Sefiras HaOmer - The Inner Essence of Kavod

2:37 We're talking about people that were on levels we can't possibly imagine. And to think that they treated each other with anything less than the greatest respect is very difficult for us to understand. This was not like the roast culture of today. They didn't come into the Bais Medrash, ripping each other and saying nasty things. Today, there's minhagim that have developed in Klal Yisrael that need to be shut down. There's a minhag in particular by a boy's ofruf. I don't know if you're familiar with this, but there's a minhag by boys ofruf today, for boys to get up and roast the chosson, mamish terrible in front of his future father-in-law. As a father-in-law myself, I don't know what I would do if that minig was here in Eretz Yisrael. It's like you're giving off your daughter to this guy, and then you have to hear, when he was in high school, he was the biggest brain damaged monkey that ever existed.

3:25 This is not like bechelal a good minug. This is a terrible thing. And that's lo nagu kaved zabezay in a very grotesque type of way. It's not possible that that's what we're talking about with the talmidim of Ravakiva. More than that, the obvious question, the famous question, the classic question: There's no punishment of misa for lo nagu kaved zabezay. Everybody would be dead. Who could possibly say they're mechabit everybody? That's a very big thing to say. This notion of achi of misa for the way that the talmidim of Ravakiva treated each other is very difficult for us to understand. So tonight, Bez Hashem, we'll get an understanding of the word kavod and how it ties in, how it relates to what Ravakiva's talmidim were not doing, such that they were achi of misa. A good place to start is the notion that kavod is a very big word that's used in Chazal. In Tanach, it's used over 200 times, which I didn't know until today.

4:30 That the word kavod is used over 200 times—that's an enormous amount of times. The Mishnah in Avos says, "Ezehu mechubad hamachabed et tabriot." Who is a mechubad person? Whatever that word means, it's somebody who gives kavod. To others, the word brios here is something interesting. Brios doesn't mean people. Brios means Hashem's creations, which would indicate that we're speaking about very low-level people. Somebody that we can only say about him that what is he? He's Hashem's creation. So who is somebody who's mechubad? Somebody who's mechaber? Those that are the lowest-level people. About them, we can only say that they're Hashem's creation. So what is this thing called kavod? How does it give you kavod? How do you give kavod to another? What do any of these things mean? Let's first talk about what kavod is not. And where kavod could be very dangerous. I'm going to use four words here.

5:27 These are dangerous words when we think of kavod in this way. The first word is kavod, which is approval. That's a very dangerous word. We do not need to approve of others. We certainly do not need to approve of that which is not something we should approve of. And if we're speaking about people who are not behaving appropriately, to be mechabed them and to give them our approval is not necessarily the right thing to do. It's also not something we should be searching for. We do not need the approval of others. That's not a healthy way of showing up to the world. That I need you to give me a certain approval, or the next word we're going to use is recognition. My space in this world is not tall on the way that you think of me. There's an idea that all of us, as we enter into the next stage of our lives, need to be firmly planted on our own soil.

6:27 And your capacity to recognize me does not define who I am, and your lack of capacity to recognize me does not define who I am. So we do not seek the recognition of others, and frankly, we do not need to recognize everybody either. There is a time and a place to give somebody recognition. There is equally a time and a place where we don't give other people recognition. I do not need your approval. I do not need your recognition. I'm not going to approve of everybody, nor am I going to recognize everybody. I had a I wouldn't call him a Talmud, but a young man. He's significantly younger than me, and we've crossed paths a number of times. And in one particular interaction with him in Bein Azmanim So I said to him, "How's it going?" So he said, 'Good. I'm learning a lot about myself.' That was a very interesting thing for him to say.

7:20 So I said, "Tell me, what are you learning about yourself?" So he said, "I'm learning that I'm a house." I'm like, 'Okay.' I'm waiting for it, and it's a strange thing to say by itself, and then just pause. So I said, 'Okay, explain.' He said, 'You know, as I'm thinking about getting married' I need to understand that I have a basement. And if I don't know what's going on in my basement You don't know what's going on in your house. The basement is a dangerous place. I have to be willing to go to the basement of my life before I can bring somebody else into my house. I said, "Wow, that's a very powerful Marshall. You have any others?" He goes, "Yeah, I'm spending a lot of time getting a label maker." And really going through my house and labeling what's mine because somebody else is going to come into my house And they're going to bring all their stuff, and I need to know what's my stuff and what's their stuff.

8:09 I said this is very profound. I said, you got any others? He said, yeah. My house has a door, and that door has a lock. You are not allowed to come in unless you knock, and I choose to unlock the door and open it. I said, how long have you been in therapy? So he said, about six months now. I said, you could tell. The rest of the world doesn't speak that way. It's very beautiful, and I particularly liked all the different mshalim that he gave, and there were a lot of them. And down to the toothbrush. Of all the mshalim he gave, I liked the door mshal the best. Why? Because you do not get my approval. You do not get my recognition. There's a door here. Sometimes I open it and I recognize you and I allow you to come in. Sometimes not. Healthy people have healthy boundaries.

8:56 You also don't necessarily get my appreciation. I don't always appreciate people. I don't always appreciate people. Not everything in the way that someone shows up deserves our appreciation. And that's another element that kavod doesn't mean. We use the word kavod like I want to show you kavod by appreciating you. That's not what kavod is. Kavod is not appreciation. It's not honor. That's the way it's most often translated, and it's certainly not that because not everybody is honorable. Not everybody has the schuz of being called honorable. What is this thing that I'm a mechubad person? If I'm mechabed brios, if I'm mechabed those very low-level people. There's a classic answer here, and I want to first go to the classic answer because the classic answer actually offers a tremendous amount, even though it's quite possible, and I would imagine even likely that you already heard this answer. The word kavod comes from a lashon of kaved. Kaved means heavy.

9:51 There are words because we don't mean heavy here, like physically heavy. There are words I think. That gives us an insight into the nature of what kaved the heaviness here. The big word I would say is gravitas. Gravitas means gravity. Gravity means you're a person of weight. You're something that attracts. You have substance to you. You have mass to you. There there's there's something and these are the this is a little bit deeper now, not the deepest level, but just still within level one. There's something deeply truthful about you. To be truthful means that something is unchanging. That's what it always is. One plus one will always equal two. The notion that something has gravitas, that something has weight, that it's of substance, it's like a mountain. It's unmoving. The truth of it. It's not ephemeral. It's not fleeting. We live in a world of very fleeting things. Things come and things go.

10:52 Health, even important things. A person has health one day; they don't have health the next. I was just with somebody over Shabbos. Lo Alenu has very serious cancer in his brain. Just talking to him, you see the ephemeral nature of life. There's a certain dignity that we lose when we're subject to the elements of life. We live Baruch Hashem in beautiful homes, in safe places. Even today, there was a siren. I think most of us felt the dignity of the iron dome that Hakadosh Baruch Hu has given us. There's a certain sense of safety. There's a certain sense of we're okay. And when life hits in a way where things all of a sudden become fleeting A person gets sick, a person loses their job. Things start to go wrong in ways that we don't expect. There's a lack of dignity there. There's a lack of cover. The heaviness of life that we expect.

11:53 I expect the world to be in a particular way that recognizes that I am a person of substance. Perhaps the most painful thing in the world is when we are not given our gravitas. That's perhaps the most painful thing in the world. We expect And I think this is right and appropriate. We expect l'marshal that. We are in relationships that give dignity to who we are as people. We grow up in families. A very good friend of mine, his name is Sunny Perlman. Any of you heard of Sunny Perlman? Sunny Perlman is the founder of Our Place. Sunny is an old Farakway guy. For people who grew up in Farakway back in the day, so there was only a handful of us, and it's amazing, Baruch Hashem, how many amazing people have come out of Farakway from the '80s. Sunny Perlman founded Our Place, and he had a very beautiful definition of trauma. He said, Trauma is anything that tells us that we are unloved.

12:53 I thought that was a very sweet and not at all textual or academic, but a very real sense of what it means to be traumatized. And in that context, Sani was talking about in the post October 7th world, the trauma that the entire Jewish nation is going through because the world is telling us today that we're unloved. It's almost like our existence doesn't matter. And we expect we show up to life in a way that we expect to matter. We are born into this world. And we expect, perhaps even naturally, biologically, from the moment that we're born, that there are parents that will say to us, 'You matter. In fact, you matter the most.' And that gravitas, that substance, it's supposed to be so thick and so real and so deeply rooted that we're safe in the notion that it's completely unchanging. I feel absolutely locked in life because I know that I'm going nowhere.

13:51 We look for this in the people that we marry. This is a very deep thing, because today people look for attraction, and when I say attraction, I don't mean physical. People are looking for a sense of attraction. They're looking to be able to say we have chemistry. There's something romantic. And when I say romantic, I don't mean in the Hollywood sense of romantic. I mean in the kedusha sense of romantic. It's so limited in what we really want. When we meet someone who says, "You are a person of substance" And I see that substance. I could see that in you. That gives us the feeling of being anchored. That life, as chaotic as it is Is a little less chaotic when you're in it. No matter what storms come our way, and surely storms will come our way. I feel the safety of the dignity that you see in me.

14:52 We had a student. I don't want to say too many details, but if you know who I'm talking about And we had a student in Talmud Devora years ago, a wonderful growth-oriented, real Talmud Devora student. She got married. And then, almost immediately after her marriage, she found out that she was ill. And really ill, not like a cold, like really ill. And over the years, I've had the opportunity to speak with her once or twice, bumping into each other at a shiur here and there. And I had the opportunity to sit with her and her husband once, and I was amazed at the depth of their relationship. We tend not to think about these things because Life can be very tragic in that way, and none of us really want to confront that. That makes sense. But could you imagine, if you again, Chassid Shalom, don't imagine it for yourself, but just imagine for this person what it's like to be married and within a span of a very short amount of time to find out that your life changed in ways that you never could have expected.

15:54 That is a terrifying prospect. It's terrifying as an adult. That stuff never goes away. You could be in your 30s, your 40s, your 50s, and when inevitably life throws us those curveballs, we're older, so we're a little bit more adept. We can do more things. Could you imagine being a newly married wife, a newly married husband, and life throws you that curveball? That's serious business. And I am beyond inspired at the marriage that they cultivated immediately. And she spoke to him the entire time throughout her illness. And Baruch Hashem, she's in remission now. But the entire time, whenever she speaks about her husband It's with levels of respect that you don't hear couples that are married for thirty years talk about each other like that. And you know what I'm talking about. It's mind-boggling. There's something that we don't look for. We don't pay attention. We don't talk about it because it's not in the Disney movies. Nobody ever likes. There's no Disney movie that's crafted around.

17:00 You see me as a person that's real, and that is of substance, and therefore I'm locked into that. And that creates a tremendous amount of safety in the world. When we say covered What is it about a person that you could say about them that they have this gravitas, this substance, this Nature that is never changing, and it's not fleeting, and it's not ephemeral? What is that about a person? I was listening to the Meaningful People podcast with Rabbi Kalish, and I haven't finished it yet. And Rabbi Kalish is a revolutionary in many ways in Chinuch, and I enjoy hearing him speak because I also knew him when he was younger. I grew up; his father was the Rav of my neighborhood, and so he grew up down the block from me. It's amazing to see how he's become this exceptional person who's really changed the world of Chinuch today.

17:56 And he has something that he said. He said it quickly in the podcast. I've heard him say it in other places in a more profound way. But he said, talking about Chinuch and talking about Talmidim, these are souls. These are souls. That's what a person is. He has it very locked in that this is a soul. When you're teaching, you're teaching a neshama. And he has a whole chinuch methodology that's born from that. For example, the notion that the soul knows exactly what it needs, and that our job is not to manipulate it in any way. But the notion of educating a soul is not about control, but about giving space for it to flourish and to blossom and to discover itself. He really means it. He really means it, and I think perhaps one of the reasons he's been so successful. I've been thinking about this for a long time. What makes him such a successful mechanech is because when he sees someone, he really, legitimately Is paying attention to who they actually are.

18:56 He's not looking at any of the symptoms of how that soul shows up in the world. He's not paying attention to it. He's focused deeply on the neshama that's in front of him. That's the way that he relates to the person. He was at a. He was invited to speak to a group of mechanchim. I heard about this from a talmid of mine, who was like a shamus of Rabbi Kalish, and with you, this talmid He was suspicious of Rabbi Kalish. He was suspicious. He's like, there's no way he could be this real. You hear it, and it's almost like it's too good to be true. There's got to be something there. And so when he went to Waterbury, he was on this mission of like I'm gonna see the cracks, like I'm gonna find it's got to be behind closed doors in a Rebbe meeting. He's got to be talking about the Talmidim in a different way.

19:46 And he's been there for quite some time already. And he's like Rebbe, there's no cracks here. This is who he is. I'm told by this Talmud that he was invited to speak to a group of Rebbeim, and among the topics that came up were what do you do when the Talmidim are talking and davening, and it's just staring davening? What do you do? And Rabbi Kalish answered them very honestly. He's like, I'll be honest with you. I just don't hear it. What do you mean you don't hear it? The guy sitting next to you is talking. He's like I don't know what to tell you. I'm just busy davening. I really don't hear it. And he's not lying. He's not sitting there shushing people in davening. He legit. He's like, I'm supposed to be davening now. It's like the best thing for this talmud is that if you should ever be who daven, so that's what I'm doing. It's not that he's ignorant of the flaws of his talmidim. It's just that he's not patching them up that way. He's seeing a neshama. The gematria of kaved is the same as yotkevavke.

20:40 To see somebody's weight is to see their essence, the part of them that's unchanging. Elokein neshama shanasa to bitahuri. The most important meditation perhaps that we have in the entire day is Rebbeinu Shlom. I am tahor. But what did I do last night? You wake up in the morning, Rebbeinu Shlom. I'm tahor. I have a chaver of mine. He says a very good line. I like this line very much, but I don't a hundred percent agree with it. He tells the boys in yeshiva, 'If you go to sleep like a pig, you're not going to wake up like a lion.' And I think that's true. I think it's very difficult to go to the place where they sell fruits and vegetables in the morning. If you go to that place at night, it could be hard to wake up the next morning and daven. But I'll tell you the truth. I don't love it. It's okay. You could laugh. You know what I'm talking about. They've never been there, but they've heard of it. They have a friend that went just to take a tool, just like in a zoo, to take a selfie. It's not where they're holding, but they're familiar with this place.

21:38 It's a zoo. There's many different types of zoos. This is a zoo, a place where they sell fruits and vegetables in the morning, and there's another zoo called Shalvata. There's a lot of different zoos. Whatever the names of the zoos are, everybody Ramat Gan, we go to the monkey park. There's a lot of different types of zoos. Camel and Tomer the Vora. I heard there was a camel and Tomer the Vora. And peacocks and Tomer the Vora. But say this going, this about to get a place where I don't want it to go. The I have to be careful. The There's a. There's something a little bit dangerous about telling a boy if you went to sleep like a pig, you're not going to wake up like a lion. Really, in Yiddishkeit, it's not that way. It's if you went to sleep like a pig, the ideal meditation to wake up in the morning to is that was not me.

22:28 And Adarab and I can daven today And I need to daven today more than I did ever before because I need to tap in to that meditation of Elokein Neshama Shana Sata Bitahuri, the part of me that's unchanging, the part of me that's real. That's the neshama, and that's what really defines me—not the ways that I didn't align myself with that neshama. One of my favorite stories from the Lubavitcher Rebbe is somebody came to the Rebbe and said, "I'm not going to shul this Yom Kippur" And he said, "Why?" He said, "I'm tired of being a faker." He said, "I don't go to shul 364 days a year. Why should I go to shul on Yom Kippur?" The Rebbe said, "You're right. You should stop being a faker. 364 days a year, you're a faker. One day a year, you're real. You should start going to shul the rest of the days." I love that story because it touches a person by what they really are, by the one moment that they're really good. Eloka in the shama shenasa to be tohrei means I've tapped into the essential nature of who I am.

23:19 That's my kaved. That's my kavod. That's what gives me value in this world. And therefore we can say as follows. This is only surface level. This is level one. Ezer hu mukubad Who is a person that's in touch with their own inner dignity? Who's in touch with their own neshama? You want to know the symptom? How do you relate to those people that the only thing you can say about them is they're Hashem's creations? If you want to know if you're really tapped in to what gives you value Think about how you talk about others. We live in a world today where the frumest thing to do—and I say that facetiously—I don't think it's the frumest thing to do at all. The frumest thing to do is to look down on other people. I wouldn't go to this type of sem. I couldn't be with those types of girls. I would never go to this type of yeshiva. I'm not saying there's not room for a person to say where they do or don't belong, but this notion of the way that we speak about perhaps people that are struggling in our community, it says a tremendous amount about those that are sitting in judgment of those people that are struggling.

24:34 If you want to know if you're a mechubad person How do you relate to those people that they're there? They're wonderful. They're beautiful. They're behaving in ways that are not aligned with their true self. If you can see their kavod, you're a mechubad person. If you could see their godliness, that's how you know you're a godly person. Again, this notion of elitism bothers me very much. You should know, I got off the train. People ask me what my hashkafa is. Especially those girls that are in the second class, are you this, are you that? I got off the train 1988. That's my ashkafa. If you want to know what I am, I'm 1988 Rabbi Bender. That's my ashkafa. That's where I get. I don't know if it's yeshivish or modern orthodox or charedi or chassidish. I don't know what it is. 1988. That's why I got off the train. I want to tell you why I got off the train 1988 because there was a time in this world where the biggest thing you could do was how can I speak to another Jew?

25:30 How can I bring them in? How can I invite them in? I often wonder what would happen. Would I be accepted into this, into the same yeshivas today that I went to Or is it, or have we reached a stage where it's like, pasnesh to take such a boy? It's an embarrassment of riches that we have. It's only because we have so many people in Kallah Yisrael coming to seminary and coming to yeshivas that we're able to say, no, not you, you, not you, no. It's not again. We can't take everybody. We have with our mission and who are the people that come for our mission. But there's no geiver. There should be no geiver. And when we say yes, and when we say no, we shouldn't be proud to walk around We're a very hard place to get into. It's like we're brisk. You know what? Like I'm not sure. Again, I wasn't there, not in body anyway. I'm not sure what happened by Har Sinai, but it appears to me from everything I've learned in Chazal that Hakadosh Baruch Hu gave the Torah to all of Klal Yisrael.

26:22 It doesn't appear to me that Hakadosh Baruch Hu gave the Torah and then said to the chevrah. You guys hang around. I want to give you the real deal. I want to give you the deeper Torah. I don't think that's what Hakadosh Baruch Hu did. We were kiisha chad beleve chad. We saw the dignity of every single person. That's how we're zayecha to Torah. So level number one is: you want to know if you're a mechubad person. How do you talk about those Jews that are struggling? On this level, what does it mean that Rav Akiva's talmidim were lo nagu kavod zebeze? Inechnami, they said you're a tremendous talmachem. You're the biggest talmachem. You have unbelievable things to say. But I also have unbelievable things to say, and so there was a certain sense of competition, a certain sense of elitism, a lack of connection to their godliness, a lack of appreciation for who they were.

27:08 When you're not connected to godliness, you're not connected to life. Hakadosh Baruch Hu is called Chai Hachayim in Kabbalah. He is the life of all life. Our life is like a ray of the sun. The lives that we have in this world are the Rabbanim Shalom's life, as it expresses itself in this world. To not be connected to another person's kavod is to be connected to death. And so it makes sense not as a punishment but as a consequence. If you're lo nagu kavod zebezev, you can't see the godliness in another, then you can't see the godliness in yourself. What life? What life? What are you connected to? That's a life. But they were sitting and learning Torah. They were the biggest talmidei chachamim of the generation. But if you're not connected to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, if you're not connected to life, you're connected to death. That's level number one. With you, that's the simple level. I want to say something that I think is significantly deeper, and it's a chiddush for today.

28:04 I never saw this before in my life. I saw this morning when I was preparing the shir. The pasuk in Yishayo, which we all know from davening, says, "Kadosh, Hashem tzvachos meloi chala'aretz kevaydo." That a kadosh baruch hu's kavod fills the entire world is a tagim yonosam ben uziel. What does that word "kavod" mean? Hagmuyonosim and Uziel translates the word, and he says "ziv yikarei." The splen, the ziv is the radiance of yikar. That's what kavod is. It's the radiance of yikar. What does the word yikar mean? And how is it different from the way we've been using kavod up until now? "Ziv yikarei," I believe, means if. If the way we've been using it until now is covered as somebody's substance, their gravitas, yakar means a deeper level, which means their worth. But what does that mean? Their preciousness, their worth. So there's two ways of thinking about worth.

29:06 One way, which is the way we've been talking about until now, is if something's worth a dollar, it's worth a dollar. If something is worth ten dollars, would you say that it's precious? If something is worth ten dollars, would you say it's ten times more precious than a dollar? It's not the way we use the word precious. Precious doesn't mean something is worth more than something else. Even to say something is worth a million dollars doesn't make it precious. Person Lamosh buys a million dollar starter house in the Five Towns. I don't think we would describe their house as precious. That's not what makes something precious. It's a very specific type of thing that we describe as precious. What would we describe as precious? We say something that a child is precious, right? Something like Shabbos candles. That's very beautiful. I have these precious Shabbos candles. Why? Because they were an inheritance from my grandmother, and maybe you tell a story about them, right? She snuck them through the Holocaust somehow. There's something about them that's more than money. The way we've been speaking about kavod until now is kavod gives you your gravitas.

30:17 That's your substance. That's your weight. It's the alokos in you. But it's something deeper. The Targum Yonasan of Zil says it's what makes you precious. It's what a child feels in the loving embrace of their parents. That's preciousness. It's not just any diamond. A diamond could be worth money. A diamond could be worth five thousand dollars or ten thousand dollars. Diamonds aren't worth very much. But it used to be that diamond was worth, and the hope diamond, right? And that would be you call it precious. It's precious not because it's rare. It's not precious because of its volume. It's precious because of its quality. It's precious because there's a unique relationship to it. In Megillah Esther, we say layehuda maisa oyra vesimcha vesasam veyikar And the Gemara says, what is Yikar? Yikar Zut Tefillin. There were four mitzvos that Haman sought to destroy. One of the mitzvos was tefillin. Why was Haman so nagged against tefillin? What bothered him about tefillin?

31:16 A lot of times we growing up with tefillin, nobody ever explained to us what tefillin was. I had one talmud I'll never forget this. 16 years ago I was taking a walk with this talmud, and I said, "How's your relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu?" And I'll never forget what he said because the language bothered me so much. He said, "If you're asking me if I wrap the straps, I haven't missed a day of wrapping the straps." And it was kovevly balevshly in such a deep way. I never heard somebody describe wrapping tefillin as wrapping straps. It's such a chitzoni way of relating to tefillin. But I understand. I understand that if all you ever learned about tefillin is these are the bateim and these are the parshios and I have to wrap it around myself and at the end it's uncomfortable and you have those tefillin marks. I don't know why girls like those two lines. I've never really understood that. The boys know, by the way. They're holding. I tell the boys all the time. I'm like, look It's a good look. I don't know why. I don't know why the girls like to see that thing. Say there. And you all know it's true. And then you have the guys who are like super firm. Like that. The camp ass guy who's like flexing the whole day. Talking about I like a man who wraps him tight.

32:27 So this boy, he was wrapping straps. He's wrapping straps. What does that mean? Does it mean he's wrapping straps? It means nobody ever taught him what tefillin really is. Tefillin means I'm kasher to you. I'm literally wrapped. I'm bound to you. When we bind ourselves to something, that's the most precious thing in the world. It means that the bond that I have with you is unbreakable. I feel very strongly in this moment that you will not know what I'm talking about for a couple of years, and I beg of you just to let these words be al levavcha, hold on to them. Because there will come a moment in your life where you will understand this. And again, no matter how many shmoozin you hear about this, you won't know it until the birth of your first child. And then you'll start to understand it. I remember when my daughter Bracha was born.

33:16 And I was very young, and this tiny little baby was born, and I'm sitting there holding her. It's like that first moment you've ever held your baby for the first time, and now she's married with two children herself. And I was holding her, and I remember feeling I would die for you. If you needed anything, I would give my everything to you. It was a feeling that was so overwhelming that I didn't know what to do with it. And I remember that the doctor told us a short while later that she was iron deficient and that she was going to have to take these iron pills, which are not pills, they are drops. I remember freaking out. I remember being like, "Oh no, she needs iron. We're gonna have to call the iron banks, and we're gonna make a cause match campaign in my head. We're gonna raise millions of dollars, and we're gonna solve the iron issue in children. A feeling of protection came up within me, and I had never felt anxiety like that before in my life. I'm not an anxious person in that way, but I was like, I need to give my everything. I was bound to her in ways that I didn't understand, and it wasn't because of anything that she did."

34:25 Because she had just been born, there was nothing that she could have possibly done, and it also wasn't what she represented. It wasn't this my legacy. It wasn't anything like that. It wasn't like the nachas that she'll bring me. That's all in the measurable content of what a person brings. The kavod of like I can say you're worth one dollar or ten dollars or a million dollars. It's you're precious to me in ways that I cannot begin to describe. Again, we speak about this notion. In very flowery terminology You'll understand what I mean. But as Hashem, you're standing under the chuppah. You walk around someone seven times. You're literally encircling them. In a certain way, we wrap tefillin on our arms seven times. We're encircling ourselves. They're astichali the olam. There's something marital that happens when we put on tefillin in the morning. There's something deeply intimate. Intimate in the sense of oneness, the true sense of intimacy. There's something that when I enter into the chuppah with you, I say it's you and me.

35:26 It's you and me no matter what happens. Again, we don't talk about this because we don't want to scare anybody. But you know, marriage is hard. It's not. I don't know. I don't mean just hard in terms of shalom bayis. I was with a boy today. We spent about two and a half hours together today. And we were talking about a lot of things. And we had the opportunity to go to a lookout in Mevaseret, which oversees Yerushalayim, and it's this absolutely stunning place. And we're just schmoozing about a lot of things. And he asked me, Rebbe, what's the geshmack? What's the geshmack of marriage? What is it? What's the thing? And I said, I'm only married now, 20, 22, almost 23 years. I said so I don't know the answer to your question but I think it's something like this. I think it's Rebbei Fiksi, you'll tell me if this resonates with you.

36:15 I think it's. I want to be in my 80s. I want to be a great grandfather. I'll probably be done if she puts her two on my house by then, expanding it a little bit. I want to be sitting in my house. I want to be sitting on the couch. I want to be sitting next to my wife And I want to see the children and the grandchildren. The children are already old themselves, and the grandchildren are already older themselves. And I want to see the great grandchildren, and they wheel them in to show me like some elderly. My, I don't, I'm I'm pops for the grandkids. I'm pops, and I want them to come in and I want them to say like pops, you had a new great grandfather, and I'll be like not senile, but I'll be like with it, but you know like a little bit, like they'll have to say it loud. You know what I'm saying? Like they'll have to like, like I want to be that guy.

37:04 And I just want to be sitting there, knowing that this is the life we built. And no matter what happened over those sixty years But we were precious to each other, and we just stayed, and we fought through, and we did. When this one broke their arm, we went to the hospital, and when this one was going through a hard time, we sat and listened. Through all the ups and downs, we never lost sight of the fact that this is really precious. I think that's, I think that's what I that's what I want. I think that's like. I think it's very real. I think you have the same feeling, no? Like it's a very real thing. We're getting to a stage in our lives now where we're not kids anymore. It's not like when we were Married for ten years and we were like playing house a little bit.

37:53 Like now, like I don't know if it's a surprise if the grandkids show up. My daughter just shows up and my grandson Ellie walks in and he comes running over to me. I want you to know. I don't know if people know what nachas really means until they experience these things. These are the most These are the most real moments of your grandson running over you and jumping into your arms and giving you a hug. There are jokes about these things. I once heard a line. And you girls may not appreciate this line: a guy will never appreciate the true simcha of being a yid. They'll never appreciate the gishmak of correcting a balcori. You ever see that on Shabbos? The guy's laning and it's like everyone's going, 'Vayomer,' you know, like you got it wrong, right? A guy will never get the opportunity to correct the balkorah.

38:50 Chaval for people that don't have families to share their lives with. I have a, I have an aunt And she has one grandchild. She had two children. Her other son is not going to have children, and this one is not having anymore. She has one grandchild. She came to Israel to visit. I don't. I think it's the last time she'll be able to visit. She's not so well. The last time she came to visit, she went to my father's house. My parents live in Beit Shemesh, and we all came to see her. And I'll never forget. She looked at my father and she said My family is so big. And my kids said to me, 'They're like, Abba, that's so sad' Because she doesn't have a big family. If her two kids come and her one grandchild comes, that's everybody. My wife says there are these magazines with pre-Thanksgiving Ga'yisha magazines. You ever see this thing? They have a big Thanksgiving dinner, no problem, we got you. Start three weeks in advance, and here are the things that you can freeze. And you're reading the article, and it's like, are you having 12 people for Thanksgiving dinner? And Jewish families, 12 people, that's a Shabbos off.

40:01 Like the Brady Bunch. That's what do you mean? In our neighborhood, the Brady Bunch is nothing. Talk to me when you have 18 children, 19 children. Then we can talk about a big family. The notion that what's precious to us, what's real to us That's deeper than what we were saying before. Before we said kavod is about recognizing a person's inner godliness. It's more than that. It's recognizing the preciousness of that relationship that every single Jew has with Hashem. That's what's precious. And if you know that about somebody else, then you know that about yourself. Ezehu mechubad. How do you know if you're a mechubad person? How do you know if you're precious to the Rebbeinu Shalom? Do you see the preciousness of Hashem's relationship with every single Jew? I heard a var. I love this var. This var I heard from Reuven Meshal, who said it over from his Rebbe Rivkluger.

40:56 He says, 'Ma hafti sarasecha kol hayayim misichasi.' You ever hear this var from Rav Kluger? Amazing var. He says, 'Ma hafti sarasecha.' How much do I love Torah? Kol hayayim misichasi. I'm talking about it all day long. Some Yeshiva guys can say that. Some Yeshiva guys can say, "I mabish speak and learning all day long." And if you are that guy Good for you. But how many of us can say, 'Ma hafti sarasecha kol hayayim misichasi?' Rav Kluger says an amazing var. It's not talking about you. It's talking about Hashem. Hashem is saying, 'Ma'ahavti sarasecha.' Kol Iomisichasi. He's like a proud father. He says, 'Do you see that kid? Do you see the pesach he just said in Tzivos? Do you see how he worked hard to understand that Mishnah? Do you see how he's learning those pesukim?' Hakadosh Baruch Hu speaks about us like a grandfather speaks about his grandchild. It's so precious to him. Kol Iomisichasi. Your Rebbeinu Shlom can't stop talking. About us, he's obsessed with us. He's obsessed with us.

41:56 And we say these things today. People think if you say something like they're like, okay, so it's like a thank you, Hashem thing. I need to go listen to Zusha music or Alex Clare, whatever. Is that like a thing? I need to go daven in KMH by Rav Zakatinsky. I need to go to H by Rav Weinberger. Like, what's the next thing I do? I have to start learning Brasl. The Kuda Taiva. Where am I headed now? This is not like a kitschy thing. We're living in a world of kids that are suffering, of kids and adults that are suffering, because how many of us are walking listlessly through life with such a surface level connection to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, because we were not raised in an environment where we knew that we were precious to the Rebbeim Yisrael. I want to share with you something. There's something very dangerous about the education that we're giving our children today, and I've been thinking about this a lot.

42:48 We have come so far in terms of the quality of education that we're giving the boys and girls today. The quality of education that you received in your life was top notch. But somehow It didn't translate. Somehow, we don't daven the way our bubby's and our zaydi's davened. What changed? I'll tell you what changed. I know what changed. We gave you an unbelievable academic education, and we spoke to your minds. But do you know how children were inspired? Do you know how the Masorah was passed down? Because our grandparents saw their parents and their grandparents They saw them lighting Shabbos candles, pouring out their heart, and they were ignorant. How many boys do you think were in yeshiva in Europe? Take a guess. How many boys do you think were in yeshiva in Europe today? It's tens of thousands. I imagine it's over a hundred thousand boys that are sitting and learning in yeshiva. Do you know how many boys were in the Mir in Europe?

43:48 250 boys were in the entire yeshiva. There are 250 boys in Mevaseret. There are 250 boys in the Mir. There were not that many boys in yeshiva. There were no girls. What was their education? There was no Beis Yakov. There was no Beis Yakov until after World War One. That means for thousands of years, and this is again not something we should be proud of. Girls did not get a legitimate Jewish education. What did they know already? They didn't know that much. So how did they transmit the Masaera? Because they saw their grandmothers and their mothers crying over the Shabbos Luchot, and they knew that this was something precious. And because they knew that it was something precious, they died for it. They died al Kiddush Hashem. They didn't leave the community because they were raised in an environment where they said, 'My relationship with the Rebbeinu Shlom is precious, the most precious thing in the world that I have.'

44:39 I wonder sometimes if we gave everybody such an unbelievable education. Maybe it was at the expense of watching our grandparents cry over the Shabbos Luch. I saw the way Rabbi Mordechai Finkelman davened. I want you to know he ruined me for davening. He ruined me for davening because I know what davening is supposed to look like, and I know I'll never reach that magdrega. And there's a part of me that's like a perfectionist in this way, and I can't bring myself to daven. And I imagine that if I asked Rabbi Fix just now, if I asked him. Show me how Rabbi Mordechai Finkelman shlitah sways when he davens. It's like a reed in the breeze. He is like in a state. It's not ecstasy. It's as calm as you could possibly imagine. Another person. He has the same rhythm, and it's just like he bounces up a little on his feet, and he turns this way, and he gently sways back down. And I know he was my seventh grade rebbe. I know what it looks like to be in communion with Hakadosh Baruch Hu because I saw Rabbi Finkelman daven. I cannot tell you one word that Rabbi Finkelman taught me in seventh grade, but I'll never forget the way that he davened.

45:48 I don't mean that because I wasn't listening. I wasn't listening, but that's not the point. I mean that because the influence of Rabbi Finkelman was davening is the most precious thing in the world. To learn a blagamara is the most precious thing in the world. That's something that I'll never forget. The way that Rabbi Weinberger says the word Yerushalayim. No. How many? If you've ever heard of Moshe Weinberger speak, some people say this is what it sounds like. You say Yerushalayim, they say Yerushalayim, Yerushalayim. When Reb Weinberger says Yerushalayim, this is what it sounds like. Yerushalayim. It's different. He's saying it. He's connecting to the preciousness of it. And because he's connecting to the preciousness of it, he's exceptionally sensitive to it. I was with him once on the roof of Yeshiva Hakotel.

46:33 And we were febranging up there, and it was very beautiful. Yishlomo Katz was there, and it was a very beautiful night. And Rav Weinberger, I saw he was like stared. Something was bothering him, because on the roof of Yishivat Akotah, you could see the Dome of the Rock, and it bothered him because that's the makom haMikdash, and we don't yet have the Beis Hamikdash. And I was sitting there thinking the most beautiful moment in the world, but he was more sensitive to the kedusha of Yerushalayim because he was sensitive to the preciousness of Yerushalayim, and I wasn't sensitive to the preciousness of Yerushalayim. The biggest bracha in the world is that we should be people who know our own preciousness. If you know yours, then you'll give it to others. You'll raise your children with that preciousness. You'll treat your spouse with that preciousness. You'll be a person in the community who sees the preciousness of every single person. I do believe that our community is getting much stronger in these ways. That we're starting today, Baruch Hashem, because of the influence of certain rebbeim and certain mechanchot and certain seminaries and certain yeshivas that we're training people to see the beauty and the preciousness of every single Jew. We still have a ways to go. But I happen to have tremendous hope because I see it every year. The guys that come to Yeshiva, the girls that are in Talmud Torah.

47:35 Learning to appreciate the beauty of every single person. It's a gift. It's a gift you give yourself. Who wants to live in a nasty world? Who wants to live in a world where they're constantly being criticized? We take our voice and we project it out onto the world. If you're critical of yourself, if you don't think Amud The precious taira ta'chter of the Rebbeinu Shlom. If you don't know that you're the precious daughter of the Rebbeinu Shlom, then you're going to spill that out everywhere you go. You're going to spill that out on your spouse. You're going to spill that out on your children. You're going to spill it out on the kids that are not so well behaved. And that's not the way we show up to life. If we want to live in a beautiful space, then we have to treat ourselves as beautiful people. Be'ez Hashem, we should be zeicher to connect to the preciousness that the Rebbeinu Shlom has for every one of us, how he cares deeply for every one of us. And Be'ez Hashem, we'll be zeicher to share that with the world.