Rosh Chodesh Shvat / Tu B'Shvat - Potential and Becoming

2:03 So I want to just start off by saying, and this might be a little cringy. I just want to start off by saying that when you shared with me the topic for today, I had an allergic reaction because I hate, hate the word potential. Does anyone know why I hate the word potential? Anyone want to guess? No guesses. Scary because if you don't reach potential. That's a very good answer. I have a much less good answer to that question. I have an anxiety trigger. I need you to help me unpack the trauma of my past type of answer. How many people here hated parent-teacher conferences growing up? Why? Because when your parents come home, what do they say? The teacher said You have a lot of potential. And that's the prelude to something really, really bad. So when you said potential, I had this allergic reaction when people talk about potential in my inner world of trauma and anxiety. Potential means you're actually not doing well at all. So I want to try to reframe the word potential today to think about it perhaps in a new way, in a different way, and one that I think could help us, especially as we go towards the second half of the year. And I just want to honor that one moment for a second

3:21 Because I think you know we have a lot of expectations and aspirations and hopes for this year. And as you're sitting here right now, if you'll take a moment just to yourself, you don't have to do it aloud. Ask yourself if the things that you wanted to accomplish when you were a senior in high school and you were choosing the how do we say it again the EFG Eresh, I'm learning. It's like it's all the different letters in the alphabet, right? EFG. At Eish, if you were thinking to yourself, next year I'm going to Eish Kesher for women. And this is what I want to become. Ask yourself right now, just for a second. Ask yourself how you're doing on that path. Am I doing well? Am I doing okay? Am I feeling a little bit like I'm not where I want to be? If you are any of those things, I want you to know that these are the moments that count.

4:12 We all know that in the year in Israel. The year is broken up into four parts, and your year especially has been broken up into more than four parts because I understand that some of you went home for the war. So in general There's the pre-sukkot getting acclimated. Do you remember getting off the plane? Do you remember looking around and wondering whether or not I'm in the right seminary? Did you play that game with yourself? Were you on the plane being very judgmental of every other girl, thinking maybe I made a terrible mistake? Can I tell you, I went to Mivaseret 25, 26 years ago now. And I was on the plane and I think I was already very nervous that I made the wrong choice because I played ball against these guys from Ramaz, and I was not a Ramaz guy at all. After the game, everyone was hanging out and everyone was talking about where you're going next year. The Ramaz guys asked me, and I said, 'Oh, I'm going to Mevaseret.' They said, 'Oh, we're all going to Mevaseret. Four out of the starting five players for the Ramaz basketball team were all going to Mevaseret.' In my head, I was like.

5:09 Oh my god! I made the wrong choice. By the way, some of them all became really some of my closest friends. They were amazing guys. But the whole plane ride, I was sitting there going, I think I made the wrong choice. When I realized I made the right choice in Ben Gurion Airport, there was one guy. His name is Elliot. Great guy. He got on the baggage conveyor belt and lied down like a piece of luggage and just went around and around the conveyor belt. That's the moment I was like, I made the right choice. This place is weird. I like that. Up until that, I thought I was like maybe it's going to be this crappy place. So we spend the first month or two wondering did I make the right choice. Looking around. I know it sounds different in guys and girls. You want to know how the guys say it? It's very cool how the guys say. If you ask them, "How's yeshiva going? I don't know if I'm vibing with it. That's the whole conversation. That one sentence. Ask the girls the same question. They're like, 'I just don't know if I feel like I have a place where I can be myself to really explore who I am. You girls have amazing language.'

6:07 It's a really beautiful thing. The difference between teaching in a seminary and teaching in a yeshiva is everything. Then you have after Sukkot. For you, after Sukkot meant the war, so you don't really have an after Sukkot. But after Sukkot, there's the reacclamation, and now we're in the post Hanukkah period, which is the third period, and then there's the post Pesach, which is really just the end of the year, finishing it off. But this pikuva right here is really where it happens. This is the Hanukkah to Purim period. The trajectory is quite clear. So the idea of finishing off and having a yom yon about growth actually makes a tremendous amount of sense. Because even if you're a person who didn't yet maximize what you want to get out of the year, this is really a tremendous opportunity to do that. And I'd like to try to reframe the word potential today to mean something I think a little bit different than perhaps we think it means.

6:57 So just starting off to recognize this is machlokus between beis shama and beis hillel. I'm sure that you may know this machlokus. Machlokasim beishamai and beishilol. When is the Rosh Hashanah for ilanos? When is the Rosh Hashanah for trees? We all know when the question is about the Rosh Hashanah for ilanos? Two bishvat. That's what beishilol says, but beishamai says that it's today, on Rosh Chodeshvat. So we have a machlokas beishamai beishilol. When is the Rosh Hashanah for ilanos? When is the Rosh Hashanah for trees? It has nafkamin as it makes a difference depending on when you give maaser because you're not allowed to give maaser from the current year. For the previous year, so you need to know when the year ends for trees, so that you can give the appropriate maaser on the fruits that have grown. We're not going to get into any of those details. Just a very simple question. Just one question for today.

7:45 Whenever you have a machlokas, remember what the word machlokas really means. What is the definition of the word machlokas? What do you say? An argument, right? It's not true. The word vikuaḥ means argument. Machlokas comes from the word. What's the shorash of the word machlokas? Chelik, very good. To be a part of something. So whenever you have a machlokas, really what you have are two parts of a whole. And so what you want to do is you want to try to put these two parts together. If you want to know what boys do when they're analyzing a machlokas and Gemara, they're taking two things that seem to be very opposite, and they're figuring out how do we put these two things together? How do we analyze them so we can see the entirety of a picture? When you're a deep thinker, you always want to hear two sides of a story. You want to hear two sides of an argument because then, and only then, do you appreciate the complexity of the argument. So far so good. That's our only question for today.

8:40 Potential. The problem with the word potential is as follows. If you say, "I have potential to become," what are you really saying? I'm not. Exactly. Whenever you, the reason why it's so difficult, teachers do it well intentionally. Your son has a lot of potential. I had a tremendous amount of ADHD as a child. I was expelled from school in fifth grade. Baruch Hashem, for my ADHD, has given me tremendous success in my career. Not so much in school. So you have potential means really what you're not. And whenever anyone tells you what you're not, the first thing you think about is I'm not enough. Does that make sense? And what happens if you go through life with a posture of "I'm not enough"? If someone always tells you have amazing potential to become, they're telling you are not enough. There's three problems with that. Problem number one is something called shame.

9:40 What's the definition of shame? Anyone know? Anyone here ever heard of Dr. Brené Brown? Brené Brown is a very well-known social worker. She has a doctorate in social work. She has a tremendous definition of the word shame. I'm going to share it with you today. Girls, this is fundamental. Understand this; it is a game changer. Once you get this There's a difference between guilt and shame. Guilt is very healthy. Guilt means I did something that I'm not proud of. Guilt means I have dignity. I'm a godly soul, and this behavior fell short of the person that I know I am to be. Shame. Means because of what I did I'm unworthy of love and connection. You hear the difference? Guilt means I'm really fundamentally good. I am enough. And what I did is not aligned with who I am. Shame means I'm unworthy of love and connection because of who I am.

10:45 If you have a deep sense of shame, can you participate in a relationship? No. Why not? There's no space for anyone to be here because I believe fundamentally about myself that I'm not enough. How could you participate in a relationship with me if I'm not enough for myself? What does that look like in a relationship when someone has a tremendous sense of shame? Here's what it looks like. Any time there's any argument in the house whatsoever, any time there's any sense of disconnection. The person with shame sees it through the lens of, so you're telling me that I'm not enough. So you're telling me that I'm not enough. So you're telling me that I'm not enough. And when someone feels like they're not enough, they're in a defensive posture. And when people are in a defensive posture, they tend to fight back. So having a deep sense of shame is a tragedy. One cannot participate in a relationship with anyone, let alone Hashem, when they have a deep sense of shame.

11:50 What's the antidote for that? The antidote to that is people like Daniel K. Shlitah, who are going around the world telling kids You are enough. We're going to talk about that soon. Because in order for us to participate in any relationship with Hashem, it begins with the baseline of fundamentally I'm good and fundamentally I'm worthy. But if I believe that because of things that I've done in my life I'm not enough. And how could I possibly, for example, daven to Hashem? There was a guy in yeshiva one time who said, 'Rebbe, you don't understand. It's impossible for me to daven. I know what I did last night. How am I going to wake up in the morning and daven?' And he said, quoting a line from one of the rebbeim in yeshiva, which is a great line. He said, "If you go to sleep like a pig, it's hard to wake up like a lion."

12:40 I said, "If you go to sleep like a pig and you wake up like a lion, it means that you understand that you weren't defined by last night's behavior." The reason why we have such a difficult time doing things at night and then waking up in the morning and davening is because we're over-identified with the averas that we do. It's like we define ourselves by that. That's shame. That's not healthy. The Rambam speaks about regret. Regret is very different than shame. Regret means, "Ooh, I'm not that person." Letting go of our shame is a fundamental part of becoming an Eved Hashem. So step number one, you have to understand the danger of saying the word potential. It's not about what I am now; it's what I can become, and what it can become. That I'm not enough right now, and if I'm not enough right now, then I feel a deep sense of shame. How could I participate in a relationship with anyone, let alone Hashem, if I have a deep sense of shame? So far, so good. Clear? Problem number two is as follows.

13:40 Shame doesn't work. You cannot hate yourself into change. So I had a conversation with a young man yesterday. An amazing young man, halavai that he should see himself in the way that others see him, but unfortunately he doesn't. And we spoke about having compassion And he said, Rebbe, every time you say the word compassion, I cringe. I said, Help me understand why you cringe. The Meiser Shalaya less than 24 hours ago Less than 24 hours ago. This was 5:30 last night. I said, "Can you treat yourself with kindness and compassion?" He said, "I feel like every time you tell me to treat myself with kindness and compassion, you're really telling me to fake myself out." I said, "Let's play it out. Give me an example of this." So he said, "Rabbi, you're telling me that I'm a good guy. I know fundamentally I'm not a good guy. I know that I'm not davening. I know that I'm not learning. I know I'm not, and you're telling me to treat myself with kindness and compassion." If I'm gonna change, I have to be real. How many of you have had that inner voice in your head? If I'm gonna change, I've got to be brutally honest with myself.

14:53 You ever have a moment like that where you're like, that's it, I'm being brutally honest with myself. You take a walk, you're all by yourself, and then you have in your head all the nasty things that you say about yourself. You ever do that? You ever walk along and go like, I'm this, and you list, and you're saying, I'm being honest. I'm finally being honest. I'm going to the mikvah of honesty. And look, I know myself now. I can list all of my averes. Girls, I'm giving you a life hack. You cannot hate yourself into change. It will not work because it might feel good. You might. It's like drinking poison water. If you're thirsty and you drink poison water, it will quench your thirst. It will also kill you. If you're sitting there and saying to yourself, "I'm a piece of garbage," do you think at the end of that you're going to be sitting there going, "So let me become awesome?" If you're a piece of garbage, you're a piece of garbage. If you're awesome, you're awesome. But a piece of garbage does not become awesome. And if you treat yourself like a piece of garbage, I can promise you, you won't become awesome. I'll share with you an embarrassing story about myself.

15:58 I was in a little bit of a tough place. It's hard being in Chinuch. You're working on these guys. You don't always feel successful, and sometimes the problems coming into yeshiva make you feel like, what am I dealing with? What is going on in the world today that these 18 year old kids have to deal with? I just can't deal with it anymore. I was back in America. I was davening in a shul called Eish Kodesh in Woodmere. Anyone here from the Five Towns? I grew up in Lawrence. I'm a big fan of Moshe Weinberger. So I was davening Meir of Eish Kodesh, and the Rebbe saw me and he said, "No, Mordechai, what are you up to now?" I said, Rebbe, I feel like I'm a garbage collector. I just feel like I'm a garbage collector. I'm just taking out the trash of the last 18 years all day long. I'm hearing the craziest stories. The next night, by my Rebbe came over to me and he said, Mordechai, I just want to talk to you for one second.

16:44 You're a diamond polisher. You're not a garbage collector. And there's a big difference between this. The mussar Rebbe was giving me. He was saying to me, if you as a Rebbe see your talmidim as like I've got to take out the trash. I've got to get rid of all of this trash. Then you're going to be seeing them through the lens of negativity and not through the lens of kindness and compassion. But if you believe about your talmidim that they're diamonds and they just happen to be covered in a little mud right now, then the way you deal with them is going to be fundamentally different. It's not strength. And it's not true. Let's say it again, because I want you girls to hear it. It's not strength to sit there and say, "Look at all the averes that I've done," and it's also not true. We say every morning in davening. Avinu ha'av harachaman, ha merachem rachem alenu, v'sein b'libenu lahavenu lahaspiel.

17:36 Right? Avinu ha'av harachaman, our God, who's a merciful God, have mercy on us and give us bina and seichel, give us intelligence. What in the world do mercy and intelligence have to do with each other? The answer is this: If you don't see yourself in a merciful way, if you don't see yourself through the lens of kindness and compassion, If you don't see yourself the way that Hashem sees you, which is through the lens of kindness and compassion, you do not have bina and seichel. You do not have the intelligence to understand who you really are. Context matters. A guy or a girl comes to seminary for the year, and they tell their teachers, "This is what I did in high school. I wasn't good at this, or I did this avera." Think about the context. That you did that. Think about what it was like to be 16 years old. I know now you're significantly older, 18 years old. It's hard sometimes to have perspective because it's only two years later. It's always that summer after 10th grade. You know what I'm talking about?

18:45 Ninth and 10th grade, and then summer after 10th, something just goes off the rails. That thing I promised myself I would never do—I first did it summer after tenth grade. I believe Bamunah Shleima. The only reason NCSY Camp will exist is to try to get boys to avoid having their summer after tenth grade. That's the real thing. There's 350 kids in the camp now. It's for a reason. Summer after tenth grade, there's this devastating moment where we do things that we're not proud of. Why'd you do it? Why'd you do it? Be honest with yourself. Really honest with yourself. Why'd you do it? What were you going through in high school? Don't raise your hands. The answer is everybody. How many of us in high school were going through this thing? We were asking ourselves, "Am I socially acceptable?" Do you think that had nothing to do with the averas that you did?

19:32 Right? There's always, for example, I'll make it about the guys this way. It's not uncomfortable for you, right? There's always that guy in camp. I won't say the name of the camp. You all know which camp it is. Is all the camps. You always like. There's always that guy in camp that you're like. If I were with him, then I'd be enough. There's something to walking down the road in that camp with that guy down that Shidduch lane. There's something about walking down the road with that guy that'll tell you I've made it, I've arrived We're together, right? You weren't really interested in doing the Avera. There was a larger system, there was a larger context. You're understandable. Ninth grade was really hard. Remember in eighth grade where you had all your friends, and then in ninth grade when you lost all of your friends at once. You have that whole thing going on of trying to figure out where I fit in the world.

20:22 This drama, all of ninth grade is drama. I have four daughters. One is married and expecting any day now. There was a time in my life where I had four teenage daughters at once. So I've been studying your half of the species very well. I pay very careful attention. I did not know that when you're designing a house, bathrooms are more important than bedrooms. I didn't understand that. Now I've learned a tremendous amount. Ninth grade for all of my children. Thank you very much. I'll be here all week. Ninth grade for all of my children is drama. It's drama. It's asking myself where do I belong. The averes that you did had a context. There was a story behind them. If you just look at that avera and you don't look at the context with kindness, with compassion, with mercy, you're not telling yourself the truth. When the teacher comes along and says you have so much potential, you say I'm not enough.

21:17 I have a deep sense of shame. Why do I have a deep sense of shame? Because of the things that I've done. But the things that you've done need to be treated with kindness and compassion. You understand? Whenever we highlight the fact that you're not enough, we're bringing up that sense of shame. If you're going to sit there and say, 'I'm an ashamed person. I'm not enough,' you will not grow. That's the antidote to growth. You'll kill growth if you're constantly being honest with yourself without kindness and compassion. And the last problem with shame, and this is the biggest one If you're ashamed and you try to grow, you will become something that you're not. In an attempt to overcome your shame, you'll overcompensate and try to become something that you're not. So again, I'll tell you a negative story about myself. I was shnabet in mevasser And I was committed to being him. That's what the kids say these days. I am him, right? I was committed. I'm so relevant. No cap. The I know all the words.

22:21 I was committed to being that guy. I am him. I'm walking. I am him. Shanabed, I gotta be star. It's not Shanabed anymore. It's not kid games. You gotta be in the basement medrash all day, and you also have to be the frumest guy. Mivaseret, my Shanabed started something called the Mivaseret Kollel. There was an Israeli Kollel. They started the Mivaseret Kollel. The Mivaseret Kollel was old Mivaseret guys and some other guys that were coming back to sit in the basement medrash to learn shiur. These were our role models. But I could tell the difference between the guys who were more stark and less stark, and there was one guy who was the most stark. And his name was Adam Vogel. Adam Vogel came, and the man was a legend from day one. He sat down in the beis medrash. He did not move. He sat next to the pillar, and the joke in yeshiva was "Can't tell the difference between Adam and the pillar. They both don't move." This guy didn't leave the beis medrash.

23:21 And Adam Vogel was a tzaddik. There's such a thing as being a good learner, and there's a difference when you're a tzaddik. Adam Vogel was the type of guy. If you go over and you say, "Good morning, how you doing?" He's like, "Good morning." How are you? So like a real Adolmado, like a real sweet guy. And in my head, I'm like, I know what frumkeit looks like. Frumkeit looks like Adam Vogel, and it was almost clinched for me, and then it clinched. When I went to somebody's house and they said, "Oh, Adam Vogel's in the Mevaseret Kol now" I know Adam from Ramaz And I was like, "Adam was a Ramaz guy." And they took out a picture album. You girls know that there used to be physical pictures that went in albums? You've seen this before?

24:09 It's like a whole thing. You had to press a button on a camera, a special device, to take a picture. You had to get it developed. He took out his picture album and he shows me a picture of Adam Vogel in high school, and he's got long blonde hair. And I was like, Adam was cool. That's it. I want to be Adam Vogel. I'm finished. I'm done. Adam Vogel is the starkest guy in the baseball majors, the biggest tzaddik, and he used to be cool. I'm gonna be the Adam Vogel. So I started acting like a lunatic. I started acting like Adam Vogel, and I started thinking to myself, okay, I'm gonna do exactly what Adam Vogel does. So I started walking. I developed the hunch. You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm talking about? You guys walk around, and my hands started doing this all the time. Now I'm walking around and not really looking up because they're in band says you don't want to make too much noise. They said, like, 'You shouldn't make too much noise.' And I'm talking very sweetly. I say, 'Good morning, how are you doing?' And I'm walking up the side of the mountain in Mavaseret, and the mashgiach of the yeshiva sees me from his window right outside the bais medrash. He sees me walking like Adam Vogel.

25:12 He sees me walking up the mountain. You're not supposed to take very long strides. That's arrogance. I'm walking like this. I'm walking with these very slow sentences. Like, you know, up the mountain, like I'm 80 years old. I'm 19 years old. And my shliach calls out from the window. He goes, Berg. So I looked up, in my fake humility, trying to be Adam Volgle, I looked up and I said, Yes, Rebbe. And he goes, Come here now. So I was like. But now I'm stuck because on the one hand I have the mashgiach of the yeshiva calling me, so I should move faster. But on the other hand, I'm not allowed to take big steps. I'm trying to do this in a very awkward way. I think it's better to just go with the first option. The mashgiach sees me doing this like a lunatic, and he goes, 'Now start running.' So I go, 'Okay, das Torah told me I have to run.' I have all these thoughts in my head. So I take off up the mountain. I come into the base measures. I sit down. Mashgiach grabs me and he goes, 'You're not vogel.'

26:07 So, by the way, it was pretty cool that he figured out the solution. Right? Like, it wasn't that hard. There's only two guys in YouTube doing this. One was real, and one was exceptionally fit, right? So he's like, "You're not Vogel." So I was like, "Okay, Rabbi, but aren't I supposed to be?" And he looked at me like I was from the moon. He goes, "Why in the world would you want to be Vogel?" "Cause look. He doesn't move from the beis medrash." He's a tzaddik, and he used to be cool. Isn't that like the dream? That's like the holy trinity of Judaism, right? I just want to be that guy. He goes, "No, you idiot." Be yourself." And it took me years to understand why I wanted to be Adam Vogel Because Matt Berg wasn't enough. Because the way I saw myself in my shabbat was, if only I could be frum enough, if only I could be nice enough, if only I could be sweet enough, then I'll be enough.

27:00 So I didn't want to be Mattenberg. I wanted to be Adam Vogel. The problem is that you can't become Adam Vogel. You could only ever become yourself. It's a ridiculous thing. Imagine an acorn seed saying, "I hope I can become a cherry tree." It doesn't make any sense. An acorn seed becomes an oak. A cherry seed becomes a cherry tree. You can only ever become yourself. But when you have a deep sense of shame and you try to become something that you're not, it won't work. It's not possible for it to work. By the way, here's the scary part: it might work for a minute. You could really fool yourself. I had a good streak going. It was a couple weeks of me being in sadik mode. By the way, whenever my wife hears this, she hates it because she's like, "Shoot, I could have married the version of you that was like Adam Vogel, like the sweet, nice guy. I didn't have to marry this guy, right?"

27:47 Everybody wants to be nicer, gentler, kinder. But you can't be that. Becoming someone else, you can only become the best version of yourself. So we highlighted three problems with shame. Problem number one with shame we said is I can't be in a relationship if I'm not enough. Not a relationship with others, not a relationship with Hashem. Problem number two, you cannot hate yourself into change. If the inner critic inside of you is constantly coming at you, it won't work. And problem number three is from a place of shame. You'll try to become something that you're not. And every time a rebbe or a teacher got up and said you have great potential All I heard was 'I'm not enough.' And that's why I was allergic to when you told me that today's yom yil was about potential. So I said this is a great opportunity to heal my trauma from the past and to share with you. Thank you for coming with me on this.

28:46 This is a great opportunity to reframe the word potential. There's an amazing line from a therapist whose name is Carl Rogers. Has anyone here ever heard of Carl Rogers? Carl Rogers, one of the great therapists, very special person. I highly recommend if you're ever going to be on YouTube, type in Carl Rogers. He is one of the kindest and gentlest souls you will ever meet. And Carl Rogers, what he did in therapy was he gave what's called unconditional positive regard. And so whoever he was sitting with. He saw them kindly and created space for them. He did very little, quote unquote, therapeutic work. He didn't really have a system in place for helping you change. He just treated you with kindness and compassion, saw you in true context with real mercy, and created a space for you to explore yourself. Massive change occurred. Carl Rogers has one of my favorite lines. I wrote it down because I don't want to mess it up. This is from a book he wrote called *On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy*, and he has the following line.

29:47 And take this line with you because it's an amazing line. The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am Then I can change. Say it again. Make sure everybody gets it. The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am Then I can change. What does that mean? There's a concept that we know today to be called radical self-acceptance. Radical self-acceptance means, and this is going to sound strange at first and counterintuitive, so just stay with me. I am okay just as I am. I don't need to become anything other than I am right now. Right away, if you're thinking, you're saying to yourself, "But then, how am I going to grow?" Because if I'm okay right now as I am, how am I going to grow? Listen to the answer. It's easy, but it's totally counterintuitive. You can't grow by saying I'm not enough.

30:53 What you have to know is I have everything that I need inside of me, and all of the imperfections that I have are beautiful and beloved right now as they are. I'll explain what I mean. What does it mean to be in a healthy relationship? If you marry somebody, it means you marry all of them—the good, the bad, and the ugly. People are people; all people have imperfections. What does it look like to be in a healthy relationship? In a healthy relationship, when you're with someone who has stuff, and every one of us has stuff You can appreciate and love them for who they are right now, with their stuff. It doesn't mean that you may have to make boundaries. You may have to create certain systems in the relationship, but when you look at someone who has some stuff, you say that's okay. I also have some stuff. We're all in process. We're all people, and it's our imperfections that make us beautiful.

31:54 There's a Chinese art where they actually break a vase and then they put the vase back together with all the cracks, but they put gold in the cracks to highlight the imperfections. It's stunning artwork. God does not love us because. Do you understand what that means? God does not love us because if you say God loves you because you do X, then God doesn't love you. He loves X. If you say God only loves me if I do a mitzvah Then God doesn't love you. He loves mitzvahs. That's the same thing. If I said I don't love my wife. I love food. Because if I said, if somebody said, "Why do you love your wife?" and I said, "Well, she's a great baker," which happens to be true, my wife is an amazing baker. Empirical, you can see. I enjoy it very much. If God If God loves you because that's the same thing as me saying, 'I love my wife because she's a great baker.' If I love my wife because she's a great baker, I don't love my wife. I love food. If I say, 'I think it's going to be okay,' and then I say, 'I think it's going to be okay.' I love food. If I say I love my kids because my kids will be my legacy, who do I love?

33:02 Myself. The Mishnah Abot says, 'Ahaba sheteluyah bedavar, ena ahaba.' If you love someone and it's taluy, it's dependent on a thing, then you don't have real love, because really, what you love is a thing. If somebody asks you why you love your kids, what's the right answer to that question? Because they're my kids. There's no reason. I remember when my oldest daughter was born. I was a young guy, and the doctor handed her to me. I remember looking at her and thinking, "Yeah, I would die for you." It occurred to me in that moment I was having a very philosophical moment. I was like, "That's crazy. I just met her." There's something about love that's beyond reason. You are enough right now, and you are beloved by Hashem right now, just as you are. You do not need to grow to earn Hashem's love. It's like people say "I'll do tshuva and then I'll be enough." No, you're already enough. Now you can do tshuva. Do you understand the difference? If you understand, if you said, "I love my husband," I'll make it about marriage because it's easier to understand because you're not in it yet. So it's less personal.

34:13 If you say to your husband I love you when you are X And you don't love him Does that make sense? You say, 'I love you as you are right now,' and what does that give him permission to do? It gives him permission to become the best version of himself. The problem with growth, when we talk about potential, is we think potential means I'm not enough. Potential means you don't need to become anything. You're already beautiful right now, and once you know that, there's an explosion of growth that occurs, and it occurs naturally. You don't even need to work hard for it. If you feel awesome about yourself, not because you just had a good day, but because you actually recognize your inner greatness, because you know your inner godliness. Then it's not hard to change. You know why it's hard to change? Because we don't really believe that we are the change.

35:12 You ever have a moment like that where you're like Maybe I should take this on, and then you're like, 'Nah, I'm not that girl.' The hard part is not the change. That's the easy part. The hard part is saying I am that girl. I have a godly soul. Let's say you wanted to be macabre on yourself—something crazy, like waking up in the morning and davening before nine o'clock. It's a crazy concept. Let's say you wanted to do that. The first thing that's going to come to your head is I can't do that. I can't wake up at nine o'clock. I just can't. You know why you can't? Because you've already decided that you can't. The difference between winners and losers? It's just a question of how strongly they believe in their dream. Losers are always sitting there guessing if their dream is possible. Winners know that their dream is possible, and so they just live it.

36:04 I grew up in a town called Lawrence. Those have ever heard of Lawrence, New York, in the Five Towns? But I didn't grow up in Lawrence when I was younger. I moved there when I was a teenager. And when I grew up in Lawrence, the first thing I noticed was people got up really early in the morning. Because it was a wealthy neighborhood, people had car services coming to pick them up in the mornings. They had limos coming to pick them up in the mornings. The first thing I noticed is what time they left to work. And they were ambitious. I hadn't experienced anything like that. I was living in Far Rockaway beforehand. Far Rockaway in the '80s was not a wealthy place. Lawrence in the eighties or early nineties was a much wealthier place. And I saw an ambition, and I saw it in shul, I saw it in the streets, I saw the way they dealt with their kids. They had a certain borderline arrogant belief in themselves, like I've got this.

37:00 And there's two ways of believing in yourself. One way is I believe in myself because I'm not enough, so I need to overcompensate. Then there's the really healthy belief in myself. I've got this. I'm awesome. I'm awesome in a football touchdown celebration, spiking the football and doing some ridiculous dance type of way. It's a really natural type of thing. I have a godly soul. Who's to say I shouldn't be awesome? Why should I hide my light? I'm an amazing person. You don't have to think about it all the time because you just know it to be true. You don't have to say it out loud because it's just obvious. God created me. That's an amazing thing to be. I don't need to become anything other than I am in order to be amazing. An acorn doesn't need to wish to become a cherry tree. An acorn is awesome being an oak.

37:47 Now that you know that, you have permission to become. You hear the idea? The biggest advice that I can give you over the next couple of months of your life is just this. Just for a moment, stop thinking about the other thing that I need to become, and just accept yourself as you are. You'll see amazing growth if you do that. I really can you say it out loud. Can you say it out loud and go? I really want to be someone who has a greater connection to tefillah. That's just it. I just and right now, just knowing that I have that desire is beautiful. I really want to be someone who raises a frum family that's passionate about Hashem. Even if there's a part of you that doesn't necessarily want that, recognize that part is also beautiful. And all the sum total of all of these parts is amazing. The imperfections, the perfections, this is you right now in this moment, and that's amazing. Now you know what happens. If you can say, 'my imperfections are also beautiful,' then you can start to treat your imperfections with kindness and compassion.

38:48 And then they start to let go a little bit. It's like a Chinese finger trap. As long as you're sitting there saying, "My imperfections are killing me," then you're stuck in your imperfections. The moment you recognize Hashem created me, including my imperfections, and these imperfections are opportunities in my life, then all of a sudden they have less power. We're giving our worst parts power by having all this shame around our worst parts. Does that make sense? Again, these are sophisticated ideas, and they're not easy to implement. I have amazing amounts of confidence in the Eish Keshet staff to be able to take you from point A to point B. You have to speak with your rebbeim, with your teachers, with your mechanchot, with your raka'zot. You have to ask them what it looks like in this moment to have radical self-acceptance around the parts of me that I'm not proud of.

39:38 Let's go back to our machlokas between Beis Shammai and Beis Hillel. We'll finish with this. When does the world get judged? Should know this. On Rosh Hashanah. Yom Kippur is when it's signed, sealed, and delivered. But we're judged on Rosh Hashanah. The Gemara tells us that on Sukkot, which is on the fifteenth of Tishrei, we're judged for water. Is that a contradiction? It's not a contradiction. Because in a general sense We're judged on Rosh Hashanah. The water is specifically designated. How much water will go to each place on Sukkot? Now watch this. The Rishali says this is an amazing idea. The Rishali says that psak. Takes place four months later. Four months later, the trees stop drinking from the old water and they start drinking from the new water. The question is, what's four months later? Beis Shamai says four months from Rosh Hashanah. What's four months from Rosh Hashanah? Rosh Chodesh Shvat.

40:42 What's four months from Sukkot? Two Rosh Chodesh. So on Rosh Hashanah, it was judged based on its potential. And on Sukkot, it was judged based on the actual becoming. Same idea here. We're sitting here on Rosh Chodesh Shvat, and we're living at the nexus, at the crossroads of two things: on what we are in potential, and on what will become. You see how these two ideas came together? Beis Shamai says, 'You are all people. You are all trees of the field.' So you have to value yourself as you are right now, with all your potential, before you become anything. You're already have to know, look what I have inside of me, and celebrate that. Beis Hillel says, of course Of course you have to celebrate the potential. But what we want to see is not just you staying in your potential. We want to see you actualizing the person you can become, and that takes place on Tu B'Shvat. The tension of potential and becoming is the hardest thing in life.

41:47 I have to really fully appreciate who I am right now in this moment, and then I have to give birth to it. I think men have a harder time understanding this than women. Women have a natural, amazing talent to be able to take something in. Nurture it before it becomes anything, just to nurture it as it is. And then watch as it naturally flourishes. That's what it means to be a mother. If you have a child who's struggling in school, what do you tell your child? I have a child who's not designed for school. Anybody here not designed for school? You're not designed for school. Then you know the pain of sitting. If you had this, you're not designed for school. Did you ever sit by the window in class and just look at the cars? How come they get to be outside right now?

42:39 I spent four years of high school looking out the window, going, I can't wait to be in one of those cars, and wondering how they were driving at 11 o'clock in the morning. Why didn't they have a job? And people always say, 'You ever read that book, Clementine?' When you read that book, Clementine is an amazing child series book called Clementine. It's basically all about this ADHD kid. And she's constantly being told you're not paying attention, and she has no idea why they're saying that to her. She's like, I'm paying attention. I could tell you so many things, not necessarily what the teacher says, but I could tell you exactly how many flowers are on that tree. I could tell you exactly how many birds are on the windowsill. If you have a child not designed for school, and you keep telling the kid you have a lot of potential to do this. You know what you're telling the kid? You're not enough. What would you want to tell that child if you could? Who you are right now is already amazing.

43:26 And this may not be the place where you're going to make your mark. You may have something to gain from being in school, but it's not necessarily going to be your place. You have a place, and you have to explore that and find it. This child that I have, she's amazing. She's super talented. Julia can testify. Is she not incredible? She's incredible. She's just Baruch Hashem off her mind. So she dances. I'm not joking. She dances for a woman. Has Michal Bruin come here? She came. She came. Racheli came. So Racheli dances with Michal Bruin. And on Purim, I was a little bit inebriated. And Ari Gruen or one of his kids came to the house And I said, "Please thank your wife for me because she made the best school for my daughter. She takes my daughter around dancing, and she's getting wins and she's successful."

44:12 And because of that, here's the irony, it translates back into school. And now she's a rock star and she's getting great grades. This is. It gave her permission to be awesome in other unexpected areas of her life. That's what it means to parent kids. Parenting kids means telling them You're awesome right now. You don't have to become anything other than you are. And then it gives them permission to explore themselves. That's our avoda. Our avoda is to look inside of ourselves and to say, right now, I'm great at this. You don't have to be good at everything in life. You have to be good at your things. And then watch naturally. If you're good at your things, God willing, you'll become the person that you really are. I want to give you all a tremendous bracha. This year, I know has been already an amazing year for you. I know it's had its ups and downs. You will never forget the year. You will tell your children, "Yeah, I was here the year of Simchas Torah."

45:06 It's been a challenging year for Klal Yisrael. You girls went to the kotel yesterday. The thing did you see what happened at the kotel yesterday? It's incredible what Klal Yisrael is doing. We have to know how amazing Klal Yisrael is right now. We have to celebrate every single Jew. We have to celebrate every single one of ourselves. And Bez Hes Hashem, we'll become the people that we need to become. Those are good machayim. Thank you for having us.