Shavuos: Not Just Another Average Joe

2:37 So the simple meaning of the Gemara is as follows: he said the half is. Meaning, chatzil Hashem. Meaning, half of the day is devoted to Shvuot. Meaning, half of the day of Shvuot is devoted to serving God. And half seems devoted to more physical pleasures, to serving yourself, to having food. We'll see what that means. What did Riv Yosef mean when he said "Elav da Hayoma" The Kagarim, Kame Yosef Ivikah Bashuka? Let's first do the simple pshat. The simple pshat is Riv Yosef is saying as follows: This is the day that we received the Torah. That was a gairim. That was a cause for us in this world to be elevated. And if we're not for the Torah, I would just be an average Joe. I would just be like any other Yosef that was in the shuk. But when we look at the Gemara, we have to ask ourselves: Is that what the Gemara actually says? Let's see it again.

3:31 Amr von Yosef Make for me this egla t'lasa. Why, ilohai yoma Because were it not for this day. So what is Ravi Yosef saying? Is he talking about Matan Torah? He's talking about the day of Matan Torah. That's very different than Matan Torah. Why is Rav Yosef talking about the day? I'll tell you the truth. It sounds to me like the day is almost irrelevant. For example, if somebody is celebrating their anniversary, what are they celebrating? The wedding that occurred on that day. They're not celebrating the day. There's nothing. There's nothing about the day that should be celebrated. Imagine a person comes to their wife My anniversary is coming up. I think I have to check the day. It's not as romantic when you say that. The person's anniversary is coming up, and they say Turn to their wife and they go, "I'm celebrating this day."

4:35 We're not celebrating the day; we're celebrating what occurred on the day. If I was writing this Gemara, or if I was Rav Yosef, what would I have written, or what would I have said? He loved the matan Torah. But Rav Yosef doesn't say that. He says he loved the Hayomah. So the first question is why is Rav Yosef talking about the value of the day? The day is not what's important. And then we continue on And now Rav Yosef says a very strange thing. Kama Yosef ikabashuka. Second question: Who's Rav Yosef talking about over here? How many other people named Yosef would there be, and would I be just like them? Imagine we never got the Torah. Do you really mean to tell me that a person isn't different than any other person? Let's take a guy for example. Let's say there are two guys.

5:28 Their names are Joe. Just because their names are Joe, it means they're exactly the same. This one was born in Kansas. This one was born in New York. And you think those people are exactly the same? They came from different families. Just because they have the same name, I would be just like them. Why? Because they both have the same name, Yosef. That also doesn't make any sense. The first question is, why is Rav Yosef talking about the day? Second of all, why is Rav Yosef talking about his name? I would just be like any other Yosef. Really, you wouldn't be unique. You wouldn't have something unique to contribute to the world just because your name happens to be the same name as anyone else. And in case you think that I'm saying something that Rabbi Yosef isn't talking about his name, look what Rashi says.

6:14 Rashi says, 'There are a lot of people in the marketplace whose name is Yosef, and what would be the difference between me and them? What do you mean? What would be the difference between you and them?' Just because their name is Yosef and your name is Yosef, that means that you guys have anything to do with each other? That doesn't make any sense. And last question. What's going on here that we're talking about the shuk? Why are we talking about the shuk? I hear, I see some people laughing. I'm not talking about the holy and unholy things that go on in that shuk. I'm talking about the Gemara shuk. They sell candy in the shuk. What do you mean? I go to the shuk for marzipan, right? I'm controlling myself. The what's the Gemara talking about a shuk? Why not? Why doesn't it say in the city? How many Yosefs would there be in the city? How many Yosefs would there be in the country? How many Yosefs would there be in the state? What is this shuk that Rav Yosef is referring to?

7:26 So those are the three questions for tonight. Just three simple questions on this Gemara. Question number one: Why is Rav Yosef talking about the day? Question number two: Why is he focusing on Yosef? How many different people would there be named Yosef? And last but not least, why is Rav Yosef talking about the shuk? Of course, there's one larger question. The larger question is How does all of this connect to the concept of lachem on Shavuos of making sure that a person has a festive meal? So there's a medrash And the medrash explains. What happened on Matan Torah? The Gemara says as follows: There was a decree And the decree said that people from Syria were not allowed to go down to Rome, and Romans weren't allowed to go to Syria. There was a war between these two countries. And nobody from Syria went to Rome, and nobody from Rome went up to Syria.

8:27 And then they made a treaty. They made a peace treaty, and now people from Syria could go to Rome, and people from Rome could go to Syria. The Medrash says this is what happened at Sinai. Moshe Rabbeinu went up to the top of the mountain, and the pasuk says that Hakadosh Baruch Hu came down. So until that point, the Medrash says, until the giving of the Torah We were down here and God was up there. But with the giving of the Torah, something fundamentally changed. Man can go up. And God can come down And this is the great chiddush of Judaism. The great chiddush of Judaism is as follows: Hakadosh Baruch Hu gave us a Torah. What does the Torah do? The Torah teaches us how to engage the physical world. The Torah does not tell us to leave the physical world, because why would we leave? After all, God is coming down.

9:25 We go to meet God. But God comes down to us. The destination is in this world. So in Judaism, we're not told. To go to some mountaintop in Tibet and close ourselves off—we're not told to sit in Beit Midrash for the rest of our lives. We're told to engage the world, make the world a more godly place. So everything in Judaism, everything without any exceptions, is physical. Everything. There is no mitzvah whether it's a mitzvah that occurs in your mind, whether it's a mitzvah that occurs with your mouth, or whether it's a mitzvah that occurs in action. But there is no mitzvah that does not engage the physical world. Why is that? Because we believe that there's godliness in everything, and the way that you engage those things is what brings out the godliness of those things. For example, if you have a bottle of water Which I happen to conveniently have with me here today, and you make a bracha. Convenient because I need to take a drink right now, and you make the bracha with no kavana because everyone's paying attention to how you make the bracha. Baruch ato adam na elin malcham shakoni yevi var.

10:32 What changes when you make that bracha? The water Which has a godly aspect to it. That godly aspect is revealed when a person makes a bracha. The godly aspect is revealed when a person drinks that water in order to teach Torah. When a person drinks that water in order to be able to spend time with their family and bring up their family, raise their family to elevated places. This is the goal of Judaism: not to shy away from the physical world, but to engage the physical world. There has been a deviation that some people think is true, and it's not true. And they think that the furthest thing that they can do is to hide from the world. But the problem with hiding from the world is you miss the mission of Judaism. The mission of Judaism is to engage the world, so we shouldn't be afraid to engage the world because that's what we were here to do.

11:26 And when did we get the capacity to do it? We got the capacity to do it at Matan Torah. That's up until then. Everything changed. What was the difference between the mitzvah of Avram Avinu and the mitzvah of the Jews that occurred in the Torah and that occurred after Matan Torah? When Avram Avinu did his mitzvos, as unbelievable as they were, because it preceded Matan Torah They were not mitzvos that brought godliness down to the world. That only began with Matan Torah. That's a huge thing. That's a big deal to say. That means Matan Torah defines the mission of Judaism for the entire world. Good. So now we know the mission of Judaism. If somebody asks you, 'What's the mission of Judaism?' It's to reveal godliness in the world. When did it start? It started by Matan Torah. Everything up until Matan Torah was a preparation for Matan Torah. So far, so good.

12:26 Now. What's the challenge? Challenges as follows. I'll tell you something that my wife says all the time from Rav Noach Orloewicz Shlitah. It's a big mashgiach here in Eretz Yisrael. How do you remember an important event? How do you take it with you? So my wife always says: Whenever you're somewhere important Don't just be there. Be there. What does that mean? So imagine it's the day of your wedding. Now it is possible to have the day of your wedding. You're there. But to miss it And twenty years later, you can't remember it. Why? Because when you were there, you weren't present. What does the present look like? When you take in the sounds When you take in the smells When you take in the people Then you're not just there, but you're actually present in the moment. So when you're somewhere and it's amazing, stop.

13:58 Check in Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Be there. Pause Take a mental picture. Ask yourself, what do I want to remember from this moment? What does it smell like? Take in that smell. What does it sound like? What does it feel like? I went to the Sierras when I was still in America. I went to the Sierras in the Meadowlands. And it was powerful. I wanted to take it in. So I stopped. I felt my feet on the ground. I was physically present. And you could feel the entire stadium was shaking, the entire stadium was like waving back and forth. I was like, "Is this place gonna cave in?" It was incredible. All those thousands of Jews dancing, and what were the smells? Didn't smell like a basketball game. Smelled different than a basketball game. Didn't smell like beer. You understand? It didn't smell like people just going crazy. It was a different type of thing.

14:50 You take in the smells. You take in the sounds. If you're present. You can take it with you. The problem is. Very often That life is happening to us And we don't even realize it because we're so busy doing other things that we actually miss the moment. And this today This today is probably the biggest trend in psychology. It's called mindfulness. If anybody here has heard of Rabbi Dr. Benji Epstein So Rabbi Dr. Benji Epstein is a staff psychologist in Camp Ask And he wrote a book. The book, the title of the book was called "Living in the Presence" And it was a book on a Jewish guide to mindfulness. And Dr. Benji sent me this book. I had the opportunity to read it. Superb Phenomenal, excellent. Why? Because what he drew from was so many different examples in Judaism. About how not to let life just wash by you But how to actually be present. What was that? How to actually be present. How to be right there.

16:07 So I have a theory. The theory is like this. Shavuos is not just Matan Torah. But Shavuos is a day of Matan Torah. Shavuos is a time of Matan Torah. And that time requires mindfulness. Meaning, the way that Rav Yosef experienced Shavuos wasn't just my wedding occurred on this day, but the day itself was valuable to him. Meaning, how did Rav Yosef think about the day? When Rav Yosef thought about the day of Shavuos, he was transported back to Matan Torah. He imagined himself with his feet planted on the bottom of the mountain. He imagined Moshe Rabbeinu giving the Torah. He could smell it. He could see it. He could taste it. He was there. He was present. So when he referred to Matan Torah, Rav Yosef doesn't just say, 'Ilav de Matan Torah.' Ilav de Limer haTorah. He says, "Ilav de Hay Yomah." He's thinking about something even bigger than Matan Torah. He's thinking about the day of Matan Torah. What it was like to be there on that day. Of course, culminating without the wedding, we're not celebrating the day. Matan Torah was part of it. But he was speaking about the time he was present in the time of Matan Torah.

17:25 And that by itself is already huge. But then the Gemara continues. Rav Yosef says, "Ilav da Hayoma" The Kagarim that was the Gairim. It was the cause. Being there on that day was the cause of my life. Think about that. The cause. Things in our life are causing things to happen. Everything has an action and then a reaction. Action, reaction. What caused our lives? Why are we here? Why are we sitting in this room? Why do we wake up today? Why will we wake up tomorrow, Beis R' Hashem? There's a cause, there's a mission, there's a purpose. On that day, I received my goyim, I received my cause. And if it were not for that cause, if it were not for that mission, and here's a big chiddush Kama Yosef. There's two ways of understanding this. The simple pshat, which is true Which is I would just be like any other average Joe.

18:19 But then there's a pshat that my wife said And I think it's an amazing pshat. Kama Yosef doesn't mean that I would be like any other Joe in the street. It means how many different versions of Yosef would I be? How many different versions doesn't matter. How many different versions of Yosef would I be? Meaning as follows. I don't know if you know this about yourselves, but I certainly know it about myself. You ever have the feeling that sometimes you're just playing a character And you'll play whatever character is necessary to play in the place that you are? Like I remember about myself I was one way when I was in school. I was a different way when I was in camp. I was one way when I was with one group of friends, and I was a different way when I was with a different group of friends.

19:12 In fact, I remember that my personality was so malleable. When I was younger, that depending on the stand-up comedian that I listened to I would actually speak like that person. So without getting into names, it doesn't matter. Most of them were Menulium anyway, but I would speak like that Menulium that day. I would use the language that he used in the style that he used, and I wasn't being true to myself. And I learned about myself when I was younger that I wasn't just one person. But I was what we'll call a fractured person. I had different versions of myself. It was possible to be Matt Berg, which was the name that I grew up with. But who was Matt Berg? If you asked my friends in the summer, they would tell you something different than my friends during the year. And if you asked my friends during the year, it depends which group of friends you asked.

20:01 Because I was a fragmented, fractured version of myself. And what the Gemara perhaps is saying is as follows: If you are not present, if you are not mindful. If you're not aware of the go'rim in your life, of the mission in your life, here's what's going to happen to you. Kama Yosef. How many different Yosefs can you be? Think about it. If you have a mission, what are you going to be true to? You're going to be true to the mission. But if you have no mission in life Who are you going to be true to? You'll be true to whatever other causes are in your life. So imagine you have a boss. And that boss tells the worst jokes. What are you going to do? Because the boss is the gaerim of your life. You're going to suck up to the boss. You're going to kiss up to the boss. You're going to laugh at every stupid joke that he makes. And maybe you should still do that because you don't want to lose your job.

20:50 But if the boss is the gaerim of your life, you'll be one way when you're at work, and that might not be true to yourself. So I'll tell you a true story. My brother, I have tremendous respect for my younger brother. And when he went out to work after he left yeshiva. He was working in advertising, and I don't know if you know this about advertising, but it's not always necessarily the most refined people. And he found that he was going out with them after work. They go to the bar for happy hour on Thursday nights. And he was going to the bar with them. My brother wasn't drinking with them. He would sit there, have a sprite, sit there for whatever amount of time, and then leave. But he found himself because he was with them on such an intimate level outside of the office, like in the bar, where they were acting at their peak. Self, whatever that means, you can figure it out for yourself. He found that he was starting to talk like them.

21:42 And he went to his rebbe, Rishma Levitz, and he said, "Rebbe, what do I do?" On the one hand, if you're not hanging out with them Maybe you're not going to get promoted as fast because they're all a group, and everyone's getting promoted as a group. If you're not part of the group, you're going to be seen as standoffish. But on the other hand, Rebbe, I'm a married man, and I have children. I want to raise my kids like Bnei Torah, and I'm seeing that the impact it's having on me is real. And he made a decision, my brother, together with his rebbe. He made a decision that he wasn't going to go hang out with them in that place anymore. Because it was fracturing him. He was living a fragmented version of himself. On the one hand, he was leaving the office to go daven mincha. That's what he was doing during lunch, and he was eating at his desk so that he could go do that. But on the other hand, he felt himself slipping. He was a fragmented version. Who was he? Was the guy who leaves to go to daven mincha? Was the guy who goes to learn dafyomi at night, or was the guy that goes out to the bar with his co-workers? And it was too much for him.

22:34 Which version of himself was he? If you don't have a ga'irim, a singular cause in your life that tells you this is what you're here for, and if you're not present with that singular focus, meaning if you're not grounded in that reality, if you can't remember the sights, the smells, the sounds of that day, if you can't remember what it's like to feel like Hakadosh Baruch Hu is coming and giving you that taira So you'll be a fragmented person. There'll be so many different versions of you. And when does it happen? Specifically in the marketplace. Why not in the city? Why not in the country? Why not in the field? I'll tell you why. Because there's something unbelievable about the shuk. What occurs in a shuk? Everyone goes to the shuk and does what? We all bargain. We're all making deals. You know what that requires?

23:24 Massive levels of authenticity. Because if you're making a business deal Business is war. You know what happens in war? Everyone does whatever they can to win. This is what they'll tell you. If you go take the best degrees, and you speak to the best people, they say, "Yeah, it's a war, and we both want to get what we want to get. But it's important to let the other side win." Why? You want to win, and you want them to win. Why do you want them to win? Because if they lose, you are going to lose their business in the future. What's the ultimate type of deal where both sides win? But think about how selfish that is. Why do I want them to win? So that I could win in the future. So it's not that I want them to win because I want what's good for them. It's not that I want them to win because that's authentically good. It's I want them to win for me. I'll tell you a story.

24:14 Two best friends. This is a true story. I know both best friends. Some of you might know them also. Two best friends. One of them grew up. He was sick as a child and couldn't play sports. He got into magic. And he had another friend. This other friend wasn't too into sports either. So he was into magic with his friend. And together they started a business called Magic Masters Entertainment. Magic Masters Entertainment—they would go around even as teenagers, and they would do little kids' birthday parties and they would make some money—not major money. Nothing huge—they would make some money. But these two best friends, they love each other more than anyone in the world. It's unbelievable. And as they grew older, their affection for each other just continued to grow stronger and stronger. And when they got to yeshiva and college at the age of twenty years old.

25:02 So they started doing magic at bar mitzvahs. And they get paid for it. And then one time they got hired to be counselors on a bar mitzvah Shabbos to entertain the kids, and they did such a good job dancing with these kids and magic with these kids and just making it an awesome party that somebody went ahead and hired them. And they said we want you guys to come to our bar mitzvah and just dance with the kids, and a business was born. The business today is called Schnitzel Guys. And this was the business. Anyone here have Schnitzel Guys up there? It's okay. And these two guys, Danny and Yitzi, best friends. They have this huge business now. Massive business. They book hundreds of jobs a year. They charge thousands of dollars to come to your kids' bar mitzvah and dance and make it awesome, and they're awesome at what they do because they just know how to make everyone laugh.

26:02 The business has been going now for close to 20 years. It's more than that if you count Magic Masters. I asked Yitzi, who's my best friend. I said, "What's this? How did you guys keep this going? I've never seen it in my life." They always tell you, "Don't get into business with family. Don't get into business with your best friends. Because partnerships always devolve." What's your secret? And he says, "I'll tell you my secret." My secret is, I want him to make more money than I do, and he wants me to make more money than he does. And each one of us is like giving as much as we can to the other. And because of that, we never have a fight over money. Because if he needs, I want him to have, and if I need, he wants me to have. And I'll tell you an amazing story. I don't know if I should say this barabim. I will, but I don't know if I should.

26:51 Donny was making a bar mitzvah. And whatever it was, two years prior to that Danny and Yitzi were talking about a cheap bar mitzvah is ten thousand dollars. And a tefillin and a band and a hall and catering. Even a cheap bar mitzvah is ten thousand dollars. We should each take out money for the other one. Every time we have a gig, we should each square away money for the other one. This way, it'll come the day of the bar mitzvah, and we'll have ten thousand dollars squared away for each other for the bar mitzvah. So they did it for a little bit. Then it got too taxing and maybe too complicated, so they stopped. Or so Donny thought. Yitzi continued to square away money for him. And he continued to square away money, and he continued to square away money And then a week before the bar mitzvah, he gave Donny the check of all the money that he had saved up for him, and he called me up. He was so excited.

27:41 I get to give my friend this gift. And it was like it was thousands of dollars And it wasn't money that Yitzi was giving him as a gift that Donny didn't earn. Donny worked for that money; it was squared away. But Donny didn't know about it. Let's think about that. That's a beautiful partnership. When one side is doing for the other one, you know they say in the Holocaust that they would give them one blanket. What was the trick to having so many people share the blanket? If each one was grabbing for themselves, the blanket didn't have enough space. But if each person was trying to make sure that the other person was covered, then there was just enough space. That's the goal. When you go out into the shuk of life, it's a competitive arena. That's what the shuk is. It's a place of competition. That's the place where you're going to get fractured. That's the place where you're going to get fragmented. You want to know who you are? Go test your honesty when you go out into the real world.

28:29 When you go out into the real world and they hand you a paycheck and the paycheck is for too much Will you have the honesty to come back and go It was over? Will you have that honesty? Because they're not going to notice that clerical error. The accountant that's already in the books, they've moved on. They're not going to notice. Do you do the sneaky thing? Are you honest? Do you put in the hours that you say you're going to put in? Or do you cut corners here and there? If you're a rebbe and they tell you, we want you to prepare great shirim, do you actually prepare the shirim? Are you coming up with new things all the time so that you'll be excited to teach? Are you just going based on old stuff? Stuff I heard. I don't come in prepared yet because you know the difference. You know the difference between the teachers that are excited and the teachers that are just showing up. They've got an awesome message to share with you. It's a shuk.

29:15 It's a shuk. The authentic thing to do is to do it for real. So Rav Yosef was giving us the most incredible message. He was saying, "Elav Hayom." On that day, I can remember the sounds, the smells, the sights. I could remember what it was to be locked arms with every other Jew. I remember what it felt like. That was my mission. That was my garden. That was my cause. Were it not for that, I'd be fractured in the world. Would I be the authentic version of myself? The answer to that is no. So Rav Yosef insists that on Shavuos you have to have good food for yourself. What does that mean? It's for yourself. That sounds narcissistic. Chatsi L'Hashem. I'll give half to God, but the other half is for me. That sounds exceptionally narcissistic. What's the deeper understanding of the Gemara? Half of it is for God, pure godly activities, and half of it is worldly activities. L'Hashem means it's worldly activities. It's down here.

30:13 This is our last year in Tel Aviv. For now And we have with us two alumni Two alumni because of them we founded Itzutzos. And why did we found Itzutzos? Because when you came Sukkot time What was the question you asked? How do I take it with me? But isn't that this Gemara, girls? And I prepared this not knowing that you were going to be here. And I did prepare. How do you take it with you? Elav ha'yomah dekagarem. You can get fractured so easily. You can get fragmented so easily. Because I have my life. I was in seminary when I was in Yerushalayim Yerakodesh. When I was here in Talmud Torah, surrounded by growth-oriented girls in a growth-oriented environment with amazing teachers and amazing rabbis, I was one version of myself. But now that I'm back in the shul. There's this whole other version of myself, and that version is busy with a job and with college and with dating, with all the things they can tell you are going on in all the lives of every girl back in America.

31:19 And it's busy. And it can become fragmented, and you could lose that sense of self, and you could start to go through the motions. Why? Because you're not present. And even right now in this room, can you feel it? Do you remember the room? Can you feel your feet on the ground? Can you feel the tiles? The sweat that the air conditioning isn't on as high as it should be, or at all. The chairs. Can you feel the chairs? Can you feel that? Because in America we don't have plastic chairs. But here in Israel we have plastic chairs. But can you feel all of it? Can you feel even the darkness of the room and the books? Because when you're out there If you can remember it, if you can transport back, if you can be like present, lahem, you're out there in the world doing the things that you need to do, but you're right here. You're firmly planted at Har Sinai. That's the way to survive. So I'll tell you a letter from R. Huttner.

32:10 They asked Rav Huttner, "What do you do? How do you survive out in the world?" So Rav Huttner said, "You have to ask yourself the following question: Imagine a person. He's married" And this person who's married One home in New Jersey In Tinek, Yerakodesh And another home in the Five Towns, Yerakodesh. One home. He's got one family. And he spends most nights with that family. Maybe three, four nights during the week. And he tells his Five Towns family, 'Oh yeah, I'm sleeping over in the city.' And then Shabbos, he tells his family, 'Oh yeah, I have to be in the city over Shabbos, and you stay here in Tenek.' And he's with his Five Towns family, so he's got two different lives. That's different than if a person has two different rooms in their home. Two different homes is not the same thing as two different rooms. In different rooms, we may wear different hats, but they're all within the same house.

33:01 If you're lying. And you're saying, I'm one person in this home, and I'm one person in that home. That's different than saying I have different roles to play in my life. It's the difference between having a dual life and a broad life. The things you learned here in seminary They're not part of a dual life. They're part of a broad life. This is a particular time in your life, and the time that you're spending right now in Talmud Torah, or that you've spent in Talmud Torah. Was to build yourselves for the future. This was the foundation. The question is, what were you building a foundation for? Now you're going to take off the hat. Next week, Wednesday, you're gonna take off the hat of being a girl who's here in Tomer Devorah for the year. You're gonna get back on a plane. You're gonna go back to America. You go to whatever camp you're going to, whatever program you're going to next year. Whether you're working, whether you're in college, it doesn't matter. You're gonna put on a different hat. It's not going to be the same.

33:49 And anybody that told you that it's going to be the same is lying to you. Because of course it's going to be different. Just like it'll be different after you get married. Just like it'll be different after you have children. And it'll be different after those children have children. You're gonna wear a lot of different hats in your life: mother, husband, grandmother, employee, member of a community. Sitting on a committee in a shul—you're going to do a lot of different things in your life. You're going to wear a lot of different hats. But the question is Are you different people in all of those things, or are they just different facets of this life that Hakadosh Baruch Hu has given us? Hakadosh Baruch Hu gave us the Torah to engage the world. So what does that mean? When you go into your job, that's an opportunity to be Mekadosh Shem Shamayim. It's just a different hat. It's not fundamentally different than what you were doing this year. What you were doing this year informs that person.

34:37 And it's your obligation to be grounded in this time in your life so that you can take it with you. But it's not fundamentally different. And when you're a mom, and you're changing diapers, and it doesn't feel like kedusha to change diapers, it doesn't feel like that's the holiest thing in the world to do, but it is. Because that child can't take care of themselves. That child needs you. And that's the holiest thing you can do at that time. I'll tell you a maysa. I won't tell you the name of the rav, even though I probably should. But a koyel guy came to a very chashav rav in Yerushalayim with the following shayla And he said, "Seder starts at nine o'clock." But the problem is, I can make seder if I go to an eight o'clock minyan. And if I go to an eight o'clock minion Like I think it was I can't make seder if I go to the eight o'clock minion because then I come home for breakfast and I'm going to be late to seder. So the eight o'clock minion wasn't an option.

35:29 He said, "But if I go to the seven o'clock meeting, then my wife needs help getting all the kids out." So I can't go to the seven o'clock meeting because then who's going to help my wife, and she really needs the help. So I'll go to the six o'clock minion. The problem with the six o'clock minion is it's so early in the morning. It means I have to wake up at five thirty in the morning. I'm a wreck the entire day because I can't get to sleep until twelve o'clock at night after all is said and done. So what do I do? The Rav looked at him and he said, "I don't even understand the question. Just have him be a chidus at home." And the kollel guy was shocked. Davening by achilas at home without a minion, Rebbe, what are you talking about? And this Rav said to him, 'Who's to say that you're shalom bias and helping your wife, getting the kids out to cheder, getting the kids out to Gan, getting the kids out to school? Who's to say that that's not more kadosh than davening with a minion?'

36:16 " Unbelievable pesach, right? It's pasha. It's absolutely pasha. When I first heard it, because I'm whatever I am, right? I was like, "Whoa, what a chiddush!" And then after five seconds, I was like, That's not a chiddush at all. That's not a chiddush at all. It's just so obvious to big people. Because he was telling him, you have to know that everything can be invested with kedusha. Who says that you're supposed to daven with a minion? It might seem like the frum thing to do. But the furthest thing you can do if your wife needs your help is to be home that day. Maybe she doesn't need your help every day. Maybe your wife will figure out other systems of coping. But lemaisev, that's where you need to be. Anything that you're going to do after this has the opportunity to be invested with kedusha. So I hate the shiurim. How do you take it with you? What do you mean? How do you take it with you? What have you been doing this entire year? It was training for how to take it with you. So when they ask me, Rav Berg, we want you to speak at the very end of the year on the topic of how do you take it with you.

37:14 What have we been teaching you the entire year? We've been teaching you the Torah of take it with you. It's not a broad life. It's not a dual life. It's a broad life. It's not meant to be divided up. It's hard to feel it. You're right. You're right. It's hard when you're not singularly focused. But that's just a new opportunity for greatness. Don't give up. Be present. Ilav hayoyim dekagarem. If you don't take it with you, if you're not present Kamayosif. How many different versions of yourself will you be? You'll lose authenticity when you go out into the shuk. Girls, I want to thank you And I mean that sincerely Because many years ago I made a decision that I was going into chinuch. And my rebbeim used to tell me I learned a lot from my rebbeim, but I learned most from my talmidim, and I never understood how that was true.

38:07 And then I became a rebbe, and I learned that it was true. As much as I've taught you this year, you've taught me a lot more. And the truth of the matter is that were it not for you, I couldn't be a rebbe. Every time you show up And don't leave. Every time you show up. You make me a rebbe. I can't be a rebbe without you. You helped me endow purpose in my life. I'll never be able to repay you for that debt. Thank you for spending some time with me this year. Beis Hashem, we should be zeichet a greet mashiach tzedkenu. Amen.