Shemos - Tracht Gut!

2:17 And what did they say? They say, 'What are you going to? You're going to? Who made you ruler over us?' And look what the Torah says: Vayirah Moshe. And Moshe became afraid. Vayomer Achet No da Hadaver. And he goes, 'I see that the matter has become known.' How a Jewish secret is told, one person at a time. You tell somebody, 'Don't tell anyone.' And if you do, I'll know it's you because I'm not telling anyone else. So what do you do? Don't tell anyone. But if you do, I'll know it's you because I'm the only other person that knows. Of course, what does that person do? Don't tell anyone. And one person at a time, in a very short amount of time, all of Klal Yisrael knew that Moshe Rabbeinu the previous day. Which, by the way, if you think about it, that was very fast. It's literally the next day. Everyone was gossiping about it. Everyone was saying their lashon hara. Obviously, it was a very big deal. Everybody knew that the child of Yochaveh and Amram was growing up in the house of Paro, and that child came out and killed a Mitzri. It spread like wildfire. They didn't have social media back then. Just came home. Everybody was talking about it.

3:15 I always know what's happening in my neighborhood because my daughters tell me. In Ramat Echamesh, like a tiny little bungalow colony. So it's like, Abba, I heard that she went to the hospital to have a baby. I'm like, how did you know? Like, I saw the ambulance pulling out, and I know that it can't be one of their kids because I saw their kids later. So it's like everything, like you know, these tiny little social media warriors without the social media in Haradi Ramat Echamesh. So everybody knew. It's one day. What does Moshe Rabbeinu do? He's terrified. I guess this thing is known. What happens next? And now Paro finally hears. He's the last one. Every good minhal knows that we're the last people to get the story. Every girl and Sam knows what happens before the minhal finds out. So finally, Paro finds out what happened, and he wants to kill Moshe Abinu. He evrach Moshe, and they Paro, and now Moshe Abinu runs away. Listen to this unbelievable kasha of the Labavitcher Rebbe in Chumish, and I never noticed this before.

4:14 In Chumash, you almost never, with very rare exceptions, hear the emotions in the story. You start to think about it. A story of Cain and Abel doesn't tell us the emotions. Yosef is in a pit, and the Torah doesn't tell us the emotions. When do we find out that Yosef was screaming in the pit? Not until much later, when the brothers are talking about the cries that their brother was screaming. But when the Torah tells us the story, the Torah doesn't tell us the emotionality. The Torah only tells us an emotion if the emotion is a critical part of the story. What would be an example of this? A famous example of where the Torah tells us somebody's emotionality and it moves the story along is by Yaakov Avinu, because the malachim that Yaakov Avinu sent to Esav came back and they reported that Esav has an entire army. Vayira Yaakov Maod, and Yaakov Avinu becomes very afraid. Vayetzelo, and it distressed him.

5:07 So vayachet tzamasheri tov vetzasom vetzabaker vagamalim l'shem anach l'shem achanos, and he starts to divide up the camp. Do you see how the emotion here moves the action? Because Yaakov vino is afraid, because he's in a state of being distressed, he says, "I have to separate these camps." So the emotion leads to an action. So the Torah usually does either one of two things: either it doesn't tell us the emotionality at all, and it's almost like we're supposed to narrate what's going on for ourselves. We're supposed to feel out what was the emotion that was happening. Or if it does tell us the emotion, it's always an emotion that leads to action. This is the only case in the entire Torah where Moshe Rabbeinu is described as being afraid. And in what way does it advance the story? It doesn't advance the story at all, because Moshe Rabbeinu doesn't run away. In fact, when does Moshe run away? Only after Paro finds out and wants to kill him. Isn't that interesting?

6:01 If the Torah would have told us the following story, Moshe Rabbeinu grew up in the house of Paro. Moshe Rabbeinu decides that now he's going to be—he's going to proclaim his Judaism. Every Anochi, the Es Hashem Lo Kach Ani Yare. He's going to say, "I'm a Jew." And he goes out and he kills a Mitzri. The next day, two Jews are hitting each other, and he's terrified because now everybody's talking about the fact that he killed the Mitzri yesterday. So he ran away. That would make sense. The emotion led to the action. Moshe Rabbeinu has the emotion. What does he do? Nothing. Nothing. He doesn't do anything. Not until Paro finds out, and now Moshe Rabbeinu gets word that since Paro found out and he wants to kill me, now he's going to run away to Midyan. So here we have a very unique case in the entirety of Torah, where the Torah describes to us an emotion, but the emotion doesn't lead to any action. It doesn't contribute to our narrative of the story in any way. In theory, this should have been a case where the emotion is either not given at all, or the Torah writes the story differently.

6:58 But here we have an emotion that doesn't lead to anything at all. What's the pshat? There's a famous Hasidic saying, and it comes from a story. The story is with the tzemach tzadik that one of the Hasidim came to the tzemach tzadik and he had a child who was very sick, and the tzemach tzadik said to him in Yiddish, 'Don't worry, I'll translate it into English.' He said, 'Chacht gut that zayn gut. Think good and it will be good.' Meaning, if you're sitting and worrying and you're saying, oh no, what's going to be, what's going to be? Tracht gut, but zayn gut. If you think good, it's going to be good. What does this mean? Is this like this sounds like a very, if I'm being honest with you, if you don't really understand the saying, it sounds like a very like popular psychology, positive psychology. Just think good, and it will be good. We all know that's not the way the world works, right? It's like something terrible is happening. Just think good, and everything is going to change automatically. What in the world does this saying mean?

7:54 So I want to share with you something that's so powerful, so profound, and if you really not only hear this, but learn to employ it in your life, it is a life-changing idea. And the idea is as follows: None of us, not one of us, right now in this room, are living in the same reality. Every single one of us is having a completely different reality. I'm having a different reality because I'm up here giving the share. You are having a different reality because you're listening. You are having a different reality. I'll put it in 2025 terms, because the trauma that you underwent in your life is triggering you deeply, based on the way that I'm giving this year. I don't like the way Riffberg gives year. I had a high school teacher like that, and it didn't really make me feel safe and validated. So you, who are going through your trauma, are having a different experience right now than I, the one who's traumatizing you. Does that make sense?

8:46 That the girl in not I'm saying not here, not now, obviously, but the girl in the back who's on their phone, right, and she's having one experience. It's not always that same girl, and I'm not looking in that direction right now. The one who went like I'm not on my phone right now. That girl who did that right now. This traumatizing moment. You were the one that did it, not me. You're like what? I'm not on my phone. So that girl is having, like I don't know if you girls realize this, but sometimes when I stare in a particular direction for a long time when I'm giving shir, that's my way of saying I'm looking at you, right? So she's having a very different experience than I'm having. Every one of us is having different experiences. Some of us are having different experiences. This is, I know, a very trigger word in Toma Devora. I apologize. I know what I'm about to do is bad classroom management. Didn't they teach us back when we were doing our master's degree? Don't do the thing that's going to set off bad classroom management.

9:38 The temperature in this room. I'm too hot. I really think they should turn on the air. Please don't turn on the air. I'm too cold. So for those of you in the room that are too hot and having trouble staying awake, plus you just got off a shiur from Rav Gav, and there's no way that I could possibly be as funny as Rav Gav. Every one of us is having a different experience. What makes the reality? This is a fascinating idea. The truth of the matter is, reality is just what you perceive it to be. Two people are living in the same exact experience, and they're having fundamentally different reality. That's why if you ever listen to people tell a story, you ever. I don't know how it goes in them. I'm not here enough to know how it goes in them. But I can tell you what it sounds like when guys tell a story. A guy tells a story. He's three seconds into telling the story, and another guy goes, "You're getting it wrong. It's not what happened at all." And then the guy goes back because these are very sophisticated young men.

10:36 And they have very legitimate, deep arguments. They thought these things through. This is why they respond. He goes, "Yes, it is. Shut up! I'm in the middle of telling the story." And then the other guy, who's also deeply thoughtful, these are boys that are learning Gemara all day long, thinking about different things from multiple, multiple ways, really getting into the Beiin of the Rishonim, understanding all the Lomdus of the Zohar. He goes, "I'm telling you, I was there. That's not what happened." He goes, "I was there too." This is the level of conversation that's happening. Who's right? Or both, or neither. But the point is that reality unfolds not according to the capital T truth, but reality unfolds according to the way that we perceive reality to be unfolding. And a fascinating thing happens: the way that you narrate reality becomes the reality. So let's say, for example, let's say as a parent, we'll do it parenting, and then we'll do it in marriage. As a parent, so your child makes a mistake.

11:35 That's understandable, but for one parent, that mistake is deeply triggering because they promised themselves when they were in seminary that they were never going to have a child who was put in that position to begin with, and now that child was in that position, and now that child made that mistake, and the girl gets caught, right, and she comes home, and now she's in trouble, and dad, who never went to Tomer Devora, who was probably the kid that was doing that his entire life and doesn't care anyway, right, so dad is like, okay, just relax, it's going to be okay. They're just going through it. She's 16. It's the summer after 10th grade. Everybody does that summer after 10th grade, right? A little bit too close to home. But say there, I'm with you. I don't know why it's always the summer after 10th grade, but it always is, right? So dad is having one experience. Mom is having a completely different experience. And when that girl walks in the door, and by the way, you know exactly what experience your parents have. How do you know?

12:30 Because if I asked you, let's say I do this in the backyard. A guy gets in trouble, and I go, listen, I gotta speak to you. One, I gotta speak to your parents. Which parent would you prefer me to call? So you always know exactly everything you need to go. If the boy goes dad or mom, like that's the one that's chill about these types of things. That's the one that's going to handle it better. And there's a reason for that. It's because they're parenting through the lens of their own experience. But then what happens is you create that reality because it's your lens. So if you, for example, relate to a child in a positive way, that child is going to relate to themselves in the context of this relationship in a positive way. So if let's say you have a parent, and that parent has what's called in psychology unconditional positive regard, you know what I'm saying? Like if you have a dad who, no matter what you do, he's like he's got your back because he wants, he's like a dad girl or a girl dad. Dad girl is a completely different thing. Girl dad.

13:29 If he's a girl dad, so he's like, that's my daughter, and I want her to feel safe, and I want her to feel loved. In the context of that relationship, how do you show up? You show up completely differently because what was communicated to you. I perceived you this way, and then you became this way. I perceived you this way, and then you became this way. By the way, if you take a look, if you want to see an amazing vort, the Rambam. You take a look in Perkei Abos when the Rambam describes what it's like to be one of the Talmidim of Arna Cohen. The Rambam describes how Arna Cohen would relate to everybody that he spoke to. He would say, "I heard that you're doing these amazing things, and you're such an amazing person." And he would heap praises upon them, even if they were undeserving of it. And then the person would start to say to themselves.

14:19 I see the way that Aron Akolyn relates to me, and I would like to embolden them, and then they would start to do those things because Aron Akolyn believed in them. Maybe you'll say Aron Akolyn was a bad mechanech. How come he didn't call them out on what they were really doing? The answer is because the greatest way to have an impact as a rebbe, the greatest way to have an impact on a person, is to see them in a beautiful way, and then they become beautiful people. See your children in a beautiful way, and then they become beautiful people. And if somebody says to you, 'Yeah, but you're not dealing with the reality,' maybe I'm dealing, not dealing with your reality, but I'm creating the reality that I want this child to grow up in. Does that make sense? And in the context of that reality, beautiful people become beautiful people, and that's what it's called to love someone into being. To love someone into being means I see you for who you truly are, not for your lowest moments.

15:12 And by the way, this works not only vis-à-vis your children. It also works. We'll speak in a minute about marriage. It works vis-à-vis yourself. There's a famous author whose name is Stephen Covey. Everybody's ever heard of Stephen Covey? He wrote a book called Seven Habits. It's an amazing book to read. If you're going to read a secular book, Stephen Covey wrote an amazing secular book. And in that book, he spoke about the fact that he had a son who was playing high school football and he was playing quarterback and he wasn't doing very well. And in working through with his son why he wasn't doing so well, he realized that his son was imagining failure. You guys know what it means to imagine failure, right? It's like if before the game you're thinking to yourself, "I'm probably going to throw, I'm probably going to throw an interception, I'm probably going to throw an interception," and you picture yourself like messed up on the sidelines crying because you just made that mistake. You know what ends up happening? That becomes your reality.

16:03 Because you saw it in a negative way, it becomes your reality. What he worked on with his son was positive thinking, and he said, 'Let's imagine yourself throwing a winning touchdown.' And I think, if I recall correctly, he had some sort of thing where his son wore a rubber band, and every time he would think like a negative thought, he would snap the rubber band on his wrist and would move him back into positive thinking. And he said that he saw his son improve dramatically. I'll tell you the truth. I've noticed this even for myself. I know sports is not necessarily the best martial for a seminary, but I spend most of my day in yeshiva, so you bear with me on this. There's always guys that when they play basketball in yeshiva, you see they miss two or three shots, and then they won't shoot for the rest of the game because in their head. I know how to do this. If you're playing machanayim. It's the only one I know. If you're playing machanayim.

16:53 I don't know really what mahkanayim is. It sounds to me like dodgeball, just a little bit more sophisticated. It's basically what it is. But if you're playing mahkanayim, and you're like, I don't know what it means to play mahkanayim. Apparently, let's go back to basketball. So you missed your two three shots, and in your head, you know what you're thinking. Every guy on the sideline is thinking, "Oh, he just missed two three shots." So it's a crazy thing. Actually, nobody's thinking that. Nobody's taking score. Nobody's keeping stats on the side. If it was a good shot, you shoot your shot. But the problem is, we don't play as well as we should. Not because we're not athletically talented, but because we're in our head, and we end up creating self-fulfilling prophecies by the stories that we tell ourselves. There's always that guy that has irrational levels of confidence that he's taking shots that he has no business taking and making them. Why? Not because he's the most athletic, but because he believes that he's going to make that shot.

17:48 If you go back to the beginning of the year, when you were just getting off the plane and coming to Talmud Torah, there were girls that came, and the story they've been telling themselves for months was, 'This is going to be so hard. I'm coming from Cleveland.' I was trying to think of a place where one girl is from. I totally just chose Cleveland. And maybe the story you're telling yourself, and I'm sure you weren't, because you're not that person. You seem to be fine. But let's say you have that one girl from Cleveland. She's asking herself the question over and over again. By the way, I get this every single time I go outside of the New York, New Jersey area. What do the guys ask me when I'm making my presentation from Beviser? They ask in a very sweet way. They go, 'So, how many New York, New Jersey kids do you have in your shiva? You know what they mean. How many jerks do you have in your shiva? Like, how many guys are going to be completely not nice to me?'

18:39 You have boys from San Diego, maybe somebody who's a really kind person, right? And then when I'm in New York, they always ask the same question, so how many out of towners are there? I'm like, guys, they're not all nerds. They're just different than you, right? But let's say you have a girl who's from Cleveland, and she's thinking to herself, oh my God, I heard there's so many girls coming from TNEC and from the five towns. That was you. Guys, you're very intimidated. So you show up on day one, and because you were living with that state, I'm sure you're not intimidated now because you were able to say it. It's amazing how much you've grown here. You're very consider yourself validated, right? So now a girl comes and she's out before she even started, and the story she's telling herself when she gets on the phone with her mother is, "Oh my gosh, this is so. It's so not for me. I totally made a mistake. I did. I told you girls, I did that when I came to Mivaser."

19:34 When I came to Mevaseret, which is now a very, very long time ago, I was so excited. I told you girls this. I was a bachur in Mevaseret. And I do understand your English, so thank you for that. I remember I was so excited to go to Mevaseret, and you know all these great kids that I knew from high school were going to Mevaseret. I was pumped. Then we played a basketball game against Ramaz. Growing up, I hated Ramaz. Ramaz is a school in the city. It's like a prep school in the city. Do you remember Rebbe back in the day that used to have we were like blazers to school and they had the Ramaz crest on it? I'm like a five towns like shorts and t-shirt to school type of kid. These guys are like wearing like a crest. It's the most preppy school, and I was prepared. I hated Ramaz. And at the end of the game, all these guys, like you're doing Jewish geography at the end of the game. In your 12th grade year, what's Jewish geography? Where are you going next year? Where are you going next year?

20:28 So four out of the five starters on Rama's were all going to Mivaseret, and they're like, 'Oh, you want to Mivaseret? That's awesome! We're all going to Mivaseret.' I'm like, 'That's great,' and I ended up becoming friends with all of them, but I was prepared to hate them. And so now, second half of senior year, I'm like, 'Oh my God! I think I made a terrible mistake. Maybe I should go somewhere else. I'm not like a Rama's guy, but these Rambam guys are going, and they're not exactly like those guys.' And I was like, 'What in the world is going on over here?' And I was like very thrown by it. And I was the whole plane ride. I was like, 'I made a mistake. I made a mistake.' Maybe I should call my parents and tell them that I want to switch to a different yeshiva. And I didn't know that I was in the right yeshiva until—I won't say his name because this is being recorded—but an amazing guy, a friend of mine. Today he's a normal, healthy human being, but back then a guy I didn't know. We were all waiting for our luggage, and you know, like everyone waits for their luggage. There's like an anxiety in the air when you wait for your luggage. Am I going to be the one girl?

21:21 Who doesn't get her stuff? That was you. And then it's like for three days she doesn't get anything, and it's like poor girl. Everyone's telling her no, Alas is going to give you like five thousand dollars to make up for it. They're not going to give you anything. You're walking down in Paron, please give me anything. There's an anxiety, there's an inherent anxiety. That's why I check in now. I check in business class. I'm always like, okay, they're not going to mess up business class, but this of course they do. It's El Al, like El Al's tagline is 'Achiba Bayit Ba Olam.' We're the most family place in the world. We're the most family-centric place in the world. That is one dysfunctional family. So just now I went to America, and this is like a thing if you live in Israel. The whole avodah of going to America from the family's perspective. I'm going for yeshiva or for speaking gigs.

22:16 The reason I'm going from my family's perspective is to bring back stuff from Amazon. That's the only reason I'm not going to America for yeshiva or for Parnasa. And you have to bring a duffel bag, right? Now I'll tell you the truth. I'm a gold member on LL, which means I get two seventy pound bags. My family does not know that because otherwise they will buy even more than they do right now. So as far as my wife goes, we only have one suitcase. I'm like, yeah, chaval, and it's only fifty pounds. The so there was my wife bought a gate because otherwise my grandson's going to climb up the stairs. So she bought a gate to put in our house. The gate is very large, so I had to bring back a duffel bag. So I check in business, of course, I check in business, and even though there's nothing in the duffel bag, there's nothing in there, sir. That's oversized. I was like, first of all, excuse me. Second of all.

23:06 Second of all, there's nothing in the bag. Just put it through. It's business. You let us fly the plane. We don't care. We're paying thousands of dollars for our ticket. Oversized. So I go over and they're like, you have to check it through a special area where they have a giant X-ray machine. The man says, you have to put it through the machine. I'm like, there is nothing in here. You do not need to put it through the X-ray machine, sir. Everything has to go through the X-ray machine. I put it through the X-ray machine. The guy's watching the screen. I'm like, there's nothing here. He goes, there's nothing in there. I was like, thank you very much. Put it on the elevator. My whole avodah when I get to New York, you want to catch a minion, so you land. It's 5:30 in the morning. Till you get off the plane, it's like 7 o'clock in the morning, and then you have to wait for your bag. My bag was the last bag off the plane, even though it had a giant VIP thing on it. Why? Because I'm in the overweight section. I'm in the oversized section.

23:51 I'm sitting there the entire time. I don't even care about this bag. I'll buy a new bag in amazing savings, right? And I had to sit there and wait for an hour and fifteen minutes for an empty bag. This is my trauma. Thank you so much for coming with me. I have no idea what I was saying. Oh yeah, so we're waiting. Thank you. So we're waiting. I knew you were here for a reason. So we're waiting and everyone's got that anxiety of like is my bag gonna come out and everyone's like looking. By the way, if you look your bag doesn't come faster if it's an amazing thing. Watch everybody by baggage claim. It's like you'll see it when it gets in the vicinity of your area. Right, and also this is an interesting thing. People stand here do this and then when they see it coming they walk to it. You know, you could just stand where the bags come out. That's faster. Okay anyway.

24:46 All of a sudden, I'm looking and I see a guy lying down like luggage on the conveyor belt, and he's going around and around. I'm home. These guys are idiots. These are my people. The story you tell yourself creates the reality. I was totally ready to leave Mavasair on the plane because these guys who ended up becoming my close friends went to Ramaz in high school. The story I told myself, which becomes your reality, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's like quantum physics. Now you look at something, and then it becomes what it is when you look at it. Everything happens in life. You choose to narrate it how you want to narrate it. Girls, I'm going to tell you a secret. Every one of your husbands is going to be amazing, awesome, and perfect. But for the one exception in the room, I'm talking to you. Your husband is going to be a slob.

25:38 He's a complete slob. He's gonna drive you crazy. I'm talking to one of you. I'm talking to the one exception. You're not the one exception. And men have things that women don't understand. For the men, hamper is a general direction. And then you get to narrate how you want to see your husband. I'm gonna tell you a secret. He has to live within your narration. He has to live within the way you narrated him. There are women who talk about their husbands, even though their husbands are flawed people, but they choose to see positive, they choose to see good, and because of that, by the way, their husbands have the gift of living with a woman who actually likes them. I want you to know this is not a small thing because in general people have an inner negative critic, and sometimes the way they narrate the world outside of themselves is because they're critical about themselves, they're critical about the world.

26:32 And the thing about being critical about the world is, it's not just you that has to live in that reality. You're creating that reality in your marriage. You're creating that reality around your kids. And so people end up in therapy, and well-intentioned men and women who have no idea why the marriage isn't going well. They go into therapy and they roast each other. He does this and she does this, and she never understands and he never pays attention. And they go, she never liked my mother. Right? And it's like all of these things. This none of this capital T truth. None of this happening. It's the way that you chose to narrate that reality, and you could have chosen from a million different emotions. You chose that one. Is an amazing story. Is one of my favorite stories. Is a therapist in Yerushalayim. Some of you might know him. His name is Rabbi Dr. Benji Epstein. You ever hear of Dr. Benji? He was a famous guy because he was the psychologist in Camp Ask, working with the staff.

27:26 And Dr. Benji was doing some sort of mindfulness, like pre-davening avoda, and there was a chevrah of guys that were all sitting around and doing this avoda, and they were joking around in the beis medrash. And there was a guy there who was learning bechavrusa, very frum, pre-davening, sitting and learning, and it was bothering him that these guys were laughing. It was like it was staring him down. And finally the guy erupted on this chabura, and he looks at them, he goes, "Could you please take your nonsense chabura outside so those of us who are trying to learn could actually focus?" And without batting an eye, Doctor Benji looked back at him and he said, "Your anger has nothing to do with this chabura." And the guy goes, "Of course it does. Of course it does. If you guys weren't making so much noise in the beis medrash, I could be focused on my learning." And Doctor Benji looked at him and he goes, "There were a million emotions you could have chosen from. You chose anger, and that happened well before you ever met us. And it's true. Two people could be sitting and learning in the beis medrash."

28:24 And some people are stared at, and some people are not. Some people are focused on the people that are bothering them, and some people are not. I heard a story from a rebbe that works in Frish. That Rabbi Kalish, Rabbi Daniel Kalish, who was just in the vassara last night. Rabbi Kalish did a rebbe meeting in Frish. He was talking to the rebbeim, and the rebbeim were talking about how do we deal with guys that are talking and davening, and they were talking it through. And one of the rebbeim said, "But honestly, it bothers me. I'm trying to daven, and the kid sitting next to me is talking." And Rabbi Kalish looked at them, and this is a very Rabbi Kalish way of seeing the world. Rabbi Kalish looked at them. He goes, "I'll tell you the truth. I don't really know how to answer your question. I guess I just don't hear the guys talking and davening." And the guys are like, "What do you mean? The guys in Waterbury don't talk and davening?" He goes, "Maybe they do. I just don't hear it." That's indicative of his entire style of chinuch. Lots of people are paying attention to all the negative things about these kids. He just doesn't see it. Doesn't mean he's obtuse. It doesn't mean he's unaware. It means he's not focused on those things.

29:21 And because he's not narrating the reality that way, the boys are growing up in an environment in the yeshiva where they're seen as the beautiful people that they are. Another rebbe is in there going shh, and when you do that to somebody, it means they have to live in the reality where you're just constantly chaperoning them. It doesn't mean that we don't get to make standards, but we can make standards and we can enforce our rules in yeshivas and in seminaries. But you have to know there's got to be a baseline. If you feel that's true, if you feel that you're not wanted, you're going to show up that way. That's a reality that's created. If you feel less than, then you're going to create that reality around you. Let's go back to the story of Moshe Avinu. This is an amazing thing. Yaakov Avinu was afraid, and he acts. That's one type of emotion that the Torah tells us. Sometimes the Torah doesn't tell us any emotion. It's not relevant to the story. The story of Yosef at Tzaddik in the pit wasn't a story about Yosef. It was a story about his brothers.

30:17 So the story, the Torah doesn't have to tell us the emotionality of Yosef Hatzadik, but here's the unbelievable thing that the Lubavitcher Rebbe says: Moshe Rabbeinu was afraid, and that's why Paro wanted to kill him. Our fears create the reality that we're afraid of. It's no small matter. If you understand this, this is a huge thing. When you're afraid of something, you create that reality of fear around you. You manifest that into being. People who live with confidence—not just stomp positive psychology—that's nariskeit—but people who live with a true confidence, a true bikachon and Hashem, things work better. They work better because that's the reality that they create around them. They hit that shot because they're confident that they're going to hit that shot. It's not by accident that those people are winning. If you show up to life, I'm telling you, girls, this is one of the tragedies of the quote-unquote Shidduch crisis.

31:16 I remember when it started. I remember some time it was like the late '90s, early 2000s. For the first time in my life, I heard these words, the Shidduch crisis. I had never heard of the Shidduch crisis before because there weren't that many magazines talking about it back then. And all of a sudden, it became the Shidduch crisis. Girls can't find guys. There are so many more good girls out there than there are good guys. And we raised a generation of girls growing up knowing that you have to be afraid because maybe you're going to be the one. That's in the shidduch crisis, and the OU did this massive study to find out if there actually was a shidduch crisis, and it turns out there isn't. It doesn't mean that there aren't people that are struggling, and it doesn't mean that there aren't people that are suffering. But most people you know, when I say most, I mean most, like most, most people that you know are married. You know the exceptions to the rule, and girls, no, it's not true. I know five. You know five. That's my point. How many hundreds, thousands do you know that are married?

32:11 But what we did in order to sell more newspapers, in order to have that clickbait, is we spoke about the shidduch crisis from today till tomorrow. And these girls are raised in fear, so that when they show up to a shidduch date, they have to be absolutely perfect, and they can't have anything wrong on the resume, as if you're dating God's gift to humanity that never did anything wrong in his life, and he can be forgiven for God knows what because now he's all good and flipped. But the girl who sneezed wrong in tenth grade once has to live with the terror that maybe somebody's gonna find out. So that's that fear. The disease nature of that fear is not only that it's a debilitating way to grow up, but if you show up to life with that fear, you know what you create? You create that fear. Fear is not an attractive place to be. We don't want to. If you were dating a guy and he's like, hi. Nobody likes that.

33:02 Either you're gonna have one or two reactions. Some of you just had this reaction. I'm gonna fix him, right? That's a whole different can of worms, right? Most of you in the room right now just went like, because when you date somebody, you want somebody who's capable of showing up to life. When you date somebody, you want to have a conversation with them. You want to be able to, and that's why when somebody is vulnerable on a date, it's so deeply connective because it means they have courage, and it means that they're able to handle life, and that's an attractive place to be. That's an awesome gift. The fear creates the fear. The secret is that Moshe Rabbeinu didn't leave. He didn't leave to go to Midyan because he was afraid. He created the situation in which he needed to leave to go to Midyan. And it could very well be that if Moshe Rabbeinu heard these two Jews, who by the way, Dass and Aviram, and these two Jews are having this fight, and they said.

33:56 Who are you to be ruler over us? You're going to kill us like you killed the Mitzri. Had Moshe Rabenu had that level of mitachon in Hashem, where he said, "I guess the matter is known. Let's see what Hashem's plan is. Obviously, it's going to work out well because Hashem is good. And if it's not good, it's not the end. And that's not just a pithy saying. Life can be exceptionally difficult. Life can be exceptionally challenging. But barov, in the long term, life is unbelievably good. The Rambam in Nurot Nevuachim says, when people say life is bad, tell them to look around. Life is awesome. Life is amazing. You're seeing life in 3D. Life is delicious. Life is colorful. Life is full of love and laughter and joy. Life is an amazing place to be. And you're living in 2025. One of the boys in yeshiva said to me, he goes, Rebbe, what do you think kings wore? Did it look like very stately? I said, I want you to understand that a king in Russia a thousand years ago.

34:51 Didn't wear even like a tenth of the clothing that you're wearing right now. Your clothing is so unbelievably soft, and it was spun by this exceptional machinery. We're living with everything, and people are walking around miserable, ungrateful, as if they're living in the worst society in the world. It's amazing that people are more joyful in Israel, where we've been at war for a year and a half, than people in America. That's a crazy thing, and we know why it is.

35:21 Because if people choose joy and they choose positivity and they choose bitachon in Hashem, that life is ultimately good. Then you create that reality around you. Does it mean that there won't be challenges? Of course, there is going to be challenges, but the way you relate to those challenges is completely different. That's why if you were walking around this Sukkis and you were walking around the streets of Yerushalayim, there were Simchas Beis Hashoeva's. And if you I spoke in Yeshiva Hakota on the night of Oshana Rabba, and I walked through the rova on the night of Oshana Rabba. You couldn't tell that there was a war going on. You couldn't tell. You know. You know how we relate to the sirens now? It's like three o'clock in the morning. Shoot me in the head. Like, why are these Houthis fighting with us at three o'clock in the morning? My son, on October seventh of last year, when the first sirens went off in Mawasaret, so he was seven, six years old at the time, seven years old at the time, and I said, Mikey, we have to get up. There's a siren. Come, we have to go. And he's like, Why do they have to shoot so early in the morning?

36:17 This country has been unbelievable. The resilience of this country, the joy in this country—nobody's freaking out in this country that they're canceling TikTok. Who cares? Americans can't decide what they're more afraid of: Trump being president or canceling TikTok. How are we going to communicate to the world that we're afraid of Trump without TikTok? Misery is a choice. Fear is a choice. You have a million emotions to choose from. A person who chooses bitachon creates a reality like that. Which one of us wouldn't want to be married to somebody who sees us as, even in our lowest moments, as understandable and forgivable and beautiful and wonderful? Every one of us wants a husband like that. Every one of us is looking for somebody who, in our lowest moments, is going to be compassionate and kind. And we deserve to be in marriages like that. And by the way, you can manifest that reality by being somebody who says.

37:15 I am worthy of being in such a relationship, or you can choose to live in fear and go. There's no good guys out there. By the way, they say the same thing about you. All the guys in yeshiva, they do the same thing. They're like, Rabbi, there's normal girls. I was like, I have the perfect girl for you because she just told me there's normal guys. Shemekas shivach. A person leaves galus when they choose to believe that they can leave galus. Galus is a choice. Galus is a mentality. You could sit here in Gullus with your exiled mentality, and you could say, "We're never going to leave." There are people that live—they live like this. Like the world is getting worse, Reb. You think Mashiach could possibly come to this type of world? Do you know how crazy the world is? So you could think to yourself, "Mashiach is never going to come," or you could act as if Mashiach is coming. You could already act in a beautiful way, seeing people in a beautiful way, seeing the Yichidah Shabbanefish, connecting deeply to people, and then BeEzras Hashem will be zaychet to rule Shleima. Girls, have a wonderful Shabbos.