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Many years ago Many years ago, when I was living in the five towns, my brothers and I had some family minhagim. One family minhag was on the day of Pesach, the morning when you burn the chametz. So my brothers and I would have our last chametz. If you're growing up in the five towns, where do you go for your last chametz? You go to the bodega. That's true. It's exactly where we went. And we would buy boxes of Entenmann donuts. It's still done. There were only three of us, but we would buy boxes And that was our last supper, coming off of it, or our last breakfast, the last chametz. And then everybody knows what Jews do? The moment Pesach is over You have to eat pizza. Even if the lines are insane, even if the pizza is underbaked. People like bribing other people in line.
Can I take your space? One year, I remember, I won't tell you where it was. It was in a certain town. There was a mashgiach that every year he would wonder to himself. How do they get the pizza out so quickly on Matzei Pesach? So he walked from his house, which was two towns over. He walked to the pizza store on the eighth day of Pesach, and he had a key because he was the mashgiach. He let himself in. Everything appeared to be quiet. And then he went down into the basement, and he found a team of people working there, making the dough on Erev Pesach and Matzei Pesach, meaning the last day of Pesach. So he said to them, 'What are you guys doing?' They said, 'Where is Rali?' What do you mean? We don't keep the eighth day, but obviously that's not the halacha. And so they closed the store down. That matzeh Pesach meant that there was a lot of other business for a lot of other stores. It was a big hock in the neighborhood.
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But we have this need. Jews have this extreme need to eat chametz the moment Pesach is over. Have you ever noticed that? Strange thing. And not along the same lines, but along similar lines. Ashkenazim are very, very jealous of Sfarim that eat rice on Pesach, like irrationally so. You ever hear? You ever see Ashkenazim go over to Sfarim and ask, 'Do you eat rice?' It's like there's an interrogation factor. Do you eat sushi every day? You're just pounding rice. You're like a sumo wrestler just eating as much rice as you possibly can. And Sfarim are looking at Ashkenazim going First of all, I'm Moroccan, so yes, I don't eat rice, right? Like I keep halacha, but like those, let's say that, let's say that those that don't, right? They're like I eat a regular amount of rice, right? Like But Ashken, they're like Ashkenazim are obsessed by this.
If you can eat it, why are you not eating it? There's something very sick about this culture. In an interesting way There's a very beautiful contrast. Between Pesach, Where we vilify chametz So, like every shmuuz Every single shmuuz that we hear around Pesach is about what the chametz is. The saar shebeisa, right? It's the etzahara. You have to be bodek. You have to look for it. You have to cleanse it. This is the time of growth of cleansing these things from your life. So really, the question should be not why Not why do we not have chametz on Pesach. If bread is so bad, please come join us. You are welcome to be. If chametz is so bad, it should be ushered out of the entire year. There should be halachas like that. Wouldn't that be an amazing halacha? Like no chametz ever. Jews would get amazing at making matzah bread. We would be really, really phenomenal with that. Not only is it not usher to eat bread the entire year But on Shavuos, what are we going to celebrate? What did used to happen on Shavuot? Anybody know?
We all know Shavuot is Matan Torah, but what used to happen on Shavuot? Bikurim. There was a special Bikurim. Very good. There was also the shtei lechem. We used to bring a special carbon to Hashem called the shtei lechem, which was literally bread. It was the show bread. Almost every other carbon is specifically not made of lechem. But this one is. Now we know that Pesach and Shavuos are deeply connected. When we think about Sukkot, there's the first days of Sukkot and there's Cholamoi, which leads into the last days of Sukkot. That's the way we're supposed to look at Pesach and Shavuos. Pesach is like the first days of Sukkot. And then the counting of the Omer is like Cholamoi, and it culminates in the last day, which is Shavuos. So we would expect if Lechem is so bad. If Chametz is so bad, we would expect that on Shavuos we should eat matzah again one day. Wouldn't that be like the most amazing Hasidic minig? Like in my family on Shavuos we're makpid not to eat bread. It's like a special minig we have because it's the continuation. It's the exact opposite.
On Shavuos we eat lechem. Why do we do that? If there's some sort of development from Pesach to Shavuos that Shavuos is the culmination, then we would expect that Shavuos should be all about matzah, and yet it's about exactly the opposite. There's a very important idea here that I want to share with you. There's a development over these three months. Nissan, Eir, Sivan. These are three months that go together. Nissan The zodiac of Nissan. Does anyone know what the astrological sign of Nissan is? Sheep. Does anyone know what Eir is? It's a bull. Very good. Sivan is twins. What's the progression of sheep to bull to twins? I want to share with you what I think is a very meaningful idea. I hope that you'll all be here to hear it. What's the avodah as parents, as future parents? Everybody in this room, Beis Rosh Hashem is going to be a parent.
Well done. It's like a soft, gentle amine. Very good. It wasn't like a. I didn't say anything about a shit off, so it wasn't too intense. Because you all kind of know parenting is going to be rough Very well done. And also, every one of you had that same thought at once. It was like that would be a great joke and you all had. So good to be back. As parents, what do we want to give our children, especially when they're little? Attention. Attention. That's a really good answer. But I want to tell you why it's a really good answer. Do you want to tell me why it's a really good answer? Because it's legitimately a great answer. So I'll share with you a story. Just happened. So my son is five years old. He's in cheder. And he has five sisters that are older than him.
So he's a tiny little girl. And he's a great kid. Those of you that met him, he's a sweet, nice boy. But growing up in Eretz Yisrael, being a sweet, nice boy is likely to get you killed. Have you ever seen cheder boys? These kids are trained. These Israeli cheder kids. I laugh. You think the Islamic world could take us over? Do you understand that we have Israeli cheder kids that are growing up in this country? These kids are tough as nails, and my little girl of a son is like I love that boy, but he is so gentle. Any time anyone makes anything, if one of my daughters makes something at five years old, he did this even when he was four and three. Thank you so much for the chicken. What are you doing? You're supposed to throw it at her. But he doesn't know these things And we're trying to toughen him up, but it's not working.
And ultimately, obviously, it's a good thing. I have to say this because I have to, right? Like, I'm joking. Everyone here understand that? Good. So Over Cholamoid, he said something to me. And I tried a little bit. When my kids talk. And he said, I really don't like cheder. And when I asked him At first I thought he was like I don't like learning waiting to say something. I even said it in the beginning. Let's not pay too much attention to this. And then he said, I feel like I don't have any friends. This is why my son is a little girl because he has five sisters. He comes with I don't have any friends. They go oh. If he had brothers, they would say, 'Well, go toughen up and get some friends.' So So I was listening to him, I was talking it through with him, and I was like, "Well, what's going on?" And he's like, "Well, I'll ask boys to play, and they don't necessarily want to play.
And I'll go to other boys, and they won't necessarily want to play. I have two friends. I have two friends, and I am working on playing with them, but it's hard. He was really stuck in this narrative, so I was paying a lot of attention to him. I was talking, maybe even too much, to him about it. And it now comes the night before Cheder. Cheder is starting again on Monday, and it's Sunday night. And I'm trying to brainstorm with him What would be like something that he could take with him tomorrow? I'm not even sure that he does have a problem making friends, but I know that he is expressing that. I wanted to be there with him in that. So I said to him, "What would be helpful to you?" I said, "You know, like." Any time you want to have friends over, you can have friends over, and that wasn't a good solution for him. He didn't like that solution because he was like, "I am going to ask them; they're going to say no." So that's not a good solution for me.
So I said, 'Would it be a good solution if I gave you a bracha?' Would you feel good about yourself? If I gave you a bracha? He said, 'Yes, Abba. If you gave me a bracha, I think that would help.' Now I don't know if it does or doesn't, but he's five years old, and that made him feel something. So I gave him a bracha. I didn't say Yivarech Hashem Yishmeracha, but I did pull him close and I put my hands on top of his head. And I said to him I want to give you a bracha that tomorrow, when you go to cheder, you should feel so good about yourself that when you go over to somebody and you say, 'Hey, do you want to play?' they're going to see that you are a boy who really wants to play and listens very, very nicely to the rabbi and to the moira, and that you are a good boy who other kinderlach are going to want to play with. A big smile on his face, and he goes, 'Thank you so much, Abba.' And he came home after cheder the next day with my daughter, and as soon as my daughter went to pick him up, she said.
His way said there, he goes. Everybody played with me because of Abba's bracha. And now I don't know if that's true either. And I'm not sure that it matters if it's true. I don't know if nobody played with him or if everybody played with him, but he identified in himself that was a story. That was a story he was telling himself that he got a bracha from his Abba, and that he wanted to say that it worked. So the next night before he goes to sleep, he's like, "I said, should we do another bracha?" He goes, "Yeah, let's do another bracha." So I gave him another bracha. And then the next day comes on. Wow, what a great day in Cheder. And then the next day we were going swimming. I took him swimming at my parents' house in the afternoon, and my dad was there. My dad, my parents live here in Eretz Israel, Baruch Hashem, and my parents have a pool in their backyard. It's not a large pool, but it's like an in-ground pool. It's not like one of these above-ground in-text pools. It's a nice pool. And I said to him, and my parents were aware because I had told them what was going on with him. And I said, 'Do you want to ask Saba for a bracha?'
He's like, "Oh, Saba, that's big. I'm going to get Saba's bracha. So my father bent down and he gives him a bracha, and the kid is beaming. He's absolutely beaming. And I was spending a lot of time thinking about this. Attention was the right word, but if I drilled down under the word of attention, what is the thing that I was trying to give him? What was that gift? For sure For sure, empathy, and for sure, confidence. But underneath all of those things is one thing that supports all of those things. And here's the self-esteem is for sure true, but where does that come from? I'll tell you where I think it comes from in very young children. Dependability. It's not a word that you're necessarily expecting But as children, what we need and what we want to give our own children is that we can depend on someone to take care of us, and that is the first thing you need. That's the beginning. People talk about how we develop children with self-esteem. The number one thing is whether they have people they can depend on. Because they're very little. You don't remember what it was like to be this little, but do you know how scary the world is at four and five and six years old? Think about the messages you get in school. Remember in first grade when they did like
What do they call that in English? I'm losing my English. They do like a lesson, but it's more than a lesson. They have like a whole program on school on safety, crossing the street. What do they call it? Like some sort of a, and they tell kids if you don't look both ways before you cross the street, you're gonna die. And as a little kid, they're like, it's hard to remember to look both ways, and everywhere you go, somebody's holding your hand for fear that you'll get lost. And we tell kids, and if you get lost, find these people, and find the police unless you're black, and then don't find. I'm joking here, right? I'm trying to be inclusive. So the. I have children that I like as well. You okay? Good. Sparty lives matter too. We. I guess the world is don't take candies from strangers, like unless you're in school and then there's a candy man, but like don't take candies from strangers. Like it's the world is a terrifying place And you hear stories about kids.
And I know how the story sounds ten years later But stories from kids. Let's say and this happens that both parents are working, and that makes sense because today it's just so expensive to live. But then the kid comes home and maybe they're still young and maybe they have a key at a very young age And they have to let themselves in the house. You know what that's like for a little boy or a little girl, even at nine years old, which is not so little, to have to come home from school and there's nobody in the house. And they learn to do things at a very young age because nobody's around for them. Dependability is a big, big deal. By the way, ten years later, you know what that story sounds like? I could never depend on anyone, so I had to learn to depend on myself, and that's really not a healthy thing. Because the baseline where we begin is as a sheep.
Where we begin, and if you think about what a sheep is. A sheep is a docile animal. It's like somebody has to take care of you. That's why they have people that tend to the sheep. They have sheep herders. They have to keep them all together as a group, and they have to protect them from the wild because that's what we're supposed to be doing. And if you think about that relative to Pesach. That's really what Pesach is about. You were a flock And you were being abused by the Mitzrayim. And on Pesach We became in a healthy way, and that's what we're going to talk about today. Dependable, like Anak Kodesh Baruch Hu. Like we could depend. What does that 'muna' mean in this case? What does it mean? 'Vayamino ba'Hashem. What does it mean that? It means I could trust you. That's no small thing. Do you ever hear? You ever girls say that, like in seminary, like when you're having a real conversation?
I don't know. I never felt like I could truly trust someone. Isn't that an amazing gift? That's because if you empathize with a kid, right? Like that's what I was trying to do with my son. I was trying to say to him, it's okay what you're going through, and it's normal to go through what you're going through. And I went through that too. And I told him, I remember being your age and being five years old. And it wasn't always easy making friends. And I had my school friends, and I was much closer with my school friends. And I had my school friends, and I wasn't really so close with my school friends. And so, like during the week, I remember it was hard. But Shabbos was awesome because I had my school friends. And I told that to him. And I was there with him. And I wanted him to know that you can depend on me as a parent to be there with you when you're having a hard time. That's the basis. That's stage one of growing up. Being able to be dependable.
The problem with dependence is this: if I'm always dependent on another, what am I missing? Independence. If you have healthy dependence, then you can have healthy independence. But what generally happens is this follows. It happens a lot. I was never able to depend on anyone, so I had to learn to be independent. Do you think that's going to be healthy independence? Because when my independence comes from trying to fill a void inside of myself Your independence can never create healthy dependence by definition, because dependability means I trust myself to depend on you. I know that I'm going to be okay, even if you don't do it 100% the way I want you to do it. And it's going to be okay for me to lean on you. That takes a lot of courage. Healthy dependence takes a lot of courage to trust somebody. You ever have that this year where you trusted somebody and then afterwards you were like, 'Ooh, that was not okay. I trusted the wrong person.'
Not so bad. Not so bad. I would say only about 15 to 20% of you had those eyes. Which is good. But if you're part of that fifteen to twenty percent that I noticed in the room just now, maybe some of you are going. There were people that I was closer with in the beginning of the year, and then I learned not to be able to trust them. They were not dependable people. If you are a healthy, independent person, that's a really okay thing to learn. You could learn like I'm okay for myself, even if I'm not dependent, even if I'm not able to depend on them, because you had healthy dependence. Does that make sense? But by definition, people that are trying to be independent because they didn't have good dependability—that's not going to work very well. So step one is dependence. Can I depend on you to tend to me? Step two.
If you've had healthy dependence, you can now grow healthy independence. What does that look like? I had a friend growing up. That never went to sleepaway camp. Never. He was, and I mean, I just want to explain. Culturally, everybody in our group went to sleepaway camp. Everybody went. So if you didn't go to sleepaway camp, it's like, why are you not going? Our whole friend group went together to sleepaway camp. So why are you not going? He was way too dependent. He didn't know how to be away from home. In fact, I get this every year in yeshiva. I'll get a phone call from parents and be like, okay. My son has decided to go to Mavasar for the year, but I just want to let you know He's never been away from home. And I'm like, and what do you mean by that? When you play it out, it's like, well, he doesn't necessarily have the social skills. He never developed the social skills to be out and about. And so these parents are inevitably very nervous.
How exactly does his laundry get done? Right? And I'm like He's gonna put it in a hamper. He's gonna walk it down the hall Right? Or he'll just hire somebody. How do the boys know how to get places for Shabbos? There's a bus outside the yeshiva. They're going to get the bus schedule and learn how to do this. But if they've never done it before, if they've never been outside of their home, if they've only been dependent, then they have no idea how to be in the world. Does that make sense? Some of you, maybe, probably not that many of you, but maybe a couple of you, this was your first time in Israel ever, right? It's wild, coming across an entire continent, like it's a whole new world behind you, yeah, and it's a whole new world, right? Did you crave English when you first got here? Was it scary?
Still scary, right? Still craving English. You still crave English? Did you go home for Pesach? Wow, so you've really been here And that's like a whole new world, right? So how did you know that you could do it? Where'd you get that from? And so here's a really hard thing about parenting. It's learning to let your kids fail and not having them be dependent on you. So I'll be very honest with you. I'm a big warrior. I just like I don't want my kids to get hurt. And inevitably all kids will get hurt. I don't want kids to get hurt. So when kids have to learn how to ride a bike You know what that means. Inevitably They're gonna fall And obviously we're machped on helmets. But if you fall, what are you gonna get? You're gonna get scrapes. You're gonna bleed. You're gonna smash your face. Things are gonna happen. You're gonna lose a tooth.
My grandfather, Elav Ashalem, loved me very much. I only knew him when I was five, so I never really knew him. But I know he loved me very much, and I remember that feeling. And my mom was a balish tshuva. And my grandfather wasn't so happy about it, and the peace was made when I was born. It was okay, but I'm gonna have a relationship with his grandkid. Maybe he thought he would take me back off the diary. I don't know. But one thing I know about my grandfather I was the clumsiest kid. So we didn't have rollerblades back then. We had roller skates. They had like four wheels, like on the sides, and I was constantly falling. So my grandfather bought me every type of padding imaginable. Like there are kids that just walk around like bulked up. Puff, marshmallow man, like nothing's gonna hurt. Is that healthy? No. Is that a good thing? It's not.
It's okay to teach kids. I'm gonna let go of the bike. And you're gonna be okay when I let go of the bike, and maybe you'll fall, and it's okay because you're gonna learn how to ride a bike that way. The parents who have a harder time when that kid is crying and they're going off to first grade for the first day and it's really scary and the kid is crying and they're holding on. It's not even first grade. It's pre one or kindergarten, whatever it is. Nursery. They're like, no, don't leave me, don't leave me. Who has a harder time, the parent or the kid? It's murder for the parents. You see those parents? They're suffering. They're standing outside the door like this, trying to peek in without the kid noticing them. Are they still crying? They're not crying three minutes later. But as a parent, it breaks your heart. So why do you do it? Why do you ever make the kid go to school? It's just so hard. And there was a time, by the way, where parents were like, 'I just can't. He's not ready yet.'
Right? It has nothing to do with the kid. We need to teach kids, and this is a part of growing up. You can do this. You can get a license. You can ride a bike. You can learn to swim. You can go to camp. And even if you call me and say that you're not okay, you're going to be okay. Teaching kids that they're not okay and that they'll be okay even while they're not okay is a really important part of healthy independence. But some people don't get that either. And then what happens? Let's say you have one of these helicopter moms And she's like, "I am never letting you out of my Daladamos, because something tragic is going to happen to you if I'm not there." So I'm going to be there, and I'm going to be on the phone with you every step of the way. You're going to FaceTime me, WhatsApp video call me, and Snapchat me. I'm on Snapchat to see what you're doing. I'm on Insta, and I know it's called Insta, not Instagram, because I'm a parent who spends that much time on there to see what you're doing.
Life three sixty. Great. Even better. B'chayim. What do we call that? What do we call that when somebody is co-dependent? Because what do you think it's going to be like for that kid that never had independence? What happens when they finally do break free of those shackles? At some point, mom cannot hold on to you at twenty-three. What do you think that kid's going to be capable of doing? Either everything or nothing. Either everything or nothing, because on the one hand, it's like I'm finally free and I'm just going to break free. My wife always quotes what she heard many years ago from Rav Nachman Bolman's Zechut Sadek Levracha. Rav Nachman Bolman told my wife that in Chinuch He always tells the kids' teachers in their schools not to clip their wings. Kids need to learn how to fly. Don't clip their wings. They have to go out there and maybe they're gonna fall, but maybe that's okay, because at twenty one, twenty two, twenty three, when they finally break free, it's not even that old. You see it here in the streets of Eshelaim all the time. What do you think these eighteen and nineteen year old kids are going crazy for? Why are they going so nuts? It's like we're finally free. We could do whatever we want. So what does whatever we want mean? It could mean anything. It could even mean the stupidest things.
Right? Or the opposite could be true. I've never had to do anything for myself. How will I have developed the skills to do anything? That's not good either. So you could be so dependable that it actually hurts the child. So that's stage two. You go from being a sheep to being a bull. Bull. When you think about a bull, what's a bull? Strong. Bull in a china shop. Take charge. A bull is someone, and this is what you want. My rabbi told me this. My very close. Friend, I guess you could call him colleague. Somebody who's also a talmud of my rebbe, but significantly older than me. He asked my rebbe What should you look for in a shirach? You have a daughter. What should you look for in a shirach? So among the things that my rebbe said, he should be a man. What did he mean by that?
Meant he should be a person who's responsible, who knows how to take care of things, who knows how to take charge of things, who knows how to bring them. Because it's not easy negotiating this world. And having somebody who's capable. And saying I can show up to this world—that's huge. That's not a small thing at all. That's step two. And then there's step three. And this I think is the hardest one. If you've had big if, if you've had healthy dependability And if you've had healthy independence in your life, so that you knew that your parents were there for you no matter what, and your parents also let you do your thing. Then you can have interdependence. Interdependence means as follows: I am I. Firmly planted on this soil. I know exactly who I am. And now Here are the key words: I can invite somebody into my life with whom I can depend on them; they can depend on me.
Because I'm dependable and independent I maintain my own identity even while being part of a new identity. I can go from being an I to being an us without losing my identity, and that is critical. That is absolutely critical. And girls, that is perhaps in your life the single most difficult thing you will do to be able to go from being an I to being an us without losing yourself. It's very hard because most people will lose themselves a little bit. Right? It's like you have girls who get married. I'm just using girls because I'm speaking to you, but speaking to guys, I'd be doing the exact opposite. But let's say you have girls that come into a marriage and they're like, "I'm going to be the best wife ever." I'm going to give up everything to support my husband. That is not healthy interdependence because you've lost you.
If you are not you in the relationship, who's he married to? That makes sense. So it's very easy to lose yourself because if you've never had healthy dependence, it's like I don't want to trust you. I don't want to depend on you. You are not someone I could depend on. Why? Because in my life, I've never been able to depend on people. Are you going to be able to emerge into an us in that relationship? No way. Let's say you were somebody who, because you didn't have healthy dependence, became super independent. What's going to happen then? You're going to be like a bull in a china shop. And it's your way or the highway, or the opposite. Let's say you only had dependence and you never developed healthy independence. Then what happens? It's like a guy coming to you all the time, and needy people are very, very not attractive.
Unless they are, and then we have to talk. But in general, nobody likes the guy who shows up and says, 'Can you take care of this for me.' I don't know how to do this. Some girls initially go, 'Oh my God, he's so cute. He's like a little baby.' But that's not cute. Ten years later, when he's like, "Could you take care of that? Can you do anything on your own?" If you constantly need to be built up by another, what are we talking about here? So you can't have healthy interdependence without having healthy dependence and healthy independence. A good way of explaining it. Do we have Marcus here today? We do, indeed. A good way of explaining it is: marriage is like the Olympics. Right? There's you There's him And then this area right here is where the relationship takes place. If you are kalkulo here, if you move your entire being into the space of the relationship.
Then who's he in a relationship with? And if he moves his entire being into the space of the relationship, then who are you in a relationship with? So it's you remain you, he remains him, and yet at the same time something new is created, and in this space of the relationship is where belonging occurs And that's huge. And what that means is as follows, and this is where it gets deep. When I see you And when you see me What we see is. Ready for it? We see ourselves in each other. I recognize my soul's counterpoint in another. I recognize the essential connection that exists between the two of us. I'm me, but yet when I look at you, what do I see? I see myself in you, and you are you, and yet when you look at me, what do you see? You see yourself in me, and there's this deep bond that's bigger than both of us.
It's like the way I heard it once, which I like very much, is before you're married to another person, you have to be married to the concept of marriage. There's something bigger than both of you that you're now a part of. You're part of this new thing called a relationship, and that construct is a very complex construct. It means I remain me, but when I look at you, it's not just I'm looking at you anymore. You are you, of course, and yet within you, what do I see? The counterpoint of my soul. I see my mirror image. And when you look at me, you don't just see me—the independent me that I used to be. What do you see? You see someone you can depend on. That's big. Another way of saying this is twins So you moved from sheep, that was dependence. I can rely on Hashem.
Then you were taken out into the desert. And that's the work of becoming an independent person. Sfiras homer. Counting every day, working on yourself. Today is Chesed, tomorrow is Gvura. Every single day is a new avodah. I'm working to become myself. That's not a small thing. But then there's the culmination Shavuos. On Shavuos, you've entered into a relationship in the month of Twins. What does that mean? Anyone here, twin? Your twin? Are you an identical twin? No. He's a boy. Do you? I'm asking you this. You feel free to disagree with me. But I'm asking you: Is your relationship with him like In any way, different than any other sibling? It is, and what's different about it? If you could tell us. I think we're on the same page, but you could be on the same page with siblings also. So that's okay, by the way, that you didn't give it a definition, and I love that because most twins that I speak to when I give this share, they go like this: they go, 'I can't tell you why, but it's just different.' There's some bond that twins share that makes it just different. Some twin relationships stink, right?
And you ever meet twins that hate each other? Like I've met twins that hate each other. It's not push it, right? Like, there are twins that like. We're gonna go to different yeshivas because it's gonna be good for us to be separated a little bit. And then there are twins that are going to different yeshivas. I'm finally gonna be rid of this And it's complicated. And then there are twins that are like, no, we're absolutely going to the same place. And I'll tell you a beautiful story. Thirteen years ago in Mevaseret, there were a pair of twins. And they loved each other. They were awesome. One was like this brawny guy who was really tough in the gym and just a big dude, and the other was this skinny guy, not so built but ridiculously funny, and one of the most charismatic people I've ever met, really, really, really funny. Even as a rebbe, every time he opened his mouth, I was dying of laughter. This is a kid that if I was a kid, I would have wanted to have been his friend. He's just so much fun.
So comes the end of the year, and they're going to tutoring colleges, and it's the first time in their life that they're going to be separated from each other. And each one of them came to me separately. The first one comes to me, and he goes, "This is the skinny one." I don't know how my brother's going to be okay. Rebbe, you know him. He's great, but he's not the guy that's going to go over and introduce himself. I'm just worried about when he goes off. I wonder how he's going to be socially. It's hard for me knowing that it's going to be hard for him. I was like he'll figure it out. He's a good guy. And then the next day, his brother comes to me. He goes, I'm really nervous for my brother. He runs his mouth a lot, and I've always been there to sort of protect him when he says stupid things. But I don't know, Rebbe, what's going to be with him when he's just yapping away and somebody punches him in the face.
And I said to him, I think he'll be okay. He's okay. But in my head, I was like, 'How beautiful is that? They had this really deep love for each other, and they really cared so much about each other, and they shared this very special bond. What is that? Is it just because they were like born at the same time, more or less? There's something undefinable about it. It's something like there's a unique bond that you and I share. That's a very special thing. That's what it means to be interdependent. That's what it means to be in a relationship. To be in a relationship means when I look at you, I see there's something unique about you. There's something here that's like it's me a little bit. And that's what Chazal mean. That's what the Zohar Kadosh says. Before a soul is born, that soul gets split into a male and female half.
And what is marriage? Marriage is not the union of the soul. What is marriage? The reunion of the soul. It's the connection to that which was always there. It's beyond understanding. It's like twins. And that's what happens to Aslaucina, and this is really, really, really important to understand. Because when we talk about religion, and here's the big move, and everybody knows this, and we've been talking about it all year Religion in Judaism does not mean a set of laws that we follow. It's about how I participate in this relationship. How do I show up as me and yet recognize myself in the Torah? How do I find that symbiotic relationship? And so, if you were slaves in Egypt, would you be capable? Of receiving the Torah, of course not, because you didn't have healthy dependence. So what do you need? You need a God to come take you out and say you can rely on me. And then what does Hashem say? Hashem says, now go work on yourself, become your person, because if you become the person you need to become, only then can we be in a true relationship where we're together.
So let's return to our original question. Pesach comes. Get rid of all of your chametz. Every single crack, every rebbe is giving a shmoos about Saurish and Beisa. And then right after Pesach, it's right back to Dave's Pizza, saying how do I get pies and pies of pizza? It's culminating in the shtei alechem. And why shtei alechem? Why two? What's that all about? And we take those shtei alechem and we wave them around all four corners. Why four corners? So I think the answer is as follows. Not the answer, perhaps an answer, a suggestion. Before This might be a little hard to hear, but bear with me for at least a minute. At the core of our humanity, before you enter into a relationship, there's one thing that needs to be eviscerated, needs to be destroyed. It cannot have any tentacles in the relationship whatsoever.
And that's arrogance. You cannot have any arrogance. There can be no ego in a relationship. And I'll tell you why. Go back to our muscle. Let's say you're you And he's him. But let's say he's him with arrogance. What do you think the relationship looks like? I'll tell you what it looks like. He's supposed to be taking up how much space in the relationship? This section, which is him And this section Which is where the relationship is. But when there's arrogance He takes up the entire space. And then, what do people feel when they're in a relationship with an arrogant person? It's literally the words that they use. There's no space for me here. I don't belong here. It's everything about him. How could I be here? Right? Does that make sense? It's it's a big turnoff. No. You ever meet somebody that at first you're like, oh maybe, and then he opens his mouth and you're like, nope.
That was interesting. So you've met quite a number of them. It's it's almost like it like. He's like you'll even hear people say this. It's not nice, but people say this. I think he's gross. They'll say like he's it's like a physical like he's unattractive. What is that? Because attraction has nothing to do with looks. In fact, looks actually follow attraction. And we know that to be true. Because remember that guy that you said nothing would ever happen with. He's so nice and he's so warm and he's so inviting and he creates amazing space for a relationship. Remember that guy? At first he was just like Ross, but then at some point he became like. Ross, remember that guy? I just chose a name. It's true because if a person shows up in an arrogant way, nobody wants to be in a relationship with them.
So Hakadosh Baruch Hu says, "Let's follow us." If we want to begin the journey of a relationship, if we want to go from dependence to independence to interdependence, the first thing we need to wipe out is no ego. Get rid of your chametz. Chametz is puffed up. That's why because chametz could be matzah. It's just that, if you give it enough time, it'll go like I'm chametz. Check me out. I'm amazing. You go into a bakery. You ever go into a bakery when they're making the actual bread six o'clock in the morning? Do you know what it smells like? It smells like heaven. That's what Hashem wants the world to smell like. It's like fresh bread all the time. There are a couple things in life that are really good. Brand new undershirts, fresh bread. There are a lot of good things in the world, but fresh bread is amazing.
But here's the thing, girls. If you stay with matzah, what are you? You're a shmata. If you stay with matzah, if all you remain is totally deflated Then where are you in the relationship? He might be, and this is a hard thing to think about. You know why he might be taking up all of this space? Because you didn't take this space for yourself. That's healthy independence. Being able to show up to a relationship and say, "Hineini, I'm here. This is a space for me too." Not in an aggressive way, not in a way you need to back up. Just in the reality. There are people that get bullied and there are people that don't, and the difference is not in the bully. The difference is in the bullied. There are people that don't get bullied because they would never allow that reality to occur because they have such a sense of self that if somebody tried to bully them, they would just look at them and go, "Like It's not going to happen here.
And then there are people that, we know it's true. Now we've done all the research. The bully has issues, but the bullied kid also has issues because that kid allowed that to happen. And not every dork gets bullied. And not every kid who doesn't have gets bullied. There are specific kids, and we know that to be true. So today we're smart enough to work not only with the bully, but also with the bullied kid. Both of those kids need work. If somebody is taking up so much space in your relationship, it's because you are matza. And matzah is great in the beginning. You have to take away all that ego, but then you have to reintroduce ego into the system because ego is not a bad thing. Ego is only a bad thing when it becomes everything, when it becomes hubris. But having healthy self-esteem is what it means to show up in a relationship. And maybe that's why specifically on Shavuos we have the shteilechim, specifically at the point of the relationship where it's twins, it's two lechem.
It's two bread. It's two real people who have showed up. Connecting to each other. That's real. And that's why we take those two breads and wave them to all four corners of the earth. And we say, "Here" Everything is unified. Here, everything is integrated. You and me, we now exist under the oneness of this new thing called our relationship with Hashem. Sfiras Haomer is an amazing time. Yes. We have five Five and a half weeks left this year. Which is crazy. Five and a half weeks is nothing. You girls know that we're going to be at the end of the year in the blink of an eye. And in between, there's a lot of things. I don't even know how many shiurim we have because there's all the different yom's that come out and all the different things. So I'm not sure exactly when we have shiurim and when we don't. I think we may only have three or four shiurim left together.
But I want to encourage you as much as possible this year. Because it's your seminary year, because it's your opportunity to really genuflect and really look inside of yourself, Sviros Haomer is a time to build yourself. You've had a Pesach; you know you can depend on Hashem. I hope that's something that you've cultivated within yourself this year. But really, take the opportunity to think about yourself: Who am I, and what does it look like for me to show up to a relationship? And do I have that healthy confidence, that healthy self-esteem? Can I take my matza and turn it back into chametz? The Beizer Hashem will be zocher to have a shtei Halechem on Shavuos.
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