Rosh Hashana - Crowning Hashem With Authenticity

2:26 I don't know if I could drink all this, but I appreciate it. The avoda of Rosh Hashanah seems to be tied into this concept of nitzavim. What does it mean, nitzavim? The word means I'm standing. It means a little bit deeper than that. It means like I'm firmly planted. Like Rashi has a lashon of kayamin. That you're here, you're sustained in this place. What's the avodah of Rosh Hashanah relative to this word nitzavim? That's question number one. Question number two is it's a very funny lashon in the pasuk. If you look carefully at the pasuk It says you're all standing here today. Who's standing here? Roshehem shivtechem, the heads of the tribes. Ziknechem, your elders. Shotechem, the sheriffs. Kol ish Yisrael, every single Jew. And then it continues. Tapchem de shechem vegerchem ashabekarev machanecha And it's the children, and it's the women, and it's the converts that are in your camp, and it's the woodcutters, and it's the water carriers.

3:24 So what is kol ish Yisrael adding on? Is every single Jew, and then it's like listing every single Jew. Mimanavshach, either say atem nitzavim hayom kol ish Yisrael, or atem nitzavim hayom, and then list every category. But it's interesting to list every category and say Kol Ish Yisrael. What is the words Kol Ish Yisrael adding on? So we have two questions so far. What is the avoda of Nitzavim relative to Rosh Hashanah? What is the pasuk adding when it says the words Kol Ish Yisrael? Rashi later asks a classic Rashi question. He says, 'What's the context? What's the context of what's going on over here?' So Rashi says, Lame Nismecha, Parshas Atem Nitzavim Laklalos. We just know in Parshas Ki Sava, what did we just read? We just read all the Klalos. So what's the connection of Moshe Rabbeinu now continuing right after the Klalos and saying Atem Nitzavim Mayom? Rashi says as follows: Lefi Sheshamu Yisrael maya Klalos Chashev Shdayim Chutzmi Memtesha B'Tarz Koyanim.

4:32 Klal Yisrael just got done hearing one hundred minus two Klalos. Aside from the forty-nine kloos that they already read in VaYikra, their faces turned green as they were terrified. Va'amru miyochol lamud b'elo Who could live like this? Who could live with this constant barrage of everything that's going wrong? And I think for those of us who have sensitive ears, that's a very applicable sentiment for what all of us have been living through for the last almost two years now. It's crazy to think that Simchas Torah is just around the corner. It's crazy to think that the Chatufim are still in captive. This is an insane world that we're living in. We just got here, and then there was the Ramot attack. The world does seem like a place right now where the klalos are so real. Who could live like this? I think for most of us, and I know that it was true for me.

5:41 We become numb to the pain. It's like everything is so big. Then is anything big? If everything is so devastating, is anything devastating? There's a sense of like I either have to choose to live with the terrible calamities that are befalling Klal Yisrael almost on a daily basis, or alternatively, I just plug your ears, close your eyes, and live your life. And it doesn't really appear that either choice is working for us. My wife. So she goes swimming in a local pool in Peishemesh, but there's a whole system. There's a whole world that men are not aware of. There's two universes in Ramat Peishemesh. There's the world of men, which is the world of shul and beis medrash and running around, and then there's this whole other world of women that I'm just really not so aware of. There's not cliques, but there's groups. There's a pool group. Have you ever been a part of? I'm talking about the women who go to the pool. There's a chevrat, there's a WhatsApp group, and there's rides. There's complaining, and there's a lot of things that happen.

6:57 So my wife is one of the drivers. She's been driving back and forth to the pool for years now. She was driving a woman whose name is Miriam Noll to the pool. Miriam Noll's son, Meishy Noll, was killed in Gaza this past summer. And it's like. Sometimes you just can't ignore it. It's so in your face. I know Miriam Noll. Miriam Noll is like when I'm talking to my wife and she's schmoozing about the car, and I was talking to Miriam, and then to hear that her son Maishy, who had no shayches too, but it's not two degrees removed. My neighbor's cousin's kid. This isn't my. There was a rebbe in Mevaseret whose wife was 15 minutes away from their Amot attack. Or I'm sorry, it was one block away from where the attack happened. There was another rebbe who lives like a 15 minute walk from where the attack happened.

7:51 Like it's not that far. It's it's much closer. It's a much closer thing. And I and you read this Rashi and you go, yeah, I get this. Horikupneym. We're turning pale. We're turn. I can't live like this anymore. How am I supposed to live like this? This was the sentiment that Klal Yisrael had. Imagine Hakadosh Baruch Hu came to you in the desert and He said Let me just tell you what's going to be. And He describes all the klalos in the Torah. I think every one of us would feel a sense, not just of devastation; we'd feel a complete sense of hopelessness. How in the world am I supposed to live like this? So comes along Moshe Rabbeinu, hischal Moshe of Eisol. So now Moshe Rabbeinu says "I'll be mephiys you. I can calm you down. I can appease you. Atam nitzavim hayom." Even though you've angered Hakadosh Baruch Hu so much, you're still alive.

8:39 Is that doesn't sound like a great appeasement? Imagine again Chas v'Shalom should never happen to any of us. Imagine a child is in therapy and the child is describing the failed parenting strategies of the parents. Being yelled at, being grounded, having their phone taken away, not being allowed to go where everyone else was going for Shabbos. And the therapist, being a very holding space type of therapist, says, 'And yet you're still alive. Your parents didn't kill you. I can't imagine that most clients are going to sit there and go, "Yes, it's true. Baruch Hashem, they didn't kill me. I live to tell the tale." What type of pius is this? What type of appeasement is this that Moshe Rabbeinu is giving to Klal Yisrael after hearing the calamities that are going to befall them if they step out of line?' I want to share with you this vort from Riviyasi. It's a stunning vort.

9:38 I don't know where he got it from, but it's a stunning vort. And I'll add some pieces on that are my own, but fundamentally, we bring Mashiach. We say things b'shem Omer. Fundamentally, this vort is from Zekatinsky, and he says as follows: All the people that we listed, roshechem, shvtechem, ziknechem, shatrechem, everybody—it's all one person. It's kol ish Yisrael. It's referring to one Jew. Within one Jew, we have all of these different categories. Every one of us has times in our life, or parts of ourselves. Where we feel like we're the heads, we're the leaders, we're doing great. We were sticking. Remember that period last year, after Chanukah, Shana Aleph, where things started to go mitkadem, and you're in a good place. It's a time in your life. Things are going well. You're waking up. You're davening. You've ended certain relationships.Began certain relationships. You're growing. You're speaking to people. You're being honest. You're being vulnerable. There are periods like that in your life.

10:46 But also There are periods in our lives where we're wood choppers and water carriers. There are also periods where it appears to us that we've lost everything. I think probably some of us. Remember that moment in Shana Aleph, and by the way, it's not just a Shana Aleph thing; it will happen to you for the rest of your life. As you're riding the roller coaster of life I imagine that many of you last year had that period. Some of you identified it as burnout, where you're just like, I'm not down. I just can't anymore. Even the sturkest guys in yeshiva, guys who are burning the midnight oil, guys that are waking up before shacharis. They'll have a bad day. They'll have a bad week. Maybe they'll even have a bad month. There are times that they're going through the motions. They're not into it. Or maybe let's be more extreme. There were times where we're not even going through the motions. Or maybe let's even be more extreme. There are times that the thing that we promised ourselves we would never do again is exactly where we find ourselves.

11:41 There's a rebbe in Mevaseret. I love this line. The guys say, "I'll never do that. I would never do that." He goes, "Don't tell me what you'll never do. There's what you've done and what you haven't done yet." How many times have we promised ourselves, "I'm not going to do that anymore"? And then we picked up the phone and You can fill in the blank for yourself. Whatever it is, the thing that you did, I promised myself that relationship was over. But somehow it was 11:30 at night. I found myself in a bad place, and all of a sudden I'm in the middle of a conversation that I promised myself and I was so good for two months. We pushed it, didn't talk for two months, and I really wasn't thinking about that person. Maybe I don't know who it is, but whatever, I'm talking about. Anyone here? It's about 30% of you are honest. The rest of you are excellent poker players. The honest is, we all have things like that. We all have things that we promised ourselves, and then we ended up in that crazy place. And we feel like we're in that space of I'm a woodchopper.

12:35 I'm a water carrier. What am I doing with my life? This is Kol Yisrael. This every single Jew. There's an unbelievable Rambam. I want to read to you the words of the Rambam Insider. Yossi didn't quote this Rambam, but it's an amazing Rambam. And I think the Rambam is referring to this pasuk Gedoy LeChach MeYisrael The greatest scholars in Klal Yisrael, the leaders throughout all the generations. How you may hand chotvei etzin, umehen shovei mayim. Among them, there were people whose jobs were to be wood choppers and water carriers. It's a Rambam. Umehen sumin, and there were also blind people. Despite the fact that they were woodchoppers and that they were water carriers, they found time to learn all day and all night. And these people, they are the transmitters of the tradition of Torah. These are our balei misora. The simple explanation of the Rambam. Is the Rambam saying, and this is a good mussar, you can have a job and you can also be a tzaddik and a tamal chacham and even one of the gedolei hadar, not only of that generation but of all time. That is, however, a separate shmu'z and perhaps a shmu'z that's better given to some of the boys than the girls. I want to perhaps say a different layer to the Rambam today.

14:03 What's the pshat? The Kesef Mishna brings that Hillel was a wood chopper, that Rishona was a water carrier. What's the pshat of these gedolei Yisrael? Had such simple jobs. It is unexpected. It is an unexpected thing. If you have a genius And you should know, these tzaddikim very often are geniuses. You have the opportunity to meet some of the gadol hayador. These were brilliant people. They were holding in kolat arakula on their fingertips. I had the opportunity in my life to meet Rav Yashiv once. Rav Yashiv was holding in kolat arakula at his fingertips. Even when he was very Even when he was very old I heard a maysa from a rav in Florida that I need to make a new bracha. Pashtus, I don't need to make a new bracha. I was already drinking that, and I'm bechelal.

14:59 There was a rav in Florida who flew to Rav Al Yashiv to ask him this question in person because it was a crazy shilu. I don't want to get into the details of the question. It was this insane situation that only rabbanim have, by the way. If you speak to rabbanim that pass kesheilas, they hear like the worst things that are happening in Eretz Israel. This rab from Florida heard one of these crazy stories. A woman came to him with a sheilas. The whole marriage was on the verge of collapse. He said, "This is not a sheilas that I can ask Rav Yishav by phone. It's not even a sheilas that I would trust to a gabai." He got on the plane, came to Eretz Israel. And he was able to chat with Rav Yishav as he was being wheeled out of Shul. He was like a hundred years old at the time. He asked Rav Yishuv the Shiloh. Rav Yishuv answered him on the spot. To be holding in Kala Torah Kula. Do you realize how much Torah he had to know? I think probably for many of us, if we saw Rav Yishuv, if we saw Rav Chaim Kaniewski, if we saw whichever, if we saw Rav Berkowitz walking down the roads of Yerushalayim and he's holding pails of water, I think many of us would probably say it's pasmesh. If you're gonna have a job, say there

16:02 Put him in a think tank somewhere. Get him a job in computers and cyber and in AI, a sophisticated job for a sophisticated person. It's difficult for us to even imagine that the biggest chachamim in the history of Klal Yisrael, the Baalei Misora, had such simple jobs. What's the pshat that they had such simple jobs? It's well known that the Baal Shem Tov loved simple Jews. All the stories of the Baal Shem Tov are always stories with simple Jews. He had a certain, almost like an obsession with simple Jews. By the way, it's something that continued for generations. In Hasidic yeshivas, it's not the top brightest boys that are celebrated. It's very often the simple boys that show up to davening and they're just saying the words and they're just going through the everyday life of a simple Jew. They're celebrated. What's the pshat in that?

16:56 There's a And again, I don't want to denigrate Chassid Shalom, but I want to speak to a certain issue. Who are we actually serving? Are we serving Hashem? It is not obvious that we're serving Hashem. Imagine again. I'll do it from the guy's side so that it's not a direct attack, and you can figure out how to fill it in on the girl's side. Imagine you have a young man who comes to yeshiva. You went to Chveznes, any one of the alphabet schools, MTA, TABC, DRS, JC, any one of the places. And then. We shorten everything. I remember a time when Mevaseret was still called Mevaseret. Now it's Mevs. I don't know the correlation between that nickname and becoming a socially acceptable yeshiva, but there seems to be some sort of if you shorten it, it's cool. Boy comes, he's a bright boy. And maybe even got into a good college And he got a good mark on his SATs, he got a good mark on his ACTs. He's in an upper level shir.

17:57 He sits down. Opens up a Gemara. He says, "This is brilliant." This is brilliant. He learns a Rashi, he learns a Tosfos, he learns a Rambam, he learns a Rashba, he learns a Rav Chayyim. He's sweating. He's saying, "Wait a second! All the things that I learned in high school—this is harder than any of the things that I learned." And there's brilliance there. And he really gets into it. And you see him recording the Rebbe She'er and rewriting the notes. And his nitezer is talking it over with his meshev. I want to make sure that I understand every single thing. The next day when the rebbe comes in, he's mamish fighting the rebbe tooth and nail. How could you have said that pshat? He's screaming in the beis medrash. He mamish gets so into it. On the outside, it looks like he is serving Hashem. He's spending mamish all of his energy and all of his time locked and loaded in the block gemara. And this is a guy who just six months ago all he could think about was basketball. He wasn't bchalal shayech to the world of gemara. We had once a boy in yeshiva like this. There's an unbelievable maestro. The boy today, I think, is still learning in Kibbutz. He married a Reish Kibbutz daughter.

18:51 This guy was such an insane lunatic in high school that he didn't get accepted to yeshiva. Rabbi Glanz. You've heard of Rabbi Glanz. I also need a rabbi. The so Rabbi Glanz went to Boston to interview this kid. The kid had a giant Jewish afro. I'm talking about the real enormous Jewish afros. Glance can spot a kid like this from a mile away. He said, "I don't think he's the right fit for the yeshiva. This kid is into things that are, I don't know, rearranging your brain cells, diminishing your brain cells, all sorts of things." He didn't get to yeshiva, and the boy fought to get into yeshiva. The father called. The boy called. The rosh yeshiva in Mevaseret is the biggest softy. Every rebbe in yeshiva knows that our job is to protect the yeshiva from the rosh yeshiva because he would let anything go. He'll never do anything because he loves Jews. So this boy called, and he said, "I wanted to get in." The Rosh Yeshiva went to Rabbi Glanz

19:45 And he said to Rabbi Glanz, 'He goes, what do you think? He goes, I think you're taking a young man who has a tremendous amount of stuff going on in his life, but if you want to go for it, if you want to take that three point shot, then I understand.' And of course, the Rosh Yeshiva said, 'Yes.' This is why the Rosh Yeshiva is no longer in charge of admissions in Mevaseret. The boy came to Yeshiva. He shows up with a giant afro, and I happen to think not just because these are the remnants of a once great nation of hair, but also because I think it's a fun look. I like the kid right away. He sat down in the Rosh Hashanah shir. He's a brilliant kid. Day one, he fell in love with learning. He said, "I never liked Yiddishkeit because I never knew it could be so smart." Beis medrash yoyim v'layla. It was unbelievable to see. But who was he really serving? In this boy's case, it happens to be he was an emissary, as an erlech avd Hashem. But you look on the outside, you think that guy is serving Hashem. It's not so obvious. Maybe he's serving himself.

20:38 Maybe he just likes the intellectual curiosity of it. Or I'll give you another case. Maybe you have a guy who comes to yeshiva, and I'm saying guy and not girl. This way, it's more easy for you to take in. But I mean girl also. I'm only saying guy, so that you understand it's not personal. So you can take in the mussar. It's not about you. You understand what I'm saying? Every once in a while, I like to channel my inner God Friedman. Was that decent? Is Rvenglin a teacher? No. Same concept. Let's say you have a guy who has a certain reputation in high school, and he knows exactly what his reputation is. And he understands that he's not a person who's held up, and he comes to Eretz Yisrael, and it's a reinvention. It's an opportunity, and boys get this more than girls. Boys have the opportunity. It's a terrible thing we do in our community that boys are allowed to wipe the slate clean. The guy was a total mushlas for four years of high school, but the second all of a sudden he davin's one minion, every girl is like, he really changed, and for the girls it's.

21:37 You should know. Two years ago, she's a mother's a balish tshuva. What are you talking? But I don't know. It's a terrible thing that we do. This boy starts going to Minyan and he starts davening and he starts learning and he's doing alikot tzachin. He's doing unbelievable things. Why? In his heart of hearts, who's he serving? He's serving himself. He's rebuilding his reputation. It has nothing to do with the Rebbe Nisholam. And it's not obvious. It's not obvious on the outside. On the inside, this boy knows because he knows the void. He knows the void that he's filling. He knows, if I just come to Eretz Yisrael and I stop vaping and I stop smoking and I stop drinking and I stop doing fill in the blank, right? Plus whatever plus means in this world today, he's plus. So I've reinvented myself on the outside. There's no Rebbe that can look at him and say he's not doing amazing things. He is doing amazing things, but he's not serving Hashem. In fact, Hashem is the last thing on his mind.

22:24 He's serving himself with his brilliance. He's serving himself with his talents. He's serving himself with his reputation. Who are we really serving? The Balshemtov says an unbelievable thing: a yid who wakes up every day and I'm aaretz, a guy who knows no gemara, he doesn't know the words of the seder, he doesn't know anything But he gets up and he goes to shul and he daven's and he puts on his tefillin and even the words of davening he's messing up. How precious that Jew is, because who's he really serving? He's serving Hashem. Why did he show up to shul? Because I'm a yid. I'm a yid. There's something very precious about someone who shows up. Just because he is a Jew I know I'm an Asher, and this is not a knock on Asher in any way whatsoever. There's value in all the Asher Torah classes and learning all the reasons why we're doing something and all the proofs in the world. I just want to share with you one very simple thing, and I don't think anybody in Asher who teaches in Asher would disagree with this. All the proofs in the world, and all the classes, and all the inspiration pale in comparison to the simple Jew that knows I'm a Jew.

23:30 And that's the reason, the old stories in Eishat Torah of them like pulling guys off the wall, like some college-aged kid who came to the Kotel and who was traveling backpacking through Europe because he was looking for spirituality, and he ended up on the wall, and they pulled him off the wall, and he went into an Eishat Torah class, and then they say the Eishat Torah class changed his life. It's not true. Changed his life. That he ended up at the wall. That there was a simple Jew who said for no reason in the world, I'm a Jew, so of course I come to the Kotel. That's what I do. Because he expressed that simple essence of Amajou, Memela, they were able to pull him off the wall and pull him into a class and give him all of the intellectual sophistication that Yiddishkeit has to offer. But it's a terrible mistake to think that it was the classes that changed that guy's life. It wasn't the classes that changed that guy's life. It's the fact that he went to the Kotel that changed his life. The classes just exacerbated what already is. It built out the simple essence of a Jew.

24:29 I have a I have an uncle Al. Anyone else here have an uncle? I feel like Uncle Al is like you have an Uncle Al too. I think everybody has an Uncle Al, even if his name is not Al. Everyone in this room has an Uncle Al. There could be a Frank, there could be a Joe. I have an Uncle Al. Uncle Al is a great guy. Uncle Al did not grow up with a Jewish education. He's married to my father's sister. He didn't raise his kids in an Orthodox home. My father is a b'altzuvah. Both of my father's siblings did not become from. Uncle Al and my aunt came to Eretz Israel a couple of years ago. For their first ever trip to Eretz Israel. First ever. They were in their 70s. First ever trip to Eretz Israel. And when they came The tour that they took because they took a totally secular tour, on the itinerary it didn't even have the Kotel. And my father was furious.

25:27 How could you come to Eretz Yisrael and not see Maras Amachpela and not see Kever Rachel and not see the It's not shyach. My parents, Baruch Hashem, moved to Eretz Yisrael. They live in Beit Shemesh, right next to the Five Towns, and I live in Ramat Beit Shemesh, that's also right next to the Five Towns. And my father, he said to his sister, he's like, you have to extend your trip. You have to extend your trip. So she said, "Okay." So my father says, "I'm going to give you a second. I'm going to give you another tour." So they extended their trip. They were staying by my parents' house. The day they went to the kotel, I wasn't there, but this is what my father described. My father is walking with his brother-in-law, my uncle Al, and they're walking down the steps to go to the kotel.

26:14 And Al, for the first time in his life, sees the kotel, and my father sees that tears are starting to well up in his eyes. This is not a man who knows aleph from beis. Every year by the seder, my father would call different people in the family because we always had our entire family over for the seder. Otherwise, we don't know if they would have had a seder. So every year, Uncle Al used to make the shachianu. I do. I definitely think Uncle Al does not know the translation of the word shachianu, and he also couldn't say the of shachianu. So he would say shheyanu. This is how I grew up with Uncle Al, like having a stutter on shheyanu. This is a guy who mamish knows nothing. I definitely don't think he could tell you the five books of the Torah. I doubt he could tell you more than ten biblical figures. A man who mamish knows nothing, and his eyes start to well up with tears just because he's walking down to the kotel.

27:05 This is walking down to the kotel. By the time he got to the kotel, he was leaning against the kotel and sobbing. He was absolutely sobbing. And he turns to my father and he says, "I need to put on tefillin." So they walk over. They have the chabad stand. I don't know if they don't think they have something on the women's side. Chabad has something on the women's side. On the men's side, there's like a whole stand, like pictures of the Rebbe and tefillin and the whole nine yards. My father brought over the lebab chachasa that was there, and they put tefillin on my uncle Al, and he's saying Shema at the kotel, and he's sobbing uncontrollably. He turns to my father and he says, 'We have to go buy a pair of tefillin.' My father's like, 'You understand what he just said? That's not like it's not like a hundred shekel. It's going to cost you a lot of money.' He said, "I don't care. I need to buy a pair of tefillin." And he went that day and bought a pair of tefillin. He didn't need any classes to tell him that he needed to buy a pair of tefillin. And I'll be honest with you, I have no idea if he ever put those tefillin on afterwards.

27:59 But something about him, the essence of a Jew, said to him, "You're at the Kotel. There's something here to cry for, to mourn the devastation of the Beis Hamikdash. Something about that connection." In that makkom to Hakadosh Baruch Hu stirred him so deeply that he needed to put on tefillin, say shema, and buy a pair of tefillin. Halavai that we who are sitting there with the most phenomenal education that could possibly be afforded to us, halavai that we said one kriyah shema in our lives, like my uncle Al said on that day. The simple essence of a Jew is nothing to make fun of. It's nothing to make fun of at all. Because we, with all of our sophistication, with all of our complexity, we might be fooling ourselves. We might be serving ourselves. And the worst part about it is, we'll never even know because we're so caught up in the growth.

28:51 Even that word, right? That could be like I'm a growth-oriented Jew, as if the Torah is like a manual for growth. It's like one of these self-help books. You have like Stephen Covey, Seven Habits. Brene Brown, The Gift of Imperfection, all the different personal growth books that are available today. And I also have unbelievable svarim like Masuos Hashem and Darach Hashem and Chovasalavavos and Alei Shur and all of the different svarim that I have that are really just more personal growth. What does it got to do with Hashem? That's about you. The Jew who shows up to shul and he doesn't know anything, but he just says the words of davening. He gets half the words wrong. And he sits by a fabregen and he sings. There's something so extraordinarily beautiful about that. He's actually serving Hashem. I think maybe it's possible to say that the Gedolei Hadar Those people that were the Balei Masaora Hilla, Rav Huna You know why they took simplistic jobs, the jobs of simple people?

29:51 Because there's something to that. There's something to that. It's not just because that was the way they could be mepharnes themselves. They could have been mafanis themselves in any way. Why did they take those jobs? Because they identified with simple folk, even with all of their sophistication. I heard, and I don't, I don't think I ever saw this, but I heard from a very close Talmud of R' Yehoshu that when he would do shnaiyim mikra He would have his finger on the place and he would sing the nigun that they learn in cheder when they're little boys in Eretz Yisrael. And he would like to say the words of the chumash like a child. I think there's something so unbelievable about that. There's something so unbelievable about that. Just being so childlike. There's a shul that I daven in now. A shul that's right next to the house.

30:39 And it's a very cute little shetibol type of matziv. It's like a lot of people from the block daven there And there's a lot of little kids who come to daven. Riches daven there. Rosenblums daven there. My son doesn't yet come to shul. He's with Mrs. Rich every Friday night. Mrs. Hashem, Mrs. Rich will kick him out of the house when my sons start coming to shul. My wife would very much like that. I'm not pushing. There's a little boy who sits next to me in shul sometimes. His name is Chaim. Chaim is not yet bar mitzvah. I love sitting next to Chaim in shul. He's a funny little kid. There's a lot of personality to him. For a bit last year, for three months, he was very into davening. It's the cutest thing in the world. How old is Chaim? Eleven.

31:24 See this boy say shemona esrei with his eyes closed and chuckling like a real yeshiva bacher as an eleven year old, I pasha could not concentrate on shemona esrei. I was just it wasn't even like I was laughing at him. It was just nachas. Talking about like it was just so delicious to see like a little boy going like I'm like, what are you like? Does he really know what he's doing? You know what the answer is. Maybe he has no clue what he's doing. But who's to say that his shemona esrei isn't the shemayn asrei that's holding up the entire shul? Who's to say that his Shemayn Asrei isn't the Shemayn Asrei that's holding up the entire neighborhood? It's something so beautiful about that. The Gedolim, with all of their sophistication of knowledge of Shas and Pesikim and Musar and all the Vartlok in the world, who did they identify with? With woodcutters and water carriers. They said, "I yearn to be simple."

32:14 Simple is not simplistic. Simple is the essence. That's how, by the way, that's how you know if you know something." If you're ever studying, give you a tip. When Beis Hashem, when you go to college, if you ever want to know, do I know something? Ask yourself, do I know it simply? You know how hard it is to be able to identify the one thing that's the essence of all things. That's the genius of Einstein's E equals MC squared. It's the genius of Bohmian systems theory. They all came up with one simple, very elegant formula from which everything else flows. That's why the Baal Shem Tov was obsessed with simple Jews. So listen to this word. When the klalos hit in your life When you listen to all of the klalos in Bayit Keh and all of the klalos in Kisavu And you're living through those klalos like we are today All the external stuff just fades.

33:12 All the fancy stuff just fades. You know what's left? Only you. When you're not davening anymore, and you're not learning anymore, and you're acting in a way that is totally not the person you want to be, the only thing that's left is you. There's a ma'isa with the Lubavitcher Rebbe. One of my favorite stories is that a yid came to the Lubavitcher Rebbe and said, "I'm not going to shul this Yom Kippur." Rebbe said, "Why?" He said, "I'm sick of being a faker. 364 days a year, I don't go to shul. I should go to shul on Yom Kippur. I'm a faker." The Rebbe smiled and he said, "I agree with you." 364 days a year, you're a faker. One day a year, you're real. You should go to shul the rest of the year. Don't throw away the thing that's real. Don't throw away the thing that's essentially you. A person goes through a tragedy and they get so angry at a kaddish baruch hu and they drop certain things from their observance, and they think they've taken a step back. That's what it looks like on the outside.

34:06 On the inside, you know what's left? All there is now is authenticity. All the fancy stuff is gone. You're not sitting and learning anymore. All that's left is just you and the Rebbeinu Shalom. That's called authenticity. Authenticity is the nature of who you are. If you didn't have to fit into any social circles, if you weren't worried about what anybody else thought, and if you knew that you were loved unconditionally, and you really brought your full self to the table, that's called the yichidus shabenevish. That's the most authentic part of you. If you brought that out into the world. That's the space that you're mamlech Hakadosh baruch hu from. You cannot crown Hakadosh Baruch Hu king over something that has nothing to do with Hashem. That guy that's sitting in Bais Medrash learning till two o'clock in the morning because he's finally found an intellectual curiosity that serves him. He comes to Hakadosh Baruch Hu on Rosh Hashanah and he says, 'Hakadosh Baruch Hu, I learned Gemara.' Rebbeinu Shlom is looking at him going, 'What does that have to do with me?'

35:03 Being mamlech somebody means that you have a shaychus to them. It's in marriage it's possible that you can be of unbelievable service to your spouse and it has nothing to do with your spouse. You just want to be known as a good spouse. You want to be known as a good wife. You want to be known as a good husband. So you're doing all the things A B C D E F G, but you're really doing it for the other person. You can be mamlich them if you look at all the things I do for you And your partner feels it. The person that you're with feels they go, but are you really doing those things for me? Are you doing them for yourself? Is this your need to be a good wife, or is this your desire to have that deep attachment that we're looking for? Thank you, Yaakov Denisheski, for bringing the word attachment to all of Klal Yisrael. We could talk about attachment. I assume you all learned 'attached.' If you haven't, it's an excellent book.

35:51 Every one of us is looking for that. Every one of us is looking to have a deep connection to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. But we can't be mamlech Hakadosh Baruch Hu from all the fanciness that had nothing to do with Him. So atam li tzavem ayom means something unbelievably deep. On this day, Moshe Rabbeinu was saying when all of the klalos have hit and everything else has fallen away. You are still standing here today. What does it mean? You're still standing. Does it mean you're still alive? The Banim Shalom didn't kill you. That's the great pius. You are still standing here today. All of you, you, the real you, is right here. That's how your mamlechah kadosh baruch hu. That's the avoda of standing. By the way, that's why we're able to survive all of these things. The secret to Jewish survival is that we know that we're firmly planted. We know that enochanami, we could go through a Holocaust, we could go through October 7th, we could go through Crusades, we could go through Mitzrayim, we could go through anything, because we know in that process there's a birur that's happening. There's a clarification. All of the nonsense is getting washed away. All that's left is the essence.

36:53 That's how we're mamlechah, Kol Dosh Baruch Hu. That's what happens on Yom Kippur. On Yom Kippur, the din is sealed. What's that? Hakadosh Baruch Hu's stempel. What's his seal? Anybody know? M S. When Hakadosh Baruch Hu seals the envelope on Yom Kippur, it says, "This is your din." What's the seal? What does the seal look like? The president has a seal. You see. What's the seal? The seal of Hakadosh Baruch Hu is M S. What's he saying? The only thing that could come into this envelope on Yom Kippur is whatever was real. Anything that was fake, it's not part of your din. You weren't mamlechah kadosh baruch hu. It's not part of your tshuva. That's the challenge of tshuva. Tshuva, and this is the beginning of asar esimay tshuva. Tshuva, a person thinks like I'm doing so much tshuva. You might not be doing tshuva at all. Tshuva is a lifelong process, and tshuva happens incrementally.

37:42 Tshuva is being radically honest and allowing yourself to get hit by the truck of all of the falsehood in my life and owning that. And then slowly letting go of that, and that is no simple thing to say the least. That's why sometimes it lasts and sometimes it doesn't. You see, girls, five, ten, fifteen, twenty years later after seminary, what happened to all the hopes and dreams that she had when she was here at E. F. G. Hadash? It's a mouthful. What happened? Many years ago, when I was in yeshiva. I wanted to, I had a havurim, a strong havurim, to switch to a different yeshiva. I actually went to Mevaseret when I was a bachur. And I actually chose Mevaseret accidentally. There was a guy who came back to visit our high school. He had gone to Mevaseret and he looked the way I one day wanted to look.

38:39 And so I thought Mevaseret is the place where you do that. It turned out Mevaseret wasn't the place like that at all. Actually, it was a different yeshiva that I had gotten into and I had turned down. That was the yeshiva where you went to go to look like that. I didn't know that. I would have chosen this other yeshiva had I known, but I didn't know. So I chose Mevaseret. I got to Mevaseret, and it was a totally different style of chinuch and it was totally not what I was looking for. And the guys were there was a lot of chillers. There was some serious guys, but it wasn't the vibe that I was looking for at all. And I had a real hava mina to switch to this other yeshiva. And I said I needed to get out of Dodge. And I went to Shalvim for Shabbos. Rav Shechter was going to Shalvim for Shabbos. It was like a big matzav. Everybody was going to Shalvim for Shabbos. I wanted to get out of yeshiva, maybe get some space from the guys and sort of clarify things. I went to Shalvim for Shabbos.

39:25 And in Shalvim it happens to be that a number of boys from this other yeshiva were there. I was talking to a good chaver of mine from high school, and I said, "Yeah, I'm thinking about switching yeshivas." And he said, "You know, if you're going to switch, you probably should talk to the boys from this other yeshiva. Should probably talk to the boys from this other yeshiva." So I went over to one of these guys. His name is Josh. And I said to him, I understand Yeshanabed and this other yeshiva. I'm considering switching. Could we talk about it? So we sat and we shmoozed it out for a while. He said to me at the end, I don't recommend you switching. So I said, why not? So he said, in our yeshiva, he compared it to a gym. In our yeshiva, a person can bench press 200 pounds. It looks like a tremendous amount of weight on the bar, but there's a spotter. There's a culture, there's rebbeim that are pushing a certain agenda. There's an energy, so it looks like a tremendous amount. But you see that five, ten years later, when the guys are married and having kids of their own, you see that because they were only doing it in that environment when they had that spotter, it doesn't last. He said in your yeshiva, guys are only bench pressing 100 pounds.

40:25 But I'll tell you one thing, he said I always admired your yeshiva because there's no spotter, there's no energy, there's no culture. You don't have to do it. And because you don't have to do it, whatever you do is real. So you right now think I'm not really growing because I haven't put on the hat and I haven't grown out the beard and I haven't sitting in base magic till three o'clock in the morning. He said, but maybe that's a good thing because maybe it's real. And I have to tell you, probably the best piece of advice that I've ever gotten throughout my entire educational career that might have been one of the most important moments. What's the pshat? What's the pshat that people grow older and they go through life and all of a sudden it's not happening? The pshat is because it was never really them. At some point, if it was the intellectual curiosity that drew you to sitting and learning So then what happens when there's another intellectual curiosity that replaces it? A guy goes to Columbia, and now he's becoming a doctor, and now there's an unbelievable intellectual curiosity there. I don't need the Gemara anymore to satisfy me, and it falls away.

41:19 And I grew up, and I said, no, I'm going to marry a guy, and it's going to be unbelievable. It's going to be unbelievable. But then the very real challenges: we have to make a parnasim, we have to spend time with our family, and I don't know how to balance all of these things. And so somehow over time the values just start to either shift or fade away completely. What's the pshat in that? The pshat is because the way that we built it was totally backwards. We weren't building it for Hashem. We were building it for ourselves. And anything that we do for ourselves will shift. And anything that we do from that essential place of simplicity—not simplicity, stupidity—but that real simple essence—that's the stuff that lasts. And that's how we're able to be mamlechah kadosh baruch hu. I think that, especially today, in this matzav, because we have to be mamlechah Kadosh Baruch Hu each year in a new way.

42:08 I think this year a return to that simplicity is mission critical. The best I think the best time of my life That to be a Jew in Eretz Yisrael, the best time in my life was October eighth. For that tefufa. Because the klalos were so real of Parshas Kisavu right after October seventh Everything was stripped away, and there were no more chilonim, no more charedim, no more datilumi, no more mizrachi, no more judicial reform, and no more politics. All they attacked us, and the streets were beautiful. And the stories of yidden connecting with each other on the deepest, most essential level were unbelievable, and they were real. These were not made-up art scroll stories. You could write a legitimate, real book of real stories, and for anyone who was living in this country, we saw them daily with our eyes. My brother-in-law is an intelligence in the army now. He's in Miluim, but for a decade, he was an intelligence in the army.

43:19 My sister. My sister told my mother I think this is how it went. My sister told my mother that all the soldiers were getting food. Because that's like the most Jewish thing ever. Boys are going off to war. Women start to bake And it's pretty funny. You have these soldiers going into Gaza, and they've got muffins from their mother in their pockets. It doesn't exactly work, and it's also not the time to get fat. This isn't like you don't want to be running through Gaza and get a stitch in your stomach. I shouldn't have eaten that last piece of challah. It's not like it's not a move. But this is what Klai Shlom was doing. We were baking. But in the intelligence section in Tel Aviv, in the big central command over there, nobody was baking for them. My brother-in-law mentioned it to my sister, and my sister mentioned it to my mother, and my mother called me up and she said, "Do you think your daughters could bake something for Benji and all the chevra in the unit over there?" I called my daughters and I said Call all your friends and just start baking. I'm gonna come home tonight and I want to bring something to my parents' house for Benji. I want to bring like a ton of cakes and cookies. Now I thought a ton of cakes and cookies would be like I'd bring over like ten, fifteen pans.

44:38 I had a car. Full, literally, a car full, trunk full, back seat full, on the floor full, front seat full, front in front of the front seat full. I, we came to my parents' house. The amount of food that we brought to my parents' house was unbelievable. And from who? From everybody in the neighborhood Not necessarily people that have brothers who are soldiers or parents that went through the army, just Jews. Just Jews. It was the most unbelievably beautiful time to be a Jew. Because we didn't get wrapped up in any of our external nonsense And letzaharenu Even though the klala is still happening, somehow we lost track of the fact that the klala is still happening, and so once again we divided ourselves into these ridiculous party lines. Which is not to say that people don't have a right to their ideologies. People could think differently. We celebrate diversity, but how ridiculous is it that because you're on this side of the aisle with your ideology, and I'm on this side of the aisle, we can't talk to each other and that we can't be brothers and sisters, which is what we are.

45:41 How tragic is it when brothers and sisters can't sit together? So I think we have to return. Again, I think is nothing, but I'm saying, just looking at the world, I think maybe you'll agree with me. We have to return to the simple essence of who we are. We have to return to a simple avodas Hashem, just saying the words of davening, saying the words of tefillim. We have to return to simple growth. I just want to be close to you, Achodosh Baruch Hu. We don't have to be fancy people. We have to return to simple. You're my brother. You're my sister, and I want to be close to you. And Beis Hashem, we should be zeicha to a din of emes, a din of real authenticity. And Beis Hashem, Tichlashon of a kiloisa. We finished Parshas Ki Savo. We're holding now, Beis Hashem, by Nitzavim, and we should be zeicha to say, Ata Nitzavim Hayom.