Shavuos - To Be a Part of God's Nation

2:18 The Gemara and Megillah tells us that any time it says, Vayyheebi Mei, that means a bad thing is about to happen. Vayyheebi Mei HaKashverosh, only five times in the entire Torah does it use the words Vayyheebi Mei. And in this passage it says, Vayyheebi Mei, and then it says, Vayyheebi again. So the Torah is telling us, the Megillah is telling us, something bad is about to happen. And specifically in the days of Shvaita Shavt, these are the days when judges were judging. This is the time period of the Shif'Tim. We know that this was a period of time that was not good for Klal Yisrael This was a period of time of anarchy, of idolatry. This was not a good time in the history of Klal Yisrael Chazal Telos, and this is an amazing thing, very relevant to today's day and age, unfortunately That this was the time when they were settling the land of Eretz Yisrael They were involved in building the country and they became, like so many Jews have throughout history, obsessed with materialism We're building our country, beautiful houses, beautiful houses, but it's possible to lose ourselves and become obsessed with materialism.

3:24 And there was a famine in the land. And why was there a famine in the land? Chazal tell us. There was a famine in the land because of the way that they were acting. You know this Torah? It's a beautiful Torah. It was because they were the way they were acting. That's why there was a famine in the land. So this is really not a good time period. And the Torah tells us, the Mikilah tells us there's an anonymous man, Vayayleh Chish, we don't know who it is at this point. But we know that he's from base Lechem Yehudah. What was in base Lechem? That's where the Sanhedrin sat. So this was clearly a man of some distinction, but the Mikilah chooses at this point that Shadi should be anonymous. Almost as if it doesn't matter who he was. He was just a man, but a royal man, a noble man, but just a man. And Laguur, he went not to live, not to live, but to shazurn, to spend some time, a small period of time, in stay Moav.

4:19 Why Moav? Why is that important? Moav is one of the eternal enemies of the Jewish people. Pausik tells us when we were in the Midbar, we were hungry, we had nothing to eat, and the Moavites would not give us any bread to eat. So these are selfish people. So if you're getting the context of what we're speaking about here, we're talking about a man who in a terrible time period of Klal Yisrael's history, a man who's supposed to be a leader. We don't know who he is yet, but we know he's supposed to be a leader. He abandons ship and he goes to the enemy. He goes to Moab. A selfish person acting in a selfish way goes to a selfish land. That's the story we know so far. Why does he go to the fields of Moab? Chazauv Chazal fill in the gaps based on the Medrash. This man he takes his family and where does he go? First to the fields.

5:11 But he finds that there's immorality in the fields. He finds that those people are not behaving as they should. So he goes to the city with his family. But there's no water in the city and as a result of there being no water in the city he returns to the fields even though there are immoral people here. Shabbat Teshuva We would be like oh that's the man you're talking about. Who was Eli Melich? Let's take a second to know who we're talking about. He seems to be the person of interest in our story, although we'll see in a moment that he's not. Eli Melich is the descendant of Naqshon ben Aminadah. Why is that important? Imagine you're in a time of anarchy and Klal Yisrael. The judges are not respectable people. The people are not respectable people. There's a famine in the land, the

6:29 Nachshom Benaminadav This is going to be a miraculous solution. Klal Yisrael is looking to Elimelech to do the same exact thing for us. That was an excellent time, 10% off. I have a spot for you on the Mevaseret hockey team if you're interested. Thank you. Are you interested? Yeah. Yeah, okay. That's a whole different problem. This is serious business. This is the leader. We're all looking to the person to say what we should do. And that man does the exact opposite of what Naqshon ben Aminodav does. If Naqshon ben Aminodav is a person who is fearless, who has hope in the face of hopelessness, Elimelech, whose name means Elai-Melech, I'm supposed to be the monarch of Klal Yisrael. Elai, to me, is mauchos. The fact that Elimelech walks away, and not only does he walk away, but he goes to our mortal enemies

7:56 and says, I'd rather live with them. Could you imagine the death of hope that existed in Klal Yisrael at that moment? This was a time period where people didn't believe in nature as much as we believed in it. Today, if there's a famine in the land, if we don't have water, so we turn to our governments and we say, okay, build the desalination plans, we need water, right? We turn to our political leaders. In those times they turned to their spiritual leaders and they said guide us out of the Wilmites. Elimelech was the person they turned to and he leaves. So when the passage says, Vishaym H'ish Elimelech, we have to be there emotionally. We have to be present in this moment to realize what's being said. What's being said? This is the guy who was supposed to lead us out. He just betrayed us. Vishaym Ishtel Nami. He has a wife. You should know her name too.

8:44 Her name is Naami. She doesn't seem to be the focal point of the story at this point, but she's there, she's present, and Chazal tell us, V'Sheim means pay attention to her name. V'Sheim usually Melech, pay attention to his name, a line, Melech he was supposed to be king. Naami means N'im. She was a pleasant, sweet person. So she has a husband who's betrayed his people, and he has a sweet wife. That's what we know. Any of you know couples like this? I know couples like this. I I have a couple like this. I have a very sweet wife. And I would like to think that I wouldn't abandon all hope, but you never know. So he has a wife. She's a pleasant person. What else do we know? The Passek says, Geshaim Shnebanov, Machlon who kill you. And now he has two sons, Machlon who kill you.

9:31 These are not good names. Machlon means to be erased. Killio means to be eradicated. These are clearly not people about whom the Torah has a lot of positive things to say about. In fact, those weren't their actual names. Their actual names are said in Dibrei Ayamim. We all grew up knowing that Matlom Vakilion are their names, right? They're not their names. In Dibrei Ayamim, the names of these two people are Yoash and Saraf. Yoash means to abandon all hope. And Saraf means to be burned. They burned all their bridges. We'll discuss how they burned their bridges soon. And then it says another word, a change, a small change, a subtle change. I'm sorry it's a little textual, but it's worth it. You remember earlier we said that they came lager sham bistemov, they came to sojourn there? Listen what it says now. Vayavos temov, vayyusham. Something changed. This family starts off as a family that's going, there's a famine, okay, we're abandoning the people.

10:57 We're going to go for a couple years until the famine is over and then we'll leave. What happens? They begin to become a part of the Moab culture. They don't leave. They get, I won't say assimilated, not yet, but they certainly become part of the fabric of society. Again, I'm sure many of us can relate to this. The idea that you say, you know, like, I probably shouldn't say this, which means I'm about to say it. You know like, what do you ever have when you were a kid and you're like I don't want to go back to America because if I go back to America I'm going to get stuck there. Do you ever have that thought? You ever have that thought right now? Do you ever have that thought? Are you telling the Yeshiva guys, you tell the seminary girls, hey, you'll make it back, you'll see, you'll have an apartment on paran, it'll be a beautiful little life for yourself, your parents could pay for two, three years of Mishbaqam magazine.

12:22 Very tragically, very abruptly, we now know the story. Vayyamas Elimelech ish na ami. Vatishar hi usne bana. Elimelech dies. You ever see the movie Up? You ever see the movie Up? You know the cartoon movie Up? Do you not cry your heart out after the first five minutes? The rest of the movie is awful. But the first five minutes, I don't generally watch movies. If I'm on a plane and up is on and I really just want a good cry, I turn on this movie up for the first five minutes and then I turn it off. What's it about? It's about an elderly couple that grew old together that never had children and then the wife dies five minutes into the movie and then the rest of the movie about his life afterwards. It's a tragic movie. But what always astounds me about that movie is you think the movie is about the couple. It's not about the couple. It's a movie about the husband.

13:18 Because the wife passes away after the first five minutes. This whole time what have we been talking about? The first tupsukim is a story about Elimelech. He's a nobleman. He abandoned his post. It's the death of hope for Klal Yisrael. He has this sweet wife, his kids, not so much. It seems to be about a story about Elimelech and then in third prasuk end of act one Elimelech dies. And look how it describes him. Vayyamas Elimelech ishnami. Up until now what do we say? He's Ishmael Beis Lacham Yehuda. He's a noble man. He's an Ephrati. He's a serious person. At the end of his life, what does he have left? He's not a part of the Jewish people. He's no longer considered noble. He's a traitor. The only thing that he's accomplished in his life, which is no small thing, I don't want to make anyone feel bad, but the only thing he's accomplished is he married an Ammon.

14:09 That's the only thing he's known for. And look what it says, vat teshar hi usne banal. Vayyisulahim nashim havios And now her children. Again, think about what it means to be a Jewish mother who's going through this. And your husband led you to a strange land, a traitorous land. And now you see your children. What do you want from your good Jewish children? At least marry a Jew. Don't get married here in Moach. No they go and they marry Goyesha girls. Roshan Arpah says, v'Shemah achas Arpah, v'Shemah shenas Rosh, v'Yeshu sham ke'eser shanur. And instead of just being people that happen to be there, v'Yeshu, they literally assimilate into the culture. Mary Goyeshah Girls. It's a tragedy for Naami. Her life seems to be totally over, but it gets worse. And this is where we will start talking again like a normal person once we get the background.

15:28 We know that right afterwards Naami's children pass away as well. It says, Vayyamusu gamsneihem machlon tefillon vatishar ha'ishah mushnei yaldeho umei'ishah. She is a remnant of a remnant. No ami has nothing left. No children, no husband, two gaiush adorir emos. That's all we have. That's all we have. And all of that was to set the scene for what I want to talk about right now. What do you do if you're an ami? I had a client today. I have permission to share this story. I want to make sure I get the words exactly right. So I'm pulling up the words on my phone right now. I'm not looking at my phone. I'm pulling up the words on my phone right now. I was, when this client told me this today, I said, do I have permission to tell this story? This is exactly what I want to say. I have the quote right here.

16:25 I want to tell you a story by the young lady. It's a 100% true story. I'll change only important details like just so you won't ever know who it is. It's a young girl who, lo, alayna, comes from a broken family, a broken family, not a girl who was ever really taken care of in her life. A girl who right now at this stage in her life is asking herself the question, so who does love me? Do you know, I mean, just take a second, do you know how much pain a person has to be and to ask the question, who does love me? Every one of us was loved into being. We have a terminology in psychology today that's wrong, it's a destructive terminology. We say you have to learn to love yourself before you love another. That's a very dangerous thing to tell people. There is no such thing as learning to love yourself. The words, you are worthy of love, do not belong to you. They don't belong to me. We could say that about ourselves all we want. We could say, I am worthy, I am lovable. You can get in front of the mirror if you remember that old Saturday Night Live skit. I'm good enough, I'm strong

18:06 But this is a young woman who's asking herself the question, did anyone in my life tell me that I'm worthy of love? And thus far her answer has been very few and far between. And the problem is that any time this client hits a rocky road, any time something goes wrong in any relationship, the feeling that she has is adrift. The feeling that she has is I'm going down the river and I don't know if there's anyone there to catch me That's the feeling that she has. That's a horrific feeling to sit with a person like that and just to give them space I want you to know it takes a tremendous amount of work because most of us when we're going through our time We know we're gonna be okay because people told us in life that we're okay this is a young woman that never had a A tragedy happened in a community. She moved around America for a little bit when she was younger.

19:04 A tragedy happened in one of the communities that she lived in. This is Amaesesh Ahayyut today, that she was telling me a tragedy happened in one of the communities. And she was so pained by it. A person who very ordinarily has trouble expressing any emotions was able to call upon very deep emotions and really was very present in a way that I've rarely experienced with this client. And I asked her, I said, please tell me what this means. I need to understand. Were you so close with this person? She said I was not so close with this person. I said, so tell me what the tragedy means. And listen to what she said. She said of all the places that I was in my life, this was the place where I felt I had a sense of belonging. This is a place where I said, I am loved.

19:56 And she described how she would wear, and again, I don't know what this means, girls maybe know better than me, she described that she would wear the nerdiest clothes, and she would wear like pink shirts and pink skirts and pink socks and pink shoes and pink headband, and she said, but in that school, I was the coolest kid in my grade. I have no idea what that means if I'm being honest with you, I assume it means that she dressed nerdy, but I don't really know. It sounds to me like she was mashing. That's about as much as I know about mashing. So I had to ask, I'm like, that wasn't a cool way of dressing? She's like, no, that's not a cool way of dressing. No, no, I had to wear the same clothing every day. Why not? But she said, but I was cool. I was loved. And she told me that in that community, there was a Rebbe of a certain grade. I won't tell you which grade, it doesn't matter.

20:41 She told me there was a Rebbe, and he just thought the world of them. The Lord looked at them as messed up children coming from a broken family. He never had a... ...a Tzoris ayah. He had an ayah Tovah. And so I asked her in the session today, I said, tell me, what would this Rebbe say about your situation and your life today? His voice lives inside of you. What does it say? I don't want to misquote it. I wrote it down and I told her. I stopped in the middle of the session. I said, okay, please write this down so that I don't She was quoted. She said, speaking about the worst moment in her life, what this Rebbe would say, You've never gone too far. We will always love you. We are all broken. It's okay. Say it again, exceptionally powerful words. You've never gone too far. We will always love you. We are all broken. It's okay.

21:44 That's the voice that she carries inside of her. And I ask her, in times like this where you feel so adrift, where you hit a bumpy road in one of your relationships, where you feel like there's no space, because the relationship that she hit a bumpy road with is a really important person in her life. This is the person that gives her space to be herself. And now she doesn't have that. So I said, but is there a voice that lives inside of you that you could take with you? In times where you feel totally adrift, when there's no sense of belonging, can you call upon this Rabbi's voice? And it was amazing to watch the shift in that moment. We were, at that point, I want to say 30 minutes into the session, I asked her, how do you feel, knowing that you could call on His voice?

22:30 Close your eyes, meditate, call up that voice. She said, I just feel so much lighter. This Rebbe, he was a Rebbe in a young grade, an elementary school grade. We're not talking about a high school Rebbe, we're talking about an elementary school Rebbe. This Rebbe is walking around in his small town in America and he has no idea, just think about this, he has no idea that it was his voice all those years ago for the short time that she lived in that community, that she's carrying with her today that gives her that sense of belonging. Every one of us in this outdoor area, every one of us is that to somebody else. And every person that we have that loved us into being lives inside of us. It's an amazing exercise to do. I don't know if you'll ever have the chance to do it or the courage to do it. I tried to do it a couple years ago. I got halfway through my list. It was very hard. Somebody gave me this idea. They said, Call the people that loved you into being and express gratitude. So I said how many people should be on the list?

23:35 How many people loved me into being? They said make a list and then put an asterisk by the people that really didn't. So I made the list and then I softened up the list. There was like an NCSY advisor on the list who was like a really nice guy, but he didn't really love me into being. He was just kind of there in an important time. But my parents, Marakha Shammur, were on the list. There was an important principle that I had in my life that was on the list. There were a couple of Rebbeim that were on the list. And I started making the phone calls. And I said, I just want to tell you, it was your voice that loved me in Tabein. One of the Rebbeim that I called. I said, Rebbe, I just want to thank you. I'll tell you a little bit about this Rebbe. He's sick. He has Yana Makhla Shebe Zach Hittur Rofu Shelema. I hadn't been in touch with him for years. But now I'm a man in my 40s and somebody gave me this piece of advice. I started thinking about it. This is a wonderful Rebbe.

24:39 It was my 8th grade Rebbe. Now I want to tell you that on the outside if you had asked me then at 13 years old, did this Rebbe love you at the being, I would have told you it It was impossible for him to love me into being because I was thrown out of the class so much that he wouldn't have had the time to love me into being. He used to throw me out of class so much. There was a Rebbe in Darchay. I went to Yeshiva Darchatorah for elementary school, for those of you that know Farah Akway. I was expelled from Haftar in fifth grade and the only person that would take me into the Yeshiva was Rabbi Bender Shleetah. There was another Rebbe. He was a seventh grade Rebbe in Darchay. His name was Rabbi Lubar. My mother got a phone call from Rabbi Lubar and said, Mrs. Burg, I just want to tell you that your son has been absent from class for two weeks.

25:26 And my mother said to Rabbi Lubar, he's not in your class. That's just the class he gets thrown out into. He doesn't go to your class. But I was thrown out so often that the Rebbe didn't know I wasn't in the class. So after two weeks of being a good boy in my other class, Rabbi Lubar got nervous. I haven't seen Matt in two weeks. So he called my mother. I would have told you that. Are you crazy? He loved me in Tabeen, He threw me out every second. How could He have loved me in Tabeen? I started thinking about it. You should know that this Rebbe was a genius in Chanaach. I was a kid, Habar Hashem had tremendous ADHD. I married a girl who has no ADHD to try to rectify it for my children. I have six children in Kana'a Nahara and only one of them got my genes. So unfortunately for that daughter, but everybody else is doing great.

26:11 That daughter only has two years left of school, so we're hanging in there two years left. At the end of every year I'm like, here we go. You've met my daughter, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Am I exaggerating? I'm not exaggerating. The girl has no filter. You've seen this tonight, you've seen this show? This is ADHD 42 years later. This Rebbe had a policy with me. He would look at me in class, and he would belt out the words mith ais, which means with ais. What did he mean? In Darche, the campus was very big. We were on one side of the campus and the extreme right of the campus. On the extreme left of the campus there was a woman whose name was Mrs. Katz and she ran a catering company in the Waterview. And they had a fountain soda machine where you could get a big cup and fill it up with Diet Coke and ice.

26:57 My job was to run across the campus and get Rebbe a big Diet Coke, and he was a big man, with ice. Mid ice. I started thinking about it. Why was that my job? It never occurred to me when I was 13 years old. I just thought it was because Rebbe wanted me out of the class. I know why he said that. He said that because before I could get in trouble, and he saw, you know, like, you could... You ever see that when kids, like, especially if you have ADHD kids, you ever see the moment that they're about to implode? You could tell. There's one of my daughter's teachers, she said, because that whole class is like ADHD up the wazoo. She's like, I need a Ritalin hose. I just need, like, a thing that I could pull out and spray the entire class with Ritalin. This Rebbe would see me and probably I'm just guessing my knees would start to shake. I'd probably start to write I'd probably look in my bag for something that I wasn't supposed to do and the Rebbe would belt out and you would say mith ice It was a beautiful thing. I never thought about it before Mith ice we had a phone. There's a phone like that like a landline Some of you are younger in the audience. You know You know what that is. It was like a phone that attached to a wall

28:05 It had a long chord and to dial it took time because it had to snap back. We live in a world where these kids that grow up with it, these young ones, the other money they were talking about. It was called a rotary phone. The reason that my Rebbe had a phone in the class was because he was the Gabbite Staka for several Gdahl-e-Tayr in Eretz Yisrael. And he would tell us the stories and we would go around to this person and that person and ask for money and he would tell us what a privilege it is to ask for it's about my job if the phone rang. Was to answer the phone and one time this is a true story one time the phone rang I jumped up out of my seat I was so excited the phone rang. I was a punk little eighth grade kid in Tareche so I answered the phone inappropriately This is you don't just answer when you go hello, so I Answer the phone as a yo, what's up?

28:54 And there was there was somebody speaking Hebrew on the other end If shall the better man have been there I'm not a man of Goseman So I said, hang on one second, Rabbi, there's some guy speaking Hebrew for you. This is a big Rebbe, he was a large man. He took off. He was moving fast. This was not a common occurrence. He took off. He grabbed the phone out of my hand. He threw me out of the closet. He shut the closet door. We had a closet. That's where the phone was. He comes out of the closet five minutes later and he pulls me over to the side. I'm not going to tell you the goblet's name because I don't want to embarrass myself. It doesn't matter. It was a serious goblet. It was a person, and if I said this name, everybody in the room would gasp. Okay? He's going to say that level go, though. He pulls me over to the side and says, when you answer the phone, you need to answer respectfully, because a lot of times Gedayelay Tyra are on the phone. So I said, alright, who was it? And he told me the Rabbi's name. Even I was smart enough to know I messed up.

29:46 It didn't stop me from answering the phone that way. And I did it and continue to do it for many years to come. Even when I was working in Darchay, running Simcha D'ekamp, I picked up the phone like a doofus and it was Rebitz and Kaniyevsky. It's a common thing that when I pick up the phone like a doofus, there's a gaudelba tayra on the other end of the line. But this Rebbe didn't yell at me, he didn't scream at me, he knew I didn't mean anything bad. He gave me a job because it kept me busy. I had another Rebbe whose name was Rebekraus. Rabbi Krosz was at Sadeq when I switched from hafted to D'Artha in fifth grade. Rabbi Krausz saw right away I wasn't going to be able to handle the regular classroom. So he pulled me over to the side I'll never forget this a gem of a human being. He said Mordechai. He called me Mordechai even though I was growing up My name is Matt Berg. He Mordechai. I want to tell you something. In this class We have something called an emergency fire drill. I said, okay, Rabbi. What's an emergency fire drill?

30:41 He said, if I look at you and say, emergency fire drill, it means you get to go out of class and run around for 15 minutes. I was so prepared in case there was a fire in Darche, I want you to know I could have led the whole school. I knew exactly what to do and how to do it. Every nook and cranny in Darche, I knew it all. Because I had emergency fire drills twice a day. And the crowds would just look at me and go, emergency fire drill? We'd go, okay, get out of there. My parents were the people that, you know the potential speech that you get by PTA? Your son has a lot of potential. If only he would live up to that potential. And then my mother would come home after I like, you know, because I was fake sleeping because it's always better to get the news the day after, you know, it's like worth it to push it off. My mother would wake me up and go like, I know you're not sleeping.

31:31 Your teachers think you have a lot of potential. And at some point, I mean, I was like in eighth or ninth grade, I was like, can we just stop playing the game? Like, we all know what potential means. Potential means you're doing nothing with I never felt as much love as I did from Yeshiva D'Archeto. In my life I've been in many Yeshivas. I never felt as much love as I did from Yeshiva D'Archeto. I remember the day I got called into Rabbi Bender's office. There used to be a bus company in D'Archeto called Rivle'a Bussing. I don't know if any of you know Rivle'a Bussing. Rivle'a Bussing, it doesn't exist anymore. Someone had to say lashnara about it. It was the worst buses, you know Rivle'a Bussing. Rive Lab Bussing was the worst busing that existed. If you were going to Shey Stadium in the summer, it was a guarantee that you were going to break down in the middle of the Van Wig. Guaranteed.

32:20 And I want to tell you why those buses broke down. Because me and three other guys had an anti-Rive Lab club. And whenever we were out of class, we would break into the buses and destroy the buses. We brought screwdrivers to school and we would take things out. And there was a kid, I remember, he was taking out the steering wheel. And I said to him, I don't think that's a great idea. It's a great idea. It's one thing to take the radios to mess around with the chairs. He goes, it'll be fine. And I remember him sitting there unscrewing the steering wheel. A bunch of lunatics in the ark, doing whatever they wanted. And we got caught. Dave Rivlis, who ran Rivla Bussing, caught us. And he pulled us in through Rabbi Bender's office. And I thought, this is the end of the world. I've been expelled already once. There's no reason for the ark to keep me. It's not like I'm coming from a Yeshiva Shef family. It's not like I'm coming from a wealthy family.

33:06 I knew this was the end and Rabbi Bender continued to love us and he said okay you messed up we had consequences and we definitely felt his wrath but I knew that in Darchay Torah they were never going to throw me out and it wasn't like you would think like from an eighth graders perspective from a seventh graders perspective you would think like they're not going to throw me out I could do whatever I want it was the exact opposite is they're not going to throw me out don't mess this up the sense of belonging was so palpable

35:06 This is the craziest thing I was watching and happened. I'm sure you were watching and happened too. In the COVID times, when these teenagers were going under left and right because they were locked in their rooms and their homes and they had nowhere to go, and everybody, everybody was ripping these kids to shreds telling them, you have no grit, you have no resilience, you have no... In our day, we would have for sure been amazing during COVID. It's not true. It's a push of the line. But if they had no grit and resilience that wasn't a kasha on those kids, that was a kasha on us. How did they not have grit and resilience? Grit and resilience comes from people who told these kids you are capable and if they didn't have that then it was because they didn't hear those voices. And it was a tragic thing that happened. I don't know if you know this, you might know this from working with younger girls. There's a concept, a term that's used now, it's a cruel and unusual N.P.C.

37:30 They're just looking at the kid going he's an NPC These are Edmah Arufa kids They went down because they didn't have a sense of belonging You know, if Chassoshol somebody has to give a gett We put the name of the place that you're from on the gett because where you're from your sense of belonging is part of your essence Chazal havam machlokas. Where does other Marishom come from? The dirt that other Marishom came from. Where did it come from? Did it come from all the corners of the earth or did it come from under the misbeach? What's the Gemara telling us? What's the deeper lesson here? A human being, if he comes from all over the world, it means he belongs everywhere. If he comes from under the Mismech, it means you're always capable of being forgiven. Where we come from matters. What we're made of, the dirt that we're made of, it matters.

38:16 It's an inner lesson. And there are countless examples like this in the R'Hatorah. I want to bring you one last example. This is really the point of the Sheer. I saw this. And he called me and I said, this is it. This is the one. Listen to this. There's Naami. Nothing left in her life. She's a remnant of a remnant. At one point she was a queen. The wife of the descendant of Nachsho Ben'Aninadav who lived in Beis Lachhem Yehudah. He was a royal member of the family. A wealthy man. Now they're poor, they're destitute. She has two Gaiash HaDaughter in laws. Vatakam hi uchlosel She gets up. What did Mommy do? She was down. She was out. She had nothing. She's in a foreign land enemy territory in a selfish place. She gets up with her daughter-in-laws. Vatheeshit Mistev Moav and she returns from the fields of Moav. She's returning there to Shroh. Could you imagine what that was like? Could you imagine what it would be like to go to the Could you imagine what that was like? Could you imagine what it would be like to walk into Rechaviah, to walk into the five towns, to Muncie, to Lakewood, to Chicago? And you were a woman who once was a woman of dignity, that everybody in the community looked at you and said, you are the person we want to be like, you're the queen, you married Elimelech, and you're

39:50 coming back, and who's on your right side and who's on your left side? You're two gaiush adorahimos, destitute, broken, alone, a betrayer, because we know the truth is that On some level, Nami was responsible. Because where was Nami when Elimelech said, We're going to Moaf. We all know how it works. I want you to know men are not stupid. You think that we don't know what you're doing. We know exactly what you're doing. You think that we think that we're making the decisions. I want you to know we know that we're not. We appreciate that you allow us to pretend that way. We're very appreciative. My wife, you know how it sounds? If I say, I think we should do this, she goes, mm-hmm. And just help me understand. Those words already tell me that the decision I made was wrong. I know that. My wife, she's a therapist, she's a very good therapist. My kids have no shot of staying on there.

40:46 Chama Rabbi, my wife's a therapist. They're for sure going off. But, God willing enough. But she's very good. She has that therapeutic language. She goes, help me understand what the positive impact And the positive impact and the negative impact of this decision might be. And I go, hmm, maybe you're right, right? And I change my mind and she goes, you know what, I agree. She thinks that I don't know what she's doing. I know exactly what she's doing. She's like, maybe we could consider all the options. I totally hear you, Eliza. Tell me what the other options are so I can do them. I know exactly what she's doing. Where was Nami when Elimele said, There's a famine, let's bounce. Where was she? Where was Nami saying, don't do that. This is the time, even though it's true it's a reasonable thing, we have a family, even though there was a time when Avram and Yaakov left the land because there was a family like the Dorm, Bababasra says, that's when they were a family, not when they were a nation. We're responsible for millions of people here in Eretz Yisrael. If you leave, what type of message does it send? Where was Nami saying, help me understand this decision. She wasn't there, she was quiet, she was a pleasant woman. She went along with the people.

41:51 Tally Melos plan and that was a mistake. And then she had Machlon and Kiliom. And they married Goyeshah girls. Where was their Jewish mother going? Please don't do that. I'll tell you a true story. I think I'm almost out of time. But I have to tell you this story because it's an amazing story. Am I out of time? No. I made the HD. Time doesn't matter. Yeah? I have no sense of time. Listen to this story. This is a hundred percent a true story. I have Rishussh to tell this story. I can tell you what the details. A young man comes to NCSY Kola Mevaseret Roshchiba Moshe Kukuk goes, if I go back there, it's over. If I go back there, I'm not coming to Teshrall. I'm just going to take one of these scholarship offers that my parents don't even know about right now. I think this is a good move.

42:58 I went and I spoke to Roshchiba. Roshchiba said, Mordechai, it's your call. I said, let's take a flyer. The kid came. I wish I could tell you there was a happy ending. He didn't do great. He had his ups and his downs. And at the end of the year, we started talking about Shonibet. And I said, maybe it's worthwhile to go to a different program for Shabbat. It doesn't seem like Mevaseret is the best fit for you. He agreed. We got him into another Yeshiva. I wish I could tell you that had a happy ending. It didn't. It doesn't matter what the details were. He left halfway through the year. It was anything but a happy ending. And he went to college. And in college, he got involved in certain things and he stopped keeping Shabbos and he stopped keeping kosher. And after college, he graduated. He had a job. And he was going out in that job. He was, for whatever reasons, he had to be in the bars all night long with his clients.

43:43 And in order to stay up all night long and all day long, he got involved in taking certain drugs that would keep him up all night long and all day long. And in this bar, he met a young Gentile woman, and he fell in love with him. And his mother calls me up, and she says, Rebbe, you always tell me, don't fight with my son. When he stopped keeping Shabbos, you said, don't fight with him. When he stopped keeping kosher, you said, don't fight with him. He's going to marry a Goyeshur girl. I can't have Goyeshur grandchildren. I have to fight with him. I said to her, what are you talking about? The whole reason that we didn't fight for Shabbos and didn't fight for kosher was because we were waiting for this fight. This is the one to fight. She sat down with him and she said to him, I love you. You're going to kill me. You're going to break my heart. This is the most important thing in the world to me.

44:30 He calls me up. He goes, Rebbe, what do I do? I said, you have a decision to make. How much does your Yiddish kite mean to you? Don't do this for your mom because in 20 years from now and 30 years from now if you break up with this girl and you marry somebody you're not happy with you're going to turn to your mother and go I met the love of my life you broke me up you have to make a decision right now what does your Yiddish kite mean to you? And he calls me back two weeks later and he goes Rebbe I broke up with her. I'm devastated but I realized as much as I don't keep Shabbos as much as I don't keep kosher as much as I don't go to a shul on Yom Kippur I can't marry a goy. It was a watershed moment for me. I'm a friend of mine and it's a little uncomfortable but they were going to him and the girl says I don't feel like this conversion is real. I don't feel like it's authentic. We have to go to a real rough and they were in an out of town community and there was a very serious rough there and she started learning Torah and she started teaching in a Jewish school, secular studies and she became deeply embedded in the Jewish community and ultimately they

45:58 go to the Bezdah to convert and I get a phone call from the Rosh Bezdah and he calls me Mordechai is a true that every single week for almost a decade now is it true that you speak to this Talmud every single week you consider yourself in his Rabbi I said it's true every week he wishes me a good Shabbos or I wish him a good Shabbos but we kept in touch even the weeks when he wasn't keeping Shabbos every single week we wished each other a good Shabbos he said Mordechai I want to tell you we met with this girl today we were blown away she's so authentic so sincere she's a real G-O-R-S And we're going to go ahead with the G-R-S because they have Rebbeim. You're his Rebbe. She has a Rebbe. And she converted three weeks later they got engaged. Three weeks later they got engaged. Unbelievable.

46:46 The parents of the boy go for Shabbos to the girl. They're all going to spend the Shabbos together while they're engaged. And the father told me that he's in the kitchen and the girl is preparing G-E-L-Y sandwiches. She gets the pickle jar out of the fridge, she opens the pickle jar, and she goes and she washes Nachil Sheidayim. And the father looks at her and he goes, what are you doing? She goes, it's brought to Anamishna Brouh that really you should wash your hands before you touch vegetables that are in liquid. And the father goes, it's not karpas. Who does that? Literally people do that on Pesach because it's different because nobody really does it during the year. This girl is mamasha from her. She's a real serious girl. I went to the chassna. I surprised the boy in America. His parents flew me in. It was a beautiful thing. I flew in for one day. I showed up at the chassna. It was a beautiful woman. I never met the kawab before in my life. She's a Gentile woman. It doesn't matter of what the sense she is, what heritage she is. She's a Gentile woman. I'm telling you this girl looked like she was a Beis Yaakov girl from the time she... It was the frumest wedding dress I've ever seen in my entire life. My daughters are growing up in Ramat Bei Sheva.

47:54 Naamish, my daughter's wedding dress was not that throne This woman looked amish, it was unbelievable Why? And they're raising a fron hom today This happened this year, this year in October was the chassinot Because a mother stood up and said, if you marry that Goyish, a girl is going to break my heart Where was Nami? Where was Nami when Matthew and Killion got engaged and married to Gentile V'ot hakom nami Nami Gad'ah She got where'd she get the strength to get up from, from this horrific life that she lived. She lost everything. Listen to the words of the Pasak. K'ishama b'estaymayav k'ipakad Hashem esamo l'asei s'lehem l'echim Because she said I heard in the fields of moab in that immoral place in that selfish place I heard that Hashem d'chasseh for my people for his people And he gave them bread and he ended the famine in Eretz Yisrael she didn't go back to Eretz Yisrael because there was bread there she went back to Eretz Yisrael because Hashem was paka he did hased He remembered His children even though they were unworthy.

49:05 And Nami said, if Hashem remembers His nation even when they're unworthy, then I too am part of that nation. That's where she got the strength from, to say, vatakam nami. I'm going to walk back into town. My two daughter-in-laws are going to be in my right and left arm. I'm going to walk in with my head held high, and I'm going to say, khatasi avisi pashatih. But I'm part of this, and I won't leave. Hallevay that the children in our community should feel the way. Hallevay that we should feel that way. That in our worst moments Hashem, it's not a cliche thing, Hashem loves us. Then in our worst moments Hashem says I can't get rid of you, you are mine. That's a healthy thing for children to grow up with. For children to know we live in a world today that we used to live in villages. We lived in villages, we were hunter-gatherers. Everyone was part of something. I live in a block in Ramaphichemesh,

51:28 Three days later we're like Nami, broken. Hakadosh Baruch Hu's Pakar Asan. Shabbos shavu sosuras. Vayi Chan Shom Yisrael Nebir Arba Yichan isvosh nachkhen. It's a lot of sweetness, of beauty. We should be zaicha, we're coming together a couple of days before Shavu's. Thank you so much for putting this together. When Yiddin sit together like this, it gives us a sense of belonging. We're not just somebody who sat next to somebody and kept their chair outdoor in Rechavya. We're part of a community, there's a sense of belonging. I'll finish with this. Baruch Hashem, my father's a man who did well for himself in his life. When I was younger, we didn't have much money. When I was a teenager, my father's business went well. My father made a comment to me once, and he said to me, if money can solve it, it's not a problem. And I laughed at him. I said, Dad, that's easy for you to say. You have it.

52:18 So he looked at me and he goes, not in our community. In our community, if you get sick and you need money, no problem. How many of us have contributed to a campaign somebody put up there? Lo'alainu somebody passed away, we need to raise a million dollars for this family that they should have money for the rest of their lives. We'll get a million dollars, there's nothing for us in our community. 48 hours, 72 hours, we'll beat it by twice. We'll get two million dollars. If you're sick, Lo'alainu, and you have cancer, you call Chaz Laiifun. You have a child who has Down syndrome, you call Hask. And our community is a tremendous community of chassidus. Vayi Chansham Yisrael Negeh R. We have a deep sense of belonging with each other.

52:53 But are we communicating that to our children? Do we actually feel it? Or have we moved a little bit too far into the cities of our lives? Maybe we have a lot of connections but a little less belonging. And if that's the case, then in order to be Zaych, that's Amat and Terah, let's do many more events like this. Let's sit, let's talk to each other. People have to be known. It's not Brooklyn where you dive in one shul, this Friday night in another shul shop this morning, another shul shop this afternoon. And you could be dead for two weeks before somebody knows that something happened to you. Because you don't belong in the city. Thank you so much for having me. It's a tremendous privilege to be here. Have a Chag Sameach.