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Pasuk in this week's parsha tells us, Reuven, B'chor Yisrael, B'nei Reuven, Chanoch, Meshbachas, H'chanochi. Reuven Yisrael's firstborn The descendants of Reuven, and it begins with this family of Chanoch Meshbachas, H'chanochi. Rashi tells us. What's the pshat that it changes it from Chanoch to a Chanochi? So Rashi says as follows: The nations of the world were denigrating Klal Yisrael And they were saying How can they trace their lineage to their tribes? Why? Do they really think that the Egyptians were not taking advantage of their mothers in Mitzrayim? If they were in charge of their bodies. Certainly they were capable of taking advantage of their women. So there was a denigration happening from the nations of the world, saying, 'Who do you think you are to trace your lineage? You guys are not Jews.' You're Egyptians. You were taken advantage of by the Mitzrim. Lefikach. Therefore, what does Hakadosh Baruch Hu do?
Hitil Hakadosh Baruch Hu shmo aleihem. So Hashem says, "I will put my name on you." Hey mitzadze, the yud mitzadze. You'll have a hey on one side and a yud on the other. Loimer to say, Mayid ani aleihem, shehem bnei avos leihem. Hashem says, I by putting my hay in the front and my yud, my name In the front and the back of your tribe of your name I'm saying your lineage is pure. You are from this tribe. You were not taken advantage of by the Egyptians. It's a very beautiful Rashi. But it needs to be understood for two reasons. Number one, how does it help? How does it help that Hashem says, 'Now I put a hey and a yud in your name'? The nations of the world are not going to say that the Egyptians were with their grandmothers. Is that the way it works? It's very difficult for us to understand.
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If I was a gentile living at that time, and one of the Jews came over to me, he says, "No, my family is not Chanoch anymore. It's Hachanochi." Oh, I didn't realize. All of a sudden, I'm going to change my opinion? Probably I would say the same thing. It's a very logical tanya. The Mitzrim were in charge of you. You were not in charge of yourself. Could be they took advantage of your women. You don't actually know that you're Jewish. Now all of a sudden, because Hashem puts His name in the Hey and the Yud, so now all of a sudden that deflects their Taina. Their Taina is still a Taina. That's one. Second obvious question is why now? Why now? This Taina Mestama was a Taina for how long? How long had the nations of the world been saying this? I imagine that if you were living at that time, in the time of the Egyptians already, you probably would have said something along the lines of. The Jews have been in Mitzrayim already for hundreds of years. We don't even know who the children of Avram, Yitzchak, Yaakov are anymore, because they've been taken advantage of.
They've been in slavery. They were taken advantage of. There's no such thing as Jewish lineage anymore. How long have the nations of the world been saying this? Pashtus, they were saying it for quite some time, and now here we are in Parshas Pinchas, and now all of a sudden we have to answer that claim that's been around for so long. Doesn't seem to make so much sense. It's a very beautiful Rashi. We have to understand deeply what Rashi means. But taking this Rashi at a surface level doesn't seem to make any sense. So I want to share with you Perhaps an answer to this question. We need to get some context. Every story in the Torah needs to be understood in context. What's the context of this story? The context of this story is that Klal Yisrael, at this moment in time, was recovering from a plague that decimated a tremendous amount of people in Kli Yakar. Remember, they had just gone through this whole thing in Parshas Balak, right? That Bilaam gave Balak the etza to bring the Moav women there, and as a result, people died in the plague. And it was only because of Pinchas killing the Kozbi and Zimri that we stopped the plague.
Many thousands of Jews were killed. It's in this context. That something happens. What happens in Chassidus and Pnei HaTaira? Whenever we say the nations of the world, we don't just mean the nations of the world. We mean the Umos HaOlam within ourselves. We have a. Again, I don't mean to say it obviously in a not nice way. Every Jew is Kadosh. Every Jew is pure. Every Jew is beautiful. But we have inside of us. We'll call it an inner negative voice, an inner critic, and the inner critic comes out at times and it says things to us about ourselves. It denigrates us, so to speak. When imagine a person doesn't avera So we could do an average And we could say chaval that I did that. That doesn't represent the truest version of who I am. So I want to do tshuva. Chevra, is that what our voice generally sounds like after we did an avera?
It's not what our voice sounds like. What our voice sounds like is this: we did an avera, and we say, "I guess this who I really am." It's an interesting thing. A guy wakes up and he goes to minyan. A guy sits in the retsifa seder and he sits and learns. He doesn't walk away from that, going, "I guess this who I really am." But he does one avera, especially if it's an avera that speaks like a core essence of who he is, something that he's really ashamed of. He does the avera, and all of a sudden, he's got a whole story about himself. Really, Yishanam, I'm a faker. And when I went to Minyan this morning, I was really a faker because of the avera that I did over the day, nothing that I did was real. That's usually the way our gausha voice sounds inside of us. It's highly critical.
And it tells us that we're not good enough. It tells us that we're not worthy of love and connection. The voice, however, is a little bit more sophisticated than that. When we do something wrong, not only does the voice tell us this is not who we really are, it challenges our very identity. You think you're the child of Avram, Yitzchok, and Yaakov? It's not true. This is a gausha behavior, and you know why it's a gausha behavior? Because that's really who you are. It's not just like I did a bad thing. I guess I'm a faker. It's more than that. You're not just a faker. You're a bad person. You're not a yid. A yid would never behave this way. There's something wrong with you fundamentally. Your identity is off. This is what was happening at that time. Magefa came. The plague came because of the way that Klal Yisrael was acting.
It wasn't just the taina of the umos haolam outside in the world that we were concerned about. The truth is, the taina of the umos haolam that we had been with Egyptian men, that our women were taken advantage of. That was an old taina. But when we made that mistake And we acted in that inappropriate way, and a magaifa came, and thousands of people in Klal Yisroel were wiped out. What was our inner critic saying? Must be that we're not Jewish. Must be that our women were taken advantage of. It must be that we're behaving this way because there's a mitzvah that lives inside of us. So we doubted our identity. Rabbi said we cannot deflect the tainas of the nations of the world. Nor should we try to. It's not our responsibility to answer for the nations of the world. That was an old tainah; it had been around for a long time already, hundreds of years.
This was a new problem. It was the problem that we adopted that narrative about ourselves. The Balshemtof says It's not the bite of the snake that kills you; it's the venom. A bite doesn't kill you. What's a bite already? It's a pinch. It takes off a little bit of skin. You lose a little bit of blood. It hurts. The bite of the snake doesn't kill you. The venom The venom that he puts inside of you That's the poison that could wipe you out. A person could live if it's a really venomous snake for a very short amount of time. A person needs the antidote right away. What's the bite? The bite is the avera. What's the venom? The venom is the unhealthy shame that comes along with that avera. I am a rasha. I am no good. And that is simply not true. It's not true.
It's important to understand this. Just because we feel a certain way about something that we did doesn't mean that that's the truth. A feeling is an important thing, but it's also just a feeling. Klal Yisrael had a dangerous narrative about themselves. How do you come out? How do you come out from? Rabbi said it's real. Like thousands of people died And they had a clear understanding that it was because of the way they behaved. How do you rejuvenate? How do you come back to yourself after that? It's very difficult to understand how a person could recover. So the Rebbeinu Shlom comes and he gives us the Aitzah, and the Aitzah exists on two levels. Level number one: change your name. Change your name. In case you guys think this is just a Chassidish of art, you should know it's a Rambam. The Rambam says that it used to be when a person did tshuva.
They changed their name. Imagine, Rabbi Sa'ad, what that was like. You're in camp. A guy introduces himself on day one. Where are you from? I'm from Silver Spring, Maryland. What's your name? My name is Yosef. A week later, you go over to him and say, 'Yosef. Good morning.' He says, 'I'm not Yosef anymore. I changed my name to Reuven.' 'Why'd you change your name to Reuven?' 'I did tshuva. The Rambam says there was a minhag that when you did tshuva, you changed your name.' 'Why? Why do you change your name?' 'I'm not that person anymore.' The person that I was is not the person that I am. That's key. A person has to understand that we evolve as people. That the guy that was, the person that did that avera, does not exist anymore. In fact, one of the most vulnerable aspects of change is I have to be willing to let go of my identity.
There's something very difficult about that because it's very scary. If I let go of my identity, I don't know what's next. I don't know who I'm going to become. Chazal say, Ein li matayra elamisha memes atzmo alav. You can't learn tayra unless you're willing to kill yourself over it. What does that mean? There's a lot of different explanations of what that means, but perhaps one of the explanations is Ein li matayra. You can't grow as a person unless you're willing to kill yourself, unless you're willing to let go of a previous identity and adopt a new identity, a more enhanced version of who you are. That's a very scary thing because there's a period of time where I'm sort of in no man's land. But we adopt a new name. There's another very important yisod here. It's easy to forgive someone who's a sincere b'altshuva because they're no longer the same person that hurt you.
You ever had that where a guy comes over and he did something wrong and then he apologizes to you but you're like I don't really believe him. Your roommate comes, he apologizes, sorry, I didn't mean to, right? But there's a part of you that's like, okay, but you're going to do it again. I know you're going to do it again. You don't really forgive him, you know why? Because he's not a real bal tshuva. You know why he's not a real bal tshuva? You get the sense he hasn't really changed. When someone makes an authentic apology, you ever notice this? When they make an authentic apology, it's easy to forgive them because you see the guy that hurt you, he would never do that again. It's not who he is. So number one, when it comes to the way that you relate to yourself You have to be willing to say the person that I was is no longer the person that I am. I have a new name. I'm no longer Chanoch. I'm Mispachas a Chanochi.
That's number one. But there's an even more profound message here, And the message is as follows: It's not enough just to change your name. That's a good start. There's another, at least as fundamental question. It goes like this: Nobody has ever successfully. Successfully stopped a behavior without replacing it with something else. People do this all the time. I'm addicted to something. I'm gonna stop. That's not the way it works. You can't just stop. You need to stop and replace. Because in the void, in the absence of that behavior Something needs to replace it. This person says, "I'm gonna stop whatever." I'm not even gonna say. I'm gonna stop doing X. Just say that. But what are you replacing it with? You have to replace it with something more authentic. It's a very scary thing to let go of something without replacing it with something else.
Here's the big tirah. What do we replace our shame with? We were deeply ashamed. We said we're unworthy of love and connection. We're not the children of the Rebbeinu Shalom. We're not the children of Avram Yitzchak and Yaakov. We're Mitzrim. Comes along Hashem and He says, change your name. You need a new identity. What is that identity? That identity is Me. You need to replace your narrative of 'I am unworthy' with 'I am infinitely worthy.' Alei KAI in the Neshama Shana Satabi Tahiri. Hashem, the Neshama that You gave me is absolutely pure. And it cannot be sullied. Rabbi, I said this to a guy tonight. I'm saying it now to everybody. And I told him earlier tonight. I said I'm going to speak about this by mishmar. Don't think that I'm going to say it by mishkar just because I'm talking to you. I literally wrote it down.
We make a terrible mistake, and we think I am my actions. You are not your actions. You are something called a neshama. And the essence of that neshama is called the yichidah of the neshama. And it's called the pinto yid. If you're holding in Yiddish, it's the essence of who you are. And the pinto yid can never be destroyed. It can never be diminished. And it can never be elevated. You're not more worthy because you do a mitzvah. You're not less worthy because you do an avera. It's the essential connection that you have with Hashem. When something is an essential connection, it means it's the essence. That means it's unbreakable. It's not enough to say I did an avera, but say that I could do tshuva. A person has to know I did an avera, and it never touched the core of who I am. My essence remains intact. I am still good. I am still worthy. My behavior is not aligned with who I truly am, but I am still worthy of connection because I am intrinsically and essentially connected to Hashem.
This is the single most important chinuch lesson you guys could ever receive in your entire life. It's the most important lesson, God-willing, that you'll transmit to your children. A child does not have to earn his parents' love. People say all the time, Rebbe, if I'm not going to be more beloved by Hashem, why should I do a mitzvah? It's exactly the opposite. If Hashem only loves you because you do a mitzvah, then Hashem doesn't love you at all. He just loves a mitzvah. Hashem loves you So go do a mitzvah. Because when someone loves us, we align ourselves in that relationship. We don't do a mitzvah in order to earn Hashem's love. Hashem loves us, and we love Him, so we should do mitzvot. The opposite is also true. Because I'm in an infinite relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu. My essence is tied to His essence.
I shouldn't do an avera, but if I do an avera. It doesn't touch the core of who I am. But Rebbe, you don't understand. I've done this avera thousands of times. I've gone on a streak. I went on a streak three days. I went on a streak a week. I went on a streak a month. But I always do the avera again. I'm specifically being non-specific. Everybody could choose your own adventure. Fill in the average that you're thinking of now. Which for 99% of you is exactly the same avera. Rebbe, you don't understand. I do understand. I'm telling you that you could do the avera ten thousand times. It's not a good thing. But it does not touch the essence of who you are. You wake up the next morning and say, 'Elokein neshama shanasa to be tayri.' That's how a yid begins his day. A yid begins his day by knowing I am already intrinsically connected to Hashem, but I don't want to behave that way anymore because it takes me away.
I'm still messing up and I'm still making a mistake. Peseder, it's what to be worked on. But not because without that. You're a sheikh. Chas v'shalom to ever speak that way about yourself. Chas v'shalom to ever speak that way about another yid. And by the way, if you want to know why the people that speak that way about other Jews, they speak that way because they believe it about themselves. If you hear a rabbi and he's talking negatively about Klal Yisrael, you should just know. And let's say that rabbi is on YouTube, and you'll fill in the blank of if you know who it is, fine. I see at least one person knows who it is. But you should just know. He's saying a lot more about himself than he's saying about Klal Yisrael. Saying a lot more about himself than he's saying about Klal Yisrael. We don't speak that way. When a person feels a deep sense of worthiness, they see worthiness in others.
Doesn't mean that we don't give mussar. We give mussar to the behavior. That behavior is unbecoming. But you, Elokein Neshama, shouldn't have to be tired. Afal pisha chot the Yisraelu. Even though you did naverah, you're still a yid. And you can't not be a yid. No matter how far away you run, no matter how many times you do an avera, ain adam chote el mke nichnas ba ruach sh'tus. A person only does an avera if a wind of insanity comes inside of them. Means a sane yid. If we were actually thinking properly, we would never do that avera. Why do we do the avera? Only because we were temporarily insane and we lost our identity. Comes along the rabbi nishma and he says I want you to adopt my name. And how does he do it? May tchila the adsoif. The bookends of our name change are his name.
You want to know who you are? You're you. You're from Mispachas Chanoch. You're you. But the Rebbeinu Shalom's name surrounds you. It gives you context. You are a godly soul. That's what you are. So there's something healing about what's happening in this week's parsha. When this time There were many times that we went through things, but this time we felt like. Taka, the nations of the world were right. Comes the Rebbe Hashem And he's meid. Look at the words of Rashi. He says, Hey, mitzadzev, yud mitzadzev, lomer meid ani aleym. Sheheim bnei avayseym. A Kodesh Baruch Hu saying, I'm meid that with everything that you did, you went after all those women in Moav, and you had all this magefer going on, and had to be this crazy ma'aseh Pinchas doing this ma'aseh kanois to get you to stop. I made it on you right now. You're the children of Avram Yitzchok and Yaakov. You're the same people. I messed up so badly. And by the way, they messed up a lot more badly than we did in our lives.
You're bnei Aviyseim. You're bnei Avram Yitzchok and Yaakov, and that can never be taken away from you. This is not feel-good mussar. I just want to be absolutely clear. This is not designed to make you feel good. You don't walk away and go, "It's nice to learn some chassidus with Rebberg." That's not what this is. The purpose of this is not that you should walk out and go like "Alright, Berg makes us feel good. Now I don't have to feel so bad about what I do." Adarabu. If you know this idea You can actually begin to work on yourself. If you know fundamentally, I am connected, I am okay, I am enough, then you become fearless. Then you become courageous. You say, "I'm willing to take a hard look at my stuff and actually work at myself." I'm going to fearlessly take a moral inventory. That's the way they say it in Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm going to be willing to look at myself in the mirror and say I need to work on X, Y, and Z. You know why so many of us are actually afraid to work on ourselves? Because if we do, we might say I'm a piece of garbage, and who wants to feel like a piece of garbage?
It's you're not a piece of garbage. Memela, you can start to say I need to work on X, Y, and Z, and you don't have to make it worse than it is. You can actually see it for what it is. This is what I don't need to work on. I need to work on this. A lot of times when you speak, the guys are like, "I need to work on this. I need to work on this." It's not massive. Identify what it really is and be willing to say it out loud. Be willing to talk to a madrich or a rebbe or a parent or whoever it is. Be willing to have the courageous conversation because you know it doesn't define you. In the material world You're only as good as your record. It's a famous line from a coach. His name is Bill Parcells. Bill Parcells was a very famous football coach back in the day, and he famously said, 'I believe about the New York Giants. They were a very good team, but they didn't have a very good record.' And he said, 'You're only as good as your record.' That's true in the material world.
It's true in the world of business. It doesn't matter how much potential you have; you actually have to make the sale. That's true in the material world where things are measurable. It's not true in the world of relationships. You are essentially connected to Hashem. There's a big avoda today. And we have to. I want to say this in the right balance because it's a very important balance. There's a lot of yidden that are excellent at checking boxes. I went to Minyan. Good. I learned Torah. Good. I gave tzedakah. Good. I did chesed. Good. They're excellent at checking boxes. There are other yidden that are excellent at feeling connected to Hashem. That's beautiful. Very rare that you find somebody who's doing both. There's performance-oriented yidden, and then there's I feel close to the Abishur, yidden. If you know that you're intrinsically connected to Hashem, you could have both.
Why should I do a mitzvah? That's my tati. Who wouldn't want to do a mitzvah for somebody that loves them unconditionally and infinitely? So we can have our cake and eat it too. We can feel connected to the Rebbeinu Shalom because we are, and we can act connected to the Rebbeinu Shalom because that's how we—that's our truest identity. I but we're going to make mistakes because if you shoot to be in a relationship, one thing I can promise you: no relationship has ever been glock. There's no relationship that's ever been glatt. Failure is part of the process. Even the Rebbeinu Shloulem. If you look at creation itself, creation was a messy process. Nothing went right on any day of creation. Every single day of creation, something went wrong. Hakadosh Baruch Hu created the R. He saw it had to be an R. Agunus. Hakadosh Baruch Hu created the sun and the moon, the same size. The moon had to become smaller. He created the Leviathan and he created male and female. He saw they were going to destroy each other. He had to take one of them away. Every single day of creation, something went wrong. Failure is part of the process. Building means that it's not going to be perfect. It's going to be messy. Messy is beautiful in relationships. Messy means I'm working towards something.
Guy sets off and he says, "I want to spend half an hour learning birat sifos." You know what that means? It means now is the opportunity to battle. Some people they battle, they don't even because I never had any ambition, so it's not even called batalla. I was never doing anything purposeful that I was battling myself from that. You set off to sit and learn beretzifus. Now you're gonna have batalla. Guy sets off and he goes, I want to live a life of kedusha. You know what happens now? It's not gonna be so easy. And it's silly to think that it should be easy. Imagine again, the poor marshal. Let's say Eretz Yisrael and Syria. That was the new hack that we bombed Syria. So imagine we saw Syria was bringing its troops to the border. What would we do? We would bring our troops to the border. Everyone gets a little closer and a little closer.
A kid comes to NCSY Kollel and he starts to marshal an attack against his Yitzhara and he brings his troops to the border. He wakes up in the morning. He starts going to Minyan. He starts going to Seder. He talks to a Rebbe. He goes to night Seder. What does the Eitzahar do? Hey, I'm under attack. So what does the Eitzahar do? Eitzahar says, I'm going to marshal my troops now to come to the border. And then the same guy goes over to his madrich or goes over to his rabbi and he goes Why is it so hard? What do you mean? Why is it so hard? You're at war. Of course. What do you think? You think the Eitzahar is just going to roll over? And by the way, we wouldn't even want it to roll over because if the Eitzahar rolls over, then where's the work? It's not geshmack to play basketball when there's nobody else on the court. It's kishmak to play basketball when it's five on five, and the higher the stakes, the more kishmak it is. I'm sure you guys know the story. It's a beautiful story with Rav Shalom Shvadron. Rav Shalom Shvadron was the Maggid of Yerushalayim. He was a very big tzaddik. Guys ever heard of the Maggid speaks or by Chromebooks? Young generation
Some of you heard Rav Shalom Shvadron was a big tzaddik. Roshalom Shadron tells the story that there was a night kiyel in Yerushalayim for kids who were from a lot of different backgrounds, and this one kid wasn't coming. He was coming to the night kiyel and then he stopped coming. And so Roshalom went to his house and he knocked on his door. The boy came to the door and he saw Roshalom Shadron. He said, 'Rebbe, what are you doing here?' He goes, 'You haven't been in kiyel for a while. I'm trying to make sure you're okay.' Boy said, "Rebbe, I'm fine. Don't worry. I'm going to be back next week." He said, "Where have you been?" He said, "Don't worry about it, Rebbe. I'm going to be back next week." Roshalom said, "No, it's okay. Tell me where you've been." Boy said, "I'm embarrassed to tell you." He said, "Where have you been?" He goes. It's the soccer championships. I've been watching the soccer championships. It's like the playoffs, the championship. I've been watching the soccer games. Rishalom looked at him and he goes, "What's soccer?" So he goes, "It's a game, Rabbi. Don't worry about it." He says, "No. What's soccer? Tell me what soccer is."
So it's a game where there's a goal and there's a ball and you have to shoot the ball into the goal. Rishalom said to him, "That's fun." He goes, "Rabbi, it's so fun." And he goes. Let's go. We'll do it right now. We'll shoot the balls into the goals. The boy said, No, Rebbe, you don't understand. There's no there's there's like a goalie. There's like a goalie who tries to stop you. So Rishon sat to me and said, Is the goalie there right now? He said, No. He said, So come, let's go quickly. Let's shoot the ball into the hole. And there's no goalie there. There's no Rebbe. You don't understand. There's only a very specific amount of time that it's fun to play the game when there's a defense and there's a goalie and there's all the players trying to stop you. That's when it's most geshmack. Rishon smiled and he said to him exactly: It's easy to come to night seder when there's no World Cup on. It's easy to come to night seder when there's no soccer playoffs.
It's hard to come when there's opposition. But isn't that what makes it great? Isn't the opposition what makes it amazing? Isn't that like I overcame the challenge? The avoda is not to kill your yitzhahar. That's not the avoda. The avoda is: Can I rise to the occasion, knowing that I might fail, but knowing that I, even if I fail, I'm already okay? I'm okay to be vulnerable because I know that I'm fundamentally fine no matter what. That's the basis of our Yiddishkeit. Every guy needs to be taught this every single day of his life from the moment he's born. This has to be especially for our generation where we live with so much shame about who we are. This is the primary avoda that we need to communicate to our kids. You guys are awesome. You guys are awesome. Not because you chose to come to NCSY Kol over the summer.
You are the last generation before Mashiach comes. That means that your neshamas were put into the most difficult battle of all. Chazal speak about how nobody wanted to be alive in the times of Mashiach because of how challenging the battles were going to be. And your neshamas were chosen to be those fighters. I sometimes get shot at. Sometimes we get hit. Sometimes we fall. We're a dar mitzuyon. We're part of the process, and Be'ez Hashem, if we stay engaged, we remind ourselves: I'm surrounded by Hashem's name. My true identity is not the Mitzrim. My true identity is that I am Bnei Avram, Yitzchak, Yaakov. Be'ez Hashem, we're going to be Matzliach to get up after we've fallen and to continue to battle. Rabbi, I have a beautiful Shabbos.
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