Rosh Hashanah - Reconciling Trembling With Joy

2:35 Your sweet drinks. The shilchu manos and send food to other people. Lein nachon lo, those that don't have. Ki kadosh hayom la adonenu, this day is kadosh to Hashem. Ba'al te'atsvu ki ched vas Hashem, he may ask him. And don't be sad. The joy of our kadosh Baruch Hu is your strength. So Nehemia is saying to Klal Yisrael on Rosh Hashanah, "Don't be sad." Don't be sad. This is not a sad day. So how do you be exceptionally serious and live with the fear of the judgment of Rosh Hashanah, and at the same time, how do we rejoice? How do we have a yomtiv? How do we get dressed up and eat delicious foods? How is it possible for us to contain these two things in one day? This is what David HaMelech referred to when he said, 'If do us Hashem biyirah the Gilui Berada that a person has to tremble on the one hand has to tremble' And on the other hand, Hakadosh Baruch Hu is saying, but tremble with rejoicing that there has to be this duality. How do we live with this duality?

3:41 So I want to give you the simple answer first, and then hopefully a much deeper answer. But I want to give you the simple answer first. So I'll share with you a good story. This is a true story. You know when you get your license and your parents tell you not to speed? Yeah, It was cute when they said that, no? It's like, but I'm trusting you that you're really not. And I'm like, okay. I don't know why you're trusting me, but you know, the Chai, I'm sure. Why not? So my parents, I was a five kids, five towns kid growing up. I got a car and could move on as soon as I got my license and I lived. Anyone here from the five towns? And. Anyone here from Lawrence? So I think I'm better than all of you then. Only if there was somebody from Lawrence, I would say we're equals. But everybody else, anyway. The five towns have a ranking depending on where you're from. Am I wrong? Not even a little bit. So I was Lawrence.

4:38 So I grew up in a place called I grew up in a place called Harborview. And that's even within Lawrence, there's levels. So Harborview is nice. Harborview is on. Harborview is off something called Rock Hall Road. And I don't know how it is today. But there was a cop that would sit at the corner of Harborview North and Rock Hall Road. Still there? This cop would sit there with his radar gun, and you would come off of Eight Seventy Eight and be speeding down Rock Hall Road, and he would nail you. And so I'm coming off of Rock Hall Road, and I'm going fast. And I get to that corner and I see the cop. I immediately slam on the brakes, but you know it's too late. He's already got you. And there are certain cops you see them. They're just kind of doing this. And there are the aggressive. You've met the aggressive cops.

5:31 You're not sure if they're gonna kill you or get the radar gun. Here's this guy and he's in that four point stance and angrily he's on the side of the emotion like he's already got serious anger. He pulls me over to the side of the road and he's like, "Do you know how fast you were going?" And I'm like, "Sir, I have no idea how fast I was coming." And he goes back and gives me my ticket. I live literally three houses away from where I got the ticket. He gives me the ticket, and I'll be honest with you. I'm afraid of the cops. I'm afraid of the penalty. I'm much more afraid of my parents. Much more afraid of my parents. So I'm gonna go. I know it's gonna. I'm gonna go in. And you have to decide who you're going to tell first. Do you tell mom first or dad first? Every kid makes that choice.

6:18 Of, because our parents think that we don't know them. We know our parents very well, right? Certain things you go to dad for, certain things you go to mom for. I knew this one you go to mom for. In general, dad is lighter, but this one you go to mom for because dad is more serious about serious things. Mom was more serious about school. Dad was more serious about real life things, right? So mom is like, Dad, I got in big trouble in school. He's like, okay, let's figure out how to tell your mother. But if you're caught speeding, you got to go to mom first, and she's like, okay, we have to tell your father. So I went to my mother. I was like, I just got my first ticket, and you say you're first, right? Because it's like not because it implies a second, because it's like, hey, I haven't messed up so badly yet, right? So I get my first ticket, and my mom's like, okay, look, you're gonna suffer the consequences. Life has consequences. You're gonna get points. You're gonna have to pay for it. Whatever. Fine, say there.

7:04 So I went to my dad. Not so bad. That's a stupid thing to do. I know that's a stupid thing to do. But we all, kind of whatever. I got Baruch Hashem the cop gave me a fifty-seven and a thirty-five, fifty-seven miles an hour and a thirty-five mile an hour zone. And I know that because fifty-four is the cutoff. Meaning, at fifty-four you get a certain amount of points, and above fifty-four you get a larger amount of points. I knew that I got fifty-seven. I was going to lose points. I've already come to the conclusion I'm going to have to pay a lot of money for the increase in insurance. I know it's going to be an expensive fine. But the only thing I'm thinking is maybe I won't get too many points on my license because it's Nassau County. Those of you who are not from Nassau County, I want to explain to you the way this goes. In New York City, if you get a ticket So they actually care.

7:53 In Nassau County, they just want your money. So I'm like maybe they're going to give me less points. But I know for sure it's 57 and a 35. I know for sure I'm done. Maybe they'll give me less points and knock it down and just make me pay more money. At the end of the day, I know the county just wants my money. So I come in. It's I've never been in the Nassau County courtroom before. I come into the courthouse and I'm sitting there, and there's a whole group of people, and I'm one of the last people to get called. And I walk into the room, and it's me and the prosecutor. The way it works is you speak to the prosecutor before you have your case. So I walk in, and there's this prosecutor, slicked back hair. I remember he's wearing an olive green suit. And obviously this is not the most successful prosecutor. If he's the prosecutor for the Nassau County Traffic Court, you're not talking about one of the great lawyers ever.

8:44 And he sits down with me, and I sit down, and I'm like, okay, this is serious business. And he looks at me, and this is what he says right away. He goes, "Are you an idiot?" And I was twenty years old. I didn't know whether to be offended or not. So I said, "Excuse me." So he's like, 'You live.' Three houses away, you know that the cop sits there the entire time. So I'm thinking on my feet quickly. Well, that's actually part of my defense, because I will admit that I was speeding, but I don't think I was going 57. I wanted to try to see if I can get it down to under 54 because I want to get less points. So I said, look, I was speeding, but I wasn't going that fast, and I know the cop sits there. Why would I ever be going that fast? And he looks at me. He goes, "What is this, mode b'miktas? The guy wasn't wearing a yarmulke. Mode b'miktas, for those of you that don't know, is halachic terminology that if you admit to a little bit of it, you're basically admitting to the whole thing. It's just your way of lying. So he goes, "What is this, mode b'miktas?"

9:41 So I was like, I didn't know who I'm dealing with, but I was like, 'No, but migo that I could have said I wasn't speeding at all. Believe me when I tell you that I was speeding a little bit, which is a different halachic argument.' He cracks up and he's like, 'I see you know how to learn.' I'm like, 'Who is this guy?' So I'm like, what is your deal? He goes, I went to Yeshiv Rakhwe. So I was like, okay, I got it. It's like one of the Yeshiv Rakhwe dropouts who like went off the darch became a lawyer? I'm like, I get that. I was one of those kids. I was like, we're hocking back and forth. I'm like, did you know Rabbi Rappman? He's like used to Rabbi get thrown out at school by Rabbi Rappman. I was like Me too. So like we had this like whole like very nice back and forth. So he goes, Look, it's your first time. I want you to plead down to driving with your door open, which is a fifty-dollar fine.

10:27 So I was like "Deal." So we go out in front of the judge, and he hands this piece of paper to the judge. The judge does this. He goes, "Really?" Meaning he looks at the piece of paper that I went from fifty-seven and a thirty-five to driving with my door open, which is a fifty-dollar fine. The judge goes, "On me." So the judge looks at me and he goes, "Okay, you've been sentenced. You've been charged with driving with your door open. How do you plead?" Because I was a doofus twenty-year-old, I was like, "Guilty," which is not the appropriate response, because the judge is already annoyed that I got knocked down from fifty-seven into thirty-five for driving with your door open. He goes, "Are you sure?" So I'm like, "absolutely. All the doors were open, every one of them. I was opening them and closing them, and I was totally reckless with the doors."

11:14 Thank you for laughing. It's nice. Makes me feel good. I appreciate it. So I walked out of the courtroom and I'm like, "That was crazy." I just got a fifty dollar fine. I came home and told my dad. I'm like, "Yeah, fifty dollar fine. No points. Driving with your door open." I told him the whole story. And we're laughing because that's what a Jew does, right? If there's another Jew, like we always had a judge. I don't want to say his name, but there was another Jewish judge in Nassau County, and he was like my friend's dad. Everyone wanted to get to him. Everyone knows who he is. Everyone wants to get to that judge, and he happens to be a very good friend of mine's father. And if you're an Orthodox Jewish kid from the Five Towns and you get in trouble, you'll hope to get in front of that judge, because he'll take care of you. Because it's hidden, right? We're not supposed to say out loud that we run the world because then The chaver out there believe it. But between us, we don't control the weather, but we do can the Jews run Hollywood. We're good at it. Come on, we don't want to say it out loud. We have a lot of people about, so I came home and I was. My father's like, "Yeah, Jews take care of Jews."

12:18 And it was a very profound moment for me. Here's this guy; didn't know me from a hole in the wall, some Orthodox guy, but he saw an Orthodox kid and he was like, "Okay, it was your first ticket. I'll go easy on you." And on the one hand, I was really scared, and on the other hand, I felt very taken care of. As soon as he said 'modeh bemitzvahs,' I knew I was going to be fine. It was scary, and it was serious business, and it could have been a lot of points, and it could have been insurance, and it could have been money. But at the end of the day As soon as he said "modeh mivchaz," it wasn't that I took it less seriously; it's that I also knew it was going to be fine. The simple answer to the question, the famous answer to the question of how is it that we live with the duality of Rosh Hashanah, the simple answer to the question is because the judge is your father.

13:05 And so it's not. Can we be honest? If we're being honest, I'll say it out loud. I'll raise my hand. You don't have to. It's all of us. Every one of us did things this year that we're not proud of. Every one of us. You have to raise your hand. It started the summer after tenth grade, right? Right. Oh. That was very intense. I'm not going to say who, but one of you did this. One of you went. It was physical. It was a physical move. It was like I actually punched someone. You remember we had coming out of eighth grade, the I'll never do, and then summer after tenth grade is when you cross that line. Remember? Everyone remembers. I hold that NCSY cola only exists to stop boys from doing whatever they're going to do summer after tenth grade. Everyone has their version of this.

14:03 We come here. This is what's called, by the way, in the world of education, bad classroom management. I just want you to know I'm with you on this. That's called good classroom management. Thank you very much for doing that. Everyone has this line that we've crossed. Everyone came to Tomer Devora this year. You came to Shalayim Yerakodash with hopes, with dreams, with aspirations and expectations. Of and that was very well said. Four in a row, right? With hopes, dreams, expectations, aspirations. Right. Everyone has that thing of this going to be the year. This going to be the year where I figure that out. This going to be the year where I stop that behavior. This going to be the year where I reinvent myself, where nobody's going to think of me that way anymore. I'm going to come back to those judgmental twelfth graders.

14:45 Everyone's in America right now. When I come back for Pesach, they're going to sit there and go, 'She,' and this is the word they use, 'did well.' Remember that? What in the world does 'did well' mean? I have no idea. But she did it. Whatever she did well in Torah Devorah. Every one of us came here because we're looking for that opportunity, or maybe, if we're being honest, we're looking for that excuse to be able to say that life is behind me. But we're about to go to Rosh Hashanah, and maybe there's a feeling of okay, I have to confront what I did. I have to be able to acknowledge out loud, even if it's only to myself or only to Hashem. I have to be able to say lemaisa, this is what I did. There's a certain trepidation that we have, a certain vulnerability of this might not go well. There's a certain reality of look, I did cross that line. There's a certain reality that I have to say the promises that I made myself about who I was going to be, I didn't necessarily keep.

15:36 I'm not a bad person, but it is serious, and I am going to be standing before the judge. That's a very real feeling that we have if we're being honest with ourselves. And if we don't have that feeling, it's more likely because we're not being honest with ourselves because we don't want to admit the vulnerability of what's really happening. But there's another part of us. We get up on Rosh Hashanah and we say, 'Cool, the judge is our father.' It doesn't make it less serious. But it does mean that you know it's going to be okay, and knowing it's going to be okay doesn't mean that everything is going to be great the following year. It means that whatever the judgment is, the judge has kind eyes. That lawyer, when he said mode vemixas, I saw kindness in his eyes. When the trooper pulled me over to the side of the road, I didn't see that kindness. I saw anger. He was in a four-point stance. He had anger. That guy didn't have any affection for me. If that guy was the judge, I'd be terrified. I wouldn't be able to have two emotions. I wouldn't be able to say this is serious, but it's also going to be okay. When that guy said Bodeh B'miksa, I knew it was going to be okay.

16:36 Because he was one of us. This judge is our father. The simple answer to the question of how we can be gilui birada, how we can be trembling and also joyful at the same time, is it's serious business, but the judge is also our father. That's the simple answer to the question. That's not why I came here tonight. I don't want to share with you the simple answer to the question. I just want that to be the jumping point for a much more sophisticated question or sophisticated answers. The haftorah that we read on the first day of Rosh Hashanah is the haftorah of Chana. Chana davening for a child. It's a very strange story. It's a very strange story. What's the story? The story is that she's davening, and only her lips are moving. Eli the Cohen Gadol sees that and thinks she's a drunk.

17:23 So he goes over to her and he basically chastises her and he says, "How long are you going to be drunk for? Put away your wine, sober up." And Hannah says, "No. I'm not drunk. I'm in terrible, terrible pain." And I don't have any drugs or alcohol inside of me. But I'm pouring out my soul before Hashem. There's an obvious question in this story. It's so painfully obvious that we almost forget to ask it half the time. If we saw somebody at the kotel I saw in Mrs. Lif's status that you all were at the kotel. That's how I know what's going on in Tzometivars, just from Mrs. Lif's status. So everyone went to the kotel. You went to the kotel. Imagine you saw somebody crying at the kotel. Would any of us in the room, we're we're just simple Jews, we're not a kohen gadol. Would any of us in the room have gone over to this woman and said,"A woman sitting there crying at the kotel Talking without words. Would any of us gone over to her and said, "How could you be drunk at Dakota?"

18:19 Nobody in a million years would have done that. Context matters. She's not in the shuk. I'm not saying which shuk. She's not at a shuk. She's not in a forest, maybe five blocks from here. If you know what I'm saying, yeah. In those contexts, maybe somebody would say, "You're drunk. Who in their right mind comes to such a place and is drunk?" And where? It doesn't sound like a Cohen-Gadol thing to say. Say you're drunk. That's a terrible thing to say. Would we today in the cycle? I'll use psychological language. I'll use female language. I'll use female psychological language because I have to know dalif ne miatahumid. I have to know who I'm standing in front of. We would have hoped that Ali would have gone over to her and said I just want to check in And I want you to know that right now I'm in a very open place of curiosity Right?

19:12 And I want this to be a safe space for you to share with me what you're experiencing. Would you be open to sharing with me a little bit so that I can earn your trust and validate your experience? That's what we. Was that good? I have five daughters. If you can't tell. So I've gotten good at validating people's experience, even though it's totally wrong. But say it. I'm with you. The experience is valid. Ali doesn't do that. He walks in and he says, "Are you drunk?" That's not a response that we would say to somebody who's in pain. So I saw a very beautiful thing from the Chassam Sofer, an amazing Chassam Sofer. If you came six thousand miles this year just to hear this Chassam Sofer, it's worth it. We can finish the year after this. It's an amazing Chassam Sofer. Chassam Sofer says I want everybody to open their hearts and hear this if they can. Even the girls who think that I can't see them right now. I want those girls to hear me also if they can.

20:14 The Chassam Sofer says I want you to take a step back and see what Aili was seeing. He saw somebody who was in an exceptional amount of pain; that was clear and obvious. He also saw somebody who was absolutely fine Totally serene, totally calm, totally confident. And he was watching it happen. If you've ever seen this, it's an amazing thing to see. Somebody who's able to hold two complex and conflicting emotions at once. That's the definition of emotional maturity. The definition of emotional maturity is you're able to say, "I'm not just experiencing one thing. I'm experiencing two things. Those things are equally complex and they're conflicting." So it's like, for example, as a parent. You want to be able to hold two complex, conflicting emotions at once. Your kid just did something really stupid. They stole your car and crashed it. I had a friend of mine that did that growing up. He stole it, and in such a moment, the father is truly angry at his child. That's the appropriate thing to do. But also in that moment, what is a father truly loving of his child? Those are two very complex, and in that moment, they're very conflicting. How we relate—this is very important, girls.

21:30 How we relate to those complex, conflicting emotions says a lot about us. We have to be large enough to contain multitudes. We have to be big enough to be able to say I can be very angry with you right now, and I can also let you know that I love you very much. I have to be big enough to say that it's because of my love that I'm so angry, and my anger is also telling me how much I love you. When Aili saw her, he said she has to be drunk. Because what happens when people get drunk? When people get drunk, the borders go down, the boundaries go down, and you see people who are drunk—they're laughing one minute and they're crying the next. If you ever have the opportunity to see boys on Purim, you know I am talking about. I hope you haven't seen it, but just in case you have, there is this schizophrenic thing that happens on Purim. You ever see this? It's like, first of all I'll tell you where you see it. You want to know where you see it? You see it when boys start to sober up. When people say a couch is a three-seater couch, they mean three sober people.

22:34 A drunk couch, that same three-seater, holds nine people comfortably. But the second people sober up, what do they start to do? Get off of me! You're in my space. Because what happens is, when we get drunk, we lose all notions of boundaries and borders. It's what allows us to do really stupid things when we're drunk. You lose your inhibitions. Your inhibitions are built around boundaries and borders. Does that make sense? When a person is lacking boundaries, they fly from one emotion to the next, and it's like happening simultaneously. There's one moment they're like, "Rebbe, yeah." That's why I love the boys who are like doing it appropriately. "Rebbe, save my lives! It's the best year ever! I'm such a Russia, right?" It's like they match in the same. I'm like, just get off of me, man. I love you. You're awesome. Just vomit over there. You know what I'm saying? Like it's.

23:25 Because you know it's about to happen. Because they've lost all sense of boundaries and borders. It's one of the reasons I'm not a big fan of the way that Perm is mismanaged today. But the idea that we lose our sense of boundaries and borders when we're drunk—Ali was looking at her and saying, 'There's no way this woman. This woman, she would have to be like the holiest woman alive to be doing what she's doing.' And I want to share with you why this is. I said this before. The Shana Bet girls probably have heard this story, but you chose to come. There's a woman on my block. It's a terrible story. There's a woman on my block who's been married over 20 years and didn't have children. Craziest story. She lives in a tiny apartment. Because what does she need? And in Ramat Echamish where I live

24:12 Women hang out in parks. It's like we all have our houses, but then there's the park, and that's where the women go, and the kids are just running around, and the women are watching them. Then they come in and say, "I'm exhausted from watching them." I was like, "I was watching. You just sat on the bench with your friends for the last two hours." Little kids come over crying, bleeding. I hurt myself. Go back. It's a very exhausting job. These mothers have. It's the hardest job in the world. The and I'm whatever. I don't know why I said that. It's a very hard job. I mean it sincerely. It's a very hard. So women hang out in parks. They hang out with their kids. What do you do if you're a woman who, for twenty years, doesn't have kids? Where do you go? You don't get to hang out in the park because hanging out in the park is like being stabbed in the heart every moment. Every kid that comes over to that mother and says, "Mommy, I'm thirsty." "Mommy, I'm hungry." You know what that woman is doing? I wish I had a kid to come over and say, "Mommy, I'm thirsty." "Mommy, I'm hungry."

25:08 So she can't hang out in the park, and because she can't hang out in the park, in a certain way, she's isolated from the other women in the neighborhood. It's the most painful, tragic thing in the world to see. You know what this woman does for a living? She's a ganene And everybody sends to this gun because she's the best gun. Because if you're a mother and you're a gun, you have a certain amount of love that you've already given to your kid. So by the time a kid shows up, you already lost. You've already had to get a kid off to school. You've already had to be up at night with that kid. This woman First of all, she has extended hours because she doesn't have to get back for her kids because she doesn't have any kids to go back to. So she can take the kids starting at eight o'clock in the morning, and I don't think you have to pick up the kids at four o'clock in the afternoon. You get a full day out of her. She's incredible. She's so loving because it's like these are her kids. So twenty years she didn't have children.

25:56 There's a fellow on my block who's a tremendous talmudacher. His name is Rav Pesin. Rav Pesin was very close with Rav Chaim Kaniefsky's eretz tzaddik for kol ha'shal bracha. And he took this couple to Rav Chaim for a bracha. And Rav Chaim said, they said, "What can we do to be zayicha to have a child?" Rav Chaim said, "Build a mikveh." Build a mikveh in a town that doesn't have a mikveh. They have some money because they don't have any children, so the money they have they're able to save. They went ahead and built a mikvah. I'm not the type of person that tells tzaddik stories or ma'asim that I don't know about. I know about this story with my own two eyes. I saw it. They built a mikvah within the year. They had a child.

26:34 When they came home from the hospital, hundreds and hundreds of people greeted them. It was everybody on my block. The way my block is situated is there's two blocks. There's like one block like this. It's like a few. Then there's another block, and then there's like the surrounding block around us. There was nobody who wasn't there. People put up balloons. There was music. When the husband got out of the car, everyone was dancing with him. The baby, the mother walked out of the car with her child. She wasn't smiling. There's no word for what she was doing. She had no face left. It was all just lips. It was just the level of simcha that she exuded was kifih. The level of the pain. And for 20 years you've had this level of pain. Then the simcha that you have at the end of it is enormous. It's incredible. And I find myself when I see this dad walking with his little girl in the streets. Now she's already a little girl. When I see him, I just smile.

27:23 Because she's the baby we were all davening for all of that time. I sent two kids to that Ghana. Everyone wanted her to have a child. She was, in a certain way, I hate to say this, of course she's their baby, but she's our baby. Everyone was davening for them. This was the most incredible thing. Hannah couldn't have children. She couldn't have children to be on a level. Think about what it took. To be on a level where she could say, Hashem The level of pain that I'm in is something that I can't possibly describe. It's like being stabbed in the heart repeatedly every time I walk out into the streets. I can't go to the ma'cole without being stabbed in the heart. But yet, I'm also capable of being totally serene and totally confident because I can share that with you. When we have a place to put our pain, it doesn't eliminate our pain, but it does help.

28:14 I heard a great line. I want to share it with you because it's an amazing line. The redemption of pain is community. It's an amazing line. The redemption of pain is community. When you lose a loved one in the Jewish community, you know what happens? We bring you food. We don't just bring you a little bit of food. If anyone here has ever sat shiva or had someone in their family who sat shiva, you will know that your house will be filled with all the food. All the food, not some of the food, all the food. No matter where you are, Jews, it's like you're in trouble, you're in tragedy. Don't worry, we're gonna make sure you eat. And how many people come to a shiva? Everybody comes to shiva, and you have to tell the same stories over and over again, and it doesn't seem to matter. Why? Because you're just like telling them anew, and it's like almost like we force the pain out of you. We're gonna have to deal with this together as a community.

29:03 A chaver of mine lost his father. He had lost his mother already. He lost his father. I flew into America to be there for the shiva. One of my closest friends in the world. And because I was sitting there all day long, I kept hearing the same stories all day long. I was the shiva guest that didn't leave. In fact, I was sleeping in his house. I just showed up. I'm here. I'm not going anywhere. And whatever, we're very close friends, and we like to have a good time. So a lot of times, when he was telling the stories, I would be like this. I think. And he knew that I heard that story four times already that day. So he's cracking up in the middle of telling the story because I'm sitting there in the back of the room going. And sometimes I would ask a question that I knew, and he's just dying of laughter. His wife threw me out of the shiva house. She said, "Get out!" I was like, "Get thrown out of shiva? Like I flew six thousand miles? I just got thrown?" But she's right. I a hundred percent deserve it. I was making him back up in the middle of shiva.

29:56 Wasn't the right thing to do. I'll clap, I'll hate it again soon. But we don't. It's what makes us better. If you're in trouble in our community, or if anything goes wrong in our community, we're there for you. Anything, even the smallest thing. You're sick, we take care of you. You don't have money, we take care of you. You need food, we take care of you. Tomchesh Shabbos, every you're fine. The redemption of pain is community. Chana came to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, and she was at a level. It's an incredible level, one that we can't possibly understand. She's at a level where she comes to Hashem. "What's happening to me is indescribable, but I'm okay because I'm here." Do you hear how you can do that? Aili looks at her and he says, "There's no way that that's a human being." You must be drunk. He can't conceive of someone who's on that level. When she says to him, "No, I'm not drunk. I'm just pouring out my pain to Hashem," he goes, "Your tefillah is for sure going to work. All tefillahs are now modeled after that tefillah. All tefillahs that we have are modeled after Chanukah's tefillah." Because it's the ultimate tefillah. It's the tefillah that says, "Hashem, what's happening to my, what's happening in my life is not okay, but I'm okay because I'm with You, and I'm also not okay at the same time."

31:04 And it's okay to give myself permission to not be okay, and it's okay to give myself permission to be okay. That's the most incredible, powerful tefillah a person could ever have. Why do we read this on Rosh Hashanah? I want to share with you one of the ideas that I had. There's a million different reasons why we read this on Rosh Hashanah. I want to share with you one of them. Because that's what Rosh Hashanah is. Rosh Hashanah is not only what we said before, which is this is serious, but it's okay because my father is the judge. It's also holding two complex, conflicting emotions at once. We are a people that can be gileberada. We're a people that could tremble and we could be okay at the same time. It's not that I'm trembling, but I know it's going to be okay because God is my father. I'm trembling. And when God comes into the room and He's standing in front of me on Yom Hadin, it's not cool It's going to be okay. It's not like it's a Jewish lawyer. It's even more than that.

31:57 It's I'm okay because in Your presence when I tremble I know that's a place of serenity. So I can tremble and be serene at the same time, and that serenity is a joy. It's a joy to be at peace. If I asked every person in this room if you could press a button and then you would have serenity for the rest of your life, or press another button and it would give you wealth. I guarantee you, you would press the serenity button. It's not because we don't want money. It's because serenity is the most incredible thing in the world. Imagine you. Do you remember What's a good example of this? Do you remember before you have a test and you know you're not going to do well on the test But maybe you'll do okay. It's not like it's totally over because then you just don't care. Then I'm messed up already. Where you're like, maybe I'm gonna pass. I'm in like that 67 68 range I got like 66 on three of my regions. You know what I'm saying? I knew my father would always say, "You know how to study just enough." I was like, "Yes, I do. I know how to cheat just enough," right? And then, like everyone gets, thank you for that, by the way, for those of you that did this. So I'm with you.

33:10 There's a feeling like a pit in your stomach. It's like it's not just a generalized anxiety. It's like ooh, this might not be good. Everyone has that. I'll give you another example. This is one of my favorite examples. Parent teacher conferences. So you know, it's like everyone has their own way of dealing with it. I'm sure some of you did this. It's like when your parents come home, make sure to be asleep or at least pretending to be asleep, because whatever bad message they got It's going to be better in the morning. They need to have some. Our parents need to. They need some time to sleep on it before they react. And then in the morning, they only have you for a certain amount of times. It was only like fifteen, twenty minutes where they could possibly get you in trouble. So it's like always Mom, I gotta go. The bus, and then Mom's like Okay, but we're gonna talk about this later. If you're really smart, it's like I would, but I have a chavruta later that I made up. I didn't learn a word, but I had chavruta later with my friend. I'm actually sleeping at his house tonight. You want to give yourself as much time as possible between the like. You want to get twenty-four to forty-eight hours.

34:14 I used to come home two days later. My parents would be like, "We still have to talk about parent-teacher conferences." I'm like, "Absolutely!" Let's make a date. Your teachers say you have a lot of potential. Of course they do. Potential means your son is an absolute doofus. He's doing nothing but disrupt the class. The you want to hear a bad story? Yeah. Sure. Right. So, I think it's a good idea. Why not? It's a couple days for us. Who doesn't want to hear a bad story? My parents came home when I was in tenth grade. I did a really stupid thing a week before parent teacher conferences. You want to know what I did? I had two rebbeim. One went till ten thirty in the morning, and the other went from ten thirty to twelve. So the one who taught from nine to ten thirty told us a story. He was the rush masiphta. What was the story that he told us? The story was that he had a rebbes who was a liar.

35:07 And so he made up. This thing called a tshuva from the grazam, a written tshuva like when you have a big question from Hagon Rav Zev Mayer. There is no such person as the grazam. He was the grazam. His name was Rav Zev Mayer. So he told his rebbe, rebbe, I saw a tshuva from Grazam, and the rebbe lied. He's like, it's a difficult tshuva, and he told us that he pulled that prank, and everybody started laughing. And this rebbe didn't know the Rashba said they didn't know why everyone was laughing. The Rebbe from 10:30 to 12 was the biggest liar. And everybody in the school knew that he was a liar. He would make things up left and right. So I'm sitting there in my ADHD 15-year-old head, going, "I'm gonna do this next period." The Rebbe gets up and he says something, and I said, "Rebbe, doesn't that go against the Chuvas Hagramtzi? My Hebrew name is Mordechai Tzvi Moshiach Ben Eli Melech Meir Isser Halevi." Yes.

36:00 It's a lot of names because that's what happens when your parents are balei chuba and they don't know that these things matter. So I get up and I go, 'Rebbe, doesn't that go against the chuba sagramtzi?' And the Rebbe, without skipping a beat, goes, 'Yeah, I've seen that chuba sagramtzi many times. I've never really understood it.' And the whole class bursts out laughing, and he has no idea what I did. He goes, 'Berg, get out!' So I was like, 'Okay,' I was so happy to get thrown out. It's exactly what I wanted because I went downstairs to the rishon mishpacha's office where I got thrown. He's like, 'Go see Rabbi Friedman.' So I went to the rishon mishpacha's office, and he goes, 'I knock on the door.' He goes, 'Come in.' I said, Rabbi Ploni told me to come down here. He goes, What'd you do? I said, I don't know, Rabbi. I just told him that there was a teshuva zagramtzi, and then everyone started laughing, and he threw me out. And now that he's looking at me, and he knows I've got him right where I want him, right? Because what's he gonna do? Get me in trouble? He's the one that told me the story, right? He gave me the idea. So I'll never forget. He looks at me.

36:50 That was not the point of that story. I was like, Yeah, but it was a great idea. The only problem with my execution of that idea was it was one week before parent-teacher conferences. Wait until a day later. Don't embarrass the rebbe publicly one week before your parents come. So I am set. I've got this all set up. My parents are going to parent-teacher conferences. I'm going to be going. I'm going to be asleep that night. I already made up with my friend Josh. I was sleeping at his house the next night. I had a good forty-eight hours before my parents come home because I knew it was going to be epically bad. I knew this was going to be a problem. Your son has a lot of potential. I knew it was going to be much worse than that. I hear the garage door opening. So I quickly turned off the television. Girls, there used to be this thing called a television.

37:34 It had depth to it in the back. There was a box in the back, and there were channels that you turned with your hand. So I used to sleep in such a way that I could quickly turn it off. My parents came in, and I quickly turned it off and quickly turned off the lights. I'm like lightly snoring, because you don't want to be too obvious. I'm lightly snoring, and my dad walks in and he goes, "Get up! I know you're up." Oh man, he knew all those years. He turns on the lights. I'm like, "What? What?" You know, like deny till you die, right? I was sleeping. I didn't hear you come in. It's nine thirty. I had to sleep before two. So my dad walks in. He goes, "I have to tell you the funniest story." This is not what I was expecting. What happened? My parents walked in, and this rabbi looks at them right away and he goes, 'You don't even have to tell me who you are. You're the spitting image of your son. The spitting image of your son.' My parents sit down, and this rabbi starts to roast me.

38:34 Like going off. He's barely there in class, and if he's there, he's asleep. My parents can believe this. And then he starts talking, and you don't understand how much your son is partying, and he's doing this and that, and he's describing in vivid detail all these things that I'm doing. My mother, God bless her soul, is the most naive mother in the world, and she, for some reason, Hashem blessed her with a special faculty that even when I was lying my brains out, she was always like,"He's probably telling the truth." Some sort of she believed in me in irrational ways, and so my mother was like hearing this, and my mother's going like. That really doesn't sound like my son He was like, your son has a problem, and he needs help. And if you don't get serious about this problem now, it's going to get worse. And this is like a real thing that's happening. And my mother's like, that can't be. That's not him. We would know. And he's like, a lot of parents are in denial, and he is just piling on.

39:36 And my mother is like going, and finally, my mother goes. I grew up as Matt. My mother goes, "That just doesn't sound like Matt." And the Rebbe's face turns red, and he goes, "I thought your son was Akiva." The truth is, Akiva was doing all of those things, and Akiva was absolutely crazy. I really wasn't doing all those things. He ended up giving me this amazing report. He's fine. He's great. He's got a lot of potential. All of a sudden it was a completely different thing. Now my parents knew that I wasn't great because I had prepared. You have to prepare your parents. You have to go, look, this rabbi really doesn't like me so much, but it's not just me. It's the class. You know these moves? You've pulled these moves before. It's not just me. It's the class. So my parents knew that obviously it was gonna be bad. So when the rabbi was like, "Oh, he's great. He's got a good mind. He's got this. He's got," they knew it was garbage. It was like, "Whew!" Like it worked out well. The ironic thing, Akiva got expelled from school like a month later.

40:45 Akiva's a diamond today. Akiva's the biggest talmudachem coming out of my class. Because sometimes, kafiy, the way you go that way is the way that you go that way. Akiva's like an off the charts, huge yeshamayim talmudachem. Maybe if I had done a little bit more, whatever. Maybe I will. Maybe I'd also be a lion. I was only cutting class, right? So I had a lot of potential. So But that pit you get in your stomach before parent-teacher conferences. You know this anxiety. How much better is it when you could share it with a friend? How much better is it when you could be real? You know what every one of us in this room wants, aside from serenity, the other thing we want is belonging. Belonging means I want to be able to say to the person next to me, "This is who I am, and you could accept me for who I am."

41:32 It's an amazing feeling. This is what we want on Rosh Hashanah. We want to come to Al Kol Shbaruch and we want to say, if we're being honest, for everybody in the room, you could open your heart. If we're being honest with Hashem, we're going Chatasi Avici Pashati. I did really bad things. I did things I'm not proud of, like really not proud of. But can we hold space for each other? Can we be here together? That's what we want from Yom Ha'Adam. I want to bless us all. I know we're only meeting each other for the first time, but I want to bless us together as a community. That this Rosh Hashanah, Be'ezrat Hashem, we should have the capacity with Hashem and feel His love in our judgment.