Shavuos - Essence of Polarities (followed by a Q&A with Rav and Rebbetzin Burg)

1:56 Obviously, there's a change in schedule. As we learned, we're not in control of anything. So I apparently am not in control of anything, and all my notes that I printed are gone. I forgot to bring them with us, which means that this will be more authentic. And if the core of what we're speaking about is authenticity, then perhaps we will have the opportunity to be authentic about authenticity. I want to share with you. Really, what I want to do is have a conversation, and I think my wife might actually be joining us. Usually, what we do is a little bit of a shir and then a question and answer. I think she's davening mincha on the roof right now. What's her maiden name? She's from Queens originally. Her maiden name is Fold. You know the Fold family in Queens. Rabbi Mechel Fold was her father. Really beautiful. Wait one second. Who did you marry? Aliza.

2:51 Who do you know? So that's her antonym. You know what I love. This was just the most Jewish thing that ever happened. We need to decide if we know each other. It took about three seconds. Then was I'm a Five Towns kid, so I could play this game pretty well. Now we have to do the Five Towns thing. It's from the Five Towns. Where are you from in the five cedars? I'm from Lawrence. It means I think I'm better than the other towns. But Lawrence, what's your name? Joanne Bain. I spent Shabbos with you. And in YU we spoke about shidduchim. We were there for Shabbos together.

3:45 It was not veryish. I'm from the Vassar. Your husband is a very big tzad, because I'm sure you've been told many times. So now that we've played that game very well, what's your last name? I said it not as Levine. That's very Jewish. That makes you a little bit unique. I hear. I'll start by way of introduction, just by asking a question. But really, I don't want to talk so much the heavy Torah. I really want to have a real conversation. So the question that we'll jump off with is a—it's a well-known question. That the first words of the Asaras Hadibros are Anochi Hashem Eloka. I am the Lord your God who took you out of the land of Egypt. The word Anochi—Chazal tell us is a Rashi Tevos.

4:41 For the words ananafshik sabis yahavis, which means I wrote my essence into the Torah, so that's famous. A kaddish baruch hu begins the conversation with Klal Yisrael by expressing something about his essence. What's more unusual, and I'm not sure if everybody in the room knows this, I didn't know it until a couple years ago, is the word anochi is an Egyptian word. Most people don't know that. Chazal tell us that the word anochi is an Egyptian word. The word Anochi is an Egyptian word. So the question is: These seem to be two very opposite movements. One movement is this is my essence, and the other is a language that expresses Erevus Arutz. A language says a lot about the culture and the community that speaks that language. How long have you been in Eretz Yisrael?

5:38 So I'm sure you notice coming from America. I'm sure you notice that there's a how should we say this? I don't want to say anything badly about Klal Yisrael Chasra Shalom. So I'll just say it like this: We have more of a. I won't call it angry. It's not angry here in Eretz Yisrael, but we're a little bit more feisty. Feisty is a. I can tell you're a good mom. We have more of a feisty type of language. We say strong things to people, right? In America, you would never do this. You would speak nicely, speak kindly. You could tell a lot about the culture from the way that people speak. If Mitzrayim is ervas aratz, if Mitzrayim is the lowest nation, perhaps in the history of the world, the polarities of anochi—this is my essence—and a language that seems to have nothing to do with the essence. How do these two movements come together at once? Which really is a takeoff to a conversation.

6:34 That I want to have today about what do we do when we have oil and water and they just don't mix? What do we like? What do we do in our lives? I'll play this out authentically. It seems to me, and I don't know if you have this experience also. Even the contrast of giving a shir in Torah, listening to the noise coming from Harabayas over here. A study in contrasts. It seems to me that men and women are different. Have you noticed this? Has this been your experience? It's a strange. Somebody asked me to close the window. It's okay. Whatever you'd like. Whatever works better for you. Not listening. It's noise. It's just white noise. It seems to be. It's very racist. It seems to. It's just noise. It seems to be. It seems to be.

7:33 That Hakadosh Baruch Hu has a funny sense of humor, telling men and women to get married. I teach eighteen and nineteen year old boys for a living, and I recently shared with them the idea of validation, and this was brand new to them. They had never in their lives heard this concept, and I said, guys, you're going to get married, and I want you to know that when your wife comes home and she shares with you that she had a hard day, she's not looking for a solution. And many of the boys in the room, about twenty boys in the room, I would say fifteen to eighteen of them go, why is she talking to me about it then? And they literally had no idea. And I said, guys, I want to, we role played it. It was a very good rebbe that day. I said, I'm going to be your wife. I'm going to teach you how to do it. I said, okay, guys, this is my wife speaking up. Oh my God! And we like looking at pretty women.

8:29 So I was talking about validation and polarities, and I'm sitting with these boys, and I said to them, "I'll be, I'm going to be the wife." And I said, "Had a really hard day at work. My boss wants me to work on this project, but I just don't have time to work on the project because I'm juggling so many things at home and I'm juggling so many things at the office already, and I just don't know what to do." And so the boy immediately says, "Well, maybe you just have to tell your boss that you can't handle so many things." And I was like, that is the wrong response. And they're like, "What do you mean that's the wrong response? That's obviously the right answer." I said, "She doesn't want you to answer." He said, "What does she want?" So I took out one of the boys had a phone. I didn't have my phone on me, and he took out YouTube. And there's a video. Raise your hand if you've seen the video. It's not about the nail. Have you seen this video? If you haven't seen this video, highly recommend it. I'm not the type of person that tells you to go on YouTube, but if you have YouTube, this is one of the best.

9:26 Things you can see on YouTube. It's a video called "It's Not About the Nail." For those who have seen it, back me up. What's the video? What's the title? The title is "It's Not About the Nail," and the video is basically a woman who has a giant nail in her forehead, and she's complaining that she's getting headaches, and all of her sweaters have snags in them. And she's just not okay with it. And the boyfriend, the husband. I can't tell what he is in the video. He's like, I bet if we got that nail out of your head, and she's like, stop trying to fix it. And it's like this whole thing. And the boys are watching this and they're going like, that's crazy, Rebbe. You really like that's what we're marrying. I said to the guys, I said, I want you to know, I've shown this video to girls in seminary, and they think the guy in that crazy is the crazy person in the video. And you've seen the video.

10:13 But you can tell, right? You think the guy is crazy, the girl. So it's clearly a funny thing that the Rebbeinu Shalom does. He says, "Let's see if we could take two things that are exactly the opposite from each other and put them together." This is the comedic reality that we live in. The halu lebasar echa. What makes us capable of doing that? That's the question. I'm going to play it out a little bit more.

10:45 Let's say this would never happen, Baruch Hashem. Let's say my wife says to me, and she Baruch she really doesn't do this. This is my made up example. Let's say my wife says to me, Mordechai, I just cannot make Shabbos. I am done. You have ever I've noticed that women have this feeling called done. Do you know this feeling done? By the way, thank you for those of you who have nodded along with me. Thank you very much. I'm learning this. Men don't have that type of feeling. Women have different feelings than men. A friend of mine pointed out that women wake up in the morning and go, "I feel like today is a yogurt day." I've never felt like yogurt. I don't have that emotion. That emotion you don't have. I'm a haggadah woman. I understand. See, this is I know about emotional eating. The idea of done. I'm done. I have nothing left in the tank. I cannot make shabbos. We have to go away to a hotel for shabbos.

11:42 It's very Israelite. The husband says, "We don't have the money to go away for Shabbos. We don't have the money to go away for Shabbos. Now what?" It's logical. This conflict at its core, how do you resolve it? You ever read those advice columns? How do you make it through these questions? So what is it? If you ask your average guy what you do, what would he say? What do you think you would say? I'd be curious to hear your thoughts. What do you think guys would say? Guys would say. You know what? We buy out. Buy food out. We're going to buy food out. That's a very solution-oriented husband. That a person is people. You have that type of husband. Rabbi Simban, what would you suggest as the resident shadchanit? And if a boy came to you and he's in the middle of a shidduch, what would you say to him? What would you tell him to do? Let's say it came up on a date. What would you do in this situation? The boy doesn't know what's the right answer to this question.

12:42 You want to think about it. Now you're saying the boy should say, "Let me think about it." That's a wonderful answer. He should just say, "Very good." He should just say, "I really see that you're exhausted." I really see that you're exhausted. Is that going to be enough? No. So then I would. I want to get back. So we have machlokus in the room. Sometimes it is enough. Sometimes when somebody says something in an overt way, it's not necessarily what they mean. When they say "I'm done" and I want to go to a hotel for Shabbos, what do they actually mean? I want you to recognize that I'm done. That's a beautiful thing. But let's make it a case where no, she really wants to go away for Shabbos, and let's say the husband keeps coming in a solution-oriented way, and he says, "Okay, let's do takeout."

13:39 Let's go to your mother for Shabbos. Obviously, these solutions are not going to work. I'm not saying these are good ideas. I'm just saying these are things people might say. She'll stay home. What do they say in psychology? If it's not one thing, it's your mother. They have the. I'm full of cute lines. I'll be here all week. So what's the idea here? What do you do in such a situation? I was talking to a friend of mine, who's a very successful CEO of a company, and he's 42 years old and he's now retired. That's the dream. He's 42 years old. He's a retired guy. We decided it was noise, but no, it's good. It's good. We just entered into a tohom rabu. The temperature in the room when you're teaching, this is a dangerous place. I asked him, 'What's the secret? What was the secret to your success?' Forty-two years old, you're out of the game. He plays hockey now. That's all he does. He plays hockey and does yoga.

15:04 He learns like he's just chilling for the rest of his life. He's finished. I said, I want to know what you do. What was the secret to your success? So he gave this answer, and it's a brilliant answer. He had a partner. The partner was actually much smarter than him, but he's a much better businessman. But between the two of them, they're a good partnership. He said we started off the business by saying more important than whether I'm right or whether you're right is what's going to be good for the business. And in the ten years that we ran this business together, we never had a fight. We never had a fight because we were nullified before something larger than ourselves. There was something bigger than us that we were working towards. And so there's a humility that it takes in a relationship, in a business relationship. That he thinks the direction of the company is to go this way.

15:57 He thinks the direction of the company is to go this way, and each one of them, from an ego perspective, are saying this is the right thing to do. But if we're focused on not what's right, what do I believe is right, but what's good for the business, what do you do? He says you work through these issues because you're both working for the same team. And he said that was the key to his success, and obviously he was quite successful. The reason it struck me, the brilliance of what he said. Not only because it was his lived experience, but because I had heard this line before, and I was trying to figure out where I heard it, and then I realized it's a line that I heard years ago from Rabbi Manis Friedman. It's a brilliant line, and he says, "Before you get married, you have to be married to the concept of marriage." In other words, there's a thing called marriage. That's a thing that you're a part of. That's a thing that you're building.

16:54 You come with your preconceived notions. He comes with his preconceived notions, and now you enter into a moment of tension. You say, "I'm done. I have nothing left in the tank." He says, "We don't have enough money in the budget to go to the hotel." Why are we stuck in that moment? We're stuck because I'm rooted here, and you're rooted here, and there's no way to bridge the gap. And once we get solution oriented, we've already lost the game. Because if we're trying to solve the problem now, who are we working for? In other words, if I'm trying to get the best possible solution for me, and you're trying to get the best possible solution for you, and we figure out a way to do it, we've already lost. So let's say the husband goes, well, we can't afford a hotel. The wife says, well, we can afford this hotel, and so they do. They go to the low grade hotel. Did it work? Are you left satisfied at the end? No. You're shaking your head no. Why? Why are you not satisfied? You got to go away for Shabbos, right? Because they're not solving the root of right. Because the wife clearly is not just coming and saying I'm done. This is spelled. There's nothing about this trip that's going to go right. Not even the window.

18:19 We're letting go of control. I don't know what I said, but I'm assuming that it's true. So true. Maybe there's a thing on top here that she tried. So put something against it. This is why I love teaching the people that you bring. It's such a vibrant audience. We are very vibrant. Very. Pull us out of the transformation. A true transformation. That was very tough. See, what we just did right now is we undid the entire shear. We were all solution oriented about this.

19:19 It's not about the window. It's totally about the window. That's a bad example. The only window. It seems to me that when a wife comes to a husband and says, "I'm done," she's not looking for a solution, and there's an opportunity there that most men, including myself, my wife can attest to this, are missing. The opportunity is to build the marriage. Tension. All tension creates growth. All polarities create the opportunity for unity, and what we perceive to be as polarities are actually just two sides pulling at one thing. But in that polarity, in that pull, there's the discovery of an essence that unifies all things. And so let's say, let's say the husband is a wise husband. Let's say he's taken some good courses on these things, or he's gone to therapy himself, and so he's been validated for the first time in his life. And so let's say now that the.

20:15 That the husband says, 'Wow, you really seem like you're done,' and she goes, 'Yeah, I'm toast. I can't do this anymore.' He says, 'I really hear that. That's what you feel like you need for Shabbos,' and she says, 'Yes, that's really what I do need for Shabbos.' What's the contribution? The contri—don't worry, I'm not good at this. I just know how to teach it. Love it. You don't know what you just did. I know, but I got the person in the room was calling me out on that, laughing her head off, going, 'You don't do any of this.' I'm coming to that in a second. I know. I want you to know. I've met your side of the species, and I am aware of this need that women say, 'Yes, you're saying this, but he doesn't know that, and I can't control him.' And we get that in one second. So now the husband says these things. Of course, there needs to be a solution.

21:06 But the problem is that right now we're pulling so hard on opposite sides of each other that until we're back in the middle, contributing towards something called marriage, we're moving away from each other, not moving towards each other. I want you to know that men feel the same exact way. I know that sounds crazy, but men feel the same exact way. We can't admit it. It's not that we can't admit it; it's that we don't have the language skills to be able to say it because there's a level of vulnerability and emotional language that we never developed. But let's say you're a person who figured out how to develop these things. What you want is not really to control your husband, because if you could control your husband, would it be meaningful to you? Never, no. I like him. She has to know what she wants. I have a deal that I want. I would love to. And to say it, just as a plea from all the men in the world. I would love help for Shabbos. But at the end of the day, whether he does or doesn't help for Shabbos, you can't control.

22:03 So what happens is that we slip out. It's a very quick slip out because in our moments of frustration, we can't control. Now I'm back fighting for myself. The moment I'm fighting for myself, he's the person I'm fighting against. Once he's against me, and once I'm like I'm pro me, he's against me. It shows already over. There's even if he came back and he did the entire house, you'd still be frustrated, because you're not part of something larger than yourself. In other words, we are naturally designed to connect to the transcendent unity that exists in all things. All human beings crave to be a part of something larger than themselves that unifies all things. I have never met a person that doesn't want to be part of something larger than themselves. I'll bring you the biggest proof in the world from the side of the male side of the species. Have you ever gone to a sporting event? I hated it, but I had to go because my husband wanted to go. Would you like to unpack that?

22:57 Not a bad invitation. Can you give a few hours? I wish I did, but I don't. When you go to a sporting event, one of the amazing things that happens is you'll see, let's say in baseball, when you have the crack of the ball on the bat, 25,000 people stand up at once. What happened in that moment? We were all a part of something together. We're all a part of. That's what every person wants. Why do we cry by a chuppah? What's moving? What touches us? We are touched any time we see unity. Unity speaks to a human being, and by the way, that's really what we're losing out on when we sell Judaism, because we should never be selling Judaism. It's not something that you have to sell. It's not a product. You're not a consumer, and I'm not a salesman. This is a revelation of what's actually true, and when somebody gets up in front of you and says something like.

23:55 This is what the schar in olam haba will look like, and this is the value of Judaism. You've already lost it. Judaism is the idea of touching the essence in the world. That's what it's about. Where does that happen? It happens only in conflict. So we'll use Jewish terminology just for a moment, but then we'll bring it back down into the world of relationships. If I have an opportunity to do a mitzvah, is that does that have any impact? I'm doing a mitzvah. What's the impact of a mitzvah? I put on tefillin this morning. We daven today. What did you do? Simple question. We've all been Jewish for a while. What did you do by doing a mitzvah? You get connection. Good. But what did I do? Did I make a change in the world? Did something happen? I put on tefillin. Did something happen in the world too? We don't know.

24:49 So something did happen in the world. What it looks like, we don't necessarily know because we haven't seen the final product of it. But what Chazal teach us is as follows: Avram Avinu did Mitzvos, Yitzchak did Mitzvos, Yaakov did Mitzvos. They all learned in yeshiva before Yehuda, before Yosef HaTzaddik came back to Mitzrayim. Yaakov said to Yehuda, Go start a yeshiva. We've had yeshivas, we had Torah, we had Mitzvos. What changed by Har Sinai? So what changed by Har Sinai was as follows. Beforehand, spiritual people did spiritual things. Yaakov Yenu did a mitzvah because he was a spiritual person. He did a spiritual thing. After Matan Torah, the Medrash says that there was a xera. There was a xera in Shamayim. Rome cannot go to Syria, and Syria cannot go to Rome. Hashemayim, Shamayim la Hashem. V'har es nesan lev ne'adam. Before Hesinai, spiritual was spiritual, physical was physical, and never the twain shall meet.

25:46 There was no tension between these two things because spiritual is spiritual. You've met spiritual people. If you haven't met spiritual people in your life, spiritual people you meet one of these like Tibetan monks who sits on a mountain top and meditates all day. These are tremendously spiritual people. You don't need to be religious to be spiritual. You see, if you meet people from Alcoholics Anonymous, you meet people in recovery. Recovery people are the most spiritual people in the world. What's that got to do with religion, though? Religion is different than spirituality. The spiritual worlds are the spiritual worlds. The physical worlds are the physical worlds. Judaism believes that in those two polarities, there's really one essence. When a Jew does a mitzvah, you've changed the world. When I say change the world, I don't mean like metaphorically. I mean the world has actually undergone a change. The Medrash says that what's the desire of Hakadosh Baruch Hu to create the world? Nesava Hakadosh Baruch Hu lios leios barach dira betachtonim.

26:41 God says, "I want to have a dwelling place where in the world down below." In other words, the spiritual world is already very accommodating to God, but that's not interesting to Him. Why isn't it interesting to Him? Because there's no friction. A relationship is only great when you find space in your opposite. He would love to meet. I told you, I want to hang out with you guys now. So I'll give you an example of it. If it wasn't true, it'd be funny. I want you to know, I know that pain. Everybody in the room knows that pain, and we need to create more of a conversation around that pain in our lives. And I guess a lot. My wife, who we have in the room today, is a. This brilliant woman, actually trained therapist. What kind of therapist? Family therapist. Great. A family therapist. And I've learned mostly what I'm saying today are things I've learned from my wife. I just get up here and say them and get paid for it. But really, I've learned this from my wife. And we speak about how much you feel in a relationship is directly dependent on how truthful you are in that relationship.

28:04 Meaning, we can't hold space for somebody else if they won't tell us who they are. The reason they won't tell us who they are is because they don't feel safe to tell us who they are. In other words, I really want to be loved by you, but I don't want to show you who I am. The thing I want most is to find space somewhere other than myself. And the more other you are, the more exciting it is. Why is the world like that? As if somebody who's the exact opposite of me, in your case, a man, says, 'I am willing to hold space for you, and when there's a moment of conflict, to just sit in the essence together and share that space with each other.' That is the most exceptional feeling in the world. That's what we want to tell these kids. These 18, 19 year old kids that come to Israel for the year. I want to tell them, 'You guys are running around, girls are running around, and you think you're having a good time. This is not real pleasure.'

28:59 Real pleasure is two things. Number one, what we just said—somebody being able to hold space for the other—and number two, as a father, embarrassing your children is the most gishmak feeling in the entire world. There is nothing like embarrassing. I get. I should make a bracha on embarrassing my children. It's such a delicious feeling. Do you have someone in your life who embarrasses children? Like, do you know? I embarrass my children. Isn't that a beautiful thing? It's the most amazing feeling in the world. I embarrass. How? Give me an example. I'll give you an example. My nephew davened next to me in shul last week. He is the cutest, sweetest little boy in the world. He's bar mitzvah boy, and he comes to shul and he's tired in the morning and he comes anyway and he comes and he sits next to me, which I like very much. And there's like a whole chevrer there where we daven and it's all my neighbors. And before he leaves, I go.

29:50 Have a great day. Make great choices today. Allow your true self to be seen. I say this out loud in front of everybody. Be vulnerable. Be courageous. Lean into the discomfort of the work. And he's like, Uncle Mordechai, stop. And he has, but you know that look where kids have on their face where they're like turning red and they're smiling and they're like, stop it. But they're doing this, come on more. And it takes about five minutes for him to leave shul. I only have my son's only six. I can't yet embarrass him. But ask my, do I embarrass my daughters? I embarrass my daughters. It's the most gishmak feeling in the world. What's the age they start? They have to be old enough to be truly embarrassed. If they're not really if they haven't yet lost themselves. Around a little bit older, but yeah. Don't worry about it. It's just a joke. It's not that good. The first part was more true. The greatest feeling is to be known by another. That's the greatest feeling to share an essence with another.

30:47 So what does Hakadosh Baruch Hu say? Hakadosh Baruch Hu says, "Can you find me in a place that has nothing to do with me? Can you bring me into the physical world? Can you materialize the spiritual?" In other words, in Judaism, is it exciting for somebody to go up to a mountain top and just sit and meditate all day? It's not exciting at all. We don't find that people just daven all day long. It's not the right thing to do. Why not? It's not. It might be a spiritual activity, but it's not a godly activity. In other words, a malach will always be more spiritual than we will, but a malach will never be as godly as we can be, because only we can introduce godliness into something that appears to be the exact opposite of ourselves. A malach will always be more spiritual than a human being, but a human being is infinitely more godly than a malach, because a malach can only be a malach, but I can become something fundamentally different than I am, so we can be godly.

31:44 To be godly, to be infinite, means that I can find infinitude in places not only that I wouldn't expect it, but that it seems to be impossible to find it. The more finite it is, the more infinite it has inside it. In other words, the darkness contains more light than the light does. The nikkuda of light that a person finds in the darkness is much brighter than the nikkuda of light that a person finds in the light. It's why the moon is more romantic than the sun. Flashlight in the tunnel. The sun is not romantic because the sun—it's just like this is what it is. The moon is romantic because it's so dark, and yet we can see each other. That's why we're excited by these things. So before we start our Q and A, just to finish with this idea, Hakadosh Baruch Hu comes, and the very first word out of his mouth is Anochi.

32:39 Which means essence. On a nafshik savas yahavas. This is me. Which means that now everything that appears to be other is not truly other. It's your job to find it. Your job to find me in the things that appear to be other. It's like the famous line from the Kedushas Levi, Rav Levi Yitzchak Meir Ditchef. He said, "I'm playing hide and seek with God, and I'm finding him everywhere." It's a deep line. The idea that I can find Hakadosh Baruch Hu in places not only where He's not expected, but where He's impossible. I could have been in Sfat. Trust me. Rav Levi Yitzchok Meberditchov. I'm playing hide and seek with God, and I'm finding Him everywhere. But now hopefully we'll understand this. The word Anochi also is an Egyptian word. In fact, it's the lowest possible Egyptian word. In Egyptian, it means I.

33:34 But it's an Egyptian word. Why did Chazal highlight that it's an Egyptian word? Because Hakadosh Baruch Hu is found not only in the most spiritual places, but also in the lowest possible of places, together with the lowest of the lowest. That's where, within the lowest tumah, the greatest possible kedusha. So when people ask the question, why did we have to go down to Eretz Yisrael? The answer is to find the Torah. That's why, and now we'll go a little bit deep quickly. We'll do it like a one minute deep thing. The world was created with ten utterances. Barasar mamaros nevra olam. Hakadosh Baruch Hu had to destroy those ten utterances when it came to the flood. All of those ten utterances were broken up in the world. Chazal say that they fell into Mitzrayim. Yosef HaTzaddik had to go down into Mitzrayim because in Mitzrayim, by being a person of dignity in Mitzrayim, we were able to reconstruct the ten utterances through the ten makos.

34:28 Therefore, when we came out of Mitzrayim, we had the Asaras Adibros. It's the same exact concept. Where do you find the Asarim Amaros that created the world? You find them in Mitzrayim. That's why Pesach is all about speech. It's Pesach. It's the release. It's the freedom of the speech that we had lost in the times of the Mabo. So when a person goes into the Mitzrayim of their life, like you said before, it would be funny if there wasn't so much pain behind it. I would say if we would have the courage, the vulnerability, the mindfulness, the sense of self to be able to hold that pain is really expressing an essential desire to be with somebody else. It's why do we get so frustrated with our spouses? If we would put actual language to it, it would sound something like this: "I love you so much. I hate the fact that I feel so distant from you right now. There's nobody else in the world that I'd rather be with at this moment than you."

35:22 And yet, why do I feel like you don't want to be with me? Why do I feel like you're pushing me away? Why do I feel unvalued? Why do I feel unheard, unsafe, unlistened to? Whatever it is, that pain is the greatest expression of love that there is. But in our broken language, what do we say? I'm done, and I want to go to a hotel for Shabbos. We missed it so badly. So Anochi means if we're being mekabel the Torah, the question is: Are we? Are we people of essence? Are we people that know how to see the unity in that which appears to be going in the opposite way from each other? That's what changed. That's what changed by Har Sinai. It used to be Hashemayim Shamayim LaHashem. It was a spiritual world. Now it's not like that anymore. Our world has the opportunity to be godly, not just spiritual, to be higher than spiritual, to be godly. We did a good job. Questions and answers now.

36:19 There are swaram in the back for sale. The whole schedule was made for this. You heard it said. The whole schedule that you made was made for him. Those viewers. Thank you for all that work. Those viewers that you said. Viewers that you said because you had to talk to other. I'll tell you what. Let's do it like this. We'll go around if anybody has any questions, but we'll say it loudly. Would you mind? I have brought. If anybody's interested, I wrote svarim on topics like these in English. Everything in English. They're in the back for sale right after the shir. So we'll start with your question. If you can say it loud. It's good French. Don't ask it. Does anyone have a question they can ask? What's the level of safety in the room?

37:16 Of what questions we can ask. Otherwise, I'm happy to do the awkward silence thing. It's a very safe place. So let's go for it then. Who's the very first person to be very safe in this room? What's your name? From where? I've been there. So we just. I don't think I have a question. I'm just recognizing processing. I'm recognizing that with sometimes adult children, where the polarities are there, teenagers, adult children, those polarities are where the opportunity for growth arises for myself after having a child. But I want you to know, I hear it from the kids' side, not from the parents' side.

38:14 Mostly, what I do in yeshiva is just sit and talk to guys from the hours of around eight thirty, eight forty-five in the morning till about three thirty in the afternoon. I'm just talking with guys, and when young men have struggles with their parents, they'll say all the words that are painful. They'll say, "I have nothing to do with my parents. I would never trust my parents. I hate my parents." You'll hear all the bad words. But if you're listening very carefully, I have never heard a kid who didn't desire to have a closer relationship with his parents. And over time, if we can take a really deep breath, and I know it's sometimes a breath that you have to take for years and maybe even decades, if we can attune ourselves to the words that they're saying covertly.

39:09 That you know the kid that is the nastiest kid, but always wants to sit next to you by the Shabbos table, right? It's like that. Why are they sitting next to you? I'm not saying anything specific. I'm just saying if somebody in theory had a teenage daughter that didn't necessarily speak the most respectfully to their mother. I'm not saying a specific example. I'm not saying anything that's in reality. But let's say if I turn to this side of the room, that daughter always wants to sit next to that mother. Right? That's her way of saying I want to be here. The problem is all the noise that's coming out of her mouth. When they have any sense of self, that sense of self came from us. There's no such thing as learning to love yourself. You're loved into being.

40:07 People gave you a gift of love. They gave you the language of love, right? Somebody told you in your life, "I love you," and you thought to yourself, "Oh, I'm worthy of somebody's love." A child has no idea how important that is, and they don't know how to leave. They really don't know how to leave. They just get so angry because they don't know how to leave. And other, if they could amputate, it's much worse. If you have a kid who alenu amputates himself from his parents, that is a devastating thing for a child to go through. That's a really hard thing. So I'll tell you, I'll share with you. You're saying, and I'm thinking of different cases that are coming up for me. And there's a case that I have where a boy said, I never heard the words I love you from my father.

40:58 And it created real havoc in his system, in his world. That was a very hard thing to hold. And as a result of that, he engaged in certain behaviors that were for sure inappropriate. And he didn't know that it was his attempt to receive love from his father. And it really fell apart for him in a very serious way, until he was about 22. He was about 22, and he had a real low moment. He had a tremendously low moment in his life. He called me from America, and to his credit, he was—he's an exceptional person. To his credit, he went and got the help that he needed, and he learned to draw from other places. He never had, to my knowledge, an honest conversation with his dad. I think probably his dad is holding a lot of stuff and wasn't able to do that for him in his life. But he was able to draw from other places and to bring that into himself. And now he's a

41:58 Well-respected adult does really meaningful things with his life. He's a very special person. We can find sources elsewhere. Inherently, they're looking for that. We all let's say for example, I baruch Hashem was privileged that I did get it from my parents, but I also got it from other places. There are names that I have in my life of people that growing up were people that let me know, hey, you're worthy. And I didn't always take in those voices, but they were real people, and so as an adult, I'm very grateful to those people. And if I see them, I really take the opportunity. It was rebbeim, camp counselors, NCSY advisors. You have people in your life that are willing to do these things. So if Chassid Sholm, a person didn't get that, they can still find that they did get it from other places. And then, of course, there's the other aspect of this, which is very hard, which is we're all in a state of reparenting ourselves.

42:55 Every one of us is in a state of discovering a deeper truth from within ourselves, and we can be an adult to ourselves. And at some point, we can even say to ourselves, "You are worthy of love. You are worthy of dignity, etc." That's a helpful thing, I think. Last questions, comments, reactions? Yes. Straight enough, mature enough, or honest enough to really be in touch with his feelings, and he's not making the connection. You feel like I'm done. Speak louder. Wife says I'm done, and he says, "Well, we don't have money to go waste. Let's figure it out." Or a similar reaction, or I'll light the candle. Like he's missing. Or he says hurtful things, "Why can't you just figure it out? Everybody else does."

43:51 So what is this to do with that? This is a mature person that obviously never got it and running on empty. And you're not filling your cup. Lisa. What would you say in theory to somebody who wasn't mature enough when they were, I don't know, first married for the first 20 years to figure out how to do these things? What would you say? I'll tell you what. I'll stall for a minute. I'll talk. I'll talk around it, and then you jump in. Fair? I think you hit on so many different pieces, and I'll just. I don't know if I can answer all of them, but you said.

44:48 A lot of different reasons why, in theory, this man doesn't have these emotional tools to be able to connect to that essential uniting principle. One of the things you said was immature. I'm saying I will use that as an example. I don't mean immature. He's a very capable person. A lot of these emotionally immature men are actually very successful. Sometimes because of their lack of emotional maturity. Exactly. I think part of our own emotional health is not walking on the other side of the street. So I can be in a relationship in accordance with my highest values.

45:43 Knowing that my sense of self, my sense of worth, is not wrapped up in another, I'm here, I'm present, I have my support system, and I'm okay. Because I'm okay, I can be grateful for who he is and what he does bring to the table. Because a lot of times, what happens is when people go into this modality of like, well, I'm okay for myself. What they really mean is like, and you are not okay. And that is also not a uniting principle, right? So if we can show up respectfully, maturely, being our best self, which again sometimes means having hard conversations, right, in a way that's appropriate, obviously with a soft start, obviously by telling the other person, I'm sharing this with you because I care about you, because I value our relationship, I want to let you know what it looks like to be in a relationship with me. For me, what's important is emotional language.

46:39 And I know that that's probably not something you naturally are attracted to. But I want to share with you that when you say X, Y, and Z, it does hurt. And if you really mean that, meaning if you really mean I care about you. I care about this relationship. I'm really grateful for the person that you are. And you create an environment where somebody else can hear it. Most people, in my experience, will listen. The problem is that most people feel already very pushed away, and now I'm just blaming you for everything that's gone wrong in our marriage, and it's all your fault, and I don't feel like you appreciate anything that I've done, and now we're back in that polarity position where we're not finding that united essence. I'll even maybe take it a step further that the thing that bothers you is very often the thing that you really want. Meaning, there's a reason we marry our spouses. Let's say again, I'm making up a case. Let's say he's super capable.

47:33 And he's like super with it, and he can get things done. Part of what may have attracted you to him to begin with was those parts, but now there's a negative impact to those parts also. And very often we have our own misplaced resentment because you are doing X, and there's a part of me that wishes that I could do X too, which is why I really married you to begin with. And so what's really important is to turn inward and check your resentment. Because your resentment might not necessarily be coming from something that he does, though there's certainly some stuff around there. But it might also be our own internal insecurities that we haven't dealt with. And so, if you keep turning inwards, the more discovery you do within, the more the opportunity from without there is to build that relationship. Rebbetzin Bergdich, stole enough time for you to say something? I'm sure this is like right up your alley.

48:30 They want you to stand up and talk louder. Stand up and be seen. You can stand next to your husband, even. You can stand next to. Stand by me. Thank you. You were saying I didn't make up this language. Are you from Queens? I am. We discussed this already. I want to hear. So I was just thinking, he didn't make up that language about done. And I think there's also, I think I appreciate what you said from the male perspective, and I was thinking from the female perspective. When I say I'm done, I'm usually so far beyond done that I haven't taken any responsibility for my own personal needs at that moment, or for a while, and then I have to like catch myself because you're saying, Ber was saying like.

49:28 You're just taking and you're blaming. I'm okay. You're not okay. You're not hearing me. You're not understanding me. But then I have to look inside and say, where can I take responsibility for my way of being here? Meaning, how did I get to be so dumb? Where were all the stops along the way that I didn't take care of my needs? I didn't take care of taking a rest, taking a break, saying no to a responsibility or an obligation that someone else made. Because if I get to that place of done, like that's like no man's land. Like I'm, you're done already. There's nothing anybody can do at that point. Like even validation is nice, but like at the end of the day, you're done. Let's say a person in theory, who might be a female in this situation, gets to be the place that's done. So I'll take a step and I'll take a break. I'll take a moment to myself and I'll say, how did I get to be here? And then I'll trace it back.

50:27 And I'll say, this is where I got to, and doing it off, I'll try to understand how I got here, and then I'll try to think about, what are the things that I took on that maybe I didn't need to take on, or what are ways that I could have asked for help, or what are things that I could have done to give myself cause to keep going, or to maybe not keep going, maybe just take a break, or arrange for something that would make it work for me. So I think that's the turning in piece of taking responsibility, and I think that we do. There's like a poem. I think it's like a poem in five stanzas. That it's like, I went into a forest and I fell in a hole. And the second was like, I went into the forest and I knew the hole was there and I still fell in it. And the third was like, I went into the forest. I knew the hole was there. I tried to figure out how to get around it, but I still fell in it.

51:21 And then I went into the forest, and I knew the hole was there, and I figured out how to go around, and I fell in it, but I got out faster. And then it was like I went into the forest, and I saw there was a hole, and I got around, and I walked around, and I went on my day. We do these things over and over again, and I think sometimes we say, "how did I get to this place?" and how can I turn this story backwards and take responsibility for my part instead of blaming? And instead of saying you didn't do what you need to do, also take responsibility even at this moment. Instead of saying needing validation is great and getting validation is even better, although we all know that doesn't usually happen. So sorry, sometimes it happens over time. But I can also say I can take responsibility. A to figure out for myself. I got to this place. What can I do about it?

52:18 And also, Berg actually said this, and this is, and he also, like Lamaysa, men need to be taught. They need to just be taught. When I say this, this is what I mean, because I think when they hear 'done,' that's like fighting words. It means you're not good enough, you're not worthy, you don't take care of me, you don't. And to say, yeah, it just they just hear like you're you messed up, and to say like. But to take like person, they need to be told. I say, when I'm at this place, this is what I need to hear, or this would be what would be helpful for me, or this is how you know something that you could do that would really help me right now. Like to take ownership, because maybe he doesn't know. Like besides validation, what would be helpful for me right now? Would it be helpful to wash the dishes? Would it be helpful to take the kids out? Would it be helpful to offer takeout? Like. Each person is their own thing, and I think it's like taking responsibility for letting another person know what would be helpful for you. I also think this works not just in marriages, in any relationship. Any relationship. Thank you very much for having us.