Sefiras HaOmer: Peter Pan vs Captain Hook

2:33 And Hook clearly represents the adult. It's because Hook is grappling with the concept of time. Every great story has the dragon in it. In this case, the dragon is the crocodile. And the crocodile has bitten off Hook's hand, including his watch. Whenever the crocodile comes close, Hook can tell that the crocodile is coming close. Why? Because he hears the ticking of time. And so what that represents is the adult who's fighting with time. And if you think about it, if you step back a little bit and you consider the deeper message there It's quite profound. You have this godlike child with all this magical potential and he really could become anything. He's the king of his world. He's the king of Neverland, the king of the Lost Boys. And then you have this other king, the Tired Hook. And what they're really grappling with is over the subject of time. And Peter Pan says, "I don't want to become an adult. And that's the thing. I'm going to choose not to become an adult. As long as you stay in Neverland, you could stay a child forever. You could be the king of the Lost Boys. And look, why would I want to do that? Because when I look at the adult

3:37 In Neverland, who do I see? I see the tyrannical Hook, and I don't want to become a tyrant. And why is Hook a tyrant? Hook is a tyrant because he's struggling with time, and he will lose that battle. Adults lose their battle with time. Because once you become an adult, the moment you're born in our world, the moment you're born, you start to die. So tragedy is occurring. It's just on its way. It's just a question of whether or not it happens. What we consider early or what we consider late, but it's happening. And as a result of not accepting the fate that one day he's going to die. Hook is battling with that crocodile. That's the villain that Hook struggles with. If you think about it from that perspective, Hook might be a tyrant, but he's also a little bit the victim here. He knows he's dying and he's struggling with that, and that's what people do when they're struggling with their mortality. So then, that's how you become tyrannical. And that is a very profound message. And one that we should stop and think about in our lives, certainly just right now. But in our lives we should think about that. Because we're all struggling with our humanity. If you think that's really what we've been learning the entire year is struggling with our humanity.

4:43 It's once we're no longer just spirit. And once the neshama comes down into the body, that starts the clock. The hourglass is turned upside down, and nobody, none of us, know really when that time is going to run out. But that's really what we're struggling with. And so the battle between Peter Pan and Captain Hook is really a battle for, in some ways, Hook looks at the child who will never grow up, and that can't be right because Hook is the adult, and he knows he's dying. And Peter Pan looks at the adult trying to come after him, and he says, "I won't be an adult. I won't be an adult." I won't be an adult. The problem with Peter Pan is he hasn't solved the problem, because he finds himself strangely attracted to the world of adulthood, to the world where you ultimately do grow up and die, and so he finds himself traveling into the world and falling in love with Wendy, and that's where he wants to be, and he wants to bring Wendy back to Neverland, and he wants to be with Wendy in that place where we're never going to die. And I've beaten the system. But the problem is that Wendy, I think in this case is the real hero of the story, because what does Wendy want?

5:44 Wendy wants to grow old. She wants to embrace time. Whereas Captain Hook is the adult who refuses to accept time, and as a result he's oppressed by time, and as a result he becomes a tyrant, Peter Pan is terrified of that. At the same time, you have Wendy who represents the truly healthy person who says, "Time is inevitable, and I'm going to accept it." By accepting time, she becomes its victor. And all of a sudden, instead of worrying about the oppression of time, Wendy has this really healthy outlook where she says, "Yes, I'm going to grow old." But I'm going to do meaningful things with my life. I'm going to get married and raise a family and have children. And Peter Pan really wants that; he's strangely attracted to that. But ultimately, Wendy leaves Neverland because she says, 'I want to grow up. I want to do the things that adults do. I want to have a job and I want to raise my family and I want to do all these amazing things.' And all Peter Pan is left with is Tinker Bell. And I was thinking about Tinker Bell and I was thinking about Hook and I was thinking about how that relates to our generation. And I think in our generation

6:46 The message of the Hook, in a certain way, is the message of technology. I've lost a part of myself. Struggling with time, I lose a part of myself and it's replaced with a technology. It's replaced with a Hook, and so many people are doing that. So many people today because they're unwilling to accept the responsibilities that come with time. As a result, they're falling back into their own world. And what does that world consist of? That world consists of distraction. And there's definitely the role that alcohol plays in distracting us from our life. If I'm drunk and I'm just having a good time, I don't need to take any meaningful responsibility, right? If I'm getting high, if I'm just on my phone all day, if I'm watching movies all day, right? I couldn't open up my phone without hearing that Avengers Endgame was coming. And then when it came and it was like over a billion dollars, half a billion dollars is over a billion dollars in the box office. Why is that? It was because the concept of what we've done with technology. And again, I'm not saying that technology doesn't have positive values.

7:52 Of course it does. But what you can do with technology is you can choose not to confront the real world. I don't have to feel my feelings. I can just go on my phone. So there's that aspect. But when you think about Tinker Bell. In a certain way, Tinker Bell represents the pornography of the world. Because she's not really real, and so Peter can have a relationship with her. But it's only clap if you believe in fairies. He really wants to have a relationship with Wendy. But Wendy is choosing to grow old. And Peter Pan is not choosing to grow old. He's not choosing to accept what time will contribute to his life. And that's just an amazing thing to think about. So the only relationship he has is with things that aren't real. With the lost boys, the other boys that haven't found their place in this world, that don't really have a direction they're going. I think especially at your age, it's really important to consider that. Because what we find with guys that are your age, and I think we find this not just with guys but with girls, and I think it's really across the spectrum. And I don't just mean at your age, but in this general age range, is they have a very interesting approach to time.

8:58 And there are some that are just so unwilling to own it and say, Okay, I'm not in control of time. Time is happening one way or another. So let me do something meaningful with my life. And other people are so afraid of time that they feel like they have to get out in front of it. And it's like if they don't right now do the following, everything's going to fall apart. They have to have a plan. They have to be on that plan. And everything is like, and there's no sense of like There's no serenity there. It's like there's this whole pressure. I'm behind. Who are you behind? I'm behind because I came to Israel for the year. Who are you behind? The people that got started. Why does that make you behind? And it's only because you're feeling this pressure, this crunch of time, which means you haven't truly accepted time. You're not the master of time. Time is the master of you, and that's the paradox. Until you accept that you don't control time, you're going to be under its thumb. And once you accept

9:52 I'm not in control of time. All of a sudden, it releases you. That's the paradox we've been working on all year. What do you mean, Rabbi? If I don't control this, it's all going to fall apart. No. As long as you're trying to control it, it's all going to fall apart. But the moment you stop trying to control it, what happens? All of a sudden, it's like, okay, it's great. I'm not in control of it anymore, and now all of a sudden, I find myself with this range of options that I never had as long as I was under its dominion. The value of being the Wendy character, who I really believe is the heroine of the story. The value of being the Wendy character is that she's willing to acknowledge that time is occurring, and she's choosing not to try to be the master of time, but to operate in a meaningful framework so that she can explore the options that time has to give her. And that, like I said, we'll be getting a job and raising a family and doing really important, meaningful things.

10:45 Retransition a little bit. You have a lot of time stuff. Are you not trying to dominate time with having people walk into your car and having an incredible amount of meetings? How does this apply? I don't understand. Sometimes I do feel that way. Sometimes I do feel that I've lost my sense of where I am and I'm trying to control time. Sometimes that is true. But having a meeting is controlling time. Where is the line? So I don't really think so. In fact, I think the opposite. As over the years, you've had guys that have asked like. Maybe I don't understand how you're doing it. I don't see you taking a break. I think people really get burnt out when they're trying to control it. It's actually once you're not trying to control it, it frees you up. Then you have all these options, and then all of a sudden, it doesn't become that burden. The opposite becomes true. Once you have like 14

11:40 15 hours, a day where you're working, but you're like, at the end of those 14, 15 hours, you're like, that was amazing. I feel like I led a meaningful life today. I feel like I contributed something to the world. I feel like I brought a kadosh baruch hu nachas. I took care of his children today. It actually frees you. And as I think, the people that are oppressed by time are the people that are like, I'm working from vacation to vacation. It's that old story of the wealthy CEO that chooses to go to the Caribbean and he goes out on a fishing boat. Some like, dinky little fishing boat, and he just sits there fishing for three days on the middle of the Caribbean.

12:12 You catch what you eat, and you have this amazing sort of relaxed couple of days. And at the end, as he's walking off the fishing boat, he turns to the island guy who's been leading him for the last couple of days, and he says, "I just can't wait to get back here." And then that leaves the islander on his smoldering fishing boat going, "Well, maybe I have a better life than the CEO. Because the CEO is just trying to get back to me, and I'm already here. And it's not clear to me that a person should choose to live that life. That's not what I'm saying at all. But I'm saying, once you accept that you're not the master of time that it's occurring. Now that it's happening, the question is, what am I going to do with it? I still. I hear. I like that idea, But I don't understand. I would like at six o'clock every day. I write in my journal. Am I dominating time by doing that?

13:01 I don't think so. I think Adaraba. I think the fact that you've chosen to say that this time is going to be used in a meaningful way means that you're not trying to control time. It means that you recognize that time is a framework, and you're operating within that framework, but you're not trying to control time. In the story, it's the adult that refuses to acknowledge his responsibility, and he's running away from time. Or there are people that get home at night, and they're just so exhausted from their day that the only thing they could do is turn on the TV. And in the meantime, their kids are like I haven't seen you all day either. The father is like, I just don't have any time for you. Because I'm just exhausted, and then the kids say, 'Well, thanks for supporting me, but I'd rather have a dad than have you know the extra car.' And then the father is saying, 'No, you really want the car.' And the kids are like, 'No, I really don't.' And it's sort of that archetypical story. It's that archetypical story of Peter Pan versus Captain Hook.

13:56 Yeah. Also, can it happen that even if you're using the framework of time, if there's no room for leeway in that using that framework, it becomes okay. This at this time every day, I do this. Then, at some point, if there's no leeway for something else that you see as more important, you're using it. I agree. I could not agree with you more. I think those people are really not letting go of time. I think they're not really accepting that time is inevitable. They're not accepting both. That's correct. I think that's very fair point. I think that's very true. About people who are like the Peter Pan who's either not accepting his responsibility at his point in life, or he's too much trying to be Machabe what he's not up to. And learning how to walk right in that middle of the road, like the Rambam would describe it.

14:51 I think that's the important part. And you could be on either extreme and pretending that you're not. What's interesting is that Carl Jung says that when you become an adult, at some point you have to circle back and get your child back. The reason why I find that particularly fascinating is because of the movie Hook. Hook was this sequel that I believe Disney put out on the story of Peter Pan. Robin Williams plays Peter. The thing is that because he's chosen to go back to the real world and grow up. And I think he married Wendy's granddaughter in the movie. He sort of lost his way. And so Captain Hook. He's become this high-powered lawyer. And Captain Hook kidnaps his children. And he has to go back with Tinker Bell. He has to go back to Neverland to recapture his children. And if you think then about the depth of the story of Hook, it's an amazing sequel. It's not just a sequel like, well, what happens afterwards. But it's really getting back into that notion of like bringing back your child with you back home.

15:57 And he has to rediscover the Peter Pan, the child that's inside of all of us. And I think maybe that's the point that you're making. Because you could become an adult and then you could lose all that childhood wonder. And that's what children say to the adults. They said, 'What happened to your inner child? Where's the fun? Where's the geshmack? Where's the exuberance that you had for life? Because you've become so focused on becoming an adult and doing meaningful things that maybe you forgot some of that like that passion and that zest that you once had for life.' So why is this important to us? What's the message here? What's the value? So I was thinking about it in terms of Sfira Somer and I was thinking that it had a particularly important message for us. Let's just step back for a second. If you're leaving Mitzrayim and you're on this journey from being a slave, and fifty days later you're going to have Matan Torah, what would be the one thing you would need to figure out and how would you figure it out? What would be the one thing you would need to figure out in order to prepare yourself for Matan Torah? Time is not really the most expected one. If I'm a slave, I should be focusing on freedom. Wouldn't we naturally think that

17:08 Fifty days of chill. And as you've been enslaved for two hundred and ten years, you grew up in a generation where your parents and grandparents, and maybe great grandparents were slaves before you. That's all you know. So maybe it should be like a fifty day chill. Everybody just got drowned in Kryasjamslov. It should be like little umbrellas in little cocktails, walking around in the desert. Wouldn't that have been an amazing story? There was the Ananayakov. They had this amazing resort type of Avirah. And then fifty days later, when they were finally like, and I don't know if it only takes fifty days. Maybe at that point it should be a year or two of just like, before we throw on you the responsibility of the Torah. Maybe it should just be like, can we take a break? We've been slaves for a while. Do we get a break? And it's almost in typical fashion that right away, the Jewish message is so much the opposite. The Jewish message all of a sudden goes from being like, okay, you're a slave now. Let's get to work. That sounds like a very tough message to hear. So what's the value that's being portrayed?

18:12 What's the Torah trying to teach us? It turns out that if you want to talk about freedom, you have to talk about time. Because if you're talking about slavery, you're talking about oppression. And we think that the opposite of slavery would be no oppression, but that's not true. Because you're going to be under some level of subjugation in your life. That's the human condition. The human condition is that there are forces that are operating against you. This is making sense. And what's the primary force that's operating against you? Once you're born, you're dying. I said the primary thing that a slave is not even considering is time. Because a slave. That's right, and I'm not the baleem on my time. That's what it means to be a slave. I have a master, and he tells me where to be at what moment. And freedom comes with responsibility, and responsibility right away means I have to engage time. So the very first message that we get is the message of the carbonomer. And it's like, okay, your kitavu ella arts when you're going to come to the land, you're going to have this responsibility, and now you have the carbonomer, and you have to wave that carbonomer, and you have to do. That whole thing coincides with the forty-nine days that we're counting up to Matan Torah. What's the message?

19:17 The message is freedom comes with responsibility. Responsibility means you're going to be operating within time. You have to learn how a Jew engages with time. And that we have a totally unique contribution to in the world, and it really needs to be understood deeply. I don't know if we're going to get to the entire thing in this year. But I think that there's real value in just hitting pause for a second to really try to understand it. When a Jew counts Sefiras Haomer, it's a little bit different. First of all, let's just analyze it for a second. What type of mitzvah is this? So, it comes the night, Daven myrav, and you counted. You count the day. Like consider it. What's the value of it? So you counted the day. Why is that a meaningful contribution? I counted the day. Lots of people count days. The classic questions. What are the classic questions around this? Number one, why are we counting up and not counting down? We can already start to answer that question, because if you're counting down, then what are you saying? Enjoying every last minute before Montar. That's right. In other words, I'm not really letting. I'm counting down. Is I'm not. I'm not the master of time. Time will occur in a distant future. And I'm just counting down until that time.

20:30 Whereas counting up has a radically different connotation. What's the connotation of counting up? Getting better. That's what I'm working till I get there. In other words, it's not this passive sort of counting down till it comes. And you'll see that, especially now as Yeshivas starting to end. People will start to go. It's like five weeks left. There's only four weeks left. There's only three weeks left. And there will be two types of people. There will be the people that are counting down. And those people will be the ones that you'll hear them say, 'It's time for this to end.' And what are they really saying? They're really saying, 'I'm not utilizing this time.' Whenever you count down to something, you're just waiting for it to be over or waiting to get to the next thing. Right? When you're counting up and you're saying, "Okay, I'm gonna, I've got 23 days left, right? " What was that? Seventeen full days.

21:16 Whatever it is. So then you said, right? But I like that lotion. It's a full day. And these are the days that are going to be full. These are the days I'm going to do something with that. That's some really powerful imagery right there. But in Judaism, I think it's much more than that. If you look at the time, how many of you are familiar with the concept of the sferos? So every single day when you count, we have seven sferos. You guys familiar with this? These are the seven things that Hakadosh Baruch Hu created the world with. So the world needs chesed, Gevura, teferes, netzach, Hod, yisod, and malchus. These are seven, seven powers, so to speak. And we have these powers inside of our soul. These are the powers that Hakadosh Baruch Hu created the world with. All of these seven powers are actually made up of each other. For example, chesed is made up of the seven powers.

22:09 So there's chesed shabechesed, Chesed shabegvura. Or I should say the opposite. Chesed, she be Chesed, gevura, she be Chesed. Tiferes, she be Chesed, Netzach, she be Chesed. All of these things are just permutations of each other. Seven times seven means forty nine. There's forty nine days. And so in Judaism, when we're counting this, this notion of counting forty nine days, we actually don't just count the day, but there's a particular avoda that's necessary towards that day. And so what's fascinating, and this is like, really, really revolutionary. If you just stop and think about it. It's such a revolutionary approach to time. As we're trying to recognize that time is the oppressor. But we don't want to see time as the enemy. Because if you see time as the enemy, then that's going to be your Captain Hook sort of lifestyle. Then you're going to become a tyrant because you're constantly in a state of oppression. How do you accept time? How do you accept time and then make your life meaningful? How do you do that? The answer is not outside of yourself. The answer is inside of yourself. So go into this place of let's say day one of Sefiras Haomer. I'm now working on Chesed Shabeshesed.

23:12 What does that mean? Chesed is the mitzvah of loving kindness. And there's loving kindness that exists without boundaries, and it's just totally I love you for no reason whatsoever. There's something so deeply attractive. And the next day, there's Chesed Shabegvura. Or I'm sorry, Gvura Shabeshesed. There's the Chesed that requires boundaries. Sometimes you have to say no to a child in order to say yes to something else. Don't have sugar before you go to sleep. Because if you have sugar before you go to sleep, you're not going to have a good night's sleep. If you don't have a good night's sleep, you're not going to do well in school the next day. So saying no is sometimes saying yes. Then there's teferish of chesed. How do I harmonize the gevura and the chesed of chesed? You understand? What's fascinating about Sefirot S'omer is the way that we relate to time. We stop focusing on the external and we start focusing on the internal. In other words, where is the oppression coming from? Why do some people have the Captain Hook mentality and they say time is my enemy?

24:13 I have to do as much as I can before time runs out. And I think that's what Jeremy and Will you were highlighting before, and Shmuel you were highlighting the same thing, right? I have my every single thing scheduled right, and I don't have that flexibility because time is my oppressor. I'm running out of time. There's those people, and at the same time, there's people that are just trying to avoid time because they can't handle it. How do you go from being the tyrant to being the heroine to say, No, I choose to accept time? The answer is, and this is very different than I think anywhere else that you'll ever find in philosophy. The answer is that time is only your enemy if you're leading an external life. So if you took an inventory of your life and you looked at yourself and you put your soul under the mirror, what you would find is you would say, 'Wait a second, there is a lot inside, and none of it is bound by time, because your soul is timeless.' So what is? Then you start to think about if time is out there and time is going to be the suppressor. I don't want to be oppressed by time. I want to accept time. You have to go to a place that's timeless and live from that place, and then you're not worried about the oppression of time.

25:19 That actually allows you to accept time. You start to think about that. You say, "Well, where is my timeless place?" And the answer is, your timeless place is inside of you. That's what it means to have a soul. That's the value of having a soul. And then you're no longer oppressed by time. Then you start to think about it. You say, "Well, what is my soul made up of?" And then you say, "Well, my soul is made up of these seven faculties." And then you start to think, "Well, what are they made up of? They're made up of seven faculties." And what you do is you introduce the timeless into the time. And that is a revolution. That is an amazing revolution. And if we didn't say anything else for the rest of this year, it would already be a revolution. How do I introduce the timeless into the time? Because isn't that the border where finite and infinite meet? And that's really the human condition of the finite and the infinite meeting at once. You have a body and you have a soul, and that's the merging of the finite and the infinite. How do you introduce the timeless into the time? The answer is: take an inventory of what timeless talents you have, and then introduce them into your life. See what happens is that when you have all these talents and you just leave them in the abstract.

26:21 Nothing happens. They never manifested themselves in the world, so they never became useful or meaningful, and you didn't really do anything with them. So you have this amazing capacity to love, but you were never able to access it. You always had that fear of vulnerability. Vulnerability is the birthplace of connection. I was expecting at least one of you to say that. Vulnerability is the birthplace of connection. But because I never developed chesed chapechesed, I never even got off the ground. In other words, I had this timeless concept inside of me, something that's totally unbridled and unbound. And I never introduced it into the real world. I never did anything with it. And so what happens is that as you count the days, you actually leave the slavery mentality. And that is an amazing thing. How do you take someone who's been enslaved? And that's something that's happened historically. Like we had a Parthite in Africa. How do you take someone who's a slave and transition them to a life of dignity? How do you transition them from to a place of matan Torah? The answer is, if you're going to sit there and walk around and say, "Well, I was a slave"

27:24 I was a slave, I'm oppressed, I'm oppressed, I'm oppressed, well, you're never going to be free. And even though some people do see Pesach that way, we try not to see Pesach that way. We're not sitting and walking around saying, "We were oppressed." We're saying, "No, we were oppressed." And that was the journey. They were the ones who taught the world how to leave. How do you leave the meitzarim? How do you leave the constriction in your life? How do you stop being oppressed? And the answer is, when you leave in a miraculous fashion, and you say, there's God, and you're able to see it in your life. And then you're able to start making your days count. And because you're saying, Okay, I have something that's timeless. It's inside of me and I have to bring it out into the world. So then every day you counter, and then you get higher and higher. And then at the end you have the capacity to be, to receive the Torah. And basically, what the Torah is a meaningful life. That's what it is. That's the mission. So we didn't need the Torah to teach us ethics. We needed the Torah to teach us what is a uniquely Jewish mission. You could learn again. We could debate whether or not you have to have ethics rooted in God or not.

28:24 But the Torah. If you look at the Torah as something merely ethical, then it's not really functionally different than any other ethical code. It's the Torah or Haman Rabi's code or whatever it is. But it's much more than that. The Torah is saying this is what. It's not just. It's not just an ethic of like, Don't hurt people. But it can bring timelessness to the world because the Torah exists, and maybe this answers that Gemara on Shabbos. The Torah was created 974 generations before the creation of the world. What was the Gemara trying to tell us? I think what the Gemara was trying to tell us is it was not bound by time. Orais of a kutshe b'richu veYisrael chadhu. So if you say that the Torah and God are one, that means that the Torah is timeless. And so what it did, is by counting this time and accessing the timelessness that we had inside of us, that was the message of freedom. The message was you are not limited. And that I think, if you think about it, is an exceptionally profound message. So I'll finish just the last couple seconds with a story that I really love and it's a story that's really moved me in my life and it's a story of Victor Frankl. And I'm sure many of you have heard this before. And Victor Frankl was obviously

29:26 He was the founder of logotherapy, and it's really what the work that he did in the Holocaust and seeing why some people were able to survive and some people were not able to survive. Frankl tells the story, and it's an amazing story that he had taken his previous work with him to the concentration camp, and he was hopeful that he would be able to hold on to it. When he got there, they took away all of his stuff, and they said, you have to give all your stuff in, and now you're going to get the prison clothing back. He said he was begging the guard, can you please let me hold on to this is my life's work. And he had his thesis with him. Can you let me hold on to this? The guard first refused to consider it, then he took it and threw it away from him, and he had felt like he had lost everything. He was given this prisoner's clothing, and it was clearly somebody that had just been killed. Now it's like you're wearing their things. He's walking out wearing somebody else's clothing. He sticks his hand in the pocket, and he reaches out, and in the pocket it says Shema Yisrael, Hashem Elokeinu, Hashem Echad. He says, That's where my life began. In other words, he had to leave all of his old work behind.

30:30 And then he started to focus on leading a meaningful life, a transcendent life. And only the people that were able to transcend in the Holocaust were the ones that survived. A particularly meaningful message on Yom HaShoah. That only the ones that were able to reach into their pocket and leave everything that they had behind were able. He was able to rediscover, and we only know Viktor Frankl because of his work from the Holocaust. Had the Holocaust never happened, we wouldn't know who Viktor Frankl is. It was only because he had such revolutionary work in the Holocaust that we know who he is. So if you think about it, that message of like we were slaves in Eretz Yisrael And we're choosing to leave that behind, and we're choosing to transcend. Not defining ourselves as the victim anymore. Because every victim just becomes the next person's oppressor. That's what allows us to actually receive the Torah.

31:17 Yeah. The whole timelessness into time, and not like I was trying to. It's still hard to capture. You have all these things about you that are timeless. Let's say the permit spiel. I made a permit spiel. It was, I think, at a place that I'm very good at that, and I think I can give that to people. However, I felt tremendous pressure for a few months of time. Was that because I wasn't accepting time or was that because it was a realistic expectation that I might not get it done? I don't know. What do you think? I think it was both. There's certainly a lot of value to considering. When I have something that I feel I can contribute, like I have something funny that'll make people laugh, that'll be a beautiful, wonderful thing. There's certainly value in saying Perim is coming, and those Jews don't ignore time. But at the same time, once it becomes this pressure, and it starts to weigh on you, so then that's something to think about.

32:18 I was going to ask. For me, when I feel the pressure, even though that's okay, that's normal, that's what we feel. But ultimately, isn't that a lack in that mussar? It's because we're saying. I'm asking. Otherwise, where's the pressure coming from? I'm doing what I'm doing, but I am not in control of the outcome. And I think there's certainly an element of truth to that. Letting go and letting God is a really important part of any anxiety. In other words, all anxiety is a little bit I want to control, and all control is a little bit idolatrous. So that's certainly true. That's what the Tanya says, right? And yet, on the other hand, I do think there's value in recognizing Shabbos is here, and I have to prepare for Shabbos because it's coming. And so there's a balance of that's not a lack of faith. I won't be able to cook on Shabbos. There is a finite amount of time that we have to play, and that's why games are real. I think that's the Amshinavir Rebbe. And maybe this is a good story to finish off with. You guys know that the Amshinuva Rebbe is famous for not keeping to any zmanim at all. Some of you may know this about the Amshinuva Rebbe. He davens mincha at three o'clock in the morning, and he davens ma'ariv at ten o'clock in the morning. Then he davens shachris at three o'clock in the afternoon.

33:50 It's just because he's trying to catch up. He's like, and he'll like Hanukkah naros the like weird times, and it takes him forever. It can take him forty five minutes to make a bracha. And without getting into what the halachic response to that should be, I think we can all say that he's on a level that none of us are on. So there's a story with the Amshinuva Rebbe. It's a beautiful story. He was erev Yom Kippur, and he was eating sudomasekus, and it's getting later and later. And it's one thing to daven mirev at ten o'clock in the morning. It's quite another thing to eat on Yom Kippur. And so the Hasidim were starting to get nervous. And so finally, the Hasidim got the gumption to appoint one older Hasid to go over to the Rebbe and say, "It's shpey, the shpey, which means it's late, it's late." And the Rebbe said to him, "A person always needs to wear two watches. One that says it's shpey, the shpey, it's late, it's late. And the other that says, 'But there's still time.'" And that I think is the balance that we have to live with. In other words, we're not going to let time control us.

34:54 But we recognize that there's a limited amount of time in this game, and that's what makes the game great. If there wasn't a limited amount of time, we wouldn't enjoy playing it. The game goes on forever, then we wouldn't play. It's because there's and that's why when a game goes into overtime, it's like there's more time. It's like that's amazing. And maybe we should believe a little bit more in overtime. And that's maybe the message of Pesach Sheni. We'll stop here for today.