Shavuos - When You Thought I Wasn't Looking

1:57 That he was going to be immortalized through YouTube, and that millions of people potentially are going to watch this, and the question is, what are they going to see when they see him? Will they see somebody who goes, by all means, please, or will they see somebody who's galvanized into action? Will they see somebody who stands up, who's courageous, and so on and so forth? There's a medrash in Rosh Rabba. It's a complex medrash to understand. We're going to try to understand a little bit of it tonight as a preparation for Shavuos. The medrash tells us that if a person has the opportunity to do a mitzvah, he should do so with a happy heart. Because if Ruvain would have known that Hakadosh Baruch Hu was writing everything down in the Torah about what he was doing, then Ruvain certainly

2:56 Would have gone and brought Yosef back to his father, carrying him on his shoulders. If Aaron would have known that Hakadosh Baruch Hu would one day write about him, that you're going to come out to greet Moshe Rabbeinu in the Midbar, he would have come out with a marching band. And finally, if Boaz would have known that Hakadosh Baruch Hu was going to write about him, that he brought food, simple roasted corn, to Rus. If he would have known that Hakadosh Baruch Hu was writing it down, then he would have brought her a fleishikasuda. And this midrash is very difficult to understand. If Reuven would have known that his actions were being written about in the Torah, he would have carried Joseph out on his shoulders. If Aaron would have known that Hakadosh Baruch Hu was writing about him, that he was going out to greet Moshe Rabbeinu in the Midbar, he wouldn't have just come out; he would have brought a marching band. If Boaz would have known that it was being written down, that he brought out food to Rus, what about a fleishikasuda?

3:53 It sounds almost like the narcissism of Dustin Hoffman, like really, really. I don't want to protect the cash register, but if it's going to go up on YouTube, I don't want to look pathetic, so I'll fight back. It's not altruistic what Dustin Hoffman said, right? It's practical. I don't want everybody in the world to look at me and go, "I'm the guy that didn't stand up for the store." What in the world does this mean? Ruven was a tzaddik. We have no idea what it means to be a shavet. Like in our world, sometimes, like we go to visit kivrei tzaddikim. Of course, you have the opportunity to visit kivrei tzaddikim. You should visit kivrei tzaddikim. But in Eretz Yisrael, we actually have the kvarim of the shvatim. Like the shvatim are here, a shavet to be one of the children of Yaakov Avinu. That's a seriously big tzaddik. Really, Ruvein is so shallow that if he would have known that Hakadosh Baruch Hu was writing it down, then he would have done the right thing. But other than that, he does the wrong thing. If Aryeh Cohen knew that Hakadosh Baruch Hu was writing it down, he would have been like, "Let me not just go like greet Moshe Rabbeinu, but I'll bring a marching band because I want people to say about me for all time that I brought a marching band." That's really what I want. It sounds.

5:17 Unlike what we would have expected, we expect that these are people who do big things for big reasons. We don't expect that these people are doing things for fame and fortune. And here we have, at the birth of Melech Hamashiach, Rus and Boaz. This why we read Rus on Shavuos. This the birth of Melech Hamashiach, and Rus gives her some roast. Boaz gives Rus some roasted corn. But if he would have known that Hakadosh Baruch Hu was writing it down. Then he said, "I would have brought a fleishah kesuda." So really, she deserved a fleishah kesuda, but because you didn't know that you were going to get famous for this, you only brought roasted corn. That sounds like a very difficult pshat, but the medrash does say it. There's another medrash in VeYekar Raba that I want to share with you. Medrash in VeYekar Raba tells us that in earlier times, when a person would do a mitzvah, the neviim would actually record the mitzvah.

6:12 And now that there are no neviim to record the mitzvos, the medrash says, Eliezer and Mashiach and Hakadosh Baruch Hu and Melach Mashiach write down our mitzvos, and Hakadosh Baruch Hu who stamps it. So every time that we do a mitzvah, used to be when they were in the times of the neviim, you would walk down the street, you would speak to the navi, and the navi knew prophetically. The navi would see you, you'd walk in, and the navi would go, I know your mitzvos. You'd open up the book, you'd open up the ledger. And there would be a list of Sarah's mitzvos. There would be a list of Rivka's mitzvos. So you could literally see with your own eyes that your mitzvos are being recorded. Now that we have no more nevi'im, Eliezer and Melech HaMashiach are writing down our mitzvos, and Hakadosh Baruch Hu stamps it. What's the significance of knowing this? And also, doesn't it sound like the sort of and forgive me for speaking this way because I don't mean it, but doesn't it sound a little bit like the childish type of Judaism that we're trying to get away from?

7:09 Doesn't it sound a little bit like I know it's being written down? I know that in Shamayim there is going to be a book of my mitzvahs. It sounds a little bit childish. That's not why we engage in mitzvahs. We don't engage in mitzvahs. It's not like a video game. We're not trying to accrue points. Any time we talk about olam haba, any time we talk about schar, remember schar mitzvah. The reward of a mitzvah is a mitzvah itself. If you can come to your husband and show him a ledger, here are all the things you did for me. You are a good boy. Pat him on the head, like a little dog, look, you're a good boy. You have had ten mitzvos today. That's not a relationship. We don't keep track in that way of the people that love us. It's a strange way of thinking about it. What do Chazal mean when they're communicating to us that Eliyahu and Melchamashiach are writing down our mitzvos and Hakadosh Baruch Hu is stamping it? What's the significance of this?

8:11 I want to share with you a pshat that I heard twenty-two or twenty-three years ago. We know that Cain killed Hevel. Why? Because it says Veel Menchaso Lo Sha. That when it came to Hevel's carbon, Hakadosh Baruch Hu accepted his carbon, but when it came to the carbon of Cain. The El Min Chassol Lo Sha, a lishbar who did not pay attention to his carbon, and there is a very deep psychology at play here. The Torah is telling us something very important. And girls, if you can open your hearts, this is important. Open your hearts, put away your phones. It's all mal. You can open your hearts. It's a really important thing. When a person believes that they don't matter.

9:05 They are capable of committing atrocities. When a person believes that they don't matter, that their actions matter to no one, they're capable of doing things that they never thought possible. If you would have asked Cain before that carbon was brought, are you capable of fratricide? Are you capable of committing murder, of murdering your own sibling? He would have said, 'Of course not. Of course not.' How could I have harmed my brother? And in a million years, I never would have harmed my brother. But when we think that nobody's watching, when we think nobody's paying attention, when we think nobody cares about us, you'll see that people are capable of doing things that they never thought possible. It's a reality in life. It's a reality that if there are people that walk around with self esteem, there are people that walk around with dignity. That means that they say about themselves.

10:04 This matters. I matter, so I would never do that, right? We all have baseline levels of dignity. Things that we would never do because we know, if somebody was watching me, I would be, it would be horrified, and be horrified if they saw me doing this. Is a there's a story. I won't tell you who the Rebbe is because it doesn't matter. There's a story about a yeshiva that had a certain policy when it came. This is. Many, many, many years ago, had a policy when it came to reading secular books. They didn't want the boys reading secular novels. There's a lot of inappropriate content in there. So this yeshiva's policy was no secular novels. The mashgiach of this yeshiva—I don't know how true this story is, but this is what they say—that the mashgiach of the yeshiva, and I'm sure it's not true, but it's certainly true. If it's not true, then it's true also. The mashgiach of the boy walked into his room, and the boy was reading the book, and he quickly like tried to hide it under the covers. Like that type of move, and.

11:00 And the mashgiach was very kind and very gentle, and he said, "It's okay, it's okay. Show me what you're reading." And so the boy, very embarrassed, took out the book and showed him, and he said, "Come, come with me." And so the boy started getting very agitated. Rebbe, I know I broke the rule of the yeshiva. Let me just throw it out. And he said, "No, it's okay. Just come with me." And they started walking, and they're walking, and the boy realizes where they're going. They're going to the bais medrash, and the boy said, "Rebbe, please do not make me bring this book into the bais medrash." He said, "It's okay, it's okay." Put his arm around his shoulder. They're walking up the stairs. They're going to the bais medrash. The boy is cringing. Rabbi, please do not make me walk into the bais medrash with this secular book. And the mashgiach looked very kind to him. He's rubbing his back. He said, don't worry, it's okay. They walk into the bais medrash. I'm going to assume for the purposes of this story that nobody was around so it wouldn't have embarrassed them in any way. They walk into the bais medrash, and they start walking towards the front of the bais medrash. And the boy realizes what's coming. He's going to make him put this secular book in the aron kodesh.

11:59 I'm assuming there's no bizarion. I'm assuming there's no embarrassment. I'm assuming the story is not true, but the message of the story is true, even if the story is not true. I'm assuming that it was a situation where there sort of only been good chinuch. It would have been bad chinuch. Of course, I wouldn't tell you the story, and I'm not saying this is the right thing to do. The message. The message is what we're talking about. You know what I mean? Everyone clear? Everyone got the subtext of what I just said? I wouldn't do this in the vaser. If a boy had, I wouldn't be like, come walk into the beis medrash in front of a group of people, throw up in the aron kodesh, and be like, put in. That's not. That's not the right thing to do. This mashgiach opened up the paroches of the beis medrash to the aron kodesh, opened up the doors of the aron kodesh, and he said, "Go ahead, put in." And the boy said, "Rabbi, I am not putting it in the aron." And the mashgiach, in a very loving way, turned to him and said, "Exactly. You are much more choshev than aron kodesh. You are much more choshev than aron kodesh."

12:53 If you wouldn't put this inappropriate content inside of an Aron Kodesh, then don't put it inside of you. It was a build-up type of message. It wasn't a knockdown type of message. The boy in the privacy of his own room was reading it, and the Mashgiach was trying to tell him because you don't think that you matter. In Aron Kodesh, I would never. Aron Kodesh holds Torah scrolls. You are a walking, living Sefer Torah. The message that what we do matters is really important. Because what we're capable of doing, when we think we don't matter, is wild. There's always these two lives that we have, right? There's our public life, and then there's our private life. I'm going to give an example. I don't mean to give an example. I'm going to give an example. I'm not speaking about anybody here. I'm not speaking about any person in particular. I've just heard. I've heard this concept. I don't know if it's true. I'm sure it's not true about anybody who's here or anybody who's ever listening to this year ever. Just saying, I heard a concept.

13:48 There are girls who might in seminary dress one way, and they might dress in that way as they walk from here to the bus. But there seems to be some sort of magical transformation that occurs on the bus. It's that it's that book, the magic school bus. What was the name of the woman with the frizzy hair, Mrs. Frizzle, right? And it's like I got halfway there, Mrs. Frizzy hair, Mrs. Frizzle, right? Somehow, on that magical vortex of that bus, the girl that walked onto the bus might look very different than the girl that walks off of the bus. It's like one of those quick-change acts, like they have those magic acts. How'd that happen? I'll tell you. Because there's two, there's two, there's two people here, right? There's the person I am when I'm here, and then there's the person I'm that I am when I'm there. And.

14:42 We daven every day. You should be a Yerushamayim in private. You should be a Yerushamayim in public. Of course, we're all two people. I'm not here to say that we're not right. There's the persona that you are in seminaries. There's the persona that you are when you're outside of seminaries. There's the persona that I am when I'm up here. There's the persona that I am when I go home. We're all multiple people. I'm not suggesting that that's not a normal thing, but what we work towards is being somebody who, whether I'm in public or whether I'm in private, whether I'm in seminary or whether I'm out in town, whether I'm in Eretz Yisrael or whether I'm in America, wherever I am, we are aspiring to be authentic. We're aspiring to be tocho kebara. We're aspiring to be people that say, 'I know that this matters,' and the actions of my life indicate that my life matters.

15:38 Chas v'shalom to say that a Jew is sitting here going, okay, I'm about to do this avera, but I also know that El Yo and Melech Hamashiach are writing it down. I don't want them to write down a bad thing, so I won't do the avera. It's much more sophisticated than that. That's a very, very low level. Of course, it's good not to do the avera, but it's still a very low level. What Chazal mean to teach us is that when we do an avera or when we do a mitzvah, somebody's writing it down. It matters. If Ruvein would have known how much his actions mattered, then yes, they would have been different. And Ruvein was a tzaddik. If Arna Cohen would have known how much his actions mattered, then yeah, he would have done it differently. He would have gone out with a marching band. He was already a tzaddik. He didn't have a bad intention. He said, 'My brother's coming. Let me go greet my brother.' But if we pause in our lives and we say, 'Wait a second.'

16:32 If we were writing a movie, if there's the YouTube about us, if there's the security footage, then we might say to ourselves, "What's the best version of myself in this moment?" The best version of myself is that if I'm about to meet my wife, a woman with whom I will ultimately give birth to the lineage of Daven Malchus and Mashiach, of Shlomo HaMelech. All of that came from Rus and Boaz. Then yes, it's not just throwing a bagel at her; it's inviting her to Entrecot. It's Rodriguez. It's whatever, glatt kosher, mahadrian, but that's a delcharedis restaurant you can find here, and the best possible steak. Because imagine you went on a first date. Imagine you went on a first date and you went to a hotel lobby, and let's say you didn't know, but let's say that's the guy you marry. If you knew that it was the guy you would marry, you probably wouldn't go to the hotel lobby because you'd be celebrating. You'd be like.

17:30 You should know, it's like a seven or eight season running long show about how I met your mother. Let's say you had such a thing. And it's like the countdown to when they're actually going to meet. Nobody cared by the end. How I met your mother. But when we meet, it has to be epic. I don't want our first date to be in a hotel lobby at the Hamilton Inn off the J F K. That's not a romantic story. I want our first date to be because I'm about to meet the person I'm going to spend the rest of my life with. I want that to be epic. Of course, you want it to be epic. The problem is we don't know who the next person is going to be. You might be a hotel lobby guy until you're not. And then maybe we'll have that more invested date, but only because we don't know.

18:22 It's not that we're doing it for the publicity. It's that a person who knows that their actions matter acts differently. It's a beautiful story in Tanakh. We all know this story. It's a story about a young man who's the son of a farmer, and he's not having a life that's particularly spiritual, though he wants to. And Eliyahu Hanavi walks by, and the corner of Eliyahu Hanavi's jacket touches this young man, and this young man says, "Amen." Wherever you go, Eliyahu Hanavi, I'm with you. The young man's name was Elisha. Elisha Hanavi goes on to become the great Navi of Klal Yisrael, a close Talmud of Eliyahu Hanavi.

19:18 And right before Eliyahu Naavi ascends to Shamayim, Eliyahu Naavi turns to Elisha and he says, 'Elisha, tell me what bracha you want, as I'm about to leave this world. Tell me what bracha you want.' And Elisha says a very strange thing. He says, 'Rebbe, I want pishnayim me'ruchach,' which literally means I want to be twice as great as you. That's a very strange thing to ask from your Rebbe. Could you imagine getting a bracha from your Rebbe? Rebbe, please, I want to be twice as great as you. That seems to be a strange bracha. But I heard a shot many years ago from Moshe Weinberger, and I want to share it with you tonight because, for me, one of the most important d'roshes that I ever heard in my entire life. He said, 'Everybody in this world has two ruachos, two spirits. There's who we are and who we know we're meant to be.' And Elisha Hanavi, the Zohar Hakadosh brings down that he is the Gilgal of Cain, Cain ve'El Minchas Ol Shav, that Hakadosh Baruch Hu did not turn.

20:17 Towards his carbon, Elisha is Elisha. Somebody's paying attention to me, Elisha. Somebody, somebody created me, and there's a feeling that I have that my life matters, and that's what was frustrating Elisha. As he's the son of a farmer, he's thinking to himself, "What am I doing with my life? Is this it? Is this what they're going to say about me after 120 that I plowed the land? Is that my life? Is that chashuv? Is this the life that I want?" I want to know what was in the corner of Eliyahu Anavi's jacket. Eliyahu Anavi wore a litvish afrock. He wore a long black coat. He had a long black coat, and he had an up hat. And he walked through the fields, and he smacked people with the corner of his jacket. I would love such a jacket. I would walk around the bazaar, and all day long, I would just smack people with the corner of my jacket. Guys would be passionate about their davening, about their learning, about their Yiddishkeit. What was in the corner of Eliyahu Anavi's jacket?

21:14 So I'll tell you a secret. This is what I heard from Rev Weinberger 23 years ago. Nothing was in the corner of Eliyahu Navi's jacket. It was an excuse. Elisha was waiting for an excuse. There are people in this world that they're great people. They know they have it in them to be a great person, but they were never given the excuse. They were never given the go for it thing. So when Elisha Hanavi met Eliyahu Navi, he said, "I'm with you." Because when I'm with you, Rebbe, I feel like those two ruchos. I feel like I could become the person that I want to be. I'm Elisha Hanavi, but I'm also a Lishah. I know there's a better version of myself. And Elisha Hanavi was devoted to his Rebbe. He spent his entire life by his Rebbe's side. And then now Eliyahu Hanavi is about to ascend to Shamayim. He's about to go up to Shamayim, and he says to Elisha, "What bracha do you want?"

22:10 And Alicia says, 'Rebbe, I want pishnayim me'rucha.' What does it mean? I want pishnayim me'rucha. It means not. I want to be twice as great as you. Is Rebbe, when you're around, I feel like there's two ruchos. I feel like there's two me's: the person that I am and the person that I could be. But Rebbe, when you're gone, who's going to remind me of the person that I could be? So please give me a bracha, Rebbe, that even when you're gone I could still feel your presence in reminding me that my actions matter. That somebody is writing down what I do in Shamayim, so that I could become the best version of myself. That was the bracha that Elisha Anavi asked for. It's a beautiful and a terrible story in Tanach. It's a beautiful story; it has a tragic ending. It's a story about Rav Yochanan and Reish Lakish. Rav Yochanan was bathing in the river. Reish Lakish was a bandit.

23:00 He was a person who had committed terrible atrocities, and Rish Lakish saw, according to one opinion in the Gemara, he saw Rav Yochanan, and he didn't realize that Rav Yochanan was a man who was bathing down in the river, and he was very far away, and he jumped into the river with intention to do harm to Rish Lakish, and when he got there, he realized that he was a man, and Rav Yochanan looks at him and he goes, Chelcha lairaisa, you should use your power for Torah, and Rish Lakish responds, Shuf rech lenasim, your beauty is for women.

23:32 And Rav Yochanan responds back to Reish Lakish, 'You should know that if you would do tshuva, I would let you marry my sister.' It's a very strange conversation. We don't really know what it means. If somebody came, if I was in the mikveh, in the river, and somebody jumped into the river with intention to harm me, my first response wouldn't be, 'Maybe go to yeshiva.' It's not a natural first response. And then, what does Reish Lakish respond back? 'Your beauty is for women.' What was he saying? But Rav Yochanan's response back to Reish Lakish is even stranger. I have a sister, Baruch Hashem, married with a child. But there was a time when my sister was single, and you know, you keep your eye out. In Menahel of Yeshiva, you see a guy, you go, maybe. Like you keep your eye out. She's your sister. If a guy jumped into the river with intention to do me harm, that's not a great shiduch for your sister. I want to know what it looked like when Rav Yochanan came home and said, 'I met a great guy today.' Really, where'd you meet him in the river?

24:31 What were you doing in the river? What was he doing in the river? Rabbi Yehoshua must have been a very good shadchan. He lied his brains off, right? It must have been right. That is a commentary on shadchanas, but, a different time. What's going on here? This is a beautiful pshat. When Reish Lakish jumped into the river, you know why he jumped into the river—to do harm to Rabbi Yehoshua, because he was a person his whole life. Who never got the attention that he needed, he was never told you're special. He never was told this is your place in the Ma'amar Torah, and he jumped into the river. And once he realized it was Rav Yochanan, he wasn't interested. But Rav Yochanan said to him, "Look at how powerful you are. Look how awesome you are. Just take that same midah and use it in the service of Hakadosh Baruch Hu." I heard many years ago a story from Rav Weinberger that there was a boy in Ezra Academy where Rav Weinberger taught.

25:29 There was a boy who was a known ganef. He was a thief, and Rav Weinberger had a van. He had many children. He had a big, one of those big yeshiva vans that have big yeshiva mirrors on the side. And sometimes his wife would be driving the van, and the mirror would come off. She'd knock into a car or a pole, and the mirror would come off. So the boy comes into Weinberger's shul one morning and goes, Rebbe, I just want you to know that I replaced the mirror that was broken. I put a new mirror on the car. And Rav Weinberger's first instinct was to go, "Where'd you get the mirror from?" And this guy was like one of these thug Queens kids. So he was like, "Rebbe, don't worry about it. I took care of it." So Rav Weinberger's like, "Okay, fine." So he's sitting and learning. And an hour later, the principal comes into the classroom and she looks at the boy and she says to the boy, "What'd you do with my mirror?" So he said, "Look, you're a principal. You're very chashav a person. But this is the Rebbe. The Rebbe needed a mirror."

26:26 And Reb Weinberger said that boy today is sitting and learning in Lakewood, and he's a bala machaber of many svarim already, and he and it's the same midah, he's the same ganiv that he was, that same energy, but now he's using it in the alamatayra. This is what Reb Yechonon was saying to Reish Lakish. He's saying you have tremendous kaiach, but what did Reish Lakish hear? Reish Lakish just heard another judgmental rebbe, another rebbe who's telling him you're not in the right place. You know we have people that are wandering Jews. You know the wandering Jews. Wandering Jews is the Rebbe is speaking in front of the class, and the boy has ADHD, and he's just marching around in the back of the class. You know that girl. You are that girl. You've met that girl. Your girl's that sister, right? And marching around in the back of the class, and the Rebbe is always like, "Could you sit down? Could you sit down? You're disturbing the class." There are people in life that are just told over and over again, "You're in the wrong place. You're in the wrong place. You're in the wrong place." So what is Reish Lakishir? Reish Lakishir is another Rebbe. He's a Chelcholay Raisa. Another kid who's.

27:24 Who doesn't really belong and he's not doing the right thing? So Reish Lakish said, "Shof Rech L'Nashem." I'm not in the right place. You're also not in the right place. Look at you. You're so beautiful. You should be a woman. So Rav Yehiyan heard the pain in his voice, and Rav Yehiyan said, "No. You don't understand. I really mean it. I know what the problem is. I know that you don't feel like you belong. You should know that if you would do tshuva, you could marry my sister. Like you do belong here. You could be a part of my family." That was the gift that Rav Yechonon was giving to Rish Lakish. He was saying to him, "You could become a great person if only you would know that you do belong, that your actions do matter." And Rish Lakish did tshuva, and he became the great Rish Lakish. Who, if you look in Gemara, all over Shas, Rish Lakish. Not only did he become a great Gavul B'Tayra, but he became Rav Yechonon's chevrusa, and they were so close. And one day they were sitting and learning.

28:20 Okay, so I think that's the main idea. But then there was this other part where they were learning a particular sugya about weaponry, and Rav Yochanan and Rav Shlakish disagreed. Rav Yochanan said, 'I should defer to you. After all, this is your area of expertise.' And Rav Shlakish was hurt by that, and he understood Rav Yochanan to be like saying a disparaging thing about him, which perhaps Rav Yochanan didn't mean. And so he said, 'Do you think I needed this? I was the king of the bandits. I'm a king in Klaion. So you think I needed this?' He didn't mean to say that. He didn't value the Torah that he was learning. He meant to say, 'Like I didn't do this for kavod.' But Rav Yechanan misunderstood what Rish Lakish said. He thought that he was saying that he didn't value the Torah. So Rav Yechanan said, 'You don't value the fact that I brought you tachas kan fe'ashkina,' and he refused to speak to Rish Lakish, and that was the end of their relationship. And Rish Lakish got sick because he couldn't live with his rebbe not speaking to him. And Rav Yechanan's sister, Rish Lakish's wife, she came to Rav Yechanan and she said, 'If you don't speak to my husband, he's going to die.'

29:17 And Rav Yochanan said nothing. Doing, I'm not speaking to him. And Rish Lakish passed away, and then Rav Yochanan got sick because Rav Yochanan didn't have a chavruta. He missed Rish Lakish. They brought him all these great Talmidei Chachamim, but every single time that Rav Yochanan would say something, the Talmidei Chacham that he was learning with, they would bring him proofs. He said, I don't need proofs. I know that I'm right. I need somebody like Rish Lakish. Rish Lakish used to fight me. Any time I said something, he would fight me. He would fight me because that's who Rish Lakish was. He was a fighter. And he would say to me, "No, it can't be correct because of this, and no, it can't be correct because of this." And then I would have to sharpen the point. I learned more because I had a chavrusha like Reish Lakish who was fighting me. And Rabbi Yochanan cried out, "Hey chat bar Lakishah! Hey chat bar Lakishah! Where have you gone, Reish Lakish? Where have you gone?" And Rabbi Yochanan got sick, and he lost his mind. And the Chazal at the time they davened for Rabbi Yochanan to pass away, rather than have to deal with this being totally mentally ill.

30:11 And they ask the Kasha, the Baly Musar, ask the Kasha. I think it was Rav Chaim Shmuel Eitz. Ask the Kasha, why didn't they just daven for him to get well and not to have a mental illness? And they answer, without Reish Lakish, Rav Yechanan could not possibly have gotten well. He missed Reish Lakish. The whole vort of both Rav Yechanan and Reish Lakish was they needed each other. It was a symbiotic relationship. Reish Lakish needed a Rebbe who told him every single day, "You belong here." And when he didn't get that, Reish Lakish passed away. And Rav Yechonon needed a Talmud like Reish Lakish, a Talmud who was a fighter, a Talmud who would sharpen his points. And without him, Rav Yechonon couldn't live either. Our actions matter tremendously. When we're raising children, we don't tell our children, "You're the best," because they're not the best. They're not the best. Even if you're the best in your class, you're the best in your class. You're the best in your Bais Yaakov. You're thirty kids in your class.

31:09 Even if you say you're the best in your grade, you're the best of a hundred kids. You're the best. You're the best in all of Brooklyn. You're the best in all of Muncie. You're the best in all of the five towns, all of Chicago, all of Los Angeles, all of America, all of the world. You don't tell children you're the best. That's teaching a child to be a narcissist. We teach children, I see you worked hard. I value what you did. Right? You're important to me. That's a healthy way of raising a child. A child shouldn't have to be the best in order to be worthy.

31:39 They just have to be the best for you. When you have a daughter and she's struggling in high school and she's going through maybe the same things that you went through, maybe it's a social struggle to fit in, maybe it's a religious challenge that she has, or whatever she's going through, are you a person that she can turn to and say, 'Hey, mom, I'm having a problem, and I could use just a kind and compassionate ear'? The gift that you give a child. When you create space for them, when you hold space for them, it's you telling them you matter to me. That's a healthy way to raise a child. When Hakadosh Baruch Hu is stamping what Elieo and Melech HaMashiach said about our mitzvot, it's not that our mitzvah is the most important mitzvah in the world. I feel like that's the type of narcissistic shmooz that could exist today. You should know that when you do a mitzvah, it's the most important mitzvah in the world. I don't know what the most important mitzvah in the world is. Maybe somebody is.

32:36 Giving their life, Al Kiddush Hashem at this moment, and you gave a half a shekel to stock. I'm not saying your mitzvah is the most important mitzvah in the world. And frankly, we would never play the game of whose mitzvah is more important. But what we can say is that when you are doing a mitzvah, Eliyahu and Melcham Hashem are writing it down. If you were living in the times of the Naviim and the Navi was writing it down, you would know my mitzvah matters to Al Kiddush Baruch. That's not fluff. That's not kitschy. That's important. It's important to know your mitzvah really does matter to someone, and that's what inspires us to do a mitzvah. I want to read to you a poem. It's a famous poem, and I'm sure some of you know this poem. It's a poem that's called "When You Thought I Wasn't Looking." It's a poem about parenting. When you thought I wasn't looking.

33:30 I saw you hang my first painting on the refrigerator, and I wanted to paint another one. When you thought I wasn't looking, I saw you feed a stray cat, and I thought it was good to be kind to animals. When you thought I wasn't looking, I saw you make my favorite cake for me, and I knew that little things are special. When you thought I wasn't looking, I heard you say a prayer, and I believed that there was a God to talk to. When you thought I wasn't looking, I felt you kiss me good night, and I felt loved. When you thought I wasn't looking, I saw tears come from your eyes, and I learned that sometimes things hurt, but it's all right to cry. When you thought I wasn't looking, I saw that you cared, and I wanted to be everything that I could be. When you thought I wasn't looking, I looked, and I wanted to say thanks for all the things I saw. When you thought I wasn't looking, it's an exceptionally beautiful poem. Our children are looking. You know this because you looked.

34:30 You know your parents better than anybody in the entire world, no? Is there anybody in the world that knows your parents better than you? In fact, if I asked you, I'm sure you would say wonderful things about your parents. But you might also say, 'Yeah, my parents say this, but they really this,' because you were looking very carefully. You were looking when you saw your father sneak some sechaka to somebody, and he thought that nobody was looking. You were looking when your mother made something special. You were looking, but if you look at the words of this poem, and I love them very, very, very much. When we hang our children's painting on the refrigerator, what does she say? And I wanted to paint another one. Why? We put our kids' stuff on the refrigerator, and that says to them, 'Hey, Ema and Abba love my paintings. I want to paint more.' It's not only that we're role models for our children because they're looking at us all the time. It's that when we

35:30 When we do these things, when we tell our children in so many different ways, sometimes we say it verbally. Sometimes we put a you know a painting on the refrigerator. Sometimes we come in if we come in late and we weren't there for bedtime, and we come into the house at one, two o'clock in the morning. It's just going over to them and giving them a kiss on their forehead, and maybe they wake up for two seconds, and maybe they give you that little six year old smile that they won't remember in the morning, but in that moment they remembered. It's always like the little kids say. I know Emma's not home right now. She's at a parent teacher conferences, and they're putting sleep. And they go tell Emma to come snuggle us when she gets home. Is there a more beautiful word in the entire English language than the word snuggle? It's the most beautiful word. What does it mean for a little child to sit there and snuggle their parent? Is it because it's comfortable? It's not always comfortable.

36:21 But there's no more beautiful feeling than being snuggled by a parent because that's the parent's way of saying to the child, 'I love you and you matter.' Tomorrow night we're going to be making the Torah. That's no small thing. This is the moment in time when Hakadosh Baruch Hu says, 'This is my greatest possession, and you matter to me.' So here I'm sharing this with you. That's not a small thing. It's like kaviyachu, and obviously this is a bad marshal. My grandmother, Ela Shalom, she gave me as the oldest grandchild. She said, she called me Matt. I grew up as Matt. Then I got older. I changed to Mordechai. So my name became Matt Mordechai. Whatever your name is,

37:19 When I got engaged, my grandmother said, 'You'll get engaged with my ring.' That's an heirloom, right? That's like the type of thing that gets passed down, grandmother to grandson, like for generations. You could do that. It's a beautiful thing, because it's something that matters. Your grandfather gave this to me, and one day you'll give this to your wife. Hakadosh Baruch Hu has the greatest gift in the world. It's the Torah. The Torah is Him, Hakadosh Baruch Hu, who is one with His will and His wisdom. The Torah is not just fancy jewelry. The Torah is giving the gift of Himself. These are my thoughts. These are my feelings. This is what I want the world to look like. These are my ambitions and aspirations for what we can do together. And Hakadosh Baruch Hu comes and says, 'It really matters. You really matter.' So, if we have a feeling on Shavuos night of like, 'Okay, it's Yom Tov, so I can't do melacha.'

38:15 That's not what it's about. It's about you're important, and what's the reaction that we have? Of all the minhagim that we have in Klal Yisrael, Shavuos is the strangest minhag. At three o'clock in the morning, I'm testing in yeshivas. Baruch Hashem, the base medesh will be packed. You'll have a smadah b'libatalla. I'm not talking about the minhag that's developed today in certain towns where each shul has the best possible spread that's out there. I remember when I was a kid, we had like a route that we would walk on Shavuos night, and starts off milchiks and ends off lechiks. And it's like you have a milchik suda, and then you have this one has a waffle bar, and this one has pancakes, and then there's the ice cream station and the pizza, and then you until you get like.

38:59 One, two o'clock in the morning, and then you got you want to get to the places that now we're holding by the barbecue, and then by the time five I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about real shavuos and talking about people that are sitting based meijers, not people that are running out to go get the food. At three o'clock in the morning, at three thirty in the morning, at four o'clock in the morning, I want you to know they're not learning that well. Their mind is not as sharp as it is at ten thirty in the morning. It's a strange minig, and then when it comes time for davening, shavuos morning davening is always chalas. It's it's beautiful, but it's it's like, Rus is one of the most beautiful megillas ever, and also, everyone's asleep. Everyone's asleep. They stayed up the whole night. You see, guys. The and I love these guys. I'm one of these guys. The head bob fight. Are you familiar with the head bob fight? The guy who's like, there's two head bobs. There's the front head bob.

39:56 Which is like they're looking in Rus, and they're like, right, that guy. And then there's a guy who's in a precarious position. That's the and there's an amazing moment when the yamaka falls off in the back, and he wakes up because the yamaka fell off. But he's got those cat-like reflexes, so he's like, and he catches his yamaka in the back. It's amazing that there aren't more Jews in the NBA. We are tremendously athletic. We've seen Klau Yisrael can be tremendously athletic. We don't daven well. We don't learn well. What are we doing? In fact, to the degree that I know of a certain place, and I don't agree with this, I know of a certain place that this is a ridiculous minute. We're not going to do this. We'll learn till chutzpahs. We'll wake up for vasiq and we'll learn again in the morning. But this way, our learning will be good and our davening will be good. Yisurkowitz, the Rosh Yeshiva of Ner Yisrael, he says, no.

40:49 Aha v'mikalkelas es Ashura. Love makes us do strange things. When we hear Hakadosh Baruch Hu coming and saying, 'Matana teiva yeshli v'beis ganan d'nazay,' And it's Shabbos. The Shabbos Shmo. You have Shabbos. I'm giving you Shabbos. I'm giving you the aseret adibros. I'm giving this. I'm giving you my stuff. I'm giving you me. The feeling that we have is, yeah, well, we're just as in love with you, because we heard Hakadosh Baruch Hu come and say to us that we matter. At this time of year, there's always a shmuz that starts to happen. I hate the shmuz. They come and they say, 'We're winding down the year.' R. Berg. I get hired by different seminaries to come in and do this like song and dance. The how to take it with you dance. You know this. You know the shmuz. How to take it with you, which first of all is ridiculous because if we've been doing this right the entire year, then of course you take it with you. If the ideas are truly inspirational, if they change the way you see the world, then of course you take it with you.

41:47 But really, on some level, it comes down to one basic thing: if this matters and you matter, then of course you'll take it with you. We don't drop things that matter. Nobody misses a flight. Who misses a flight? I need to be in LaGuardia at three o'clock in the morning to make that flight. I'm going to go to sleep for three hours, but I'm going to set an alarm. That same girl that Pasha tells me I cannot wake up in the morning. She's like cum carish. All of a sudden, she's up and she's walking out. And she's like, 'And you see, she's not human. You know what I'm saying? Like, you know how that walk to the Uber at three o'clock in the morning—I've ever done that. This not a human being. This protoplasm in motion. That's what it is. And it's like they have—they're still in process of coffeeing themselves. So they have that giant Starbucks. It's like they're walking on the—it's a move.'

42:42 Has no makeup. I'm just going on the plane anyway. By the time they land, I want you to know that girl went to the bathroom at some point on the plane. She came out. She's like a totally different human being. But for a moment, how'd she wake up? I'm not going to miss my flight. I'm going to miss my flight. I got to get back. I have a thing. I have a date. I got to get back in time for the date. Don't miss your flight. When it matters, the problem is, does it really matter to us? If we knew that Hakadosh Baruch Hu was watching, how would we say Moda Ani in the morning? If we knew that El Yehovah and Melech HaMashiach were writing down our mitzvos, how would you do that small act of chesed? Not to be seen, but just because. Not because it's going to be on YouTube one day. That's the whole. Again, I don't like that marshal. They give that marshal. You're going to come to Olam Habah. There's going to be a movie screen, and everybody's going to be watching. You don't want to be embarrassed.

43:40 What a terrible marshal! Let's see if we can shame people into doing averus or not doing averus. That's a terrible marshal. It's not YouTube and Shamayim. It's much more powerful than that. It really matters. If you would know that it really matters, then the way that we would do our mitzvot would change. The way that we would be kabbal the Torah would change. Bez Hashem, it's been a tremendous year of growth. I saw there's a shavuos schedule. So I assume that means that there's some people here for shavuos. I don't know what's on the shavuos schedule, but if I can encourage you to take a moment before you sit down to learn, take a moment to say, "Kadosh Baruch Hu gave me Himself, because this matters and I matter and life matters and we're here for a cosmic and infinite reason," and then whatever you do on shavuos. Allow that feeling to permeate your being. Allow it to nestle itself deep into the recesses of your mind, because it really does. And we want to be people that eventually our children come to us and say, "When you thought I wasn't looking, I saw how much I mattered to you." Girls have a good yontef.