Purim - Confronting Antisemitism in Modern Times

1:54 And she does this thing where she says, "I have the following 50 ideas in my head." I just want to say them all. And then that's what she does. She says them all. She says it's going to be 60 seconds, usually about eight to ten minutes. And then she says, 'Does that make sense?' And I said, 'Yes, that makes sense.' In my head, I was thinking, 'You give the sheer. Like I don't, I don't need to do this. I'm happy to make the parnasa, but like.' You just gave in eight to ten minutes what could easily have been an hour and a half sheer, on exactly what she wants the Chizuk missions mission statement to be. Rav Berg, you're starting us off. You're setting the pace. You're setting the tone. So I need you to somehow convey these ideas. I did what Rav Gav does to her. I learned it from him. I did the same thing. I said, 'Do you trust me?'

2:42 She said, "Yes, I trust you." And this is the product of that trust. We have about a 70% chance of nailing what you wanted me to say. I'm not going to say the things you said to me because then you could give the shiur. But I'm going to try to In a new way, maybe in a different voice, convey the message that we spoke about of what the mission is for this particular chesed mission. Good introduction. Thank you for the validation. Means a lot to me. There's an unbelievable medrash in Esther Rabba. We're holding now by Purim. We already were mivarech the Chodesh. It's three weeks to Purim. I don't know if any of you were in shul this past Shabbos, but something happens in shul when they're mivarech the Chodesh. Whoever is making the berachas Chodesh is obviously going to do it to a tune of Misha Nechnas Adar, and something changes in the air. It's like you know the tefillah we say is Misha Asan Isam Lavoseno. But the chazan in our shul in Ramat Pe'chamish this past week, he started singing Misha Asa Nisim Lavo Seinu, and everyone was like, 'Oh, that's a good one. Never heard that one before. It's cute.' But something changed in the shul.

3:56 Even you know, we're 40, 50 year old men at this point, and guys in the shul like little children. We're like, "It's coming." There's a certain lightness, obviously in a very dark time. There's a certain lightness that permeates the shul. So we're really already holding by Purim. I think it's fair and appropriate to speak about Purim. A medrash in Esther Rabbah, but it's deep. It's deep. It's not a light shear. This isn't fluff. We're not doing fluff. We're doing real Torah to try to make a real impact. I know that's one thing I know for sure about the Chizuk Mission. If you show up on the Chizuk Mission, you have something real to say. Barry's going to call me out. You'll call me out. You'll say it in a very appropriate way, but it'll be very sharp. It'll be like I don't think that's true. So I'm gonna try to say something real. I'm gonna try to say something deep. The Medrash says over a mashal.

4:49 It's an amazing mashal. The mashal goes as follows: To what can Haman be compared? To a bird that makes its nest on the shore of the sea. So imagine a bird comes. There's the sea. The sea has all its waves. The bird comes and plants a nest right on the edge of the sea, right on the shore of the sea. What happens naturally? The shore of the sea comes and sweeps away the nest. The bird becomes furious, fuming at the sea, and the bird says, "I will not budge from this place until the sea becomes dry land and dry land becomes the sea. I'm not going to move. This is my new mission: the destruction, the obliteration of the sea. I'm going to be persecuting the sea." What does the bird do? So the bird flies into the water, takes a gulp of water from the sea, carries it back to shore, spits it out on the beach, picks up a bit of sand in its beak, brings it out to the shore, brings it out into the sea, and drops it.

5:57 That's the mussel so far. You can imagine this bird picking up the water, bringing it to the beach and bringing the beach back into the sea. Obviously, this bird has friends. And the bird's friends, like an intervention. They sit this bird down and they say, "What are you doing?" You're never going to be able to take the beach and bring it to the sea, and take the sea and bring it to the beach. How are you planning on doing this? Similarly, says the Medrash, this is exactly what happened between Haman and Klal Yisrael. Somehow, again, this needs to be understood. Hakadosh Baruch Hu said to Haman He said, "You fool" You fool! You thought you were going to be able to destroy Klal Yisrael. You thought you were going to be able to take the beach and bring it into the ocean, take the ocean and bring it onto shore.

6:54 I myself tried to destroy Klal Yisrael. This is what Hakadosh Baruch Hu said to Haman, and I wasn't able to do it. You think you're going to be able to destroy Klal Yisrael? That's the Medrash. We're gonna have four questions on this medrash. But just to reiterate, what's the message of the medrash? Number one The bird built a nest. Number two, the sea swept away the nest. Number three, the bird tries to destroy the sea. Number four, the friends say this is impossible. So to Hakadosh Baruch Hu says to Haman, this is impossible. That's the medrash. It's four questions on this medrash, and then we're gonna start talking for real. The four questions are as follows. Any time the Medrash gives us a mussel, the mussel is telling us something that we otherwise would not have known. For example, if you're teaching a class and you give a mussel to the class, it's because they can't understand the material otherwise.

7:53 But if something is obvious, you don't need to give a mussel. If I was writing this Medrash, I think I would have just written it as follows. Hakadosh Baruch Hu said to Haman, "It's impossible to destroy Klal Yisrael." That's the point of the Medrash. What's this whole mussel of the bird and the sea and the nest and the bird's attempt to destroy? It doesn't seem to add anything that we don't already know. That's our first question. The second question is as follows: Who threw the first punch in that mussel? The bird comes and puts its nest down. Who throws the first punch? I would say the sea. Because the sea comes and destroys the nest. In the Nimshal, who's the bird? The bird is Haman. Haman's trying to destroy the sea. We're the sea. So it almost appears to be that we are responsible for Haman trying to destroy us Because Haman came and he put down a nest.

8:54 We came and destroyed the nest. So Haman is attacking us because of something we did. That's very strange. When you were learning the Purim story, did anyone here learn that we threw the first punch? I never learned that. I learned that Haman wanted these irrational things. He wanted us to bow down to him like an Avodah Zara. Mordechai refused to do it. It enraged him. He came after Klal Yisrael. I never learned in the Purim story that we threw the first punch. When did we throw the first punch? How did that happen? That's the second problem with the Medrash. The third problem in the Medrash is that the bird in the Medrash seems very foolish. You're not going to be able to take the sea and bring it onto the beach. You're not going to be able to take the beach and bring it into the sea. That's a foolish bird. In the Purim story, Haman is anything but a fool.

9:41 In fact, Haman is so successful in his plot that he literally almost wins, and even though at the end we won, at the end of the story, are we free? Not at all. We remain slaves of Achashverosh, meaning even though he wasn't capable of annihilating us, he definitely kept us marginalized. It was a very dangerous time. Even the decree didn't go away. We just got another decree that we were able to defend ourselves. Haman was an empowered person. He had a thoughtful plan. Is it really true that Haman is a fool? It doesn't appear to be the case that Haman's a fool. We don't understand the parallel in the Medrash where the bird is doing something very foolish. God bless you. And then at the end of the day, Haman doesn't appear to be foolish at all. And last but not least, this is the most powerful of all the questions What's Hakadosh Baruch Hu's answer to Haman?

10:42 You think you're going to be successful? I wasn't successful. What are the chances you're going to be successful? First of all, Hakadosh Baruch Hu could do anything. So what does it mean that Hakadosh Baruch Hu can't wipe out Klal Yisrael? What does it mean that he attempted to? What does it mean that he couldn't? And what is he saying to Haman? What is Hakadosh Baruch Hu saying to Haman? Go ahead, try. It's not going to work. I'm much more powerful than you, and I couldn't do it. Certainly, you can't do it. What's the Kalvachomer? Hakadosh Baruch Hu is infinite. Haman's a rasha. So those are the four questions, just to review very quickly. Number one, the Mashal doesn't seem to add anything. Number two, the sea sweeps away the nest. That seems to be the first punch. I don't know where we threw the first punch towards Haman. Number three, the bird seems to be foolish. Haman seems to be smart. And number four, what does it mean that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is unsuccessful? Those are our four questions on the midrash.

11:36 I want to have a real conversation right now about a very difficult topic that I don't think a lot of us think is relevant to us, but it's super relevant to us. It's super relevant to us not only as a nation, which it's obviously relevant to us as a nation, but it's relevant to every woman sitting in this room right now. It's relevant to myself. You could live in the frumest community. You could live in Lakewood, Muncie, the Five Towns, Brooklyn. Doesn't matter where you live. This is relevant to you. It's relevant to me here in Eretz Yisrael. The topic is anti-Semitism. What What in the world is going on right now? There's this wild level of anti-Semitism that exists in the world right now. Again, I know that it existed in Europe. I knew that it existed in the Holocaust. But I'll be very honest with you. I thought growing up that my rebbeim were out of touch.

12:29 I don't know if you had rebbeim like this. I thought my rebbeim were out of touch. I was zaych to have unbelievable rebbeim. I went to a yeshiva called Yeshiva Darche Torah for four years. That was the only years I was educated until I was 18. I had four years of amazing rebbeim in Darche. I loved my rebbeim, sadikim. Thank you for those who just got the joke. I loved my rebbeim. One thing about them, I thought they were out of touch because my four rebbeim and darkei for four years in a row. They said, "Don't think that it can't happen in America." Don't think that what happened in Europe in the Holocaust can't happen in America. I'm a kid growing up in the Five Towns. I grew up in a place called Far Rockaway, and then later in Lawrence. Anybody here from the Five Towns? We've met. Where are you from? Cedarhurst. I'm from Lawrence. I think I'm better than you.

13:15 Farquaharney. I certainly know I'm better than you. I grew up as a Farquaharney kid, trying to be a Lawrence kid. Where in Farquaharney? Jarvis Avenue. From Annapolis. Almost neighbors. Where on Jarvis? Close to the opposite side of Tag. Instead of Tag. Meaning you're opposite Tag. I stayed there just a bit ago at Hinda Bursting's house, down the block. Who else from Farquaharney? Who I know already. Say there's someone from the five towns. What's the worst thing that happens in the Five Towns in the 80s? Nothing. There's no anti-Semitism. The most that happened is you get your bike stolen. That was like, and then in the 90s that was already gone because everybody in the neighborhood was Jewish. And anti-Semitism. What are we talking about? What are you talking about? It could happen today. I didn't believe them bechelal. And before October 7th. Way before October 7th, we started to feel the tremors of anti-Semitism in the world. Now we started to hear things that were very uncomfortable. For sure, we heard about them in Europe, but were minutach from it. We were in Israel, were in America.

14:19 The things that happened in France, loch patlanu, we didn't really bother us. It's not really part of our world. When October 7th happened, again, I give you all a bracha that you're never on social media. But if you're on social media The level of anti-Semitism from these faceless, nameless accounts, where they have free reign to say whatever they want, all you have to do is type in the word "Jew." I promise you, the things that come up will not be positive. The craziest things in the world, things that make absolutely no sense And we're seeing this resurgence right now. We're seeing it in the craziest way. There's no moral equivalence in this war on any level. I think again the levaya is tomorrow, and they've asked that it be a private levaya. I'm guessing that if the bibas funeral was not a private levaya, there would have been at least a hundred thousand people there. It would have been a levaya like we have for gadol leidor, and it would have been of all shapes and sizes, of all stripes, of all communities in klal yisrael. Everybody would have been there.

15:32 We would expect. I think probably everybody on the Chizuk Mission would have told Barry, 'We're not going up north. We're going there.' I think we would have changed the itinerary. There'd be nothing to talk about. The solidarity that we experience right now with the Bibash children We don't. It's not exactly clear why. It's not exactly clear to us why these children touched our hearts. Lots of children were killed on October seventh. Something about these kids became a symbol for Klal Yisrael. And there's a sensitivity that we have when they sent the original coffin that did not hold the body of Mrs. Bibas. They tried to fake us out and send a different corpse, which obviously is levels of evil that are so barbaric. They're hard to comprehend. And they wrote on the coffin, arrested October seventh, two thousand and twenty-three, arrested. An innocent mother there with her children. If you've seen the videos, but if you've seen the videos, a mother who has a look of terror in her eyes, who's holding on to her children, just trying to shield them from what she inevitably knows is going to be a very dark, very difficult period.

16:44 We saw the video of two children with orange hair. We saw it already a year ago. There was this video of these children with orange hair, and everybody's asking, oh my God, are they still alive? We've been holding on to hope for these children. The fact that they paraded through the streets—you're talking about evil people parading through the streets with the coffins of children. Screaming, Allahu Akbar. These things, we wouldn't believe that. We would think they're mythical. We would think we were living 3,000 years ago. It's like Genghis Khan levels of barbarism. We've never seen anything like this. And if you go online And don't. But if you go online, you will find a lot of people posting orange hearts and Israeli flags and orange colors and very beautiful things that people are posting because they want to have some way of expressing their solidarity. I appreciate it. I think it's meaningful.

17:47 You will find much, much, much more of people saying, "Oh, you don't like it when your children are killed." Well, do you know how many children have been killed since October seventh? And they say these things. These people say these things. And they believe be emuna shleima that they're right, which is sick. As if we could draw a straight line between a child who's murdered. They're saying now that these children suffered immeasurable physical torture. And that they then try, they did despicable things to the body to try to cover up the acts that they did to make it appear that they were killed in an Israeli air force strike, which we know is not true. We have experts in forensics that told us exactly how these children died. There's a difference between parading children through the streets in their coffins and saying this is our expression of God is great.

18:41 And our people that are Doing our very best, almost to the point of absurdity, perhaps past the point of absurdity, to do whatever we can at the risk of our own people to go in on the ground and not because they talk about genocide. That could be a real thing for us. It would not take much for the Israeli air force to really have a genocide in Gaza. It's not a crazy thing at all. How many other nations in the world would show this level of restraint? How many soldiers have we buried? Friends of my family, deeply connected people in the community, people that we love. How many soldiers have we buried in the last year and a half in our attempt not to commit genocide and our attempt to go door to door and really only to take out the terrorists? We know that unfortunately there's collateral damage, and unfortunately sometimes even in our attempt to do the best possible that we can. Innocent children are killed in the line of battle. That's what happens.

19:41 Is anyone on our side? Have you seen any celebrations? I haven't seen any celebrations. I have not seen Israelis walking around shooting guns in the air, saying, "We killed the seven-year-old." Have you seen it? I haven't seen it. And this, anti—they call it anti-Zionism—in the words of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, anti-Zionism is just the latest mutation of anti-Semitism. They've always had reasons to hate us. This is just another one in a long line of reasons that they've given. They say, "What do you mean?" They kill children. You don't like when they kill children? Stop killing their children. As if that's what we're attempting to do. Have we celebrated one death? Absolutely not. Have we murdered children that way? You know any stories of soldiers that choke children to death? And if chas v'shalom something like that happens, these people are held accountable. They stand trial. Who's holding them accountable? Bibi Netanyahu is a war criminal.

20:30 He's a war criminal. That's a crazy thing. He's a war criminal. When there's a newly elected government in America, there's some voice, and it's a crazy thing to say because he's not exactly the voice of sanity on that side of the aisle. Nobody knows what he's going to say from one moment to the next. But the fact that now people have a voice of sanity, if you don't start returning hostages, they have no reason to keep the ceasefire deal. And people are like, it's crazy. He's fomenting more war. What are we talking about? It begs the question, and it's a serious question. Whether you've experienced any anti-Semitism in the last year and a half or not To be blind to the fact that it exists is not okay. It exists, and it exists for a reason. And if a Kaddish Baruch Hu brings it into the world, that means it's a message for us. So you could, we could live in our little bubbles. I could live in Ramat Echamish. It's a beautiful place. I could not think about any anti-Semitism until the sirens go off. Then it gets a little bit more difficult. But you could go through your life and you could not pay attention to it. A Yid pays attention to what's happening in current events because we know that our Kadosh Baruch Hu is sending us messages. What is the pshat in the message of anti-Semitism?

21:44 I want to make this question just a little bit bigger because we have to talk about it in a larger context if we're going to have an honest conversation. It's not just anti-Semitism. It's even more than that. There's a darkness that has settled upon the world. That if again, I don't know, I can't speak for your lifetimes, but in my lifetime, this is the darkest that's ever been. I'm a grandfather now twice over, Baruch Hashem. And I have two married children, so I'm capable. I feel like I've lived enough of life that I could say things. If you're a 25 year old kid saying things, it's good for you. You have an opinion. But if you've lived a bit of life, I think you get to say, 'I've lived for a bit.' It is the craziest time. I don't just mean on an anti-Semitic level. It's the darkest time in my life.

22:33 There's a basic fear and a basic mistrust that exists in the world on every level, on an economic level, on a political level. I have the opportunity to travel a lot. This is not a bracha. I hope that your husbands are able to have jobs that keep them close to home. My wife is not zayicha for that. That's why it was a privilege to come to speak in the valley, but also I like it here in Israel, and I think my family would love it if I stayed here a little bit more. It's not obvious that it feels comfortable to walk through airports in America anymore. You know what a Jew nod is? Can I teach you what a Jew nod is? It's the most beautiful thing in the world. A Jew nod. It's one word. Jew nod. A Jew nod is when you're walking through the airport, and it doesn't matter where you are. You could be in LAX, you could be in O'Hare, you could be in LaGuardia, you could be in JFK. And if you see another Orthodox Jew, if you see a Jew wearing a shtetl on your head, if I see someone wearing a yarmulke, you're walking through the airport, I'm walking out, I've got my carry-on behind me, Baruch Hashem, I'm not flying Delta, that's why we landed safely, not upside down.

23:34 And you see another Orthodox Jew as you're getting out, they're waiting for the incoming flight, and you just do this. That's all it is. I keep score, how many Jewish nods did I have as I walked from my flight all the way to Hertz rental car? I just want to know how many Jews I saw. Why do we do that? Especially now, there's a little bit of a safety in having my chavurah around. I'm not by myself. It doesn't count by the way if you're flying LAL. There's no Junods. That's already a community. We walk by each other. We don't say good shabbos. I'm talking about unless you're from out of town. Then the whole time you're busy by LAL. But if you're from the New York New Jersey area, it doesn't count if you're by LAL. Why is it that if I'm walking through the airport in Dallas, I'm going up? There's another one. There's a sense of security that it brings when we're with each other because it just doesn't feel very safe in the world right now. It's a crazy thing to say.

24:25 It's not just anti-Semitism. There's a darkness that's descended upon the world. The values of the world have become completely corrupt. Things that were completely abnormal 40 years ago, that everybody in the world would have said, 'No, will never reach that level. The world won't allow us to reach that level.' Now it's like derigold to say that it's normal, and that if you say that it's not normal, then you're canceled. It's a crazy time to live in. I have to be careful what I say publicly because I don't want to be canceled. It doesn't really matter to me if that side cancels me, but I want to reach as many people as I can. But you have to be careful what you say about things that are. I wonder. I imagine you have the same thing. Do you ever wonder what it's going to be like in 20 years from now? You ever think to yourself, what's next? It's a real thing to think about.

25:12 Because it has to be Messiah. Because 40 years ago, if you would have told us this is where we were going to be holding, we would have said, okay, it's cute, but everybody has some level of boundaries. Now there's no boundaries. Good is evil, evil is good. That which is morally virtuous is despicable. That which is despicable is now morally virtuous. There's a tremendous darkness. What are we doing here? I want to share with you a tirade from the Labavitcher Rebbe. This is a mind-blowing Torah. You have to get this Torah very deeply. The Gemara in Shabbos tells us what's the cause of anti-Semitism. It began at Har Sinai. Har Sinai is named Miloshon Sinah. Once we got the Torah at Har Sinai, that began the Sinah of anti-Semitism. Without Torah, there was no anti-Semitism. In other words, Klal Yisrael Mitzrayim was not oppressed by the Egyptians because of anti-Semitism. That began by Har Sinai.

26:09 So it's a fascinating thing: suffering we had before Har Sinai, hatred began after Har Sinai. What's the difference between the persecution of pre-Har Sinai and post-Har Sinai? The Rebbe says as follows: We know that the Gemara in Megillah tells us that Haman tried to buy off Achashverosh. Haman tried to make a deal with Achashverosh. He came to Achashverosh and he said, "I'm going to give you 10,000 talents of silver if you'll allow me to destroy Klal Yisrael." Achashverosh said, "Keep your money. You could do it anyway. You could do it for free." That's a good anti-Semite. I don't even want your money. You could do it for free. The Gemara compares this to someone who has a mound and a ditch. The person has a mound. Another person has a ditch. The guy with the ditch comes to the mound, and the guy with the mound says, "Sell me your mound." The guy with the mound says, "Just take it. I don't want the mound. You have a ditch. Just do it." That's what the Gemara compares it to.

27:03 So the Rebbe explains as follows: Achashverosh has the mound. Haman has the ditch. These are two types of anti-Semites. Achashverosh is what we'll call mild anti-Semitism. It's light anti-Semitism. He doesn't like us because we're different. Sociologists call it that. They call it dislike for the unlike. That phrase, dislike for the unlike. We don't like people that aren't like us. We're different. So some Jews throughout history said, I'm going to get a nose job. Then I won't look so different. I'm going to get a job in the secular world. I won't look so different. I'll take off my yarmulke. I'll take off my tshitzas. I'll shave my pesh. I'll do whatever I need to do in order to assimilate because I don't want to be unlike you. That's mild anti-Semitism. That's not what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about extreme anti-Semitism. That's the anti-Semitism we've been experiencing in our דור. This is the anti-Semitism of Haman. Haman is the ditch, and the ditch is as follows.

28:06 But this is where you have to lock in because this is the work right now. Every one of us in this room is carrying with us a hole inside of ourselves. The only question is what you fill the hole with. Every one of us is living with a hole. You have two options. What do you want to fill the hole with? You can fill the hole with power, or you can fill the hole with submission. Everybody in this room, including myself, at various times in our lives, attempts to fill the hole in our lives with power. I'll give you just one of a million examples. Here's my first one. When somebody dies, what's the first question we ask? How old were they? Or how did it happen? Why do we need to know? Because it's very. By the way, we can't avoid it We can't avoid it. But if I know how somebody died, tell me how it happened.

29:06 So that I could have the power to make sure that it doesn't happen again. If somebody died of a heart attack, I got to take care of myself. If somebody got hit by a car, I have to teach my children to cross the street safely. Really, that's not the way life works. But in that vacuum that we carry within us, there's a fear. That hole is very scary. And we try our best to fill it with power. Can I give you another example? Why do we need to build wealth? Why do we need to build wealth? If you think about it, building wealth is completely irrational. Rabbi Doctor Abraham Chait Tversky, you're familiar with Zecharia Tzvi Levraki. He was a very special person. Rabbi Twersky gives a great mashal for this. He said, "Imagine a client comes into a therapist's office" And he says to the therapist, 'Yeah, I guess I need some help. Can you help me?' The therapist says, 'Sure. What's the problem?' He goes, 'I don't really think I have a problem.' So the therapist smiles. He knows this story, right? He's like, 'Okay, you don't have a problem. So why are you here?' He goes, 'I don't know. My parents told me I have a problem. My friends told me I have a problem. My sister and my brother told me I have a problem.' So the therapist is going, 'Okay, clearly this guy's got a problem.'

30:21 This is okay. So what do they think the problem is? Is that they think the problem is that I like pancakes. I don't think it's a problem that I like pancakes, but they think it's a problem that I like pancakes. So the therapist says to the client, I don't think that's a problem either. I like pancakes too. The client's eyes go wide, and he goes, "You like pancakes? You should come to my house. I have suitcases and suitcases full of pancakes." How much zemach? Just practicing for Elul already. How much money do we need? You know what the answer is, from a psychological perspective. We need enough money for now and the foreseeable future. And yet, people spend their lives making obscene amounts of money. For what? For what? At what point do you have enough for now? You have enough for the foreseeable future. Why are you still working?

31:18 So people come up with different answers, but sometimes the real answer is I love money. Why do you love money so much? Sometimes you look at these people that are. When we were growing up, being a millionaire was the thing, right? Like they're a millionaire. Today, if you're not a millionaire, you're a low yutzlach, right? It's like come talk to me. The guy has 500 million dollars, a billion dollars. These are real numbers in the Jewish community. I have met people who have hundreds of millions of dollars in the Jewish community. That's an unbelievable thing. You got to ask them. I don't ask them because it's not polite. But I want to, what are you still working for? You, if you spent every day of your life trying to spend this money, you couldn't. You could not run through it. Why are you still working? The answer is on some level It feels awesome to have the power of money.

32:04 My father once told me, anything that money can solve is not a problem. I said, Dad, it's easy for you to say. You have money. He said, "No, you don't understand." If let's say Chas V'Shalom in our community, somebody was in a car accident and it was going to cost a million dollars to hire the best surgeon to save this kid's life, how fast do you think we'd have a million dollars in our community? I think we'd have a million dollars within an hour. If they put out a GoFundMe, we heard that Chassar Shalom, a kid in a certain neighborhood, was in a terrible car accident. We need a million dollars in one hour from now to save this kid's life. We'd have a million dollars overnight. Today, there's a beautiful thing that Klal Yisrael does: if Chassar Shalom somebody loses a husband, the community gets together and we put together a million dollars in 48 hours. This family is now taken care of.

32:52 I said to my father, "It's easy to say that money can solve a problem." If you have money, my father said, "No, you don't understand. Money, we have." It's when money can't solve a problem that it's a real problem. Money is power. It really is. It gives us a level of control over the world. There is a methodology that people live with. I live with this too. I'm not saying I'm better than anybody. We all live with this. On some level, we all crave power. Kochiv uotzim yadi. Look at us. I've got this figured out. I'm okay. That's why children are so terrifying. By the way, there were two types of faces just now in the room: those that laughed out loud, and those that went like this. I'm with both of you. If you've had children And you know when they hit that stage when they realize they're more powerful than you So it was eight. I heard eight over here. In my experience, it's somewhere around the ages, depending on boy or girl, somewhere between 12 and 15 years old. It's like, What are you gonna do to me? You're gonna ground me? What am I? What are you gonna do if I walk out? You're gonna take away my phone? What if I buy my own? Like at some point, these kids realize I'm much more powerful than you.

34:01 That's why. By the way, if you ever see parents exert control over their children, it's terrifying to watch. When parents literally lift their child, moving them to a new place. That kid who has a temper tantrum in the middle of gourmet glot. You know what I'm saying? You're like, shoot, I'm being okay. That was heavy. I wasn't choosing Gourmet Glot for any specific reason. It's just where I once saw it happen. I saw this kid having a temper tantrum, and I saw the mother could not handle it. And she lifted the child up and moved the child because she didn't want to be judged by everybody else in the neighborhood as her kid is having a temper tantrum in the middle of Gourmet Glot because that kid wanted the cookie. We can exert control over the child until we can't. It's terrifying to do things that you don't have power over. So one movement in this world is I have power.

34:48 The other movement in this world is I have no power, and I'm completely submitted to the fact that I have no power. Those are the only two movements that I know about in this world: people who are attempting to have irrational power over their lives that they don't really have. And people are submitted to the fact that there's just no way I'm going to have any power. There is a God, and I submit myself to God. Can I tell you a story? This is a true story. It's happening right now. A dear friend of mine is the craziest story in the world. Shabbos morning. I'm guessing now it's like two and a half months ago. Shabbos morning, he turns to his wife and he says to his wife, "I have a terrible headache. I think I need to go to the hospital." She says, "You don't need to go to the hospital. You just have a bad headache. Go lie down." He said, "No, I think my brain is bleeding." She said, 'Your brain is not bleeding.' And then he collapsed. They rushed him to the hospital. He has cancer all over his body. They had to do emergency surgery, taking out tumors from his brain. He's fighting it now. Be'ez Hashem, he'll have a refuah shleima.

35:46 Everyone in the world is going to visit him. He's an amazing person. His name is Rabbi Jonathan Cohen. He's an amazing, amazing guy. It's the craziest thing. I'm watching my friend confront his own mortality and basically come to the recognition. I could take the pill. I could go to get the scans. They could see if it's going better or worse. But at the end of the day Do you make it? Do you not make it? You know what the doctors do? It's just numbers. It's just percentages. 90%, 70%, 40%, 30%. Those who live, those who die. It's not in any of our hands. It's all in the hands of Hashem. This attitude of Klal Yisrael by Ar Sinai. We are not in charge in this world. There is a God. We live by His laws. That's what happened at Sinai. A group of people came together in front of God and said, 'You tell us how to live. We live that way because we live harmoniously with God.' You want to make it less from just to make it easy for yourself. I live harmoniously with my soul.

36:46 I live deeply connected to the part of me that's larger than myself. That's a way of living. My children are having a temper tantrum. I'm not in control over this moment. It's not my job to fix this moment. This moment isn't broken. How many of us are living this way? It's so hard to live this way. I'm having shalom bias issues with my husband. I'm having shalom bias issues with my children. I'm having shalom bias issues with my neighbors. How many of us are willing to say it's okay? I don't need to fix this. I'm going to show up. I'm going to make the next right step. And I'm going to show up with integrity. But I am not in control of this situation. I'm not in control of my children. I'm not in control over my husband. I'm not in control over my boss. I'm not in control over my child's rebbe, who I don't like the way that he's treating my child. I'm not in control over these things. I'm just going to make the next right choice as I submit to Hashem and His will.

37:39 That is a very profound way of living. That's the goal of a Jew. If you really, again, a lot of times we speak about like what it means to be a yid, and we speak about it in like a very esoteric way. We can boil this down and make it very simple. Do we live with humility, submitted to Hashem? I'm going to say a nice word about Barry. I know I do this a lot. I know I do it too much, but I'm going to say a nice word about Barry. You know this thing she's trying to do is irrational, right? You know this thing right here that we're doing doesn't make any sense. If somebody came to you and said, "I'm going to start an organization to take from women and do kiryuv," right? Because that you want to call it inspiration, you call it kiryuv, whatever you chizik, whatever words you want to do. It's kiryuv, not kiryuv rechokim, it's not kiryuv krovim. I don't know what it is, but we're trying to bring people closer to Hashem.

38:25 How many of us would have said to Barry, 'I think you're a little bit crazy. I don't think women in the middle of February are going to get up and come to Eretz Yisrael for a week to be mechazik themselves.' I think I would have said that. And I'm guessing that probably, even though you're the ones that came, I'm guessing you would have said it. You would say it too. You would have said I would do it, but I don't know if there's a critical mass of people that would do it. And the attempt—how many shiram do we have now weekly? Mrs. Smiles, I'm saying it's a lot, right? It's a lot. There's a lot going on. So you know, this is a pretty silly thing to do. This like alpideracatava shouldn't work. I'll give you another example. You know this building that we're sitting in right now. It's not really a normal thing. There was a man whose name was R' Naftali Weinberg.

39:15 And he decided and he said, "I'm gonna return Jews to Judaism. I'm gonna tell them that this is their Yerusha." So he came to Yerushalayim and he built this. And then, by the way, this new building that we're in right now, I once spoke to Rabbi Stevenberg, who's the CEO of Hesh Global, and he told me even this that we're sitting with in right now, it's absolute nisim. The ability to build on the most coveted spot of real estate in the world. This is pretty serious business. We're not living miraculously. The irony is that people who are seeking power will only ever be as successful as the power they have can bring them. So if you're like, let's say there's 10 levels of power, maybe you reach 10 levels of power. Maybe you're the president of the United States and you have awesome power, but that's all you really have.

40:05 A Jew who submitted to Hashem is infinitely powerful because God is infinite. I'm telling you very straight, ten levels of power could not build this building. Belief in Hashem could build this building. Barry, I'm giving you a Musar The sweetest sledgehammer Musar. I'm giving you a Musar. If you try to make the Chizuk mission happen, it won't happen because you'll only have X level of power to make this happen. But I know what you're doing, and you're going. I don't know how to do this, but Hashem's going to have to make this happen. I'm just going to be the vessel for Him. And we already see the paros that are abnormal; that it's more than it should be, and it's working. Why? Because it's not kochiv otzmiyadi. Because I'm submitted to Hashem. It's an irony. People who try to control their children can't. People who stop trying to control their children and give it over to God, something changes in the children. It's an amazing thing. People who are trying to control their husbands—this is the gift I can give you. I promise you, it's not going to work.

40:59 You know what men hate? Women that try to control them. A man is a horse. And it's a wild stallion. This thing that you're going to do, I'm going to fix him. It's going to take an act of God to fix that man. So you could try. I see we have one single girl in the audience here. How old are you? Twenty-one. You're making Aliyah. Where are you going to be living? Baka, I've heard of Baka. Very nice. There's a school there, MMY. That's our sister school. The so when you're dating, what was that? I've heard of Midmo. Riv Rafi is one of my closest friends. Usually, when you say Riv Rafi's name to the seminary girls, they bow down. He's like a. You went to Arava. The idea that you're going to try to it's going to be. We all feel a little bad for her. She's going to go on this journey. Are you dating already?

42:00 It's the chesed mission. You can be real. Now that I'm here, I could start. You're going to meet a guy and you're going to go like I remember my wife told me that she when we were dating she asked one of her ba'ym about me and she said he's very immature and the rebbe said don't worry it passes and my wife's like when you know I'm 45 years old when is this thing going to pass. It's not going to work. You're not going to fix us. You can stop trying. But an amazing thing happens: a woman who doesn't try to fix her husband and just respects who he is and accepts him for who he is, an amazing thing happens. It's an act of God. All of a sudden, he's the guy that you wanted him to be. This Haman. This Amalek. I will not let go of the reins. There is no God. There is no morality. All there is power. And in a world of fear, I will dominate somebody else.

42:51 A Jew builds a nest on the shore of this world, and we say, a Jew is the sea of this world, trying to lap ourselves up on the shore. There is a God. There are rules to this game. Listen to the rules of the game. Stop trying to amass power. Let go. By the way, isn't that the rule of the sea? You're not going to control the sea. Haman says, 'I'm going to build a nest.' What's the nest? The nest is there is no God. All there is power. What does the C do? Naturally, not because we're trying to start a fight. What does the C do? The C says, "Sorry, brother." Power doesn't exist. Power is an illusion. This thing you're trying to do with your life, it doesn't exist. That's why COVID freaked us all out. Because what happened when COVID hit? We lost the illusion of control.

43:41 That's why people went crazy. In my neighborhood, we crushed children. For those of you that were paying attention, that had children going through COVID, that's a bad experiment. Let's lock children in the room for a year and a half and see what happens. If a kid has COVID, I did this to my own child. Looking back on it, I'm like, what did I do? My daughter got COVID. I put her in a room for two weeks by herself. We came to visit. That's a crazy thing. A child should not spend two weeks in a room. She had outdoor time. I'm saying she was in jail. It was, she should have worn an orange jumpsuit. It was a miserable thing to do. Why were we so absolutely intense about it? We didn't know, and in the absence of knowing, we exerted power to try to control something we couldn't.

44:27 Now we know we can't control these things. We'll do our best, but we're not willing to sacrifice our children when things go badly in the world. We miss the illusion of control. We never had control, but we felt like we did. That's power. We're in a fight against power. That's what it means to be a Jew. What's Haman's strategy? Now I'm going to kill the Jews because I have to. Like Hitler said, you know the famous line from Hitler. Hitler said, "The struggle for world domination is between me and the Jews. All else is meaningless. The Jews have inflicted two wounds upon the world: circumcision for the body and conscience for the soul. I come to free mankind from their shackles. That's what Hitler said. Hillary Machsomov said this. It was he said, "I'm going to destroy this notion of morality. Power is the only thing that exists. I have to kill the Jews. That's what happened by Arzina. How do we do that? It's very simple. You got to take dry land and bring it into the sea. You got to take the sea and bring it into dry land. We're running out of time, so I'm going to say this a little bit quickly, but I don't want you to lose the message."

45:31 A Jew is a fish in the sea. That's what we are. The famous Machshel with Rivakiva, you all know the famous Machshel. That Riva Kiva said, "I have to continue teaching Torah because if you take me away from Torah, you're taking a fish onto dry land, and that is unsafe." Haman said, "I know how to take a fish out of the sea. I know how to disconnect a Jew from Torah. I know how to disconnect a Jew from Hashem. It's very simple." Let's give them the feeling of power. What I'm about to say is not a nice thing. I feel badly to say a not nice thing, but I'm saying not a nice thing. We a little bit A little bit in our world. We're making the same mistake they made on Purim. Why was there a tzar din that we were going to die? Because we were from the sudda of Achashverosh. Because we went to the sudda of Achashverosh and we enjoyed it. Was the food kosher? The Gemara says the food was glat kosher. But Dats ate chared this rub and land out whatever the best hachshirim are. All the ions. You can tell if a hachshir is good because it has a million ions in it.

46:28 I want to tell the OU if you just add ions, you'll be more shavu lachol nefesh. You have no ions. You should change it to Weissmandel OU. Then people will eat it. It's a Hamish crowd. You have to make Hamish jokes. Hamish jokes, depending where you're from. We're walking around going, "I was invited to the White House." That's what we do. I was invited to give the invocation at the Republican National Convention or the Democratic National Convention, or we were invited to be there when the President gets elected. And what are we so proud of? Why are we so proud to be walking around the White House? A little bit. We're all again. There's an opportunity for Kiddush Hashem, and we have to take that opportunity. I'm not saying we shouldn't. It's an opportunity for Kiddush Hashem. We have to take it. But how many of us are walking around feeling like we made it?

47:17 We could walk the halls of the White House. We made it. We could get an audience with the president if we want. There's a disconnect from our identity as Yidden. We are the children of the Rebbeinu Sholom. Why are you so excited to meet Trump? You're much bigger than Trump. Your identity as a Jew is much more precious than your ability to get an audience with Basser Vadam. Klal Yisroel was walking around by the sudd of Achashverosh, going, "We made it." We made it. We're here. We're in the palace of Achashverosh. It probably felt awesome for them, eating the best food, hearing the best music, walking in the gardens. They said, 'Look at us.' But you're house Jews. That's not your majesty. That's not your godliness. You're much bigger than that and you're running around being proud of the crumbs that you ate. That's the insanity of being a Jew today.

48:11 We do not have, and I'm including the Orthodox community in this. I'm including the Hesed community in this. I'm talking everywhere in the world, in and out of Israel. We have lost Jewish identity. I know it sounds like a funny thing. I keep Shabbos. I keep kosher. My kids wear tefillin. My sons are in KAILO. My son-in-laws are in KAILO. We're running Chesed organizations. You're telling me I lost Jewish identity? We forgot about the majesty of being a yid. You want to know why we're having trouble raising our children? Because we're raising our children in a way. I know it's gonna again. I don't think this is the be-all and end-all answer, but it's worth saying. We're not raising our children to know that they're awesome. We're not raising our children. If you were, the son of a player on the Knicks

48:55 How awesome does that kid feel? He walks into Madison Square Garden. I assume everybody's from New York. That's because I'm from New York, so I just assume everybody's from New York. You walk into Madison Square Garden. You're walking around. All the most famous people in the world are dapping you up, and you're in the world's most famous arena, and you get to see every game. You come back to school, and the kids say, "Oh, that's so cool. Your dad is this Nick. You're unbelievable. You're awesome." That kid walks around saying, "I'm awesome." He introduces himself, "Hi, I'm Plony. I'm the son of a famous Nick." Our children should be walking around saying, 'Hi, my name is Avram, and I am the child of Avram Yitzchak Yaakov Sarah Rivka Rachel Leah.' I am the descendants of royalty that changed the world. It's so not like that. We're so distant. I know it sounds like a funny thing. We're distant from Jewish identity. We keep all of the halachos. Somehow, the soul of Yiddishkeit got lost.

49:51 Why? Because Haman said, "I know how to destroy this nest. I know how to destroy this sea. I just have to start taking them one at a time. I'm just going to take them over to the sudda of Achashverosh, and when they're there, they're going to fall into the world of power. That's what it is." Look at me! I can get an audience with Hakadosh Baruch Hu. I have power. Once you're in the world of power, you're out of the world of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Comes along Hakadosh Baruch Hu and answers the most unbelievable question in the world. He says, "Haman I tried this already. When Kalal Yisrael sinned by the Chet Egel, I said I'm going to destroy them. They were worthy of being destroyed. How come you can't destroy Yehud? Hakadosh Baruch Hu says, "You know why?" Because they're me. A Jew is a godly soul. Our soul is like a ray of the sun. Hakadosh Baruch Hu is the sun. We're the ray.

50:43 I can't destroy a Jew any more than I can destroy myself. You think you're going to destroy a Jew because you took him away from his Jewish identity? Good luck. Try it. It doesn't work. It's an amazing thing. We saw it since October 7th, but the truth is, we saw it throughout history. How many Jews right now are standing up? Jews that are completely not Orthodox. Now I'm putting on tefillin. Even small things. I don't want to say silly things, but even small things. I wear the dog tags. I wear the yellow ribbon. I'm an advocate. Why? People who were totally disconnected from Judaism, they're so connected right now. What changed? You cannot destroy a Jew. We are living in a period of anti-Semitism. Because, and this has been throughout history, at the end of the Purim story, we are still avodim to Achashverosh. We still live in a world of power. We still live in a world of darkness, and we have a need out of fear for control.

51:39 It's a very simple answer: the darkness is what proves the light. I'm going to show you who you really are. A mother can't stop being a mother. A child who is super disconnected from the mother can't stop davening for that child. Why? That's my kid. I can't stop being a mother any more than a Jew can stop being a Jew. It's your identity. You're disconnected from identity. You're disconnected on an external layer. But internally, it's hard to do. A chaver of mine, one of my closest friends in the world, is not an observant Jew. He would literally eat pork on Yom Kippur. He lives in the Czech Republic because it's the most atheistic country in the world. He's completely disconnected on an observance level. Calls me up a couple years ago. He goes, "I'm so frustrated." I said, "What?" It was like a couple weeks from now. It was before Pesach.

52:33 He saw the Chabad shliach of Bernau in the Czech Republic walking by him, and he says, "Gudjantif." This guy goes without a yarmulke. You wouldn't be able to tell he's Jewish a million years. Even the Lubavitchers who are trained to be able to find Jewish people that don't look Jewish, even they couldn't tell that he was Jewish. Now the Chabad shliach goes, "Oh, we have a Jew here." He won't leave my friend alone. So my friend called me up to complain. He's like, I can't get this guy off of me. So I said, Why did you wish him a good yom tiff? He goes, Don't start with me. I know what you're going to say. Pintele Yad. You can't destroy the Pintele Yad. I know this move. It's not true. I was just messing with the guy. I said, Yeah. Were you really? Are you sure? It's not true. He's lying to himself. He said good yom tiff because on some subconscious level He wanted that guy to know that he was a Jew. This guy has run so far away from Judaism, and yet he still says good yantiv. He came to Eretz Israel after October seventh. I went out to eat with him. It was the first time in years. This guy was a star yeshiva guy. He was my chavrusa. We would wake up at five o'clock in the morning to learn together. He was an unbelievable guy.

53:38 We were out. We went to Katzefet. Like a good seminary girl. We went to Katzefet, and he was saying he's like, I don't believe in the miraculous. But the way that Joe Biden has handled post October seventh, it's miraculous. Without Biden, what would we have done? I heard him say the word 'we.' I was, and I didn't want to call him out. I didn't want to be like, you said 'we,' you know. It's not exactly like a good kerf tactic. But I saw as far as this guy ran away, can't run away. The darkness is the gift. The most painful gift in the world, but it's the gift that tells us who we are. We're here on this mission because everyone in this room, on some level, is unsatisfied in their Judaism. That's why we're here. We're here. I'm a part of this. I really am.

54:31 We're here because we're unsatisfied with our Judaism. We're tired of showing up. Performing Keeping Shabbos, davening, keeping kosher, glatt kosher, covering our hair, doing all the right things, totally tsnius. We're here because something is missing. But do you realize the gift of the fact that something is missing? Because if nothing was missing, how would you ever discover who you are? If you never had death, how would you appreciate life? If you never had darkness, how would you appreciate life? If you never lose your identity, how will you ever find it? Anti-Semitism is a gift And you have to know how to mine the nugget. The gift of anti-Semitism is it's the most painful thing in the world: destruction of millions of Jews historically, millions, tens of millions. But the greatest gift in the world is that it keeps proving to us time and time again: this is who we are. How do we bring Mashiach? It is a very simple equation.

55:21 I'm letting go of power. I'm connecting deeply to my identity. I am a shtick of Hashem. That's what I am. There's a little piece of the Abishur inside of me. I am totally powerless, and therefore I am infinitely powerful. I have majesty. I have unbelievable royalty coursing through my veins. I walk through the streets proud. I share it with my children. I share it with my husband. This is not just about you. The impact that we're having on your family because you take this back with you, it changes the way you are as a mother. It changes the way you are as a wife. It changes the way you are as a member of your community. You'll have Jewish chutzpah at the end of this trip. I hope you have Jewish chutzpah. You know what Jewish chutzpah means? Jewish chutzpah means you show up to the world and you go I can change this.

56:08 Only a yid could think that way. Only a yid could think. I'm going to change the entire world, and historically speaking, we have. What's the what's the as I'm already out of time because we got to go down to the Kotel because you're going up north now. What's the bottom line takeaway message? We're about to embark on this thing called the Chizuk Meshi. If you show up over the next couple of days And you came for a tourist visit, I'm going to see the sites. I'm going to what are we doing? We're visiting things. We're going around. We'll see bases and different. Lots of learning. You're going up north. Where are you going? We're going to Tzfat. You'll go. You could see the artist colony. You'll go to Kever Tzadikim. You'll do the whole thing. If you show up to a she'er and you're there in body You're listening, but you're not open.

57:02 If you show up that way, you miss the most incredible opportunity. But if you say I am here to connect to my truest identity, I'm here to connect to my soul. I'm willing to confront all the darkness in my life because all the darkness in my life tells me who I really am. This will be another notch. It won't be the transformative experience of your life, but it'll be another notch in a series of transformative experiences that Be'ezes Hashem will make you the person that you hope to become in your life. Deeply connected to yourself, deeply connected to Hashem.