Shevat - Finding Unity in Diversity

2:24 So Rashi says that Moshe explained the Torah in all seventy languages. This was the avaida that Moshe Rabbeinu the Medrash says did in Shvat. He was mafarish the Torah in all seventy languages. He explained the Torah in all seventy languages. Not only once. We also see it in Parshas Kisavu. Again, we see this idea. The Torah tells us, 'V'chassavta ala avanim es kol divrei haTorah hazoys berheitev.' You shall write on these stones all of the words of the Torah very clearly. What does it mean? Very clearly. What does that mean? So Chazal tell us that Moshe Rabbeinu instructed Klal Yisrael that when they arrive in Eretz Yisrael, they should erect these very large stones and inscribe the words of the Torah on them. These stones were coated in plaster. Gemara in Sota says, 'What does it mean that they were inscribed on these stones? What does it mean that they're like engraved into the tablets?' So the Gemara says that it meant that Meisharhabenu was explaining to Klal Yisrael that they should write the Torah in all seventy languages. So we see this idea that at the end of Meisharhabenu's life, what was he dying for? What was going on in Meisharhabenu's life? It was important to Moshe Rabbeinu that the Torah be translated into seventy languages. That's the avodah of Shlach for Moshe Rabbeinu.

3:43 The Sifsech Achamim brings very beautifully that there's a reference, a remez, to the idea of seventy in the words Berheitev. What is the loshon of what's that word heitev? So there are different types of gematrias. I know that we were all a little corrupted by gematrias because of our third grade teachers. They made up gematrias. It was short, just a couple. So they added on. Like if it's short one, it's Hashem. If it's short two, all of a sudden we believe in multiple gods. Like everyone has their way of making the gematria work. But the truth of the matter is that gematria is brought down in Rishonim. Gematria is a very serious thing And the numerology of a word is indicative of its essence. The Ramban in many places, Baraturim, speaks about different gematrias. There's a beautiful sifsei chachamim that says one way of calculating gematrios is cumulative.

4:33 So you have the first letter and then you add the second letter to the first letter and then the third letter and so on until you have a cumulative numerology of the word. Hatev comes out to be seventy. If you do the gematria of hatev, it comes out adding each one. It's five plus fifteen plus twenty four plus twenty six equals seventy. So this is a reference. The Sefer Chachamim says to the Be'er Heiteh. What does it mean to explain it well? It's to be mifarshet in all seventy languages. It's a big question. What's this idea of translating the Torah to seventy languages? It's almost counterintuitive. If you're in yeshiva, boys always feel bad when they have to look at an art scroll. It's like it almost feels like cheating. I don't know how to read it, Rabbi. So I'm looking at the art scroll. I tell the boys it's okay to learn in the art scroll. Better that you should be able to move a little bit quicker and feel a little bit more of a sippah kamefash. Eventually, you'll learn how to read.

5:27 But that is a crush for sure. One would have expected The Torah's fromkait. I mean that in the negative sense. The Torah is only in Moshean kodesh, and it's not translated into any other language. That would have been a very stark message, a sharp message. The Torah is only written in Lashon Hakodesh. And yet we see that it's not only is it not that way, but this, the closing avodah of Moshe Rabbeinu's life to be mafarish the Torah in seventy languages. So we really have to think deeply about this idea that it almost appears to us, and we'll see that this is not true. But it almost appears to us that Moshe Rabbeinu is not makbid that the Torah be written in one language. It's not makbid that it's written in Lashon Hakadosh. Rather, Moshe Rabbeinu is like almost removing the Torah from its original essence.

6:20 And he's making it sort of again. It appears this way. It's obviously not true. But it almost appears to us that Moshe Rabbeinu is making Torah more palatable. It's like a very good shmooz. Everyone learns Torah in their own language. But there's something off about that a little bit. There's something about rising to the occasion and learning Torah in the language in which it was given. Lashanakayish. What is it? What's this very specific avodah that's happening in the month of Shvat that Moshe Rabbeinu is being mifarish the Torah into seventy languages? It's so important that he repeats it twice. And specifically, how does this affect us in the month of Shvat? How does it impact our avodah? So far, so good. The truth of the matter is that the number seventy needs to be understood. I want to share with you a beautiful balaturim. We know that in the Torah itself, the word Shema, the Ayin, is written larger than the other letters. It's a large Ayin.

7:17 So the Balaturim says as follows: Ayin de Shema Gedayla. Why is the Ayin of Shema Ayin? The Gematria of seventy. Why is the Ayin of Shema larger? He says Shaiyin Shemos Leishu Yisrael. That Klal Yisrael has seventy names. We're referred to by seventy names. And Hashem gave us a Torah that has seventy names. We all know there's Shimon Panim Torah. There's seventy different faces of the Torah. And this separates us from the seventy nations of the world. So it's a fascinating thing that the Balaturim is saying that somehow the entirety of Torah is expressed through this idea of seventy. Klal Yisroel has seventy names. The Torah has seventy names. It's explained in seventy ways to separate us from the seventy nations of the world. We know that the Gemara tells us. The Gemara in Shabbos tells us that when Hakadosh Baruch Hu was giving the Torah, the Gemara says, I'll read you the lashon of the Gemara. Called diber v'diber sheyakzmi piagvura. Any word that came out of Hakadosh Baruch Hu's mouth, mechalek l'shivim l'shainus. It was divided into seventy languages by Har Sinai itself. So that when Hashem spoke already at Har Sinai, it became seventy languages. The idea of seventy is not only famous, as we'll soon see in all of Yiddishkeit, but it seems to be connected to the idea of Torah.

8:45 Klal Yisrael, a nation of seventy names, receives a Torah that has seventy names. That's explained in seventy ways to separate us from the seventy nations of the world. Even the giving of the Torah is given in seventy languages. The number seventy is massive throughout all of Yiddishkeit. We know, for example, that Na'ach has seventy descendants. The phrase 've'yedaber Hashem al Mo'ish le'mor' occurs seventy times in the Torah. That was a cool one. The Tikune Zayra has seventy different explanations of the word 'berachus.' We know there is shivim zakenim, there is shivim members of the Sanhedrin. David Hamelach says, 'Yemei Shnai Seinu Bahem Shivim Shana.' The average person lives seventy years. There is seventy years of gullus between the first base hamikdash and the seventh in the second base hamikdash. There is seventy words in Kiddush. That's one I don't think the men know. There's seventy words in Kiddush.

9:34 We spoke around it already. There's Shiv and Panun LeToira. The perhaps one of the most famous ones is we know that the Toira itself can be explained in Pshat, Remez, Drush, and Sod. Sod being the deepest level of Toira. The Gemara already points out that Sod is BeGematria seventy. So this the secret of Toira, the depth of Toira, meaning the deepest level of Toira. And this is a little bit unexpected. Is it connected to the number seventy? That's why in Neknas Yaiin Yatzasol the Gemara says when the seventy of the Yaiin, the seventy Yaiin is the Gematria seventy, so it comes out the side. So what's the Pshat over here? What's this idea that seventy is so integrated into Yiddishkeit? What's the depth of the number seventy? In order to understand this, we need to go back to another problem. We all grew up on the story of Megdal Bavel. We know the story. We'll say the story simply, then we'll see it's not so simple.

10:29 The story is that they all spoke the same language. They were doing a terrible thing. They were building Megdal Bavel. A kadosh Baruch Hu came along and babbled their language. That's why it's called Megdal Bavel. That's the Lashon of Babylon even today. And then they spoke many languages. Remember when you're learning, when you're growing up? You read like the little Medrash says. Somebody asks to pass a hammer. And instead, they pass a saw, and it amputates the person. And that's how they survived. But the Amos says it's not so pashim; it's not so pashim at all. That's actually the story that happened. If you go back and you look at the pesukim So originally in Bara'ishes it says, "Me'ele nifredu iya agoyim baratzosam ishul shaynay le mishvah chaysoyam begayayim." From these, the islands of the nations separated in their land, each one to his language, according to their families in their nations.

11:19 What do we see from this pasuk? How many languages did they speak? Before Megdal Bavel, how many languages did they speak? It seems like they spoke many languages. It's actually the Machlokus and the Rishami. We're not going to get into it right now, but the Pasha Pshat of the Pesukim is well before Hakadosh Baruch Hu was Maval built their language. There was this idea that they spoke many languages. Of course, the problem is that in the story of Megdal Bavel, it says Vehei Kola Aretz. Everybody spoke in one language. So there's a stir in psukim over here. There's a contradiction in the psukim. What language was actually the language of the earth? Was it like the original pasuk says that everybody spoke their own language? Which, by the way, even one would naturally expect. If you had to expect, I know it sounds a little counterintuitive, but if you had to expect in the world how many languages they spoke, you wouldn't say one.

12:12 You might say one because you think to yourself, "Well, Adam Rishon had one language, and he spoke one language to his children, who spoke one language to their children." But the emphasis that we know that language develops—that's why I'll tell you a very beautiful story. It's a silly story, but it's a beautiful story. I dated a girl one summer. And I had a job that my rebbe would stay here at one o'clock sharp. So I had a very silly job in the shiur. It was my job to bang on the table and say 'Ein tzegar, one o'clock,' and then my rebbe would start the shiur. Why that was my job, I'm still not sure. Maybe that's all my rebbe thought I was good for. I could be the guy to know the time. But every day I clapped 'Ein tzegar,' and then rebbe would start the shiur.

13:00 One summer, I dated a girl. And she came from a different part of Europe, and I told her that my job. Looking back on it, probably wasn't the smartest thing to tell her when I was dating. I'm the guy that says Einziger. I imagine that wasn't very impressive if you're looking to date a real Tamulchachum. The guy who claps one o'clock is probably not your guy. Maybe that's why it didn't work out. She was from a different section in Europe, and she was laughing right off. She's like, it's not Ein, it's Ein. So the next Elul, when she started up again, not wanting to feel like a fool, I said Einziger. And my rabbi looks and goes, 'Where were you this summer?' Like all of a sudden, your dialect and Yiddish changed. I grew up in Lawrence, New York, a modern Orthodox kid. The last thing my parents are both Balay Tshuva. The last thing I know is different sections of Europe and how language develops. This is not part of my world.

13:52 But we would expect that language develops. We would expect that people speak in different ways. That's why Hasidim speak differently than Sfaridim. Even within Sfaridim, there's a lot of different. Tamanim speak differently than Persians. And by the way, even today, if you speak to the Syrians, like I just spoke this year in a Syrian school, and they asked me, they said, do you have boys who come to Mivaseret from a Syrian background? They said, not really. We get mostly Persians, and they're like, it was first of all that was very okay, so you don't get real Sardoms. Syrians are very serious about being Syrian, but then they explained to me that even within Syria, there's like places, and they're talking about generations that have been in America already. We don't speak to people who came from Aleppo. I was like, "Oh my God!" You know, it's like think about generations of trauma.

14:38 These guys are living in Deal, New Jersey. You seem to be fine. You have beautiful houses there. Sorry, it's my little rant. It's nine o'clock at night. We would expect that nations would develop and that people would develop their own language. That's what we would expect. And it makes sense that the Torah starts off this way. But there's a beautiful pshat here. The pshat is as follows: Be-emes, the world spoke many different languages. But in Bavel In order to accomplish a particular goal, which we'll speak about in a moment Everyone had to speak the same language. As beings in the world, everyone had their own dialect. But if you lived in Bavel, it was illegal to have your own dialect. You had to speak a certain way. You had to speak with a certain language. Why? The nature of Bavel is that they were terrified.

15:37 They were terrified people, which makes sense. They're today we would call it post traumatic stress disorder. They lived after the destruction of the entire world. Imagine growing up with Holocaust stories. The Holocaust was obviously terrible, but imagine the stories you grew up with, where everybody was wiped out in a flood. That's already a whole different level. The world itself is a precarious thing. Shaliz, what's our response to that? What's our response to the trauma of destruction? And this again, this might be a comment on the educational system. I don't mean to make a comment on the educational system, but when we live in a state of fear of what might be Our tendency is to suppress individuality. There's power in conformity. When you have a group think, when you have everyone thinking in a particular way, it's a very powerful experience. It's an exceptionally dangerous experience. Great rebbeim know how to thread the needle to create achdus with everybody thinking differently. It's a beautiful thing that we see that a really great rebbe knows how to harness the individual talent of every single talmud, and that cohesion of everybody coming with their own unique identity becomes a very powerful force.

16:53 You see, sometimes in yeshiva. A challenge that Baruch Hashem boys are staying. It's great. They're in Eretz Yisrael. They came to flip their brains out, right? Chas v'shal, right? They came to actually really work on themselves, really stay. There tends to be this very negative peer pressure of like, look who's staying in the beis medrash till eleven o'clock at night. Look who's staying in the beis medrash till one o'clock in the morning. And it's not only in terms of how late you stay in the beis medrash. If we can go back in time to when we were eighteen years old, do you remember saying things just to feel what they felt like coming out of your mouth? That if somebody said something and you're like, "Let me see, let me feel how it feels to say that from thing," and then you say it Not me. I remember how many times I tried that over the years. As you're adapting, little children, we like to take on these personas—the persona of our abayim, the persona of our friends, the ashkafa—and we say these things and they don't truly resonate with us. It's a part of our process of building our individuality. We create societies that are conformist societies. We see that that's for sure happening today.

17:59 It's a fascinating thing—the echo chamber. Again, I don't mean to step in American politics. I'm Israeli. We have our own problems, but the and our problems. I'm not sure whose are worse today But the echo chamber that people live in. There's no like people live in their own world, their own like cultivated world of only listening to their news sources. Anyone who says anything that's not the way you think, you automatically write them off. So the opposite of a Jewish way of thinking. We pass in like Beis Hillel over Beis Shammai because when Beis Hillel would express their own shita, first they would express the opinion of Beis Shammai first. It's like if you imagine you get into a fight with somebody. One of the most beautiful things if you're ever in a fight with somebody Is before you say your own opinion, goes, I just want to make sure I understand this. It's a way of really appreciating that somebody else has a very legitimate, very unique thought that needs to be understood, and then to share your own opinion. Was that line for seek first to understand, then to be understood?

18:59 We don't need to. We don't need to push another opinion away and live in a world where everybody's conformists because of our own fears. Unity requires diversity. It's a very hard thing because there are levels of conformity that are appropriate. There are levels of conformity within a society that are appropriate. But how do we live within a world where certain things are conformists and there should be certain community standards that we have and that's right and appropriate without Chassidus hallem squelching and squashing the individual personality. That's not so easy at all. And I'll tell you the truth. In my experience, it doesn't really work long term. The great ones are always the ones that think differently. Every rebbe knows the kid that drives him crazy is going to be awesome one day. And Dafka, they have a certain personality. One of my favorite stories that I heard from Rav Moshe Weinberger, the Rav of Veishkolde Shabudmier.

19:56 He speaks about that when he was a rebbe in Ezra Academy, he had a boy in the shir who was a ganef, who was a real ganef. He was always stealing things, and Rav Weinberger had one of those big yeshivish events. They don't have it today. We have nice cars, but it used to be that they had those boats with the bucket seats. It was like driving a bus. Rav Weinberger said that he said my wife wasn't always the best driver, and sometimes when she was driving, they have those big mirrors on the side, those like big rectangular mirrors. Do you remember them? Chaval, the kids growing up today don't know about wood paneling on station wagons. They don't have the trauma that we grew up with. They don't face the wrong direction. We would drive from New York to Cape Cod, Massachusetts. I'd be facing the wrong way the entire time, playing games with everybody who was behind us.

20:49 The nausea, and the air conditioning doesn't reach all the way to the back, and there's no window to open up. So one time, Weinberger was driving, and his wife knocked off the mirror on the side. So this boy, this Ganov, came into shir. He loved Rav Weinberger. Rav Weinberger was a very charismatic, dynamic high school rabbi before he became the rebbe. And this boy comes in and he goes, "Rabbi, I want you to know, I replaced the mirror on your car." So Rav Weinberger, without blinking, goes, "Where'd you get it from?" He knew that there's no way the boy. So the boy goes, "Rabbi, don't worry about it. I took care of it." What am I going to do? So Rav Weinberger starts giving shir. The principal of Ezra Academy walks in forty-five minutes later. She looks at the gun and says, "What'd you do with my mirror?" He took it off of her car and put it onto Rav Weinberger.

21:45 So Rav Weinberger goes, 'What did you do?' He goes, 'Listen, she's the principal; that's a chashu of possession. But you're the rabbi; that's a more chashu of possession. You needed to have a mirror.' Rav Weinberger speaks about the fact that this young man ended up in Lakewood. He's a bala mechaber of Sfar, and he became a very fine tamol chacham. He said it didn't change his personality even a little bit. The same ganav that he was, he's not a ganav for things anymore. But that same midah, he's a ganav for time. The same midah, because you don't want to squelch these kids. They have a midah that just needs to be channeled. Rav Nachman Bolman Zeicherzatik Lavracha was a tremendous gadol in America and later in Eretz Yisrael. My wife was honored to have him as a teacher. His last couple of years that he was alive, he was a rebbe and darchebina. My wife had him as a teacher. My daughter, Bracha Nachama. Nachama is after Rav Nachman Bolman. She was born right after he passed away, and Rav Bolman was a very special person in my wife's life. I'm from the Farakway community. Rav Bolman built the Farakway community.

22:39 So it was very appropriate to name after Rav Bolman. But one thing that Rav Bolman would always say to my wife is, "Don't clip their wings." Don't clip their wings. When you're raising children, don't clip their wings. We teach kids that it's appropriate to behave in a certain way in a classroom, but to cultivate and allow for a personality to come out, that's not a simple thing. It's not an easy thing at all. The destructive nature of Bavel is not that they unified the people; it's that they didn't unify the people. True unity requires diversity, which requires appreciating all of the different aspects of people, and that's no small matter. We only do that when we're living in a place of fear. When we're in a place of abundance in our lives, other rabba, we celebrate that somebody's different. It's the reason why husbands and wives have such a hard time with each other.

23:27 When there's an impoverished mentality in the marriage, we don't appreciate the other person. When we're deeply connected, you see like this, like beautiful, like I really appreciate that part of you. I see that I don't have that as much, and you bring that to the table. That's why when these lovey-dovey kids are first getting engaged, you always want to check with them, like are they actually seeing the person they're dating? So you say, tell me something that's not so good about her. So what does he say? He goes, well, she's like this, but it actually works perfectly because we complement each other perfectly. It's not that he's not seeing her; it's that the sense of appreciation of a person's uniqueness is there when a person has a tremendous amount of love. And when we don't, when Chassvasholom things are going harder in the marriage, and all of a sudden those same things that are truly complementary all of a sudden irk us. It's very hard to appreciate the diversity of a person. That's the chesaron of Bavel.

24:15 This is not a small thing because. How we teach ourselves to view the world We could see the world through the lens of oneness. We could see the world through the lens of the Rebbeinu Sholom. And then we see all of the unity and all of the diversity of creation. But if we are only trained to see skin deep So then all we see is difference. We don't see the achdus that underlines all of the bria. One could argue, and I'm not saying this is the only way to frame this question. There's a lot of different ways of talking about Yiddishkeit. What's the hedgehog that moves all of Yiddishkeit? Hedgehog is a terminology that I heard once from a famous professor. And what it means is there's one thing in every thought system that it rises and falls with. That all of the system rises and falls with that one thing.

25:10 And in Yiddishkeit, it really could be a lot of things, like the Hafdeler Yechah Kamocha Zekal Gadol B'Torah. Maybe that's the hedgehog of Judaism. Some say Mashiach is the hedgehog of Judaism. Olam Aba. A lot of people have different ways. Even you see in the Rishonim, the Ramban at the end of Parsha Bo speaks about that. The purpose of Yiddishkeit is to know and to acknowledge Hakadosh Baruch Hu in our lives. The Gemara in Kiddushin says Ainu Nivresi Elo Leshamishas Koni. There's a lot of different ideas of what could be the hedgehog of Judaism. But I want to suggest that maybe one way of seeing all of Yiddishkeit is: Do we see oneness in the diversity of the world? Or do we just see difference? That's one way of thinking about all of Yiddishkeit. If the purpose of a Jew is to see Hashem in this world, it means that we see Hashem in every single person, in every single part of this world that's completely different from every other part of this world.

26:02 And therefore, it's incumbent upon ourselves to train ourselves of how to see things. There are people that see the beauty in things; they see the unity in things. And as a result, they're not scared at all by difference. And Fakher, there are those people that are terrified by it because they don't see the underlying achdos of things. This really is the bechina of Mitzrayim. It's a fascinating thing. I want to share with you a very beautiful thing, the Torah. The Torah uses certain lashiness in multiple places. It's meant to draw our attention. If we actually read the words of the Torah carefully, you'll very often notice that when the Torah tells stories, the Torah uses often very similar language in multiple stories, and it's meant to tell us that each one of these stories has a theme. So I want to read to you. Listen to the words. I'll tell you. There's two words you want to be looking for: the word "hava" and "pen."

26:52 When it comes to Megal Bavel, it says, 'Vayoyimru hava nivne lanu iru Megdal kam hava kam.' Let us build for ourselves a city and a tower. Verocha b'shamayim, the head of this tower will be all the way in Shamayim. V'nasal lanushem, and will make for ourselves a name. Pen nafutz al pene kol ares, lest we be scattered upon the face of the entire earth. If you look in the story of Mitzrayim, it's the exact same story. Look at what Paro says. Havan eschakmalo, we have to be wise with these people. Penir bevahaya kisakrenem melcham bvenoiset gamhu asoneine v'enucham banu va'alam in ares. Both Paro and Middalbavah are living with a terrified, impoverished mentality. Middalbavah is terrified that they're going to be scattered across the earth. Paro is terrified that Klal Yisrael is going to join his enemies and is going to destroy. It's going to destroy Mitzrayim. And the Torah is calling our attention. Hava and Pen are used in both places.

27:46 Mitzrayim is also a place of a very, very deep, impoverished mentality, a terrified mentality, because all Mitzrayim sees is many gods. There's no underlying unity to the entire world. Which is why the Torah says an interesting thing When it comes to who comes down to Mitzrayim, who comes down to Mitzrayim? Vayi kol nefesh yotze yerach Yaakov shivim nafesh v'yosef haye b'Mitzrayim. Who came down to Mitzrayim? It says shivim nafesh. What should it have said? Should have said shivim nafashos. It should have said seventy souls. It says seventy. Back to that number, seventy souls. Seventy is diversity. That's what it means. Seventy is all the diversity in the entire world, but for us, it's shivim nafsh. It's seventy, but it's one unified soul. That's the whole Torah. That's why in Kiddush, which is all about being mekadesh, mekadesh the suda and bring a kadosh rochah to the suda. There's seventy words in Kiddush. Everything that has the number seventy. It's meant to imply diversity, but in truth, it implies the unity within the diversity. It's possible that it'll just be the destruction of difference.

28:59 But ultimately, it's supposed to be about the unity within diversity. Before we move on, I just want to say something on a practical level. And this is really the avodah I think of Shvat. Within ourselves, forget within the community. That's poshut that we have to look at the community and appreciate that every single Jew brings something different to the table. But I want to speak about in our own avodah shem, in our own personal avodah. We all also have the bechina of seventy. We live in what's called in anyone here familiar with ifs. IFS is internal family systems. It's a psychological modality of how to see the world. We all have what's called parts. Parts are not ourself. Ourself is a chelak al kamimal. We're a godly soul, but we have parts that are not necessarily expressions of our godly soul. We can be angry. We can be jealous. The soul doesn't operate that way. The natural soul of a person is always in a state of clarity, always in a state of connectedness, always in a state of curiosity, always in a state of creativity. If you're interested in learning more about this, you can type in the eight C's of IFS on Google.

30:09 And there's five P's also. It's very clever how they do it, but those are all ways of being that are called being in self. And then we have these parts of ourselves. These parts are not ourself, but they're parts in our lives. They play important roles. But usually, what happens is that we end up hating our parts. Lamasha, let's say somebody struggles with a part of them that's angry. I hate my anger part because my anger part is bringing so much destruction to the people that I love. Anger never works. You get angry at your spouse for being in a certain way. It doesn't bring them closer. The reason you're angry is because you want them to be closer. Anger always pushes away. We have a tendency to look at our parts, and our parts are sort of like disconnected from ourselves. In their state of scatteredness around us, in this state of disunity, they're not operating harmoniously. There's no one self that draws all of these various parts together.

31:06 And the avoda, and this is spoken about a lot in this modality of ifs, is not to get rid of your parts. We don't get rid of parts, but it's to bring all of the parts under the unity of the soul into the world of self. To me, it's fascinating that in these final moments before Mashiach comes, the psychological community has caught up to something that Yiddishkeit has been preaching for thousands of years: the notion that within a person we have all these shivim parts, so to speak. We have these seventy nations that live within us, but these seventy nations—they need to be brought together. They need to be unified. We need to be able to see the godliness of every single one of our parts. All of our parts are beautiful, but it's hard. You have to dig deep to actually pay attention to what's the beauty of them.

31:53 Lamashol, if you ask a part of you that's angry, if you would say, 'In what way are you protecting me?' That's a beautiful thing to know that a part of you exists only to protect you. That's already a dodgy way of seeing the part. But then, if you actually listen to your part, speak and by the way, these parts do have voices. If you'll really listen to them, if you'll talk to this part of you, if you'll have an internal dialogue, don't worry, you don't have to sound crazy. A lot of people do this. If you'll go to a place and you'll just say to this angry part, "What are you protecting me from right now?" You'll hear the most beautiful, gorgeous things that this part is saying. You'll hear the godliness of this part, and it'll say things like, "I just don't want you to get hurt anymore." Right now, there's something truly beautiful about some of our worst parts, some of the parts that I should say are having the most negative impact in our lives. There are no real bad parts. These parts are all really godly, and what happens is that when we relate to them that way, we become integrated people, where all of these parts are sort of living within the unity of ourselves.

32:55 And on a cosmic level, to find Hashem in all of creation, on a communal level, to be able to appreciate the beauty of every single person in the community, those that are observant, those that are not observant, those that are less observant, those that are more observant, those that are better at learning and worse at learning. But really all of that comes from within ourselves. A person who is living with a deep sense of achdus habayrei, a person who is really living with a unity with Hakadosh Baruch Hu within themselves, and they've been able to unify the different parts of themselves, that happens communally naturally. And it happens cosmically, naturally, also. I think each part really feeds the other. A Jew who makes a bracha on food, who recognizes the achdus of the bayrei, that there is. A kadosh baruch hu's present in that piece of food will also find that within themselves. A Jew who knows how to see the beauty of another Jew, despite their differences, will also find that beauty within themselves. But I think it's true to say that those of us who are struggling—and I'll raise my hand—I'm struggling with this for sure. Those of us who are struggling to find the inner godliness of our parts

34:03 And we hate those parts and we despise. I just wish it was gone already. We tend to do that on a community level also. We tend to push away people in our families, in our community, and we tend not to see Hakadosh Baruch Hu in the Bria. There's something beautiful about beginning from within and really trying to harmonize from within, and then having that expand outwards into the world. Everything in the Torah that includes seventy always has a unity to it. Even the letter Ayin has a secret Aleph in it. It's we say Ayin. There's an Aleph, an unpronounced Aleph. The way that the teimanim say ayin, which is probably the correct way of saying ayin. If you've ever heard teimanim say ayin, they say like, "I can't even do it." I feel like one of the ga'ym that can't say chah. Like it's like ayin. It comes from like a deeply guttural place. But in Kabbalah, it's spoken about that there's an aleph within that ayin, a hidden aleph, a Hakadosh Baruch Hu that's like under the surface of all the diversity in the world. There's some very beautiful mashalim for this.

35:06 We know that the seventy members of Yaakov's family, as they were descending down to Mitzrayim, Al Pikabala, walked around Yaakov Avinu, meaning the one Yaakov Avinu representing that mid of Emes. Emes is the Shetemple of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. That one was always surrounded by the seventy. Klal Yisrael is compared to one sheep surrounded by seventy wolves. On Shmini Atzeres, we bring one ox, which represents Klal Yisrael, which is being sacrificed after the seventy karbanos that we bring for the Umos HaOlam, the Ayn Umos HaOlam. Over the previous seven days of Sukkot Moshe Rabbeinu we know is surrounded by the Shivim Zakenim. My favorite one is that the members, the seventy members of the Sanhedrin, they surrounded the Mufla, the prince. Mufla is from a Loshen of Aleph. It's the Pella, the wonder. The wonder is the Aleph that stands at the center of everything. In Yiddishkeit, there's one God, and all the diversity is an expression of Him. An infinite God would have an infinite amount of expressions. An infinite God would not make the same thing. It wouldn't even make sense to make the same thing. An artist just doesn't stomp repeat what they did. Even you should know when you're giving, just from my perspective, I can't give the same shir twice. I try every shir should be new in its own way.

36:21 Because otherwise I get bored. And if I'm bored, certainly the people are bored. Especially if it's late at night on a Sunday night. It has to be new. It has to be fresh. There's you can't paint the same painting twice. You can't give the same shear twice. The Rebbeinu Shalom doesn't want to make the same person twice. It's not the way that we operate in the world. The way that we naturally operate is that an infinite soul gives birth to so many different types of children. It's such a pellet to me. It's such a pellet to me that I don't want to say anything not nice, but it's such a pellet to me that even now we're still struggling. It's heartbreaking sometimes what we do to kids. Of course there's rules. There has to be rules. And I don't believe in this boundaryless chinuch that exists today.

37:12 And I think that it's not only okay, but I think it's mamlatz that we should tell children no. That there's dignity in saying no to yourself, and that we as a system should teach our children to say no. That's what we do. A kid says, 'Can I eat this?' We go, 'You're not yet. You're not yet. The you know you're still fleishik. You can't have that yet.' You know we don't eat that. That's not our hachshar. There's something very beautiful about saying no. But that we haven't yet figured out how to say no, while allowing kids to be their own unique, creative self. It's killer. You watch children. Children thrive when they are their unique self. That you see kids come alive. Again, this might not be the most politically correct thing to say, but sometimes I see a guy in yeshiva who was always just sort of coasting. He never really was his full self. He never really was on fire.

38:05 And then you see that he goes into business and he finds his place and he finds his voice. And then you see he just takes off as a person. And chaval that we couldn't teach him how to do that in the realm of tyra Chaval that we couldn't teach him how to find his own voice. Because if he would have come on fire earlier within our system, who knows what he could have become in the world of tyra. The greatest gift that my rebbe gave us is he gave us the gift of our own voice. When my rebbe gave shir was the most beautiful thing in the world. My rebbe would have a couple of questions that were like standard questions, and then he would say new chever what do you think

38:39 And he would give us the opportunity to say a sevara, and he was merciless. He was a real brisker. If we said something foolish, he let us know. In fact, my notes on the top of my notes, I used to write down the lines that my rebbe would say to critique the guys because they were so ruthless. It was a real old school brisker, and they were very funny. They were very sharp. Sometimes if I didn't write down the line, my rebbe would say to me, "What's the matter, Mordechai? That wasn't a sharp enough line. Write it down." I had on the top of my notes. I sometimes go back and look at the sharp remarks that my rebbe would say. But he taught us how to think. But then he expected creativity from us. He used to say, 'You can leave the shiur when you ask a hundred percent of the same questions and fifty percent of the same answers.' So I once asked him, Rebbe, why not a hundred percent of the same answers? He goes, Why a hundred percent of the same answers? I just want you to have a kivun in thinking. I want you to have a derech. But after that, the next fifty percent belong to you. What's your chiddush and taira? It was an unbelievable gift. Until I got to my Rebbe Shir, I thought the avoda of learning was to memorize what my rabbayim said.

39:40 And who were the real superstars of the shir, the ones who knew the Rebbe Shir clearly. When I went to my Rebbe Rvparnas Shlita, when I went to my Rebbe, everything changed. It wasn't about memorizing what my rebbe said. It was about appreciating his mahalach and then finding your own voice. It's an avoda etsuma for our generation to teach kids that they have a voice in taira, and that their unique voice is appreciated. We see that the other way isn't working. And there are certain things that are happening now in the world that are good, positive things. Maybe again, a little bit. I don't agree with every aspect of it because maybe it's a little bit boundaryless. But this type of speaking, where we're encouraging children to be a little bit more creative in their Yiddishkeit. It's a beautiful thing. It makes kids come alive. I just want to say one more thing before we get to the question and answer.

40:35 This goes back to the original thing. What was Meishabenu sofa tumelt with? The last month of his life. It's Shvat. What's he doing? So he says in the desert in Eretz Yisrael. You're going into the real world now. You're going out of that unified state of the desert. You're going into this place now where you're going to go out into the real world. You're not in the bubble anymore, where the shechina is, mamash taking care of you. You're going to go out into the world of diversity. When you do, you need to have that unity within the diversity. So he said, translate the Torah into seventy languages. It wasn't taking it out of lashon hakodesh. It was saying, let's take this, let's take this unity that we have, that we found in the desert, that we had by our Sinai. And let's bring that into every dimension of the world. That's the avodah to bring lashon Hakadosh into every single language. It's not detracting from lashon Hakadosh; it's bringing it out. The lashon Hakadosh into every aspect of our being.

41:31 A pika bala, a deer, cries seventy times during labor. Seventy times during labor And the birth pangs of the deer are the most painful because the deer has the most narrow womb. The pain with an ion is a result of the tsar without the ion. The narrowness brings that pain. But from within that pain, when a person gives birth to something There's a pain of leaving that oneness, but it's a pain that we come to appreciate in our lives. I think very often we have to go through pain. We have to go through that narrow place where we give birth to pain, and that sort of becomes all the different parts of our life. But ultimately, that's the child that we raise to bring that child back to that core self that gave birth to that child, to find the unity within the diversity in ourselves, in the community, in Bez Hashem, in all of creation.