Purim - The Joy of Incompletion

2:18 Berg. I'm not related to that. That's my mother. That was very quick. That was amazing levels of Jewish acuity. That was amazing levels of Jewish acuity. No. Your in-laws were the only Shomer Shabbos beings in five years. Your in-laws are or were. That's a very different statement. Not alive anymore, but they were some original. Who are your in-laws? You and your in-laws wandered, and they were there like almost before 1950. Sure, Rabbi Reuben Shul. It was a little bit before my time, 1950. It's right there. Who's your husband? Sounds very familiar. How do you know my mother? Wow. Maybe I know your grandmother. Do you feel very young now? Rabbi Aryeh Kohn. Rabbi Aryeh. Aryeh Kohn was my chaverus. My oldest son is married. What a beautiful family, no? The whole Kohn family is such amazing people. This was such. And what? I'm so sorry, I can't hear.

3:54 Who's that? I've been out of the Five Towns for a long time, so I don't know everybody. This was the best way to meet a group. This is what Jews do. We sit like I just got back from America a couple weeks ago. When you're walking, have you ever walked through an airport and seen another Jew? Have you ever done the Jew nod? It's just a very quick one. It is really could get a cramp. I feel like this was the expanded version of a junan. It's a beautiful thing we do together as a community to say who do you know. And we could do it very quickly. How about LA? I could do LA, but only because I, Baruch Hashem, have talmid. I go to LA every year, at least once or twice a year. I guess by way of introduction I said five towns, and that was the end of that. I'll skip where I'm from.

4:54 But Mrs. Feld asked me And I think this is also a very beautiful thing and says a lot about the mission that you're on. What do you want to talk about? What gets you excited? What gets you juiced? What gets you pumped? First of all, I love that question because very often people come to me and say, "We want you to speak about X," and it's fine. I'm more than happy to speak about whatever people want. But I love that you asked, and you allowed me to bring myself here. By way of introduction, I think the best way of introducing myself is that the thing I'm passionate about is vulnerability. And that's what I wanted to talk to you about today. I think most people, when they talk about Purim, talk about simcha. Maybe they talk about things. But I'd like to talk about less from things tonight. I'd like to talk today.

5:49 I'd like to talk about what didn't go right in the Perm story. And maybe from that place to learn a little bit about ourselves and to learn a little bit about what Simchas Perim could be, maybe a different way of thinking about it. And then I think we said maybe at the end we're going to open up to questions and answers. So three very quick questions. The Gemara tells us one of the reasons that we don't say Hallel on Purim is because we remained servants of Achashverosh, even after the salvation of Purim, even after we were not murdered. We still remained in a state of servitude. So if that's the case, it seems strange that we celebrate the Purim story. In other words, when it comes to Pesach, it makes sense. There was a cheras. The Maral says that. After the story of Pesach, a Jew could no longer be enslaved. The Hainu Even if we're placed in the worst possible situations in the world, it's not possible on an essential level to take a Jew into slavery. That happened on Pesach.

6:58 So I understand the celebration of Pesach. We come We have a beautiful seder. We experience the Simchas Yontif. The story of Purim, in a certain way, falls short. At the end, all that happened was we didn't get murdered. Even by our standards, where we celebrate pretty much anything, that's a low bar. We were about to get killed, we didn't. What's the pshat here that we have a yomtiv, and not just any yomtiv, but a yomtiv that's la yehudim, aisa, aira, vesimcha, vesasam, vikar. This is the ultimate joyous day in the Jewish calendar. Yom Kippur is only Kippurim. Everybody knows. So what's this simcha of Purim, especially because the servitude remained? The second question, which is along the same lines but a little bit different, is the emotional response to not being killed is not joy. The emotional response is relief. Right? In other words I'll share with you just a This is emblematic of what it means to live in Eretz Yisrael.

8:08 I was driving home on Thursday night. Daily giving. Does anyone here know what daily giving is? Daily giving was founded by my roommate. That's my claim to fame. That, and I'm Rav Gav standing. What do I do? I hang out in the yeshiva. I hang out in the yeshiva. That's what I do. What was that? That's nice. Where are you from? Lanz. I left. It was like eleven thirty or twelve o'clock at night. I was driving on the highway, the new highway that we have. Baruch Hashem. And a motorcyclist pulled up next to me. And they asked me to roll down my window, and I did. And he just asked me for directions. I'll be honest with you, I couldn't really hear him. He was wearing a helmet. The motorcycle was very loud, so I just said I don't know. And the light turned green at that second, and I drove off. I realized I was having heart palpitations.

9:14 And I started thinking to myself, the trauma of living in Eretz Yisrael sometimes is like you can't roll down your window And I'm driving along this new highway. It's 12 o'clock at night, and I'm thinking to myself. Let's say it would have gone bad. At least they would have said that the last thing that I did is I went to a daily giving event. So it was like, and I'm literally writing my own hesped in my head as I'm driving, and I'm reminding myself, nothing happened. An Israeli guy pulled up next to me in a motorcycle. Mamish, nothing happened. But there was a deep sense of relief. And then I told myself, don't tell my wife. Just come home and say nothing. So of course, when I came home and I told my wife, anyone have that? This thing of no filter. This is my life. I told my wife, and my wife was like "Oh my gosh!" I'm like, "But nothing happened.

10:02 But there was a deep sense of relief. On a communal level, on a nationwide level We weren't killed. The emotional response should not have been joy. The emotional response should have been a deep breath of relief. Everybody's like We avoided being massacred. But it's not the emotional response that we get. We're told, Mishinach Nasather Marben Basimcha. There's a sense of joy that's in the air. You could feel it. I'm sure it's like that in America. Also, just even here, you're walking in the streets, the beautiful weather, just something. You're walking around. It's Adher. Everybody knows it's Adher. So there's something in the air, but it's not the emotional response we would have expected. And the last question Which is a sensitive question, at least for me, because I'm not a drinker. But this whole notion of Ad Lo Yada. And without making any commentary on what's evolved in the Jewish world, there's plenty to say about that. Even if we left that out The notion that a Jew gets drunk to the point where they have no To the point where we're no longer thinking, it seems to be the antithesis of everything we know about Judaism.

11:08 We're always told to think, we're told to question, we're told to challenge all the assumptions, to understand things deeper. Ad lo yada doesn't appear to be something that would inspire us, and yet. Even with all of the mangling of that idea that happens, especially with the kids in the community, but even the idea—what does that mean? Ad lo yada. What are we talking about over here? So I want to share with you an idea. It's an idea that's very meaningful to me. I hope it'll be meaningful to you as well. What does Hakadosh Baruch Hu desire? What does He want? So the Medrash in Parashas Naso says, Nesave Hakadosh Baruch Hu lios lo yisbarach diri betaktonim. What God desires is to have a dwelling place in the world down below. So when you ask somebody why Hashem Baruch Hu created the world, there are many answers given. There are many answers given in Kabbalah. There are many answers given in the Gemara.

12:02 But the most essential reason, which is not a reason at all, is that Hashem has a desire. He has a taiva. There's something that He wants. And what does He want? He wants to have a home. It's these parshiyos. He wants to have a home in this world. There's a problem. If you think about it, there's a problem with this, and it's a problem that every one of us is familiar with in our marriages. If Hakadosh Baruch Hu comes down into this world, is it going to be a world anymore? If God's presence is so clear, so manifest, it will be hard to see anything and not see Elokuz. All you'll see is godliness. If you revealed the mask, if you took it off, and you said, 'What is this table? What is it really?' It's an expression of the will of Hashem. So if Hakadosh Baruch Hu was really present in our lives, would there be a table?

12:54 I'll put it to you a little bit differently, because this is the way I understand it. In marriage today, the biggest challenge that everybody's talking about, the buzzword in every single marriage, is codependency. And so, for those of you that just did this, I really want to acknowledge that you did it and thank you for it. That little, that tiny little nod of I understand what you're talking about. I just want you to know I'm with you. The courage that it takes to do that little nod is not small. What does it mean? So codependency, and there are many ways of expressing this. You can look at Melody Beattie, but what I understand it to be is it's possible to lose myself in this marriage to somebody else. So just because you want something doesn't mean I have to. I can choose to participate. But I'm okay, even if you are not okay. It's as my wife says, being firmly planted on our own soil.

13:54 Capable of sharing our space with another. You say that again. Being firmly planted in your own soil Capable of sharing your space with another. The way I like to think about it is the three rings of the Olympics. You're a ring. He's a ring And that shared space—the space in between—that's where marriage occurs. Most people think like I'm married. He's married. Which part? Being firmly planted in your own soil, being capable of sharing your space with another. So it's like I'm a ring of the Olympics. I'm one ring. My wife is another ring. Your husband is another ring. There's a shared space. That's where marriage is. It's much less. I'm married as I'm participating in the creation of this space. The moment I lose myself I'm not participating in that space anymore. Who's the me in this marriage? If your husband says something and you lose yourself to what he says You lose yourself to what he does.

14:59 Then you're no longer okay. And then who's the you that's participating in that marriage? If you've become uprooted in my wife's language. I want to share with you Ashkafa. I came here today. It's always funny the way these things work out, and I have these notes that I wrote. I just wanted to have something on paper so I know where I'm going. And I sort of know how to get to Eishat Torah, but not exactly. It's like the old city. You kind of just migrate, so you just figure I'll end up at Eish at some point. So I'm walking through the parking lot and I see a Talmud from many years ago. And he happens to learn here in Eish now. I said to him, you know how to go to Eish. You don't happen to be heading to Eish now. He said, I'm heading to Eish. I think he's lying by the way, but he took me to Eish. On the way, he mentions to me that there's a boy who listens to some of the shirum that I give.

15:53 I'm sure he would love to meet you. And he and Rebbe, he's a big fan. And I said, but say they're fine. And sure enough, the boy comes downstairs to meet me just now. And I'm doing this with Rishos. I'm doing this 100% with Rishos. And the boy came to me, and we talked a little bit. And he says to me, "My parents are going through a terrible divorce right now." And it was a short but beautiful conversation, and what we spoke about was Just because your mother's in a certain place, just because your father's in a certain place Just because they're asking you to be in a certain place in their relationship, doesn't mean you have to be. Your job here is to create healthy boundaries, which will include both of your parents. Boundaries are not meant to push people out. Boundaries are meant to include people.

16:42 So what he's going to do, what he's working on, and I think he's doing an amazing job of it, and I think he's an exceptionally special person. I only just met him for a minute. But he's going to show up and say, 'This is where I am, and I'm okay for myself as you guys are behaving, and not necessarily the most appropriate way.' Which it's hard for us to expect people to go. Through a divorce in an appropriate way because there's so much love and fear in the mix that it manifests itself in such a challenging way but he has to be okay for himself in a certain way this is an exact model of Hakadosh Baruch Hu in the world if Hakadosh Baruch Hu desires to have a dwelling place in the world down below then the world must remain a world if it's not a world then Hakadosh Baruch Hu didn't get what he wants.

17:30 He just overwhelmed us with his presence. On the other hand, if the world doesn't become a place where he's invited in, where he's comfortable Then he doesn't get what he wants either. The job of a Jew, through doing mitzvot, through learning Torah, through doing chesed, through everything that we do in this world, through using the physical things in this world in an elevated way, in a holy way, is inviting our God to be present in our lives. This is what our God wants from us. He wants there to be a world, and he wants to participate in it. Meaning It's not impressive for Hakadosh Baruch Hu to create a world. For Hakadosh Baruch Hu to create a world is nothing; it's a snap of the fingers. It's like thirty-six pesukim. But for us to create a home for Him, that's many, many parshiyos in the Torah. To create a mishkan in this world, to say there's a place for you in our lives, to bring Him in, that's the hardest thing in the world.

18:25 Can I share with you a secret? Everybody here knows the secret. Can I share it with you just to remind ourselves? We think of joy as having occurred when there's a level of completion. It's not true. Joy is what occurs when you find completion within the incompletion. I'll explain what I mean. Joy for the joy is what occurs when you find the completion within the incompletion. Let's say your husband is behaving inappropriately, and he's not acting in a nice way. And he's violating your boundaries. That's a place of incompletion. That's a place of brokenness. That's a very painful place to be. But there's a secret embedded in there. The secret is that there's a process of self-discovery. Of learning. I'm okay when things are not okay around me. I'm whole and I'm complete. As all the things around me in my life are incomplete, there's a level of completion that we find—a wholeness within the brokenness.

19:33 Exactly, and that's the greatest joy that a person can find. Because joy is a natural state of being. It's when the external circumstances no longer define who I am. And here's the crazy part: we can only find out who we are when all the things around us shatter. And that's why all the things around us are always shattering. You ever feel like it wasn't supposed to go this way? You ever have an experience like that where you're looking at your life Sorry, can you just repeat that again? When everything around you shatters When everything around you shatters, that's when you find out who you are. That's the completion within the incompletion. My marriage is a disaster. I'm not saying mine. I'm saying in general. Let's say a person said, My marriage is a disaster, and it turns out that I found new dimensions of self.

20:21 Within that disaster, it turns out I'm okay, even when somebody's really upset and frustrated, or really not okay, or behaving in an inappropriate way. Let's do it with our kids; it's easier. This could be the underlying basis of any therapy. Because it is, in some ways, right. I don't think so. I would hope so. I think that people try to fix everything instead of trying to help you find wholeness within you. I want you to know, I agree with you so much, and I said to this boy just now. I said, I want you to know there's no light at the end of the tunnel. There's no light at the end of this tunnel. But the light is that you're okay in the dark. But there's no, there's no like This is going to be okay. There's no silver lining. And you know why people do that. You know why we give people a silver lining because it's safe for us.

21:11 I can't hold your emotion. I can't be okay if you're not okay. I don't want to have the vulnerability of going into myself to feel along with you. Because I can feel that pain if I'll be honest with myself. But I don't want to do that. So I'll just say it's going to be okay. It's going to get better. And it's okay that it doesn't get better because you're okay within this shattered reality in which we're living. Does that make sense? That's a hard thing to learn. Do it with your children. If Chassidish, you have a kid that goes off the derech. Parents learn? Being a parent doesn't define me. It's not the only thing in my life. It's a mission. It's a value. It's one of the things I've dedicated myself to. But the success or lack thereof of my children does not define who I am. In fact, it's probably the need for my kid to be in a particular way that may have caused that kid to be in a particular way.

22:05 And so there's a process of self discovery that comes from this shattering that's happening around us. If let's say I need let's play that let's say I need my child to be an Orthodox Jew I need my child to be an Orthodox Jew. And now they're not And they stop keeping Shabbos. Chas v'shalom. And it's a bother. It's like parents start asking where I went wrong. That kid has bechira. That kid's allowed to make a choice. But the process of self-discovery there is it's okay for that child to make choices that they're making that might be really painful because it's against the values that I have. But I am not a bad parent and I am not a bad person because my child made choices that are different from my value system. And from that place that I'm okay and I'm enough, now I can share so much love with that person because I don't need you to be any way that you're not anymore. I'm okay for me and I can share that okayness with you.

23:13 And that's an amazing thing. To have that space, to have that like To be able to be okay with the choices that other people are making because it's okay if everything is shattering around me, because I'm a port in the storm, I'm that lighthouse. It's almost like you stop being selfish and become selfless by doing that. But what if you really were thinking? I'll be honest. In my experience, it's never that black and white. I've never met a person that. You can point to any one event in their life and say it happened because of that one event. But let's say you were right. Let's say you did things as a parent that you're not proud of. And now a lot of shatterings are happening around you, and the process of self-discovery is going on. As part of that process, you become okay with yourself.

24:03 And then you say there are things I have to own. Is it then possible not to fix because I can't necessarily fix, but I can make amends? And so many years ago, I had a father who stopped speaking to his son. And it was a very complex relationship. And I said to the father, because the son was married at that time, I said, 'How far are you willing to take this? Would you not go to your son's if he's making a bris? Would you not go?' Because the son was demanding that his father make an apology for a lot of the harm that his father really had caused. And his father said, "I would not go to the bris." And the father wasn't willing. The father was unwilling to go to the bris, and the father said, "In my generation, parents don't apologize to children." And he was in so much pain, there was no room for me to speak. But what I wanted to say to him was And look what that hath wrought.

24:51 Did you say it? Because I'm not so good. I'm good at talking about vulnerability, but not so good at doing it. I'm joking. He wasn't in a place to hear it. It wasn't that vibe. He was just so hurt. He needed a place to put it. I was trying to show him, you really want to be that right over here? Do you really want to stand on that principle? And there is something she said I feel is wrong in our society. Parents have to always apologize. And I'm sorry. I think there are boundaries and there are ways. And I think too many people are getting up and empowering our young people that us parents who deserve respect and who should get respect have to always apologize and be machmir and bow down. What happened to the cover for the parents? What happened to the keeper of the aim? What happened?

25:53 To the mouthless of who your parents are, it's gone. And we have to feel bad if we don't apologize. I want you to know I so appreciate what you're saying. I so appreciate what you're saying. First of all, because of the vulnerability of it and the real openness. I love that there must be a culture here that was created that allowed you to say that. This is the last day. We've all let old hang out. Why do you support the parents? We need to be empowered also. It's just like beer. Can I share something with you? I just married off a daughter. When I say just, I mean like two weeks ago. I look much younger than I am, right? Isn't that nice? I hope that it stays this way for a minute. You thought I was in my twenties. That's so nice of you. This is my oldest daughter.

26:44 Thank you very much. I know that she cannot possibly appreciate what I've done for her in her life. And I'm hopeful that she learns it soon. I'm waiting with bated breath for her to come back to me and go Abba, I never realized how much you did for us. I know she's a big girl now. I know she's married and she's a woman and all that. But she's still a kid. And remember when we were all kids, thinking that we had it figured out. Remember when you first did that? You remember that disaster? The so as big as she is, and as much of an adult as she is, and as much of an adult as he is, and he's an awesome boy, and I'm so proud of both of them. They have no idea what we did for them, and they can't Because a teenager By their very nature They're terrified.

27:41 Kids are terrified. They're terrified. The coolest kids, the ones who seem to have it the most figured out, are the most afraid. They're the ones that need the most help. I said it this summer to one of the boys. I said because he was the coolest kid in camp, and of a camp with 400 kids, he was by far the best ball player, the man. I said it's terrifying being on that pedestal. You could be knocked off at any moment. And he was like, "You're right." He lives with an existential fear of. If I'm not awesome all the time, who am I? I think you're 100% right. I love what you said that parents need to create boundaries, and I don't think we should be worshiping our children. I think that's bad parenting. I think maybe the distinction between what I said and what you said is that I think what you said is beautiful and wonderful and awesome, and we should take it with us.

28:32 But I think real parenting does sometimes mean owning our mistakes. And it doesn't mean owning things that are not our mistakes. But if let's say I let's say I came home from work And I'm exhausted. And I'm in a place And my kid comes over to me, and being insensitive and not giving Abba the time to even walk in the door comes over to me and says, Abba, I need money for this And let's say I snap Which is human and understandable and normal. Let's say I go, when I walk in the door, please give me some space. Which is a very normal thing to do. But let's say I don't even say it that nicely. I'll go, 'Can you stop?' Let's say I said something like that. Which is not nice. Can I own that? Yes. I think so. I think I can come to that daughter and I can show her that I have five daughters and one son, and my son is six. So I have six daughters basically. I think there's something beautiful and healthy and wonderful about me coming to that kid and saying "I want to role model what it looks like to be imperfect and to be okay with imperfection. And to own that, and to acknowledge that, and to therefore give you the skills to do that yourself."

29:39 And it doesn't mean that we're serving our kids. I think a child who sees the parent who's so honest, so authentic, and can own their mistakes, will really give that cover. And as parents, we should say, 'This is.' We should, in a certain way, I don't mean I'm going to use the word demand. I don't mean it as demand, but I do think you're right that there should be an avirah in the home of I'm a parent, you're a child, and there is a difference. And there's something like you see a lot of kids today will say, 'I'm not going to do this until I understand why.' When you become an adult, you realize I have no idea why anything happens, right? And sometimes there's value in saying "You know more than me, and I'm machniy myself to you. And it's true. I think in earlier generations that's they had more of that, and maybe we need to do a better job of that. But I don't know if it's a contradiction what you and I said."

30:28 I don't think. I have to think about what you said too. I'll take it with me. Would you mind finishing this sentence? You said something about how somebody's marriage was a disaster. But they found themselves within it. They found themselves within the disaster. Because we're not defined by any of the disasters that happen in our lives. A person, Chassad Shalom, goes through a tragic illness, and they learn that they are more than their illness. A family goes through an illness. A family goes through chas v'shalom, a death. And we learn that we're more than all of the worst things that happen to us. And we could never have learned it without that chattering. A chaver of mine—I don't want to say his name—but I'm confident that many of you in this room have heard of him. He's a person who lost his leg to cancer when he was a child.

31:22 And he's very famous today, and he dances for a living. And if you know him, you don't. He told me he lost both of his parents. One to Lou Gehrig's disease. Another one of his parents to cancer. And he said to me, "I know within 30 seconds of meeting a person if they've suffered" Because if you've suffered, it changes you. It forces you to go through a process of hineini. This is who I am. The joy of completion is not everything is perfect. The joy of completion is I found completion within all of the incompletion of our world. That's why Hakadosh Baruch Hu doesn't desire a perfect world. He desires to be found within an imperfect world. He desires for us to find Him, to find ourselves in a certain way within all of the insanity that happens in this world. And by the way, you see it here in this country very much.

32:16 We have a terror attack. And it's tragic. This country mourns together. It's one of the most beautiful things about this country. It doesn't matter, Charedi, Chiloni, Dati, Lumi, Chardal. It doesn't matter who you are. When something tragic happens, every one of us feels it. It's an amazing thing. We all fight with each other until they start fighting with us, and then it's like siblings. We go, who are you to fight with him? And then we all stand up together. We're very childish that way. We're a very childish nation. But the reason that we're able to survive these And there was just another one. It's just another crazy terror attack. How are we able to survive this? It's because we know that with all of the shatterings that are happening around us, there's a completion that's being discovered within. The fact that we're in this room Just for a moment. I'm not making any big pitches, nothing political. I just want to say, if we all just took one step this way and looked out that window, what we would see is unfathomable in the history of the world.

33:15 And it's not because we had so much loss in the '40s that now we got this. But it's the joy of what we're experiencing, this the unfolding of this completion as Mashiach is coming. It was born of the shattering that happened earlier in the Holocaust. I'm not saying people that you don't want to say the state of Israel is born from the Holocaust. It's true, but there's a completion that comes from the incompletion. Does that make sense? So here's the last secret. The last secret goes as follows. The reason why we don't want to go in the direction that we're going To find the completion within the incompletion It's because we're not okay with the vulnerability of incompletion. That's the big move. No worries. The reason why we're not okay finding the completion within the incompletion is because we don't want to acknowledge our incompletion.

34:15 It's really hard to say. I'm struggling in my marriage. It's really hard to say. I feel like we just keep missing each other, and it's been years, and I feel like we're not connected. It's really hard to say. I have a kid. And he or she is just—they're not my kid. It's just they're not my favorite. They drive me crazy. It's really hard to say that. It's hard to acknowledge that pain. It's hard to acknowledge the pain of this is where I've reached in my career, and I'll probably go no further. It's really hard for me to counsel a lot of single girls. It's really hard for a single girl to say I have these inner negative beliefs that I'm not enough. And I'm dating, and it's being confirmed every day. I'm not pretty enough. I'm not smart enough. I'm not wealthy enough. I don't come from the perfect family.

35:05 It's really hard for us to acknowledge the truth of our incompleteness. Because we are incomplete by our very nature. We are alone, and we're good enough to be alone. But we'd like to share our lives with another, and that means I am incomplete. It's hard to be able to say I'm. You can't say I'm enough if you don't recognize first. Maybe I'm not Because you have to first be able to recognize there are parts of me that I really don't like Parts of me that I'm deeply ashamed of. If you would only know, I'd be unworthy of love and connection, because you'd be like, really, you did that. You're a piece of garbage. Now nobody else would say that about us, but we say it to ourselves all the time. We have these, and shame is natural. We have these voices of shame inside of us. So in order to come to a place of 'I am enough,' you first have to be willing to encounter the 'I'm not enough.'

35:58 And then to say within that voice, yes, I am. That's a really hard thing to do And so most of us will just avoid the issue entirely. And will act as if everything is fine. In young couples, it's called infatuation. Infatuation means I've made you out to be perfect, and I'll pretend to be perfect because the risk of you being imperfect is terrifying. And I certainly wouldn't want to tell you who I am. You get this a lot of times. A guy will come to me and go, "Do I have to tell her what I did in high school?" So I said to him, 'Would you want to marry her if you can't?' If you can't tell her, and I'm not saying you have to, but if there's something you can't go to her and be honest about. Are you really sharing yourself in that relationship, or are you just hiding? Do you really want to marry somebody that you feel you have to hide from?

36:47 And I'll tell you, it's amazing. Kids today are getting better and better at this. And they're being born into a culture which Einuchanami is not perfect And maybe that's beautiful. But they're so much better at being able to say, "Here's my parts, and here's what I'm not so proud of" And I'm okay within that, and I'm enough for myself, and I just want to share with you who I am and what my challenges are. I think it's because there's so many kids who have fallen off, had problems, needed mental health care, needed whatever problems they needed. There's a critical mass now. We're not all the perfect bacher in yeshiva. You know that it's being talked about. It's in conversation already. And if you think about what you just said, which I 100% agree with How awesome was the shattering then? All the pain of all those people that yielded a culture of one second. It's okay for us not to be the perfect bacher.

37:41 It's okay for us not to have the perfect resume. They wrote an article in Mishpacha magazine a couple of months ago. It was awesome. It was an article about obesity and shaduchim. And I was like You know what? You know how? Do you know how many? Do you know how many people are saying like, no, you have to be the perfect size? You know how many girls are crushed? I'm sure you know. I get this all the time from Talmidot. It's not going to be okay, and it creates this world of anorexia and bulimia and weight issues. We live in a world now where somebody could write that article in Mishpacha, and everyone goes, "Thank you for saying it." " But it broke a barrier, right? That was like a one of a kind, right? And Baruch Hashem, from that shattering, there's new completion that's coming, and we've discovered new language, and it's a beautiful thing.

38:33 And of course, there'll be a negative impact. But we'll deal with the negative impact. Also, we'll find the completion within that negative impact, and it's left foot right foot. That's how we move traction in this world. So we go a little bit this way, a little bit that way. So just to tie that back into Purim Before we do I'm just thinking in my head about we hear every now and then about that unusual amazing wedding or that unusual amazing teacher, the ones that are one in a million. Because they let you know that In their opinion Your imperfection, your imperfections, are beautiful anyway. And there are one in a million of them. I can give one in particular who's just world renowned for his unusual way of looking at time. You're talking about Rabbi Kalish. Is that? Is that perfect? Is that when he's looking at a complete and total mess?

39:42 He doesn't see the mess. He doesn't notice there's a mess. He finds. He doesn't see the mess. So that's not fitting with this. It fits exactly with this. Because first of all, I want you to know I grew up a block away from him. And when I was in yeshiva, when I was in eighth grade, I used to learn in the beis medrash in yeshiva for Akwe, and there was this world-renowned back then, not for being the person he is today, but this huge budding talmudchachem, Danny Kaye, who was this amazing athlete, and everybody looked up to him. So I've been looking up to him before he was cool, or before he was well known anyway. It's exactly that he tells the boys You can acknowledge anything that's happening in your life, and you can say here's the Here's all this stuff that's happening because it doesn't define you. You're fine within all of that.

40:32 And the reason why he's so magnetic and the reason why he's so attractive And it's not just for those boys, by the way. His shirim are being downloaded left and right, and everybody's listening to them because it's the Torah of this generation. I want you to know, I listen to a lot of his shirim, but not because I want the content, but just because I love the way he calls out the boys' names when he's giving the shir. And he's like, New Ellie, what are you a taina? I love having you in here today. And he's authentic about it. If there was a shemitah of a lie, everybody would pick up on it, because you can't do that. You can't be that courageous if it's a lie, right? And he really does say to them, I want you to know that whatever you're going through, you're fine, and I'm with you, and that's okay. And so it's really not denying the fact that there's stuff going on around you, but he'll never tell you that you're a mess. Because you're not a mess. It doesn't define you. There's the completion within all the stuff that's happening around you.

41:22 Aye, but Rebbe, I struggled with this. If you'd only know where I was last night. I know all of those things And it doesn't matter. That means we're just saying the neshama of a person is the completion because that kid's such a mess. They haven't reached completion, haven't worked through their incompletion, and they're still in a state of incompletion. So we're just saying that the neshama itself is the completion. Exactly right. Meaning Ultimately, what the world is coming to, and I believe this on so many levels. Even with ChatGPT, we're going to ask ourselves the question: What is a human being? ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence that now nobody's going to have to do any more work ever. Computer coders just put in the question, it writes the computer code. College kids are saying, "Write my essays." High schools are banning it left and right. But La Maesa, it's here and it's coming and it's going to get better.

42:14 And so people are going to ask themselves the question: If ChatGPT, what am I worth? Exactly. What can I do different than the computer? If anything, the computer is going to be better than me. The world is arriving at this point, which is exactly, I believe, what Mashiach needs in order to come. You're defined by your neshama, nothing else. You're not defined by your body. You're not defined by how many possessions you have. You're not even defined by your lived values. People like, okay, but I have this value that I want to serve Hashem, but I'm not doing it. I'm not davening as well as I should have, or at all. I'm not doing, but even that doesn't define you because even that's just an expression and a manifestation. And within that lack of davening, you'll discover amazing things about yourself because it'll bother you that you're not davening. And then you go, turns out davening's important to me, but maybe not so important to me that I'm going to have kavanah yet. And maybe it's okay to say I struggle with davening.

43:01 And then from within that struggle to find your specific davening, which is also a beautiful davening, and maybe a better davening because it's your davening. You have guys in yeshiva that come and say, 'I'm not built for yeshiva.' A guy came to me yesterday. He's not built for yeshiva. It's not his fault. He's suffering tremendously in his life. He's not built for yeshiva. I told him it's not a failure for you to go home. You have a place in our community. It's not a failure for you. You could also learn. You could also daven. But you are by your nature a bal chesed. Let's get you on a path to do chesed. And he's just struggling because he's like, but I don't want to be seen as the failure. I'm like, you're not. And you have to come to terms with that within yourself. That's right, but he wants to find it. That's what's critical. And if he doesn't, that'll also be okay. He wants to find his place. This kid is an amazing balechesed.

43:49 You just see it. He lights up. You talk about working with Yachad, with friendship circle. He comes alive. You say, open up a black amara. He shuts down. It's not his fault. It's not his fault. He's an awesome kid. He's just that we made this box and then we told everyone to fit in it. And it's not fair to these kids. There's a level of vulnerability in saying, I'm not for that. But how do you transmit to them that it's okay Like you're okay, even if the world around you is telling you you're not? First of all, you have to believe it If you say it and you don't believe it, the kid you're talking to hears it. But say you do believe. But you know what? Say it. Your job as a parent is to say it, and their job, when they're ready, is to be macabre. All we do is put something and then give it time for it to go in.

44:43 But if you really believe it and you live that out, and your kid hears it from you, eventually they. My, I'll tell you, I was expelled from school in fifth grade. It's not so bad. It's not so bad. I promise you, I survived. I knew that no schools wanted me. I knew it. When you get thrown out of school, schools are not running to take you. Two schools in the neighborhood did back in the 80s: Rabbi Bender from Darche Everyone goes there, of course. And Rabbi Hertzberg of Ashlam, who was the Rosh Yeshiva of South Shore. They just published a book about him. They were willing to take me, and I want you to know even if I hadn't gone to Darche or South Shore, I ended up going to Darche. Even if they hadn't taken me, the fact that there were two people out there who said they would take you.

45:29 It means to me now They really authentically believed that I was okay. And they didn't have to take me, and it would be understandable. I was a kid coming from a completely different family from the values that they espoused. My in Darche, they were preaching anti-television. My father was the president of a marketing company, and not a small marketing company. You know what I'm saying? It was like It didn't jive, but it worked beautifully. So you really have to live it. You really have to communicate it. And by the way, there was a long time, if I'm being honest with you, that I held that story of "I'm not enough" and "I'm not okay." And it was only those voices of Rabbi Herzberg and Rabbi Bender that eventually, when I was older, I was able to draw from the wellspring of those voices. I was just telling somebody the story today that when I was in fourth grade, the teacher gave out the tests in mark order, in descending order.

46:25 So it was truly always got us back last. And one year, my father decided, no matter what, no matter where, I am going to get my test back within the first ten people. And it was like, didn't one year we had the other, but I said I could do this, and I took the test and I came home and I said Tat, I think I did it. " And then she a few days later she gives out the test, and I'm sitting there and I'm waiting. And I'm dying a thousand deaths And she hands me back the paper list with a ninety-five on it. And I said to her Why did I get a list? I thought you'd be used to it already. Now do you know that about twenty years later It sounds crazy. I was married with three kids. I was in Lomans. I'll never forget the old Lomans on whatever theater wasn't blackface.

47:14 And I met her. I saw her. I had such PTSD. I had to leave. I had to go get my kids and leave the store. And now I'm Baruch Hashem. Almost a great grand almost a great grandmother. Baruch Hashem. Wow. It's still haunting me. Want to call? Give me her address. Can I just say something? We don't have to make it better. It's okay for it to not be okay. It's okay for. But I'm saying it's okay for. But I've obviously. Gone past that moment. It's like sometimes I go back. I was telling literally, I've gotten yeah. Thank you. Learning about military now, so obviously. Why? So I've gotten way past it because I'm learning about military life, but I was never a good student again till the day I graduated high school. I called it a day. I majored in fun. I lived in the principal's office, and that was it. I never tried to study again for that. And now I teach.

48:19 The walking wounded teachers of the world. I teach women, but walking. That's very good. I like that. So many people who go through challenges end up, when they heal, helping people who are going through the same challenges. Because we know. I think that type of what you described as PTSD is I think it makes so much sense because it sounds like so much of your story. For your early years and your education was born from that place of 'I'm not enough' And I'm the end. I want to share with you the grandson of the person who threw me out of school was in my shirt. And he's a great kid. And I really am in the summer, so I didn't have such a deep relationship with him. He's a great kid. And I told my mother that he was in my shirt. And my mother's like And not from an angry place, more of a joke. She was Do you like do you throw him out? And I told my mom, I said, "Mom, the best revenge is if this kid really becomes my talmud and goes back to his grandfather and says, that Mordechai Berg is my rabbi." But I don't want it from a place of revenge.

49:36 That principal did, frankly, I was a crazy kid, probably deserved to get thrown out of school. I'm not even like I have no animus towards him because I can own that story now. But the truth of the matter is, I'm so grateful that it happened Had that not happened, I definitely would not be here talking to you. I don't know that I could have found within myself a place to be okay if I wasn't okay. You have to be not okay first, and that takes tremendous courage to not be okay. Nobody's okay, really. Everyone's walking around in a tremendous amount of unacknowledged pain. In relationships, in everything, there's so much pain in the world. We've created beautiful Chesed organizations to help people, but at the end of the day, people very often are an island, unwilling to say, "Hey, this is what's happening in my life. I don't even want to acknowledge it, let alone to tell it to somebody else." If you can acknowledge that pain and you could say, "I really feel like I'm not okay," then you get the antibodies to that, which is, "Wait, I am."

50:40 And that's an awesome discovery. Just the process of acknowledgement. Just if you acknowledge the pain, that's step one, and then within that pain, you discover oh no, I am okay. And it's horrific what's happening around me, and I'm really in a tremendous amount of pain, but I am still that lighthouse, and just because there's a storm doesn't mean that I've been knocked over. But sometimes it would take, like I said, almost forty years. Maybe a lifetime. Over her. But I'm saying it literally took me from fourth grade till the age of 55 to feel that I'm enough. In a scholastic situation, I'm saying, and that kind of thing. Can I ask you a question? Sure. What's wrong with that? What's wrong with the fact that it took you 40 years? I guess nothing. Right. It's. We're all on a journey. I hope that by the time I'm in my 80s, 90s, whatever it is, I'll be able to say I'm okay. I'm working on it. I'm moving towards it.

51:32 But it's a lifetime achievement award to be able to say I'm enough. If we were so in tune with our souls, it would already be done. The fact that I'm still on this journey is because I'm still not okay. I'm just working on being okay now. That's a hard thing to do. Yeah. Yeah. Right. You can say, please. I had a client last week. I was blown away by this client. I don't know why they needed to see me because I think they're awesome by themselves. They didn't need any help. And this client had gone through a tremendous amount But clearly there was a level of deep authenticity that had been developed from all they went through. And they said this very from thing, and I get nervous when people say from things. They said, "God didn't do this to me. He did it for me." And I push back because I don't like that stuff because I think that's ignoring the pain. And I said I'm with you, but are you real about that? They said back, no, it's something that's not just a random from thing. I'm very aware of the pain that I'm in.

52:47 And I hold this belief to be really dear. I was blown away. I should be paying you because. I saw the level of authenticity they had discovered within this journey of a tremendous amount of pain. Yeah. So my high school He had a rabbi. I don't remember the details, but it was so bad I said, "If you don't switch, I'm switching schools." How to handle the situation, and I didn't know then. I went to Tachlina, and she brings her son around. I said, "I'll tell him." Thank you, David. The other thing I want to say, which I think is a major problem in the Balinese Shiva's Is if you're not going in Tachlina and you're not that, you're not good enough. And that's a very bad thing that's happening in school. Because not everyone, like with the girls, not everyone's been married to a Russian Shiva.

53:53 The daughter came. Very special Rabbi. The daughter came home from seminary. You all have to marry a Rosh Hashanah. She says, "How many Yeshivas are there?" How many Yeshivas are there? If you're told that you don't marry a Rosh Hashanah, you're nothing. For if you don't marry somebody for the next twenty years, you're nothing. You're second best. Whether that's true or not, second best is ruining a lot of people who are made to feel that they're second best. What does second best mean? What's wrong with that? What's wrong with second best? Can I just I want to respond. I just want to respond to what you said. The first thing that you said was such a beautiful story because it probably took a lot of courage for that rebbe to acknowledge that he wasn't the rebbe that he needed to be, and it took a lot of courage for that rebbe to make that phone call.

54:41 And to say, I've learned and I owe this person mechila. I'm a real admirer of that rebbe. That, and he really did cause harm And that's real. But the fact that he was willing to say I'm sorry, the fact that he was willing to do his best to make amends, I think is beautiful. The second thing I think it's getting better. I think less boys today are being told that they have to become rashi yeshiv or even go into chenoch. But I think your point that's underlying that, which is so important Is do we give space for all of our children, our talmidim, our talmidot? Do we give space for everybody to be able to Explore the path that they want to have in life. We get a little bit older and we discover it's easier. I'll tell you. I teach both. It's a completely different set of circumstances. There's one set of pressures on this side and another set of pressures on that side. I don't know easier, but I do know this. What you're saying is so profound because you're saying let these people discover who they are.

55:41 Let them be that. What I'm saying is in Baltimore there's a yeshiva near Israel. There's a yeshiva range. I'm familiar. I didn't go, but I know the lane. Many children grow up. That's one of my friends said. Much this is why I say what I said. It's much easier to be a girl and be sheet the lane than a boy because a boy you don't show up for shabbos. Everybody knows he didn't show up. He didn't show up for night sayer. Everybody on the campus knows that. And the girls have a lot more leeway. So that's why I'm saying. I'm just trying to defend the girls also because it's The girl, the girl who's not exactly perfect in the way that they're dressed, doesn't pass the sneerest police. That person constantly being looked at, constantly being evaluated, growing up in an environment where they're told there's a shidduch crisis, and if they're not exactly perfect, if God forbid you turn twenty-one, like it's like you're eighty. It's hard. It's hard on both sides. I tell you what. Let me if you don't mind that, just because I think we're running out of time, and I think the fact that he's here tells us we're running out of time.

56:42 So I just want to finish up the sheer point. At least we should tie it back into Torah. Ad lo yada means getting rid of your das because sometimes our minds get in the way of what we know to be true. Sometimes we have to suppress the intellect a little bit to allow the truth to evolve and come up from within. At the end of the day, la hashmid, la harob, la abed. At the end of the day, we were about to be destroyed. The feeling a Jew has is not relief. We were about to be destroyed. We remained servants of Achashverosh. Were besimcha Because within that process of we were about to be destroyed, we discovered, no, we're not. We're not about to be destroyed. There's no fairy tale ending to the story of Purim. It's imperfect at the end, and it's the most joyous it could possibly be.

57:34 Because we discovered exactly who we are. We're beloved by Hakadosh Baruch Hu, and the part of us that's infinite will never be destroyed. I think that's our avoda, and I just want to say It's clear to me that this is a group of people who are so deeply working on themselves. We just spent an hour together. Where I don't know if you felt it, for me this was incredible. Listening to you, hearing the questions. You were clearly successful in your mission to bring together a group of people to say, let's be growth oriented, let's mechazek ourselves. Thank you so much for inviting me. It was a privilege to be here.