar. It's just a question sometimes with kids of giving them the place where they actually get a win. Everyone loves something. Everyone loves something. Everyone loves something, but the question is, we have to make it available to them, and we have to give them permission to be able to explore the thing that they love. When I was growing up, I didn't like basketball. I was a very short kid until I was 13 or 14 years old, and I didn't like basketball because it's hard to hit the ball. If you're a little boy, the ball is big, so it's hard to throw the ball all the way up and actually get it in. I started to like it when I got good at it. And then all of a sudden I was like, this is awesome. And then I couldn't stop. Because once you figure out that you're good at it, you love it.

34:52 I didn't want to be a singer. I have a terrible voice. I never wanted to be a singer. And the truth of the matter is, I never wanted to be a basketball player. And if I'm a successful teacher, I'm going to tell you a secret. I shouldn't tell you this. I was so embarrassed when I was in high school. I had a dirty secret. I didn't want to tell anybody. I wanted to be a teacher. That's not a popular thing to say in high school. So if kids would say to me, 'What are you planning on being?' I was like, 'I don't know, like lawyer, businessman. I'll probably be really rich.' I like the standard answers, but in my heart, I wasn't that from a kid. My heart, somebody would have really asked me, super vulnerable, 'What do you want?' I would be like We had an awesome literature teacher. His name was Dr. Harwitz. I think he passed away, and he was amazing. He really made things come to life, and we had these amazing conversations. It might be really cool to be like a literature teacher. And only when I went to yeshiva and I started to fall in love with learning and fall in love with Yiddishkeit, that I actually give myself permission to say Maybe I want to teach this.

35:44 And if I'm good at it, it's only because this is what I love. And when you see somebody get up to teach and they don't really love it, and they don't really love kids, they don't really love people, there's a reason they're bad at it. They might know a tremendous amount of Torah, but they don't really want to teach. You could tell the difference between the people that get up here and they don't really want to be here and they do. When you're in flow, it's because you tapped into the most. Deep part of yourself. What if you like had hobbies, you haven't had that want, and you had those hobbies and you really thought that you're gonna continue with them, but you just lost your desire to continue with them. That's okay. Sometimes things come and things go. I really like when I was in high school, I just loved basketball. It was what I did. Let's say this age, I'm a grandfather. I don't really love ball in the same way anymore. You know what I'm saying? This is not. It was a want at some point, but it wasn't the truest one. It wasn't the deepest one. The deepest wants will never leave you.

36:40 I thought you were going to ask me a different question, so I'm going to answer the question that you didn't ask, but you sort of alluded to it. What happens if I want something But now I'm here in Beer Miriam, and the thing that I want maybe is in conflict with something else that I want. Maybe I wanted to be a Broadway star. But I come to Ber and Miriam, and maybe I'm learning that might not be so simple halachically. How do I do that? I want to tell you there's an amazing story. I'm going to finish with this. I got to get to the Shana Bet girls. I apologize, I'm running late. Mizarbach, I could have three minutes. I could have four. I give three. It was a woman who used to live on my block. She moved. Our family was close with their family. Most incredible person. She herself grew up. She wasn't religious. She became a balas tshuva, but this girl was headed to Broadway.

37:29 She was headed to Broadway. Her parents were actors and actresses. Her mother was an actress. Her father was an actor. It's wild. And she went to an acting school in high school. And she had the most prestigious internship in the country. You know what the most prestigious internship in the country is? If you want to become a Broadway star You work for Disney World. And you spend all day in character as Cinderella. She was Cinderella. When she said this, my daughters were like. You were Cinderella. You're the real Cinderella. And she went to NYU Tisch. Not like Tisch, like Rabbi Tisch. It's a place called NYU Tisch, which is the top acting school in the country, and it's a straight shot from there to Broadway. She already had an agent. She was on her way. And then she became What happens to the dream?

38:18 So she today has a very successful podcast on dating and marriage. And she said at our Shabbos table to my daughters and to guests that we've had over, there are times where we've had guests over and we called her over and said, 'You got to come speak to these girls.' A girl who came not from an observant background and really wanted to be a Broadway star. She didn't know what to do because halachically it wasn't so simple. And we said, 'Oh, we got to get her to come over.' She came over, and she told her it was a beautiful thing. You just got to find a way to take the thing that you really love, which is that deep want, and figure out what you're going to do with it. She said, "I discovered." I didn't want to be a Broadway star as much as I wanted to interact with people and make them come alive. And she feels that she does that through her podcast and through her private practice. She had a skill she had trained herself for so long to be able to bring herself into the world and interact with people from a stage.

39:10 So now she just changed the stage into one that was halachically more appropriate for her. You have wants. Don't squelch your wants. If you diminish who you are. You're not going to be happy. The base Hamitosh could be built, and what gets us across the finish line? To answer your question, what gets us across the finish line? It's just a question of our desire. For thousands of years, we've moved the needle here. Now there's this much left, but of course, that last part of the mountain to climb is the hardest part because you're out of oxygen and the obstacles are massive. So what do we need to do now in these final moments before Mashiach? Ask ourselves one simple question. How badly do I want Mashiach? How badly would I be willing to dedicate my life to Hashem in whatever way I have what to contribute in order to make Mashiach a reality?