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It's a big loss to finish the summer together. What a beautiful summer! I want to start off by wishing everyone here a big yasher kia. It's eleven thirty at night on a Thursday night. It used to be Used to be there was a commercial on television. It was like late at night. It would be like, it's eleven o'clock at night. Do you know where your children are? That was like a In the '80s, they used to have to remind people to parents. It's 11:30 at night. Do you know where your children are? In August There's no yeshiva. Guy chooses to come to Ensiyos Yikolov in the summer to learn. At 11:30 at night He hears shmos on the parsha. It says a tremendous amount about you. It says a tremendous amount about what you've accomplished. And because Hashem will be zeicher to continued nachas You should be zeicher to a life of taira. A life of connection to the Rebbeinu Sholom and the slush of the hard work that you put in this summer.
Everyone knows the famous question that in Shabbos Nachamu The Navi says Nachamu Ami. The famous question is what's Pshat? This double lashon of Nachamu. Should say Nachamu Ami. Why does that say Nachamu? Why does that say twice? In order to answer this question, I want to share with you several questions of the Labavitcher Rebbe on the nature of galus. So you don't have to hold it the whole time. He's a tzaddik. He sits here the whole time like this. Have to hold it. The Labavitcher Rebbe asks three questions. First question the Labavitcher Rebbe asks is about the nature of a bris Not a bris milah. What's a covenant? What does the word covenant mean? The idea of a covenant is a type of unconditional love. A covenant means that even when things are not going well, we're loyal to each other fundamentally. That's what it means to be a part of a bris.
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The bris bein abesarim is the covenant that Hakadosh Baruch Hu makes with Avram Avinu. It's the marriage, so to speak. It's standing under the chuppah. Which is why it's strange that in the middle of the Bris Bein Ab Soreim, Hakadosh Baruch Hu turns to Avraham Avinu and says, 'Your children are going to go into galus.' It seems like it's out of nowhere. It's not where one would think we would speak about a galus. Imagine Imagine a person who's getting married and under the chuppah, he turns to his wife and he starts describing all of the difficult times that they're going to go through together. It's not the moment for it. So it's incongruous to speak about the gollus of Mitzrayim when Hakadosh Baruch Hu is making a covenant with Avram Avinu. Say we're getting married to each other. You should know your children will be strangers in a strange land, and they'll be enslaved in Egypt, and they'll be tortured.
Sounds like a great marriage. Thanks so much. It's a strange thing. Why does the Rebbeinu Shalom do that? That's the first question. Second question is based on a steira in Gemaros. We all know. Famous Gemara that talks about what they found when they came into the Beis Hamikdash. When they came into Kodesh Hakodashim to destroy the Beis Hamikdash, they found the Kruvim. Those the Malachim, so to speak, the angels that were on top of Aaron. They found them in a loving embrace. Gemara says they said, 'See, even Klal Yisrael is idolatrous.' Look what they have in their Kodesh Hakodashim. Of course, we know that it was an idolatress. We know it was something deeper than that. But it's a very strange thing that they were in loving embrace in the moment that the Bei Shemikdash is being destroyed because of another Gemara. The Gemara says that when Klal Yisrael was acting appropriately and we were aligned with Hakadosh Baruch Hu, the Kruvim would face each other.
And we know that when Klal Yisrael was acting inappropriately, the Kruvim would turn away from each other. So one would expect that in the moment that the Bei Shemikdash is being destroyed, what would the posture of the kruvim be? Maybe you would say the kruvim shouldn't even be in the Kodesh Hakodashim. That's how distant we've become from Hashem. Certainly, they should, at the very least, be turned away from each other. The fact that they're not only turned towards each other, but the fact that the kruvim are in a loving embrace It's not only strange; it's irrational. What does it tell us about what's happening? If we're literally being destroyed in that moment, how could it be that that's the moment where we're most deeply connected to Hashem? That's question number two. Question number three is: We know, based on the Zohar, based on the Medrashim That Hakadosh Baruch Hu follows the Torah. Hakadosh Baruch Hu follows the halachos.
Hakadosh Baruch Hu wears tefillin. The Gemara says many different examples of where we see that Hakadosh Baruch Hu follows halacha. We all know there's a halacha of baltashchus. What's baltashchus? Don't waste things, right? Didn't your mother ever tell you to finish your food? It's baltashchus. There's another halacha. The halacha is losasuken la Hashem alokeicha. What does losasuken la Hashem alokeicha mean? You're not allowed to destroy a shul. Did you know that? You're not allowed to destroy a shul. So the question: If there's halacha of baltashchis, you're not allowed to waste. You're not allowed to stomp or break things. Hakadosh Baruch Hu is bound to that halacha. So you could say: How could Hakadosh Baruch Hu destroy the base of Mikdash? Maybe he'll say we have an answer for baltashches But certainly the Rebbeinu Shlom should follow the halacha of losaso kein lasham lo kechem. He's also not allowed to destroy a shul. Beis Hamikdash was the ultimate shul.
Our shuls are patterned after the Beis Hamikdash. So what does it mean that Hakadosh Baruch Hu violates the halacha, the halacha of either baltashches? But even if you have an answer for baltashches How could Hakadosh Baruch Hu destroy the Beis Hamikdash? Violating the halach of losasukein l'ashamalokeich. Those are our four questions. Four questions are: number one, what's the double lashon of Nachamu? Number two, why does Hakadosh Baruch Hu use the bris main of B'sarim as an opportunity to introduce the notion of exile to Avram Avinu? Number three, why were the kruvim in a loving embrace and not turned away from each other? And number four, how could Hakadosh Baruch Hu violate, so to speak, the halachos of Baltashlus and losasukein l'ashamalokeich? Leibavitcher Rebbe gives an answer. It's a very profound, very deep, very meaningful answer. I think it's a beautiful way for us to end the summer together.
He says, "marshal lema dver dome." To what can we compare this? He says, "Imagine you have a teacher." To be a teacher means that a teacher has to have an idea. And give over that idea. And the challenge of giving over an idea is that the teacher already knows the idea. But the teacher cannot give over the idea the way the teacher knows it because the student doesn't know the idea yet. What does a teacher need to do when a teacher teaches an idea? They need to package the idea. They need to think deeply about the idea and be able to communicate it in a way the Talmud can understand. There's a story. I don't know. I don't think it's true, but there's a story of a doctorate professor, a professor who was teaching a doctoral level class And the professor announced that this coming week there won't be class. He was a grandfather, and he said, "It's take your grandfather to school day." You bring your grandfather to school, and you're in second or third grade, and he has to get up and say what he does for a living.
So this was a professor of astrophysics, and he says, "I'm going to be giving my grandson's third grade class. I'm giving them a class on astrophysics." Class is canceled, and he jokingly says, "Any one of you guys who wants to come, you're welcome to come to the class." The next week When their class is resumed So the professor walks in. And he says hello with a big smile to one of the students. And he says, "Good to see you. Thank you for coming to my class last week." And all the other students say, "You went to the third grade class." And this particular student says, "I went, and it was the most brilliant class that I ever heard." What's the pshat? When you are giving over astrophysics to third grade, you can't lie. What do you have to do if you are giving over astrophysics to third grade? You have to take the principles of astrophysics. You have to limit those principles. You have to give them language that a third grader could understand.
So the genius of this professor is that he was able to take the same class that he was giving to doctoral level students, and without betraying the truth of those ideas, he was able to boil them down to the simplest possible terms, so that a doctoral level student could see the path of that. Simple martial that he was giving to the third grade students, all the way to the doctoral level class. I heard many years ago from Rav Moshe Weinberger Shlita, the Rav of H Kodesh from Woodmere That Rav Weinberger said, "There is three types of people." There are people who have nothing to say, but they say it so well. He said, "That's Hollywood." They have nothing to say, but they say it so well. They sell magazines and articles. Are you keeping up with the Kardashians? Does anyone know who the Kardashians are? Why are they famous? Nobody knows. But Hollywood has told us a tremendous amount about people that deserve none of our attention.
That's called being very good at speaking with having nothing to say. Then there are people who have so much to say but they can't get it out. I'm sure you've met people like this, geniuses, tremendous talmidei chachamim. They hold the wisdom of the world in their fingertips. But because they're such geniuses, you can't talk to them. I once had a chavrusha like this. He was such a genius, but every time he spoke, his thoughts were like ten steps ahead of his speech. So he would speak like this. "What the rashi was saying is, you really have to see it like, you understand what I'm saying?" And I'm like, "No, nobody understands what you're saying. You didn't say any words that involved adjectives or verbs that would describe the idea. He was so fast in his head he couldn't get it out." The true genius is somebody who has something to say and can articulate the principle clearly on the level that the other person is holding on.
The genius of the greatest rabbis is not that they're holding in kol tarekula. The genius of the greatest rabbis is that they were holding in kol tarekula and they could talk to a first grader. I'll tell you. I don't know if I should say this, but I guess I'm already here, so may as well say it. Many years ago, I worked in a camp called Simcha Day Camp in the Five Towns. Some of you have heard of Simcha Day Camp. I got a phone call from Rabbi Arye Libowitz, who was just announced that he's the new dean of Ritz. Back then, he was a rebbe in DRS, a rav of Northwoodmere. A tremendous talmachachem.
Everybody knew he was a tremendous talmachachem. He called me up and he asked me for a job. I was the learning director in the camp. He said, "Do you think you have a job for me?" He said, "Maybe I could be like the rebbe for like the CITS." So I said, Rabbi Liebowitz, I would love to give you a job, working as the Rebbe for the CITS. The problem is, the CITS have had rebbeim that have been there forever. I can't just like say to them, "Oh, you're not going to teach now because like now we have Rabbi Liebowitz." So I'm sorry, Rabbi, I don't have anything for you. He goes, "Well, I'd really like to teach in the camp. My kids are going to the camp. Financially, it made sense for him to teach in the camp." He goes, "I'll really teach any bunk." I said, "Rebbe, the only bunk that I have available is third graders." He goes, "I'll teach third graders." I was like, "This is crazy, Rabbi. You're going to teach third grade kids, it's not matim for you. What are you going to teach third grade kids?" He said, "Why? Why is it not matim? These are also their Baruch Hashem children." I said, "Look, if you really want it, I'll give it to you. I just think it's absurd.
I gave him the job, and I would stop by his classroom every day. But not to check in. I went to the classroom to learn. I went to learn. I wanted to see what it looks like when you have a person who's holding in a tremendous amount of Torah. An extraordinary amount of Torah, and he's teaching third graders, and it was beautiful. It was beautiful to watch. Because the Torah that he was saying at this level and the Torah that he was saying at this level was the same Torah, but he had to be mitzamtsim himself. I'm sure that when he was saying something to them, he knew so many more things than that, but he was mitzamtsim himself. He was teaching people by Asher Rosham. They say the Vilna Gaon at the end of his life. He opened up a sefer Torah. He read the word baraisus and then chazard kolat arakula on the word baraisus Nister nigla everything he knew. And then he went on to bara.
He imagined what it was like to be the vilnagayin and have to explain a concept to somebody. But the greater you are, the more you have the ability to be mitzamsim yourself. With this in mind, says the Lubavitcher Rebbe as follows: Imagine the following scenario. You have a teacher. You have a rebbe. He's giving over this incredible Torah. And in the middle of giving it over A lightning bolt hits him, and he has a new idea—a revolutionary idea something that must be shared with the class. What does the Rebbe need to do? He can't just blurt it out. Why not? Because if he's blurting it out Then who's he speaking to? No one Because he's the only one that will understand it. What does the Rebbe do? The Rebbe stops. He stops giving shear. He collects himself. He collects his thoughts, and he spends a couple of minutes packaging the idea so that it will be palatable to the talmidim. I want you to know. I saw this with my rebbe many, many times. I was zayich to learn with my rebbe bechavrusa for three years. My rebbe is Riviyuda Parnishlit. I should be zayich to refuah shleim. He's ninety-six years old.
He was an unbelievable, is an unbelievable tamochachem An unbelievable lamdan. I want you to know that he told me once that he would prepare the average shear for seven to ten hours, and he never looked back on his notes. Even though he had been giving shear for fifty, sixty years, he had never looked back on his notes. Every shear was fresh. So I was waiting to learn with him bechavrusa. This is my big moment. My rebbe asked me to learn with him bechavrusa. We're going to be preparing shear together every night. What's it going to be? So my rebbe told me exactly how the bechavrusa was going to go. He basically told me that I needed to be prepared for everything. And then he said What we're going to do in the chavrusa is two things: number one We're going to define the ideas. And number two Said we're going to think about how to present them to the shir.
So much of my rebbe's work wasn't in defining the ideas. He was quick. He was a tremendous lamdan. But the amount of time in every chevrusa that we had, where he sat and thought about what are the right words to use to communicate these ideas to the talmidim, was the main work. Sometimes in sheir My rebbe would come up with a new idea, and this is what he would do: he'd always take off his glasses. He'd like to throw his glasses on the desk in front of him where he sat. He would bury his head in his hands. He would stop the entire sheer. We all sat there; a pin drop you could hear. We all sat there. Until he formulated the idea to give it over to the chevra The most brilliant moments of the shiur were when my rebbe threw off his glasses and stopped and thought. That's when we saw the real godless. And he would say it to us. He would say, 'Guys, you are going to learn what process is all about. You are going to learn how to learn from these moments.'
But those moments for a talmud are very painful because the rebbe was giving shear and you were chopping the shiur And it appears from the perspective of the Talmud. That the Rebbe has stopped giving over Torah But in truth, the Rebbe has not stopped giving over Torah. If anything, the Rebbe is more focused on the Talmud in that moment. What appears to be the Rebbe turning away from the Talmud is actually the Talmud. What is the Rebbe turning towards the Talmud? Because in that moment, he's focused on deepening the relationship with the Talmud. He's focused on giving the Torah over in a way that is palatable for the Talmud. Comes along the Labavitcher Rebbe, his genius, unbelievable repackaging of these ideas, and he says as follows: Let's look at that halacha. Rabbi Sa'hi Baltashchus. Can Hashem be over on the yisur of Baltashchus? Of course not.
But maybe he'll say it wasn't Baltashchus. Gullus is mechaper for Avonos, right? Breaking the base of Mikdash, it's mechaper for our sins, so it's not really a waste. That might be true for Baltashchis, says the Rabbah, but what about for Losasun kein lasham lo kechem? What about the fact that you're not allowed to break a shul? But there's halacha. There's only one instance where you are allowed to break a shul. You guys know what it is? When you're rebuilding that shul, in that Rama says in the same exact place, then it's not called destruction. It's called what? It's called building. There's a place in the world called the Five Towns. You heard of the Five Towns? Yeah. In the five towns in Nassau County, if you break your house completely, if you raise your house to the ground So then you have to pay a tax for building a house.
I grew up on one seventy two Harborview North An address that you might be familiar with because it was right across the street from your grandfather. In fact, your great grandfather used to sit on the stoop when he came for Shabbos. And I would walk over to him and have a schmooze with him before during Shabbos. Some of my favorite moments with your great grandfather were sitting on that stool. So what do you do in Lawrence? You don't knock down the house. You know what you do? You knock down the entire house except for your garage. Then you build a house around the garage. Then you know what you do? You knock down the garage. It's a legal loophole and it works because at no point did you actually quote unquote destroy the house. That's called in Hebrew a shiputz. You're doing construction. You're not doing destruction. You're doing construction.
The Rebbeinu Shlom never destroyed the Beis Hamikdash. Not one day in his life. Leisasan kein l'Hashem lo keicha means you're not allowed to destroy the shul. Nobody ever said you're not allowed to improve the shul. Of course you're allowed to improve the shul. The Rebbeinu Shlom didn't break the Beis Hamikdash. He's just in the process of doing construction. He's the teacher who turned away for a moment. In order to deepen the relationship and improve it. The relationship, as it was currently constructed, wasn't working. In order to further our relationship with that, Baruch Hu, He turns away from us. But what's our experience of Gallas? Our experience of Gallas is we see the Rebbeinu Shlom turned away, but in truth, what is it? It's turning away, but it's really turning towards. It's stopping the shiur in order to improve the shiur. It doesn't. It might feel like the Talmud that the Rebbe is not paying attention to you, but in that moment, the Rebbe is paying more attention to you than ever before.
With this in mind, we can explain that the Kruvim were in a loving embrace. How could the Kruvim be in a loving embrace? The Kruvim should have been facing away from each other. After all, wasn't this a time of separation between Hakadosh Baruch Hu and Klal Yisrael? What is the answer? Not at all. This moment was the moment that it appears there's a turning away, but in actuality, there's an amazing coming together that's occurring. Melech, we can understand why Dafka in the Brisbane Absarim Hakadosh Baruch Hu says, 'Let's talk about the things that are coming. Let's talk about Gullus.' Yes, there's a level of Gullus that's Melech Hatenu Galinu Me'Arzeenu. Because we did averes, we went into gullis. That's one dimension of gullis. That's the baltashchis dimension of gullis. But there is a deeper dimension of gullis. What does a bris mean, Rabbi Isaiah? A bris means unconditional love.
A bris means that even when times are hard, we will be together. A hava she'teluyah bedaver ena a hava. The rebbeinu shalom is shalom. The rebbeinu shalom is complete. His love for Klal Yisrael is complete. Memeila, his love for Klal Yisrael must be an unconditional love. If it's an unconditional love, that means that it's a love that's there even when we are in gullus. That gullus is not just "I love you," even though we're in gullus. But gullus itself is the deepest expression of the divine love. What an unbelievable idea! What an unbelievable idea to know that our times of distance from Hashem are actually the times that we're closest. But it's hard. It's hard to know that when you're in the middle of it. It's hard to know that when you're in the hester ponim. So there's two dimensions. One dimension is when I'm in the middle of the hester ponim And another dimension is after the hester ponim has passed.
Let's talk about both. In the middle of the Hester Ponym. A person has an obligation, a responsibility, to engage the pain of that particular moment. It is cruel and unusual to tell a person who is in the middle of suffering to try to see this from a future perspective. There's a YouTube video Like a comedy bit Things not to say at a shiva house. And I'll tell you, I baruch Hashem, I've never sat shiva yet in my life. But I have a Talmud who sat shiva for his daughter. And the horror stories of the things that people say at shiva. It's so unbelievably awkward to hear these stories. You're like, no, nobody actually said that, right? But people do that. They come in. They're so uncomfortable sitting in the pain of being in a shiva house that they'll blurt something out. He's in a better place.
Don't do that. The obligation in that moment is to be emo anochi btsara. If somebody's in pain, we sit with them in pain. We don't tell them this gullus is really. This gullus. You should know it's really Hakadosh Baruch Hu's closest to you right now. That's not the avoda. The avoda of tishavuv is to be in tishavuv. But there's a post tishavuv avoda And the post tishavuv avoda informs the way that we see our tishavav moments in our life. The post tishavav avoda is nachamu. It's number one after the fact. I can see how everything really was part of this process. That the rebbe in that moment the rebbe stopped giving she'er. It's very painful. Rebbe continued teaching me taira. In the moment where there's silence in the room, it's very painful. Rebbe, I want to hear from you. And then when the rebbe does speak, you go The Rebbe didn't stop giving shear; he just paused. He was constructing a new idea.
Now there is two Nachamas. Number one, our relationship is back on, and number two, I see that the moment you stop teaching was the moment you were really teaching. Nachamu, Nachamu means that now that it's after Tishavov, the Rebbeinu Shalom can say there is a Nachamu. The Nachamu is you saw the process, and when you see the process, it reframes the pain. And what that does for us is that when we have our tishabav moments, we can live in two dimensions. One dimension is we can be in terrible pain for the loss that we suffered, but another dimension is we can be in terrible pain for the loss that we suffered and also know that things are okay. That's how we as a nation survive. We as a nation survive because we know that things are exceptionally difficult, and we're willing to say they're difficult. We don't have to pretend that the pain isn't there.
But we also know that we're okay. It's what gives us the ability to rebuild afterwards. It's what gives us the ability to make it through. You should know that it's not a small thing to say. It's not a small talent. It's called resilience. When you're going through something hard, and it's really painful, the way that you get to say I'm okay is by knowing I've done this before and I was okay then. I'll be okay now. We as a nation have done this so many times before. Ask a Jew, even a young Jew like yourselves Can a Jew rebuild after the fact? Everybody here, even I see guys already nodding their heads. Because that's how we grew up. We grew up hearing the stories about our grandparents that rebuilt Yiddishkeit after the Holocaust, that rebuilt Yiddishkeit in America and Eretz Yisrael. We have thriving institutions of Torah. It's unbelievable.
Where did we get that capacity? How did we go through the Holocaust and come out on the other side? It's because we're able to say Nachamu. Because before them, they also saw rebuilding. They also saw how it was part of the plan. A Jew in the middle of Auschwitz in 1943 did not know what 1948 was going to bring, and he did not know what 1967 was going to bring. A Jew in the middle of Auschwitz in nineteen forty-three, in his wildest dreams, would not have imagined that just a couple of days ago on Tishah B'av, you guys had the kumzitz of the world sitting at the Kotel Amaravi. That's an unbelievable thing. That's an amazing thing. They never dreamt of it, but I know this. They knew it anyway. It was beyond their wildest dreams, but somehow they knew it anyway. Now they knew it because we've seen it so many times before. Every time in the history of Kali Yisrael that we are exiled, there is a tremendous rebirth that happens afterwards.
We were expelled from Spain; there was unbelievable proliferation of Torah afterwards, Kabbalah, Chassidus, all the things that came out. It's amazing. Every time we get knocked down, Shapteitzvi gave birth to the Balshemtov, gave birth to the Vilna Gon, gave birth to the Ramchal. It's unbelievable. Every time we go down, we go up. In the middle of Auschwitz, they had no idea that in 2024 we'd be sitting here in Enzias Yikolam Beit Meir, but they knew it anyway. Because Nachamu, Nachamu, it's how they made it through Auschwitz, and it's how they rebuilt afterwards. They were able to see the plan in retrospect. We had the schuz of having Rav Lapiansky here tonight. His brilliance is unreal. Highly recommend if you have the opportunity to learn the Torah of Lapianski, as I know you've done so well this year. Must have been unbelievable to meet your Rebbe.
His Torah is brilliant, but I thought tonight for those guys that were really keyed in, if you really listened carefully to what he was saying He was articulating a point that I think really requires us to unpack what he said. I'm not going to repeat his She'er tonight, but I want to really highlight what I think he was doing from a chinuch standpoint. What he was doing is setting up a post NCSY Kollel world. What will it be like in the middle of eleventh grade, in the middle of twelfth grade, where you are not feeling like you want to go to the beis medrash at twelve o'clock at night? What's it going to be like then? The hisirus is now And by the way, from a chinuch perspective, it's brilliant because it's a rebbe's responsibility to say that there are peaks and valleys to the process of being a yid. And you may not always be as inspired as you are right now. So what he was doing for us is he was highlighting what's absolutely going to happen.
For a person to think that they're going to have this level of excitement their entire life is not true. But what I think Lapianski was really saying is there's a difference between inspiration and excitement. If you can articulate what the summer meant to you You can hold on to that. Long after the excitement has worn off, that's how you'll stay strong. I'm not going to get into the details of what he said. The details were brilliant, and the hadracha that he gave was brilliant. I hope you guys will take it seriously and go right about this. But that's not the ikker point. The ikker point was not the details of it in terms of the specifics of avoda. The genius of it was. That we know that there are going to be times in the coming months where you're not going to feel the way you feel right now. A type of hester ponim, a type of distance from Hashem, a type of turning away.
And you have two responses. Response number one is no resilience. I give up. I'm a victim. I'm a victim. I'm a victim. It's one response. There is a deeper, more profound, more meaningful response And that is in times when I feel turned away. To have the foresight to know that I can live in two dimensions. Number one, this is very painful. But number two, Nachamu. There's a story that comes after this. There's a process of deepening in this relationship. I'm not far. I'm close. I'm falling, but I'm falling upwards. That's not a small thing to know. I'll finish with this My Rebbe Shlita. Told me many years ago when I asked him this exact question, how do we hold on to the excitement Of inspiring moments And my rebbe's answer to me was as follows. He said, "I don't know that it's possible." You're not going to feel this way maybe ever again.
He said, "But there is an impact. There's an imprint." The feeling that you have right now, you can remember that feeling forever. Even if you don't have that feeling, you can remember that feeling forever. And you can choose to orient your life towards that feeling of inspiration. And that is the best advice I've ever gotten of how to make moments like NCSY summer, which are a blip on the radar screen. It's a six-week program. Six-week program. How can I take a six-week program and still be talking about a six-week program fifty years from now? You may talk about the memories. You'll say, "Yeah, it was a crazy thing." You know how, Talmidim of R' Salavitch are always talking about what it was like to be under R' Salavitch this year. It could very well be that in 30 years from now, you'll be those elderly parents or grandparents going, "I don't know. My summer—I was 16 years old. I sat in the same Beit Midrash as R' Shechter, R' Tversky, R' Rosenzweig. We didn't think anything of it back then.
But of course, we were sitting with Gedolei Torah. It could very well be that this will be a touchstone in your life. But I think it's deeper than that. You have the opportunity right now to say "This summer can orient the direction of my life." This not the beginning, of this not the beginning of the end. This the end of this beginning. This one step that I took, and I was walking in this direction, and now I'm walking just in this direction, and just that small shift takes me now. Thirty years later, what does it look like when two people are like this? The impact is massive. And you don't realize it when you're young. You don't realize the small decisions that you make The decision of where I'm going to go to yeshiva, where my friends are, who my friends are going to be, what things I prioritize in my life, what my core values are, where my resiliency is, and what I do in the face of chaos. These small decisions have long-term impacts.
This was an amazing summer. It was, Rabbi. I don't generally hang out. You could ask Akiva. I don't generally hang out in places till twelve o'clock at night. I try to go to sleep. I have to wake up tomorrow morning. I like to wake up early in the morning. And Rabbi Turetsky messaged me tonight, and he says, "Do you mind if we push off Mishmar till eleven fifteen?" No problem. Eleven fifteen. Sure. Why not? At this point, what's the difference? I stay late at night because I'm inspired by you guys. I'm inspired by guys that I see taking those first steps of their journey and orienting their life in a particular direction. I want to take this opportunity to thank you for the inspiration. Har be'lamadatim erabosay mitamiday yosam yikulam. You learn a lot from your rebbeim. You learn most from your talmidim. It's a privilege to be a rebbe here because you guys have become my rebbe. I have to ask myself, where am I going to be next Thursday night when I don't have to give shear? Am I going to be up learning at twelve o'clock at night Or am I going to be sleeping?
Challenges the Rebbe to push himself to be the best that he could be. So let's do this together. We all know that in months from now, maybe in weeks from now, there's going to be times of Hester Panim. There's going to be times of Golas. The question is, can we hold on during those times so that we're zayicher to the post story of Nachamu Ami? Be'ez Hashem, we can do it together. Be'ez Hashem, I'll see you back here in Eretz Yisrael. Bakar of Mamish. I hope you guys don't leave. I hope that you don't leave. I should clarify. These are dangerous times. I hope that you don't leave because Mashiach came. I hope that your flights can get out safely if Mashiach hasn't come. But I hope that if your flights can get out safely, there's zayich to come back soon, and we should be together again, friends. Zayich to sit here in Eretz Yisrael, learning together on Thursday nights. Thank you so much, Rabbi.
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