Tazria-Metzora - Be Godly, See Deeper

2:12 Like a potion, like a life-giving potion. I guess he was a very charismatic peddler. And the medrash says that Otkin Alei, they all gathered around him. People want to buy this. Who wouldn't want to buy an elixir of life? Everybody's always looking for the fountain of youth. Everybody wants to be young forever. Everybody wants to be connected to life. He was a very charismatic salesman. Rav Yannai, the great sage Rav Yannai, was sitting in the beis medrash, and he heard this guy selling his elixir of life, and he called out to him and he says, "Come up and sell it to me." And the peddler said back to him, 'This samachaim that I sell, listen what he says. He goes, 'You don't need it, and people like you don't need it,' which is an interesting response.' Rav Yannai says, 'No, I want this samachaim.' He insists, and the peddler goes up to the beis medrash of Rav Yannai, and he says, 'You want to hear the secret of life?'

3:16 I'll tell you the secret of life. He pucks out. He pucks out a sefer tihlim, and he says, 'Mi haishachafet zchayim? Who is the one who desires life?' What's written in the very next pasuk? Nitzor l'shon chamerah. Watch your mouth. Don't speak lashon hara. Sur meira vaasey tov. Turn away from bad and do good. Rav Yonai said, 'Whoa, that's an amazing pshat.' And he says, 'Shlomo Hamelach said the same thing because the pasuk in Mishlei says, 'Shomer pev ulishono, watch your mouth and your tongue' Shomer mitzvot nasho, and then you'll be guarded from a life of trouble.' And then Rav Yannai said, 'All my life I was saying to Hillel. Of course Rav Yannai was saying to Hillel, right? He was a great sage. He said, 'All my life I was saying to Hillel, I never knew the simple explanation of this until this peddler came and he said, 'Who wants life?'

4:13 'And now all of a sudden I understand the simple pshat. And that's what the medrash finishes, and that's why Moshe Rabbeinu is warning Klal Yisrael: Zos tia Torah Sametzora, Torah Samotzi Sheimra. Be very careful! Don't speak lashon hara. Don't be a motzi sheimra. Why? Because then you're going to be disconnected from life itself. That's the medrash. It's a classic medrash. It's a well-known medrash. If you never heard of it, feel badly about yourself that you were lacking in your education. If you did hear of it, don't feel so good about yourself. It's a classic. As six questions on the Medrash, six questions. Moving fast, six questions. You want to hear all six? Let's go for six. Question number one: Any time someone teaches us a lesson, any time there's a certain chacham, a certain sage at the center of the story, it's that person for a reason. Of all the people to have this story with this rochel, who is it? It's Rav Yannai. What's our question? Our question is: Who's Rav Yannai? Why is Rav Yannai specifically the one that learns this unbelievable lesson from this rochel.

5:19 That's question number two. Question number one. Question number two. Why Sipori? What's happening in Sipori at that time that the rochel is going around specifically in Sipori, and why Dafke is Rav Yannai living in Sipori? So what's going on in Sipori? Question number three. When Rav Yannai says I want to buy the samachayim. If you're a salesman and somebody says I want to buy your product, what's the correct answer? How much does it cost? If I'm selling and you come and I go, you want to buy a samachayim and you go. What's what do I say? Great. I'm trying to make a sale. So this guy's going around. He goes, who wants to buy the samachayim? Who wants to buy an elixir of life? Raviana goes, I do. And he goes, not for you. If you've got a samachayim and Rav Yannai wants it, why not sell it to him? And he refuses. Why does he refuse? That's a third question. Then there's a fourth question.

6:15 When the peddler, when this rochel goes to Rav Yannai, I don't know if you were listening carefully. I said it specifically. He doesn't. It doesn't just say in the medrash that he goes to Rav Yannai's beis medrash. What does it say? He goes. Who say? Would you say? Very good. Every word. You medayek in every word. He goes up to the beis medrash. Where was Ravyana's beis medrash that you have to go up to it? Was it on the top of a hill? Would the peddler still have gone up to the beis medrash? What does "up" mean? Is this like a very spiritually lofty place? We need to be careful with the language and make sure we're not changing the meaning. We have to understand what it means that he goes up to the beis medrash. Question number five. Ravyana hears this varit, and what does he say? Shlomo Hamelach said the same thing.

6:57 What's he adding on? A little bit, you know what it could Chassid Shalom feel like. Obviously, it's not true. You ever tell a var to somebody and they're like,"It's I know that var, it's same var." You know, you know, like people like have to like compete for varlach. Like you know that var, I know the same var. It was I just heard it from a different person. Oh, it was the Bab Chayyim. I heard it from the Chavetz Chaim. You know what I'm saying? Like like people compete for var. He told him a very nice var. What should he have said? Thank you. That's a very nice var. He says, "No, no, Shlomo Amelch said it too." Obviously, Rav Yannai is adding something. We need to know what's Rav Yannai adding. Question number six. He's blown away by this. Vardi goes. I never knew the simple explanation. Is it possible that Rav Yannai never thought about the simple explanation of a pasuk in Tehillim? If you have an astrophysicist, how can he become an astrophysicist because he knows what?

7:48 Basic physics, right? If you don't know basic physics, you can't become an astrophysicist. I imagine that the great sage Rav Yannai knew Kabbalah, Chassidus. He knew all the Penimias HaTorah. What does that mean? He naturally understands. He knows the simple explanation of the pasuk. So what is Rav Yannai so blown away? I never knew the simple explanation of the pasuk. What's going on over here in this medrash? Those are six questions. So far so good. Let's do eleven questions tonight. We do eleven questions. Let's do eleven. If you can't keep up with it, you can't keep up. Let's talk about a specific halacha. Let's say Chas v'Shalom. Somebody gets zaras. Who declares it to be tzaras? The Cohen. Very good. If I'm not a Cohen, but I'm a huge Tamachachem, am I allowed to declare a zar? Yes, if you're asking about the word 'zaras' in the context of declaring something, then yes, but let's clarify. Does it mean anything? No, I think we can keep it as is. If I go to Rav Asher Weiss and I say, Rav Asher, I have a thing on my house. And Rav Asher comes to my house and goes, 'You got tzaras? Did you do anything halachically? Nothing happened. A kohen needs to declare it tzaras.' Okay, good. Now let's say the Rambam brings the following case. Let's say I have a kohen and he's an amaritz.

9:01 He doesn't know anything. He's an ignorant kohen. He never had the opportunity to learn, but he became a kohen. You know how he became a kohen? It's the only Ravaritz appreciates that joke because it's an old joke. It's a bad joke. Older people we like these jokes. We got smicha from these jokes. I became a kohen because his father was a kohen and his grandfather was a kohen. There's an old bad joke about a guy that comes to a rabbi and he goes, "I want to buy from you that I should become a kohen." He says, "I want to buy from you that I should become a kohen." The rabbi says, "I can't sell it." He goes, "I'll give you a thousand dollars. Just make me a kohen." He goes, "I can't make you a kohen." He goes, "I'll give you ten thousand dollars. Just make me a kohen." He goes, "I can't make you a kohen." He goes, "I'll give you a hundred thousand dollars." The rabbi says, "I can't make you a kohen."

9:39 Why do you want to be a kohen so badly? Because my father was a kohen and my grandfather was a kohen, and I want to be a kohen. Dude, if your father was a kohen and your grandfather, see, I told you it's a bad joke, and you gave me pity laughs. That wasn't nice. You gave me these. Heck, I came here. I'm trying to teach you some Torah. At least give me a laugh. It's a terrible joke. It doesn't deserve a laugh. Let's say you have a kohen and he's an Amorite. And you bring him to the house and you go, 'Is it tzaras?' He goes, 'I don't know. I never learned the halachas of tzaras.' What do you do? So you go to a local tamid chacham who knows all the halachas of tzaras. He comes to the house and he goes, 'Yeah, it's tzaras.' And you know what the kohen does? He declares it tzaras, and then you have tzaras. Isn't that an interesting thing? The kohen knows nothing. The tamid chacham says, 'Say the word tzaras, tzaras.' Now it's tzaras. Let's say the Rambam brings the following case. Let's say you have a katan, a ten-year-old little boy. He's a kohen. Let's say you have a shota. Let's say you have a mentally incompetent person, but he's a kohen.

10:36 And the big Talmachachem comes and he says itzaras, and he turns to this ten-year-old little Cohen and he goes, say itzaras. The Cohen goes, itzaras. What is the halacha? Itzaras. It's a weird thing. A Cohen who's a shote or a Cohen who's a katan can declare you to have itzaras. Is a famous question of the Minchas Chinuch. Let's say the Cohen is blind. What would you say? This is your class participation moment. Let's say you have a blind Cohen. Can he see the house? Can he see the clothing? Can he see the skin? No. How do you know? Because he's blind. Very good. That was excellent. Thank you for coming along with me on that. Is that a problem? No. Why not? It's not a problem because what should happen? Just have the Tamid Chacham stand next to him. Go. Trust me. Itzaras. And then he goes Itzaras. And then you should be.

11:25 You should be a Metzora. But you know Rashi, the Meiri, and others all say a kohen needs to be able to see. Why? Why does the kohen need to be able to see? If it doesn't matter if he even knows if it's haras, he could be a katan, he could be a shote, he could be an ama aretz. What's the difference if he could see it or not? It just has to come out of his mouth. But the halacha is, according to Rashi, the Meiri, and others, he can't be blind. So what's our next question? Seventh question for the night. Why can't a kohen be blind and declare you to be a mitzora? That's another question. I have another question. As a Mishnah in Negaim, chapter 12, Mishnah 5, the Mishnah in Negaim says as follows: Let's imagine you have a massive Talmud Chacham. The massive Talmud Chacham wakes up one day and he sees on the walls of his house, Tzaras. Let's say this massive Talmud Chacham, his area of expertise is he is the master of Tzaras. He studied Tzaras under the greatest Talmidei Chachamim of the time. He's considered the world's foremost expert in Tzaras. He wakes up in the morning and he sees on the wall of his house. What does he have? He has Tzaras.

12:33 He goes to the Cohen. What are the words he's supposed to say? What would you have expected? I'm not going to tell you yet. What would you expect him to say? I have taras. And yet the Mishnah says, what is he supposed to say? Kinega nira libabayis. It appears that I have taras on my house. Why does he have to say? What is he humble? Maybe. It appears All of a sudden he gets very yeshivish. It could be. Maybe I have saras on my house, dude. You're the world's leading expert in saras. The kohen might not even know if it's saras. We have to come, and you can't say I have saras on my house. What do you say? Kin nega nera li baba yis. It appears that I have saras on my house. Why? Why can't he be confident? That's another question we have for tonight. I have another question. There's a gemara in Eirechin 16a.

13:22 This is a cool one. We all know that you get zaras for what avera. The Gemara in Eirechin tells us there's another avera that you get zaras for. It's called stinginess. The Gemara says if you're a person who has zaras ayin, if you're a stingy person Then you get zaras. I have a question. If you were writing the lashon Hakodesh, if you were writing the Hebrew language What words would you use to describe stingy? How would you say stingy? The Gemara calls it saras ayin. What's a little bit weird about that? If you're stingy, where's the problem in your eyes? What body part is the problem? Your hands. You're not sharing what you have. Sharing is important, right? You're not sharing what you have with others. Why does the Gemara say a stingy person gets saras? You know what stingy is? Saras ayin. He's restricting his hands. Weird that it calls it saras ayin. That's another question.

14:19 That's enough questions for today. Let's start to get some answers. There's three types. Here we go. You ready? This where you. This where you give me feedback with your eyes. It goes like this. When I say you're ready, you go like this. You go. Ready? I taught you how to do that. Let's try this again. You ready? Oh my gosh. One more time. We're gonna do it. It's gonna be great. When I say, "Are you ready?" If you're ready, you go like this. Are you ready? We're getting there. But some of you are still like, no, I refuse to do it. What is this oppositional defiant disorder? All you have to do is go like this. I'm going to assume you're ready. There are three types of people in this world. There are materialists, spiritualists, and godly people. Spiritualists, materialists, and godly people. Three types of people in this world.

15:12 A materialist. We usually think of a materialist as somebody who's obsessed with consuming the material world. Somebody who's obsessed. I got to get the latest car. I got to get the latest gadget. I have to get the biggest house. I have to go on the nicest vacation. I have to go on the best Pesach program. I got to tell you, I'm not into Pesach programs. But I saw in my WhatsApp status people like walking around with giant. Literally from dinosaurs, the ribs of dinosaurs on plates. The plates are this big. The dinosaur ribs are this big. They're walking around, and as a materialist, I'm going that looks awesome. These are not T-bone steaks. These are T-bone sides of a cow that every single person gets for ten thousand dollars for a week on a Pesach program. You too can eat the side of a cow. What's this material? We're like, he's a materialist. She's a materialist. She's obsessed with the materialism of the world. She needs to go out and get the latest bag. She needs to get the latest Prada shoes.

16:09 The latest product. She's a materialist. You know why a materialist is a materialist? A materialist is not a materialist because they're obsessed with consuming things. A materialist is a materialist because when they look at the world, all they see is the surface. These are very shallow people. They don't see deeply. Their vision of beauty is skin deep. When they see the world, all they see is the surface of things. And they say, "I like things. I want more things in my life." If you think about what it means to be an adult. For some materialists, this is what it means to be an adult: I want to have the most things, so I need to have the biggest container to keep the most things in. So I need to have the biggest house to bring in the most things into the biggest house. And I'm going to work all day to get enough money to consume the most things to be in my big container. That's a materialist. A materialist is somebody who sees the surface of the world. A spiritualist—this is the big chiddush for tonight. You ready?

17:06 A spiritualist is also obsessed with the world. But they're obsessed in the opposite direction. I don't. This is I don't. I should not give this marshal. I know I shouldn't give this marshal. It means I'm giving it. But I know I shouldn't do it. For sure, I'm gonna get in trouble for saying this. But just bear with me. I don't mean anything bad. I would say this, Moshe, if I was speaking in Mevaseret too. You know how there are people that are obsessed with food, so they eat food all the time. Then there's people that are obsessed with food, so they don't eat food at all. But they talk about it. You know what I'm talking about? You know the people that they're dieting, and everybody knows. And they're like maybe even watching YouTube shorts of cooking, you know I'm talking about. But no actual food comes into their mouth.

17:57 Just because you're not eating food doesn't mean you're not eating food. Some people eat the actual food, and some people consume the food without any calories. But they are just as obsessed with food. It's a reaction to the material world. Some people, the nature of their, they look at the material world, they go, I want all of it. Some people look at the material world and they say, "I'm allergic to the material world. I'm out. We out. Drop the mic. I'm leaving. I'm done. I don't want anything to do with the material world." They're very obsessed with the material world. That's why they want to leave it. We call these people spiritualists. Spiritualists like to find God outside the physical world. They prefer going to a mountaintop in Tibet where they can do goat yoga. By the way, I know that you're going to laugh, but just for everybody else.

18:45 You live in a generation where people go like, yeah, goat yoga, that's a good idea. My generation, as messed up as the 90s were, it never occurred to me that I would have to do a rant on goat yoga. Why? And then there's happy yoga, there's laughter yoga. You know what that is? That's comedy. Just come and laugh. We can't. What is wrong? I'm going to pay for laughter yoga. And by the way, just because you call it yoga doesn't mean it's yoga. And then there's breathing. It's like I'm going to go to the mountaintop in Tibet. I'm going to sit in this pose and I'm just going to do box breathing for 13 hours in a row. Like these people, they're just leaving the world. What do I do? And they're very obsessed with it. They'll tell everybody about it. They're like, yeah, I'm journeying. I'm doing ayahuasca now, and everything is about leaving the material world. They're obsessed with the material world. That's why they're trying to find God outside of the material world. So there's people that are materialists. There's people that are spiritualists. They're the same person. They're just two sides of the same coin. Does that make sense? They're both having these reactions, surface-level people, and the people—they're also very surface-level people. They say, "I can't find God in this world. I gotta leave."

19:50 See, the thing about the materialist is, he's like, "I can't find God in this world, and I don't care to." The spiritualist says, "I can't find God in this world, so I'm gonna leave." It's the same thing. They're both very surface-level people. There's a third type of person. This is what it means to be a Jew. A Jew is godly. We're not materialists and we're not spiritualists. Where do we find God? Right here in this world, that's what it means to be a godly person. A godly person. Here's his core feature. When he looks at the world, he sees beneath the surface. He has great eyes. When he looks at someone, he sees through to their soul. He knows I'm not talking to their skin. I'm talking to them.

20:28 You understand? He can see through. When he sees a table, he doesn't just see a table. He says that could be a Shabbos table. When he sees chicken, he says that could be chicken for Shabbos. Everything that he sees, he says, "How do I see this thing so that I can do a mitzvah with it? So that I can find Hashem within the world." So they're not like the materialists because they're not just obsessed with consuming because they see deeper. But they're not like spiritualists because they're not running away from the world either. They know what's the secret of life. The secret of life is right here, right now, in this world. You got to see beneath the surface. That's where you find Hashem. So three types of people: materialist, spiritualist, and godly people. The Mitzora, the person who gets zaras, he's the ultimate materialist. That's why. Where does he get zaras?

21:18 Getting awkward. That's why he gets zaras on the surfaces of his life. Where does he get zaras first? On his house. Then where does he get zaras second? On his clothing. Where does he get zaras third? On his skin. What is Hashem telling him? Mida koneged mida. You looked at the surface of this world; all you saw was skin deep. So where does the affliction lie on the surface of your life? Hashem is telling the Mitzvah: you gotta be a person who sees deeper. You're the ultimate materialist. And this is why the materialists of the world are very stingy. Because if all you see is the surface of this world, and you have a dollar in your pocket, and somebody comes and says, 'Hey, can I have a dollar?' If all you can see is the surface, when you look at that dollar, what do you see?

22:07 That's my dollar, and what can I do with that dollar? I can go buy a hamburger with that dollar. Why would I ever give you that dollar? What would a godly person do when he looks at a dollar? What would he see? He wouldn't just see the dollar bill. What would he see? He would say, 'What is the purpose of this dollar bill?' So if somebody knocks on your door and they say, 'Hey, I don't have so much. Do you have?' The person would go, 'Of course, I have. I've been waiting for you. I have this stuff that I know is designed for me to give away. So I'm excited when you come to the door to give you tzedakah.' You understand? So what's the stingy person's problem? Is his problem in his hands? Where's his problem? His problem is that he tsaras ayin. He has a scarcity mentality. All he sees is the surface of the world. So he says, "This dollar, it's mine. It's not for me to give away."

22:55 That's why it doesn't feel very good to keep a dollar for yourself. What feels better to take that dollar and buy a hamburger, or to take that dollar and give tzedakah? It's an amazing thing. When you give it away, how does it feel? It feels amazing to give it away. Why? Because the design of the thing is actually that it's meant to be given away. That's why in this generation, it's an interesting thing. What do you do with love? What do we talk about love in this generation? Self love. You have to love yourself. You have to love yourself. Girls. The purpose of love is to give it away. Self love is miserable. The people who talk about self love all the time are the most miserable people. They keep saying the problem is I don't love myself enough. The problem is that you don't know that you are love, and that what you're meant to do with it is give it away.

23:42 If you access the love that you have and you give it away, you'd be thrilled in your life because you have something that's meant to be shared with the world. It feels much better to give a dollar to Stucker than to keep it for yourself. That's why when your parents got older and they had you, they learned how pleasant it is to spend your life giving to another. Of course, then you were 16 years old, and you made your parents miserable. But hopefully, you did tshuva here in Torah Devora. Now you're ready to go back to your parents and say, 'I'm so sorry for what I did to you. I hope that I can do tshuva by getting married and having children of my own that I will give to them.' And they will give you nachas. And then that girl will turn 16 years old and do it to me, and that'll be my ultimate kapara. You understand? Then she'll do tshuva by getting married, having children. You understand? Rinse and repeat. This is the traumatic cycle of what we're all living through. Ready? The problem with the stingy person is they have tzara'as and they have a perception problem. They only see skin deep. What is the word mitzora a contraction of? Motzira. You know why these people only see negativity in the world?

24:44 Because that's what happens if you look at the surface of the world. If you look at the surface of the world and you don't see the deeper story, you'd probably think the world is a miserable place. No? If you read the news. Every single day, what will you hear about? You will hear about tragedy everywhere you go. There was a tsunami in China, and two thousand people died. And then you hear about the famine over here, and there's Trump decided no more oil for the world. And people in the Philippines are dying. And it's like if you look at the surface of the world, you say the world is a miserable place. You know why these people are mochirah? You know why everywhere they look they find bad? It's because they only look at the surface of the world. Of course, people who are looking deeper realize there's a story that's unfolding. I have a friend, an old friend from Farakawa Yerakodesh, where we grew up.

25:34 He said he was talking about what was going on with Trump and the war and all these things, and he said a very beautiful, very sharp line. I love this line. He said, "You are watching a 24-hour news cycle. I'm reading a 3,000-year-old history book. We are not the same. I like that. Some people are mochira because their vision is very narrow. They're only watching 24-hour news cycles. Our vision is very expansive. When we hear the story of what's going on in the world right now, Jews are going. I know this story. It's called Mashiach." I've been watching this story unfold for thousands of years. We're not negative people because we know how to see deeper. The Metzora is a very negative. Stingy person because all he can see is the surface of this world. That's why. How many years did he wander in the desert?

26:21 Forty years. How long is it to get from Israel to Egypt? It's very simple. You book La Lechet Tours for twenty five hundred dollars. You take a bus. They give you a little airplane meal on the bus. You go to Eilat. You go to Taba. You go to Sharm el Sheikh. You go to Cairo, and then you go to Greece, Rome, wherever you go. What did it take you? Seven hours? Eight hours? If you didn't have a bus and you were traveling longer than that, fifteen hours? What's the trauma here? Fourteen hours. You traveled fourteen hours from Jerusalem to Sharm el-Sheikh, just driving. Terrible. Are you okay? Do you want to share with all of us? You could get a couch. What was that like for you? I want to hold space for you. I want this to be a space where it's vulnerable. It's beautiful. And what was your ultimate destination? Where in America did you land?

27:08 California, my heart bleeds for you. I ended up on the west coast. The weather was perfect, and I didn't run into a mamad even once. As the missiles were falling on Eretz Yisrael, I was in which Pesach program? Palm Springs. Of course, Palm Springs, California. It was a 14-hour journey for you to arrive in Palm Springs, California. 14 hours, including the flight back to LA. 14 hours of driving, and then you had a 12-hour flight. So through the miracle of modern science, it took you less than 30 hours to go around the world. It's terrible what you have to go through. Amazing, right? Okay. I had a very similar experience, except it involved. We had to only go to places with miklatot because we didn't know if missiles were going to be falling on us. So our Pesach program was a trip to IKEA for a scavenger hunt. And we weren't even allowed to do that, right?

28:10 So it's not your fault. It's not nice. I'm sorry. It's just my personal trauma of watching people go. I have to leave your country. It's your country too. But say this. So I told you it was an ADHD night. It doesn't take you 40 years to get from Egypt to Israel. It's a 14-hour drive, and even if you walk it, if you space it out, what's 14 hours? A couple of weeks. A couple of months. Took us 40 years. Why? Because the pasuk tells us for every single day that the meraglim were in Eretz Yisrael, which was 40 days, they spent a year in the desert. Since they were in Eretz Yisrael for 40 years, for 40 days, they had to spend 40 years wandering around. Girls, how long do you think it would take to get from here to there? Well, if you're going by foot, it might take a while. But if you're going by car, it's much faster. So, depending on the mode of transportation, the time varies. Girls, how long do you think the Meraglim were speaking for? When they came back and they get colleagues all together and they go, "Okay, so what about the other one?" They go, "Let me tell you how terrible Eretz Yisrael is." This is their big avera. This is where they say lashon hara. It wasn't an avera for them to go to Eretz Yisrael. The aver original vocabulary and structure should be preserved.

29:07 How long did they give that speech for? Half an hour, forty-five minutes. It was a PowerPoint presentation. It got boring. It was two hours. Forty years for two hours. It's forty years forty days. Why are we saying forty years forty days? You know what the answer is. The two hours of lashon hara that they told was a product of the fact that they went to Eretz Yisrael for 40 days and all they saw was negative. Everybody was dying. They came back and they said everybody in that land is dead. They said, 'I'm going to be there.' They had to go through the whole process. That was my experience. I think it's better to do it this way. Right, but it's just one part of the story. The deeper truth was that everybody was dying. They were dying so that they could actually go to the land unnoticed and survive. It doesn't depend on the reality. It depends on your narration of the reality, and your narration of the reality is based on how you perceive the world. You ever have two people who tell the same exact story, but it's the exact opposite story? In one story, she's the hero, and the other person is the villain. In the other story, she's the hero, and you're the villain. How is that possible? We're all seeing reality. None of us are seeing reality as it is. We're seeing reality as we are.

30:09 So they had forty years of punishment in the Midbar. Because forty days they were in Eretz Yisrael, and all they saw was the negative. We spent a lot of time just now talking about materialists who only see the surface of the world. Let's talk about the spiritualists for a second. We asked six questions on the Medrash. We're going to revisit the questions right now. This story that I told you about this peddler and Rivyanai living in Sipori—that story that I told you—it took place in the Galil in northern Israel at the beginning of the third century C.E. 130 years after the destruction of the Second Beit Hamikdash by the Romans, and around 80 years after the Bar Kochba rebellion, we know what happened. We know the story. The Romans came and destroyed the Beit Hamikdash. They were in Eretz Israel. Bar Kochba led a rebellion against them. Thousands of Jews were killed, and then after that, the Roman legionnaires would walk around Eretz Israel and they would murder Jews because they wanted to quash any rebellion. And they were brutal beyond absolute description.

31:16 Around the year 150 CE, a major innovation happened in Kallah Yisrael. Never before was it done. It was huge. There used to be something called the Torah Shabbeth Sab, the written Torah, and the Torah Shalvah Peh, the oral Torah. The oral Torah, you were not allowed to write it down. It had to be transmitted father to son. You had to give it over orally. You weren't allowed to write it down. Rav Yehuda Hanassi saw after the destruction of the Second Beis Hamikdash. He saw that Klal Yisrael was dying. And he knew that the Torah Sheba'al Peh was going to be lost. He said I have to write it down, and he redacted what's called the Mishnayos. Girls know what Mishnayos are. There's Mishnayos and then Gemara. Rav Yehuda Hanassi was the first person to write down the Torah Sheba'al Peh. This was a major innovation.

32:06 You know who one of his premier talmidim was? Ravyanai. Do you start to get the sense of who Ravyanai was and where he was living? Ravyanai was living at a time of brutal persecution of Klal Yisrael, where it got so bad that his rebbe had to write down the Torah Sheba'al Peh. You know what Ravyanai said? He said, "I don't want to be in this world. This world is pain. This world is destruction. I'm not interested in being in this world. I'm going to be a spiritualist. I'm leaving the world. I'm going to find Hashem outside of this world because this world is too painful to live within." There are people that do this. It's understandable. There was a town called Sipori. What does the word Sipor mean? What do birds do? They chirp. Or in modern language, what do they do? They tweet, Birds chirp. It's a fancy way of saying this was a place of a lot of loshon hara And there was a tzaddik, a big tzaddik

33:01 And he was a rochel. Which officially means a peddler, but what does the word rochel sound like? Sounds like a like rechilus, right? Like a slanderer, a gossip. But this person who had this unbelievable gift of gab, instead of using it to take down other people, what did he do? He used it to bring people closer to Hashem. He was so charismatic because he had the power of a rochel. He had the power of rechilus, right? You ever see those people that are really good at telling lashon hara? This is Hollywood today. I remember many years ago. I heard from the Rebbe, and it's very important to know what the Rebbe said. He said there's three types of people. People who have so much to say but they can't get it out. Sometimes you find short sentences. Sometimes you find big Talmidei Chachamim. They have so much to say but they don't have the right words. Then you have to make sure that you're not making a mistake. The third one is like that. So you need to be careful with your language. Then you have people that they have nothing to say but they say it so well. That's Hollywood. They have nothing to say. I do not care about Kim Kardashian or any of her sisters. I don't care about the whole family. I'm not even sure why they're famous, and I'll bet you don't know why they're famous.

34:00 Nobody knows why they're famous. Okay, so I think the main point is that we don't know why we care about the Kardashians, but they're very good. All these magazines. You want to know who George Clooney just broke up with? No. I have no interest in knowing. It's not relevant to your life. None of you have ever been better or worse people for knowing which Asian baby was just adopted by which Hollywood star. You don't need to know it, and yet, thank you. And you don't need, and yet, billions of dollars are spent in Access Hollywood and TMZ. Going, guess what? This person just had a car accident. It happens. But everybody needs to know. They have nothing to say, but they say it so well. Some people have the gift of gab. They're a rochel. They have nothing to say. But some people, this is the third category. They're tzaddikim.

34:38 They have so much to say and they say it so well. This guy was so charismatic. He went around and he said, "Who wants real life?" And people were drawn to him. And he said it in Sipur. And guess whose base madras was in Sipur? Rav Yannai, the spiritualist who had left the world to find Hashem. He's in Sipur. But where in Sipur is he? Up. Up, because he left. He was there, but he wasn't. He was beyond the world. He said, "I can't find Hashem in this world. This world is a place of destruction." So the peddler says, "Who wants a samachayim?" Rav Yonai says, "I've been looking for a samachayim." What does the peddler say? This tzaddik goes, 'It's not for you.' Because you left the world. See, you think that connecting to Hashem means beyond this world. You think it's impossible because of all the destruction and the devastation. Rav Yonai says, 'No, I'm trying. Teach me the wisdom.' So this simple—obviously not truly simple—this simple peddler goes up to the beis medrash. Why does he go up to the beis medrash? Because what's his goal? To bring Rav Yonai back down. He goes up and he says, 'It's a pasuk and to him.'

35:38 What does the pasuk say? Mei Yisha Chavitzheim. If you want life, Nitzor Leshon Chamerah. You gotta be in the fight. You gotta be down here in this world. It's so gishmak to say Lashanara. How gishmak is it to say Lashanara? Very gishmak. You ever do that? You ever sit down with a group of friends and just literally eviscerate a person for a good hour and talk total smack about her. You're sitting in that circle. You know what I'm talking about. You're sitting in the circle, the beds and the dorms. You're all sitting down. She thinks she's cute, right? And everybody is sitting there and talking about her for an hour. You're destroying a person for an hour. Mwah, delicious. I want to do it more. I want to do it again. It's a beautiful laugh. You should laugh with the whole room. Your husband's gonna be so lucky because every time he says a joke, your home is gonna be filled with laughter. You're the luckiest person in the entire world.

36:30 I'm lucky to have you this year. You make me feel so good about myself. Even the terrible jokes, you laugh at. I love it. It's a wild thing. We love it. You know what this rochel says to rav yonai. You want life? It's down here in this world. Stop yourself. Come down in this world. You're going to have a pull to say lashon hara. Just don't do it. Hold yourself back from saying that lashon hara. That's where life is. You're going to have the opportunity to do something bad. Turn away from it. Do something good. That's where life is, says Rav Yanna Givat. I'd never realized. I never realized. Shlomo HaMelech was saying the same thing. Shlomo HaMelech said. Listen to the words. What did Shlomo HaMelech say? Shlomo HaMelech said. It doesn't say don't speak. What does it say?

37:26 Guard your mouth. Guard your lips. You got to be in the fight. He's not just stam adding on a vart. He's not trying to compete with the peddler. What's he saying? He's saying, I realize this is what the Torah is telling us. Not just David and Melch. Shlomo and Melch too. Everything in the Torah says what? Be here in this world. I'm going to make a mistake. I'm going to fall. It's going to be imperfect. I'm going to fight. I want to leave the world. I want to connect to God. You don't connect to God by leaving the world. You connect to God by staying in the fight. That's what's impressive. I could come to She'er. I could do something inappropriate. I cannot do something inappropriate. The fight is to be here and do something appropriate. The fight is to turn away from bad to do good. You understand? At the very end of the story, Rav Yannai is moirde, impressed by this. He says, "All my life, I've been saying to him." And when Rav Yannai said to him, how was he saying to him? He was flying up.

38:16 He was flying up. He was learning the deepest Chassidus, the deepest Kabbalah. Everything Rav Yannai was doing was so unbelievably transcendent. Rav Yannai says, "I forgot the simplicity." I forgot the simple words. What are the simple words? You got to be in the fight. That's the beauty. So Rivyanai learns in Sipori from a rochel. He learns where life is really found. Life is not found from disengaging in the world. Life is found right here in the muck, right here in the dirt. That's where you find Hashem. Who's the ultimate godly person? We spoke about the materialist. He only sees the surface. We spoke about the spiritualist. He also only sees the surface. That's why he leaves the world. Who's the real deal? The real deal is the most godly person. We call that the Cohen. What do we say about a Cohen? What does the Mishnah Avot say about a Cohen? You know this. What does the Mishnah Avot say about a Cohen? He's Ohev Shalom, Vero Deve Shalom.

39:08 He's running after peace. He loves peace. Girls, what's peace? Peace is the harmony of opposites. Peace is when you take two things that appear to have nothing to do with each other and you're able to merge them together. Or to put it a little bit differently. The godly person comes down to a physical world, and what does he discover within the physical world? Shalom. He knows how to unite Hashem and the physical world. That's the job of a kohen. Who can declare you a mitzora? Not a tamacham. A tamacham can't declare you a mitzora. Dafka a kohen. Why dafka a kohen? So it goes like this. Normally. If you get strep throat You go to the doctor. You sit down in the doctor's office. What does the doctor do? He tortures you. It's a crazy thing. He says, "You say my throat is hurting." He says, "Open your mouth, say." You open your mouth, you stick out your tongue, you say. He takes a tongue depressor and then he shoves this long stick down your throat. He doesn't need to. How do you know he doesn't need to? Because some nurses who are very good at it, they just like to tickle the top for like a second and you're done. But sometimes you have those doctors that for some reason you're

40:23 It was sticking out the back of your throat. Let's see what happens. At night, I'm convinced that some of these sadistic doctors go home, and their wife goes, "How was your day today?" He's like, "I was choking kids left and right." So taste. The amount of trauma that I caused today, I have a deal with the therapists in the neighborhood that all the kids who don't want to come to me. When the doctor sees you and he puts in a little solution, two seconds later it comes out. You have a rapid, you have strep. What does he do? He gives you amoxicillin or penicillin, depending on which one you're allergic to. And he says, 'Take this, and then you'll get better.' You came, he diagnosed you, and then he gave you your cure. A cohen is exactly the opposite. A cohen gives your cure before he even diagnoses you. How does he do it? A cohen, you come to the cohen And what does the cohen do? Because the cohen is very godly, he looks at you and sees deeply.

41:11 He sees before he even looks at your tzaras. What does he see? He sees you. He connects deeply to you. That's why, if you've ever been in the presence of someone who really knows how to see You feel beautiful before they even look at you. You ever meet people like that? They have like a very strong gaze. I don't mean like physically they make inappropriate eye contact. I'm talking about something much more than you know. I'm talking about people that just so naturally see the beauty in the world. They just connect so deeply to the essence. In their presence, how do you feel? You feel like you could be your best self. You feel like I'm forgivable, I'm lovable. My imperfection could be beautiful. I want to become my best self. It's an amazing thing to be seen by someone who's Ohev Shalom veRoave Shalom, Ohev Mitzabrios uMekarvul laTorah. If you're in the presence of a true Cohen, they pull you in.

42:07 And then finally, when he looks at the tzaras, he goes, 'Yeah, you have your little tzaras here. We have to work it out. We have to work on some stuff.' But you fundamentally are beautiful. What was the problem with this guy? Why was he saying washin hara? Because he was looking at people, and what was he seeing? Only the surface of this world. But in the presence of the Cohen, what does he already learn? I don't want to be a person that sees the surface. I want to see people deeply, just like I just got that beautiful gift from the Cohen that I was seen deeply. I want to see them deeply. And so, already before the diagnosis, he already has the cure. I know what the problem is. The problem is that I was seeing the surface of this world. The Cohen is the ultimate godly person, and that's why what's critical? He can't be blind. He doesn't have to know halacha. He could be a shote, he could be a katan, he could be a total amaretz, because a tamachachem could tell him that's saras.

42:58 But he has to be able to see you Because if a Cohen can't see you in his presence, you won't feel loved. When you're really in the presence of a beautiful Cohen, everything just becomes crystal clear. I'm beautiful. They're beautiful. The world is an amazing place. And Mameila, we're going to work on a little bit of things. But if he can't see, what does Rashi say? What does the Meiri say? He's not a Cohen that could tell you you're a Metzora because first, before you're told you're a Metzora, you need to be seen deeply for who you really are. And that's why when a Talmud Chacham comes. And he says, and the Talmud Chacham knows that he has tzaras on his house. He knows it. He's an expert in the laws of tzaras. But what does he say? Kinega nera li babayas. It appears that I might have a nega on my house. How could it be? How could he say it appears that way that I have a nega on my house? You know what the answer is. The Gemara in Brachos says as follows: A person should train themselves to say, "I don't know."

43:55 Person should train themselves to say, 'I don't know.' It's a weird thing to say, no? In today, in 2026, what do we tell people? Be confident in your truth. The self has clarity, right? We don't train people today to say I don't know. And yet the Gemara says, 'I don't know.' Why? I'll tell you a beautiful answer. In the world that's very surface oriented, everything is very sure, because in the world that's surface oriented, everything that's measured. I see the dimensions of this. I see the dimensions of that. One plus one equals two. In the world of surface, everything is very defined. You know what starts to happen when you go beneath the surface? You know what you start to say? I don't know. And there's something beautiful about saying I don't know. It means that life is a mystery. It means that life is an adventure. There's something going on underneath the surface. I don't know what it is, but I'm excited not to know because that means I'm a learner. I'm on a journey. I'm going somewhere. That's an amazing thing to be.

44:48 So that Kamochachem he sees that he has saras on his house, and what does he remember? I've been looking at the surface of the world, so that by the time he comes to the Cohen, what does he say? I don't know. Maybe it is because he's already started his journey of looking beneath the surface, and he comes and he says, "I don't know what's going on. There's something going on, but I don't know what it is." There's an unbelievable chidush sheharim, and I'll finish with this. It's based on a zohar Hakadosh. The zohar says there's three letters that mean exactly the opposite: ayin nun gimel or nun gimel ayin. Oneg, which means pleasure, and nega, which means like lesion, tzaras. What's the difference? Says the Chiddush Arim. It just depends where you put the ayin. If you put the ayin in the front of the word Then you have a life of oneg. But if you put the ayin in the back of the word, then you have a life of pain.

45:41 You see, some people Their ayin, their power of perception, is all the way in the back. They're very negative people. Everything is terrible. And that's why they live a life that's terrible. Some people are beautiful. They put the iron in the front, and that's why their life is onig. Everyone's dealing with the same circumstances, and some people seem to deal with it better than others. We don't perceive the world the way it is. We perceive the world the way we are. If you have the power of sight, if you know how to be a godly person and see beneath the surface of the world, that's when life becomes awesome. Sadly, there are some people who put the eye in the back of their life. They're miserable, always taking down other people, saying Loshen Har is stingy. Because their perception is all the way at the back. Their perception of the world is broken. Yiratam Melech Avinu Shabbos Shamayim. May it be Hashem's will that we have the power of eyesight restored in our days in order to greet Mashiach. And that's why every single day in davening, what do we say? Vasecha Zena Einenu B'Shiv Chutzim Brachim. Grow to a beautiful Shabbos.