Terumah - Building a Relationship with Hashem

2:27 So they just happen to be living next to each other. And as we'll see in a moment, the goal of a relationship is not just to be living next to each other. It's not just to be close, but it's fundamentally to become one. And so Parshas Meshevatim and not Parshas Truma follows Parshas Yisro, because after the wedding, the next thing that we need to establish is what it looks like on a practical, day-to-day, actionable level. To build a relationship, otherwise we could chas v'shalom end up as just two people who are living next to each other. Once we know that, and that's parshas meshvatah, it now brings us to parshas truma. Parshas truma is actually the building of our home. What does it look like to actually build a home with each other? So we're going to speak about three aspects tonight, all based on one pasuk. Three aspects of what it looks like to build a home with each other. What it looks like to build a home with our kadosh baruch hu. Let's look at the pasuk.

3:29 The pasuk says, 'Daber el bnei Yisrael vayikchuli truma. Take for me truma.' We'll see what that means. May es call ish asher yedven elibo from every person whose heart inspires him to be generous and to contribute to donate to the building of the misgawn. Tikhu es trumasie. Take for me an offering. There are three Rashi's here that we're going to examine. Rashi number one, vayikchuli truma. Rashi says, 'What's pshat in the word 'li'? What does it mean? Take for me truma.' So Rashi says, "Li" means "l'shmi," for me. There's a very esoteric idea that needs to be understood very well because it's very often misunderstood. The idea is as follows: When I was growing up So I would always ask my rebbeim. What's the point of davening? You heard that question? What's the point of davening? So my rebbeim would go. Obviously, God doesn't need your tefilos.

4:41 So the point of davening is for you. So back when I was a what I thought was a clever high school kid. And since I don't feel like I need davening Sayonara. I think that's what a lot of us feel. I think a lot of us, maybe we don't necessarily articulate it in the same way, but a lot of us are asking the question: Who am I doing this for? Who is my yiddishkeit about? Am I doing it for me, or am I doing it for Hashem? And if I'm doing it for Hashem, what does that even mean? How could I do anything for a perfect being? God is perfect. So if God is perfect, then what can I do for Him? But the truth of the matter is, if we think deeply about this, it's actually the exact opposite. If somebody is imperfect This is a hard one.

5:33 Can you really do anything for them? Not really. Let's play this out. If I'm imperfect What do I need from you in a relationship? I need you to fill my holes. Can anyone really do that? No one can really ever fill somebody else's hole, not truly. For example, let's say on a real level I was lonely. Am I going to be less lonely because we live together? Maybe for a minute, it might appear that it would work. But then, what happens over time? If the reason I'm in a relationship with you is for you to fill in my hole of loneliness, eventually we know what's going to happen. You're not going to be enough to fill that hole. Because that hole is enormous and you're only one person. So what happens now? One person can't fill that hole. How many people will it take to fill that hole?

6:45 That's the social experiment that's happening right now in the world. How many followers, how many friends, how many likes, how many retweets do you need to actually feel like you have enough people that are filling your hole? That's what's happening in the world today. The irony is that to be in a relationship You actually need to not need the other person. Because you're already full. I can't participate in a relationship with you until you are enough for yourself. Otherwise, I'm not actually participating in the relationship with you. I'm just trying to fill the hole that you have, which is not actually you. Does that make sense? I'll spell it out a little bit more because it's a deep idea and it's not exactly 100% clear even to me yet. I'll try to be a little bit more clear about it. If God is perfect Does that mean that He doesn't need you? No.

7:55 If God is perfect, it means He doesn't need you in the sense that He's fine without you. He's complete without you. He's not lacking. But because of that, listen carefully to these words. These are the hard words. Because God is perfect. He actually needs you. And not what you do for him Because it doesn't need you to do anything for him. It's like, for example, I'm a father. Now I'm a grandfather. Eliyona Sano. That was a beautiful Tora Devora moment. Thank you. Thank you. So let's say. Let's say I need my grandson to be a legacy for me. Do I need him, or do I need a legacy? You understand the difference? In other words, if I'm not full If I have a need, then I don't actually need my grandson. I just need what my grandson is going to do for me. If you're full If you don't have a need Then what you actually need is the person themselves.

9:15 People do this all the time in relationships. They say, "I love my wife because she's a great cook." Then you don't love your wife; you love food. I love my wife because she's a great mother. That's awesome. That you love your nanny. I love my wife because of the way she makes me feel. Then you love yourself. But if you don't need food because you realize you can just get food somewhere else. If you don't look at your wife as a glorified nanny And if you're not interested in somebody who's just pulling from you to make themselves feel better. The good news is that now Someone can actually love you. They can actually be in a relationship for you. The reason why most people are takers in a relationship is because they're in the relationship to satisfy some unmet, unmentalized need that they already have.

10:35 And that means that they're not in a relationship at all. It's the reason why something goes wrong. I'm out. Because what happens on the day when this is what I'll say to the guys? What happens on the day when she's not a good mom? What happens on the day where she's just exhausted and she just lashes out at the kids? What do you do then? What happens when she burns the food? What happens when you have a hard conversation and all of a sudden you find yourself not feeling so good in her presence? The relationship starts to deteriorate because you were never in a relationship with her to begin with. If you're in a relationship with your husband because he brings home a good parnasa You don't love him. You love money. And if he can't make a good parnasa, then you're not right there behind him supporting him.

11:26 All you're doing is complaining to your friends, 'How come he can't provide for our family?' The difference if you're actually in a relationship with someone else is if you have your own needs met. Rashi here is saying a very deep thing. Hakadosh Baruch Hu is saying, "Vayichuli truma" Can you bring an offering? God says, "For me" Are you doing it for yourself or are you doing it for me? Who are you in the relationship for? It's not an obvious thing. Most people participate in a relationship with Hashem for themselves. The Alter Rebbe in Tanya writes that a chassid is someone who's mischased imkono imkandile. It's somebody who gives chesed to Hashem. I'm gonna do chesed for Hashem. Hashem has everything. Because Hashem has everything, He doesn't need you to do stuff for Him. He needs you. He needs you to participate in the relationship for Him.

12:29 You hear the difference? It's a very profound thing to say. This Rashi. The beginning of building a home for God is: Who are you here for? Are you here for yourself or are you here for Hashem? And there's a million different litmus tests. Here's a good example of a litmus test: If you're in a relationship for yourself or you're in a relationship for God. I don't feel like waking up in the morning. I don't feel like davening today. And if it's for me, I don't feel like it. But if it's for the other, then what do you do when something is for another? When someone says, 'I need you,' then you rise to the occasion and you show up because it's not for you; it's for them. Do you hear the difference? If you daven, whether you're in the mood or not That's telling you, I'm in the relationship for Hashem.

13:22 Because He asked me to daven. It's a major difference. Say to the guys in yeshiva, 'Who are you learning Torah for?' Guys, go! I'm not interested. This is like a big thing. I'm not interested in learning this material. Guys, why should I learn Gemara? Why should I learn what happens if an ox gores another ox? I do not own oxen. None of my friends own oxen. None of our imaginary oxen have recently gored each other. And if they did, I'm pretty sure we wouldn't be sitting and thinking about whether or not the ox is pregnant, right? So of course, you always have that Rebbe in yeshiva that says. You don't have oxen, but you have cars. And most guys at that point roll their eyes and they go, "Rebbe, if I get into a car accident, I'm calling insurance." The real answer to the question of why we're learning Torah is because that's Hashem sharing with us His diary.

14:17 And if we're in it for the other person, then when the other person talks, we listen. Especially if it's not interesting. I have breaking news for you girls. You ready for this? I'm sure that the people you're marrying are all going to be fascinating. I'm sure every one of them, all of these amazing guys that I teach all day long, each one is more fascinating than the next. I have no doubt you are going to marry the fascinating guy in the group. All of you individually are going to marry the one fascinating guy in the group. But that was ridiculous. Not everything they say is going to be interesting to you. Sometimes they're going to walk in the door. You won't be tired or exhausted from a long day having worked yourself and worked yourself to the bone and dealing with the kids and dealing with a million different stressors. I have no doubt that you will fulfill the dictum of Chazal that when your husbands walk in the door, you'll greet them b'sefer panim yafos with a beautiful smile and you'll say, "How was your day? Sit down. Tell me how everything is going." And your husband, who's amazing, he's going to sit down and he's going to start telling you about how they missed the quarterly margins, and as a result of that, his boss is really giving him a hard time.

15:38 And you will have no idea what he's talking about. But I imagine that many of you will go like this because you are women of Chesed. Wow, that sounds really hard. Why? Because you care about the quarterly margins. No. Because you care about them. I'll tell you a cool story. My Rebbe Shlita should be zecher R'fu Shleima is 96 years old now. My Rebbe was meant to become a professor of math. He went to Columbia. Those of you who know Columbia University, he did his master's degree in mathematics at Columbia University. And. Without going into the details of the story, he had an epiphany on the night he finished his master's thesis. And he decided that instead of becoming a professor of math, he wanted to teach Torah for the rest of his life, and that's what he did for the next 59 years. And he taught tens of thousands of talmidim at a very high level. He was one of the great gadolim of the last generation, one of the greatest lomdim of the last generation.

16:45 And one of the boys in She'er When Rebbe told over this story, he raised his hand. And he jokingly said, and it's usually people in my rebbe shir didn't joke, so it was pretty wild that he made a joke at all. He said, "Rebbe's wife must have really loved Torah." She went from being a wife who was going to be the wife of some chasheva mathematics professor to nobody knew that he was going to become a yeshiva, let alone one of the great yeshiva. " So my rebbe, without batting an eye, he looked at this guy and he goes I don't know if she loved Torah, but she definitely loved me. It wasn't like that. He's a real brisker. There was no moments. It was a cold Litvish answer, but he meant it. He meant it. There's something you don't have to be interested in what the other person has to say. You have to be interested in them.

17:33 There's a famous Rav in Yerushalayim. He's one of the great mashkilim of the generation. His name is Rav Nach Orloewik. Heard of Rav Orloewik? Rav Orloewik gives a shir to men. And he says, 'What happens if your wife asks you to go shopping for curtains?' He said, "There's two answers, and both of them are wrong." He said, "If you say no" Now you're in the doghouse because the wife is going to go like, 'You never want to do anything with me,' and this is important that I don't understand why you can't be a partner of this decision. And if you say yes It's even worse because what happens? You go shopping with your wife, and she holds up two pairs of drapes. Each one looks exactly the same to the guys. It's eggshell white and soft white. And you go, which one do you like better? And then the husband goes Honestly, whichever one you like better, that's the one I like better. They both look beautiful to me. They both look the same to me. And then the wife says to the husband, words that no male in the history of the world has ever understood.

18:36 I feel like you're not here. And men do not understand those words because my being here is not subject to your feelings. You understand? Women have feelings that men don't have. Girls wake up in the morning and go, "I feel like today is a yogurt day." I've had a tremendous amount of feelings in my life, but I have yet to feel yogurt. That's not a feeling that I have. So when a woman says, "I feel like you're not here," a man says. I'm literally right here. You can't feel as if I'm not here. Of course, what is she actually saying? I want you to be present with me in this moment. And what is the guy saying? Why in the world would I want to be present with you in this moment in this store choosing drapes? This is not important to me at all. So Rav Orlovich tells the boys, "There's a third answer."

19:28 You don't have to care about curtains. You have to care about her. So if she cares about curtains, then you have to care about curtains. Do you hear the difference? That's what it means, li lishmi. Who are you in it for? Are you in it for yourself? Are you in it for somebody else? By the way, there was a movie made about this. I don't know if you know this. There was a movie made about this. There was a guy who was in Rav Orlovich's class. You know the story? There was a guy who was in Rav Orlovich's class. He lives in Los Angeles And he heard this class that if you truly love somebody, then you love what they love and not for yourself. So he wrote a movie about it. Don't ruin it. He wrote a movie about these ogres. And it was the second movie in these ogre movies. And the female ogre really wanted to be a beautiful princess, and the male ogre was just happy being an ogre.

20:21 And at the end of the movie, they were gonna have true love's kiss, and they were both gonna end up being human beings. In the end, they were both ogres. And he said to her, Shrek said to Fiona. He said to her "I don't understand. I thought we were going to be human beings." And she said, "You wanted to be an ogre, and I wanted to be with you." The movie is based on that sheer that Rav Orlewich gave. And not only that, I told this story when I was a scholar in residence once in Los Angeles, and there was a kid in the audience who was laughing his head off. He came over to me afterwards and said, 'It's a true story.' I said, yeah, I know it's a true story. I heard it from Ruvorluik. He said, I know it's a true story because it's my dad's movie. Oh my God! And it's a true story.

21:12 Li lishmi, the beginning of creating a relationship with another is that you actually have to care about the other Which means you have to be full enough within yourself to care about the other. Next, Rashi. Rashi says, what is truma? Truma means hafrosa. Separation. The goal of any relationship is intimacy. Intimacy means exclusivity. Now the only question is where do we draw the line? If we're going to be in a relationship with Hashem We have to be mafresh ourselves to Hashem. There's an uncomfortable question here, not one that's easy to answer. But how much does our Judaism actually mean to us? Rav Aaron Lichtenstein, Zechut Zalak of Rahu, was the Rosh Yeshiva of Gush. He was a genius. He was a philosopher. He had a great line. He said, "If religion is true, then it should mean everything to you." And if religion is not true, then it should mean nothing to you.

22:13 The claim of religion is the most ambitious claim in the world. The claim of religion is that every single thing in the entire world is meant to be used in the service of God. So we have a question that we have to ask ourselves: If we're in a relationship with Hashem How far are you willing to go to say this life doesn't belong to me? Because if you think deeply about it If life is an expression of Hashem Which by the way is what life is in Kabbalah, Hashem is called Chay HaChayim, the life of all life. All of the life that we have is really just an expression of Him in this world. If you've been given life, it doesn't mean it's yours. It means it's yours to serve Him. If you have money, whose money is it? In Judaism, it's Hashem's money, and you're the custodian of that money.

23:13 In fact, do you know one of the reasons that we call it tzedakah? There are many, many reasons why we call it tzedakah and not just charity. But one of the reasons we call it tzedakah is because al pi kabbala, if somebody comes to you and they're running a campaign and they knock on your door, so to speak, or they send you that email or that WhatsApp and say, 'Can you donate to our campaign?' The reason you have that money is because you were given that money. It's really theirs, but you were holding on to it for them so that you could give it to them at the appropriate moment. That's a very big thing to know. Because as we look at our world today, and I'm not Chassidish saying anything negative about Klal Yisrael, but there is a question: Who are we serving with this money? When we and I'm not saying where we should draw the line. Everybody has to think about where they draw the line. But let's ask ourselves a question: You can buy the twenty thousand dollar car, you can buy the forty thousand dollar car.

24:10 And la haniyach that you're a person who's already given a tremendous amount of tzedakah. But twenty thousand dollars can make an enormous difference in somebody's life. I'll tell you a story that I heard many years ago from Abba Yaakov BenderShlita Shlit"a, the Rashiv of Darche Torah. When I was in Darche, he told this story. It was a crazy meisah. Since back in the day when Farakway was still not a wealthy community, today Farakway, Baruch Hashem, is a community that has much more money. But when I was growing up in Farakway, Farakway was poor. Farakway was next to Lawrence. They used to say in Farakway, "We live in West Lawrence." They always wanted to be associated with the five towns. Back then, it wasn't a wealthy community. There was a kid in the neighborhood whose father passed away. And there was a family in the neighborhood that had no connection to the first family. And the father walked in, and he dropped a twenty thousand dollar check on Rabbi Bender's desk.

25:01 And Rabbi Bender looked at this guy, and he said, "What's the check for?" And he said, "This is to help cover tuition for that family." So Rabbi Bender said, "Were you guys close? I didn't realize you were close." He said, "No, we didn't have any real connection. Our kids are in the same school." So Rabbi Bender said to him respectfully, 'He goes, I, we've seen your tax returns. You're not a wealthy man.' Where do you get twenty thousand dollars from? So the guy said, "Well, look, we've been hoping to finish our basement for a long time. Every year we've been putting away $1,500, $2,000, and we were really hoping to finish the basement." But then this father passed away, and I figured somebody's got to cover his tuition. So he just came with his $20,000 and he put it on Rabbi Bender's desk. Not for someone he knew Not for a family that he was close with that he felt a responsibility for But because he said, 'If Hashem gives me money, that's not mine.' That's his.

25:57 That's his money. It was just waiting for me to be the custodian of that money. If you think about this in terms of a relationship Every single one of us wants to be exclusive with our spouse. Question is, what's called not exclusive. At what point are you not exclusive? Because the line between exclusive and not exclusive is very thin. I'll give you an example of this. I know that for sure, some of you will resonate with this. The line between appropriate and inappropriate is razor thin. I think the matmidot already heard this, but I'll say it again for everybody. The guy in the store who gives you back your change and puts it directly into your hand lingers for less than half a second. How creepy is that? It's exceptionally creepy. He didn't do anything wrong. All he did was this. You ready for it? All he did was.

26:58 It's off. But it was off by a millisecond. Because the line between appropriate and inappropriate, the line between boundaries and a breach of my boundaries, is razor thin. When we think about being a quote unquote fanatic in our relationships. Because that's the thing. If we're going to be a fanatic about anything, we want to be a fanatic in relationships. We want to make sure that we are really careful about our relationships. Our relationships should be exclusive. Let's think about it. When do we start drawing that line to be exclusive with our husbands? Do we need to have met them in order to be exclusive with them? In a certain sense, doesn't exclusivity even start before we even meet our husbands? Because, for example. Let's play this out. I do this with the guys all the time. Rebbe, she's my friend. I go, good. She's coming to the wedding.

27:58 Come on, Rebbe. I don't know if she's coming to the wedding. I go, but she's your friend. Fine. You know what? She is coming to my wedding. Great. She's calling you at night. Your wife picks up the phone. And she's sobbing on the other end. Because the guy she was dating just broke up with her And all she wants is to speak to your husband. How do you feel now? It's a little uncomfortable. Because exclusivity is not an easy thing to know. Where do we draw the line? What does it mean to be exclusive with someone? Everybody knows. Again, I'll leave it to you where to draw the line. But everybody knows that if you're going to be in a relationship, there needs to be exclusivity. There needs to be a sense of hafraasha. Can we say that we've been mafresh ourselves? Can we say? I don't think we can. It's not a mussar. I just think we're all on a journey towards this. But can we say that our lives are dedicated to Hashem?

28:54 When we think about the goals and ambitions that we have in our lives, can we say, "I'm in it for Hashem"? I remember many years ago I heard a mussar shmuus from one of my rabbis, and he said, "There's a very simple formula for how you make a decision. The formula is this: Will this bring me closer or farther from Hashem? Whatever the answer to that question is, that's the answer to the choice that you make." That's a very ambitious thing to say, but it's a very beautiful thing to say. Who we marry, what type of communities we send our children to, we raise our children in And the schools that we send our kids to, the people that we surround ourselves with The types of books that we read The things that we bring into our homes Are these God-driven things, or are they, you know, I've got two lives. I have a God life. I go to shul. I daven. I'm in shul Shabbos morning.

29:44 Or lo alenu. Maybe there are certain people that see shul as a social endeavor. There's always that end of davening rush. People who show up for like musaf because they want to be there, not for the kiddush, but they just want to be there for the social scene that happens at the end of davening Are we coming to shul for Hashem? If we are coming to shul for Hashem, what does our davening look like? What's our How shall I say this nicely? What is our talking tolerance in shul? I had a very courageous person that I looked up to in my life. I won't say his name. I really should say his name, but I won't say his name because I don't think he'll want me to say his name. But I want to say his name. He was my dad's friend growing up, and he davened in a shul where the talking was rampant.

30:38 And he was the shusher of shul. And I cannot tell you how many people spoke lashon hara about him. And every week, bravely, he would walk up and down the aisles, looking at people and going, "Shh." " You know, I thought it was pretty incredible. You know why? Because he understood that Shul was a place that we should be for God. What about our business? What about our tzedaka? What about our cars? What about our food? There was a there was an advertisement recently. I won't say which neighborhood it was in. There was an advertisement recently. For a two hundred and thirty dollar hamburger in a kosher restaurant Gold plated hamburger wrapped in gold foil And it had alazachin made from the fanciest meat. And I heard a shmoos from a rav, a local rav in that neighborhood, and he said, 'Rabosai,' this way he told the chavra, 'That meat is glatt kosher.'

31:35 Every single ingredient of that burger has the best texture possible. And it's chaser treif. You can't tell me that you're eating a $230 burger, Lashem. We have to ask ourselves a question: At what point are our houses big enough? At what point do we have enough cars? At what point are our cars fancy enough? At what point is our clothing fancy enough? And what could we do with that money? It's crazy that there's anybody in our community that has any financial problems. Because we certainly have enough money to support everybody in the community. But maybe it means that we don't go on the same Pesach programs, and maybe it means that we don't have the same fancy cars. It doesn't mean that those people aren't giving an enormous amount of tzedakah already, because I know that they are. But we have to ask ourselves the question: Are we exclusive with Hashem?

32:29 Or is Hashem something we dabble in? Last Rashi. Rashi says, "Yedvenu libo lachin adavu lachin ratzon v'ratzon tov." Hashem desires the heart. To be a Jew means to be passionate about our Judaism. Hakadosh Baruch Hu is not interested in having us go through the motions. There's a story that Moshe Weinberger tells. Moshe Weinberger, for those of you who don't know, is the Rav of Eish Kodesh in Woodmere. He's a tremendous tzaddik. And he tells the story of a couple that comes to him. And the wife says We're just not happy. And the husband looks at R. Weinberg and he goes, "I just don't know what she wants from me because I do everything for her." I make a parnassa, I change light bulbs, I'm a little e-coach, and I put down the toilet seat. I do everything. And the entire time that this guy is talking, the wife is in there with her arms folded. She's just shaking her head.

33:32 And if Weinberger looks at his wife and he says to her, "Seems like he's a really good husband. What's bothering you?" "And she says, 'Rebbe, do you think I married him to take out the garbage?' You think I married him to change the light bulb? You think I married him to make a good Parnassa? I married him because of the way that he looked at me under the chuppah. When's the last time he looked at me that way? Hakadosh Baruch Hu doesn't want us to just show up. He wants us to be passionate about our Yiddishkeit. That's no easy thing Because to be passionate about something day in and day out It takes a lot of concentration and a lot of work. You have to really deeply believe that who you are really matters to Hashem. But think about what it would feel like in your relationship if your husband was checking the boxes And if your husband looked at you and said, "I don't know what you want from me. Look at all the things I do for you" And the wife goes, "Yeah, but." We haven't had a date night in forever.

34:33 And what she's really saying, and she's right to say this Is we you do a lot for me But we're not together in this project. We're not supporting each other. I want you to know the amount of husbands that have come to me and said to me, Rebbe, I feel like I'm a bank for my family. I feel like they're just writing checks based on the money that I make, but who says thank you? Who expresses real, genuine gratitude to their husbands? There's a line from Rabbi Pesach Krohn. I love this line. He says to women, "If you want your husband to thank you for making the challah" You have to thank him for bringing home the bread. It's a sharp line. Real passion in a relationship comes from actually caring about another person. My Rosh Yeshiva Zechariah Klevach, who passed away a couple of months ago.

35:27 A year ago already. He had Alzheimer's, so he wasn't well at the end. But he had the same line, and he would say it over and over again. He would say, "Boys, you have to say good morning to each other." And if you'll say to me, Rebbe It gets boring saying good morning every single day over and over again. He goes, 'I have a good eitzah for you. Mean it.' It's a powerful thing to look somebody in the eye and to wish them a good morning. To actually care about another person. People are deeply attracted to people of passion. Because that's what we are in our core. We are rutzim, we are desire, we are will. So we can go through the motions of Judaism. And then I'll show you exactly what it's going to look like in 22 years from now, in 23 years from now. When your children are in Talmud Torah, they're going to come here and they're going to go. How can I discover passion in my yidishkeit?

36:23 Passion is something that needs to be imbued in our homes. Our homes need to be passionate places. Are our Shabbos tables places of devar Torah, places of zemiros, places of deep conversation Or are Shabbos tables just something to get through? I had a chaver of mine whose dad was a rock star. He was a real rock star, a special person. But we had a bet every Friday night: would he make it through the soup? And I always took the under. I always said I was like, there's no way he makes it through the soup. Maybe he'll make it to the soup, but there's no way he makes it through the soup. He will not be conscious by the end of the soup. And my friend, he always had this irrational belief in his dad. He goes, I'm telling you, he's going to make it to the chicken this week.

37:10 And I was right every time. And his father was awesome. His father was a rock star. But if you're passed out by the time Friday night sunda comes, when are you going to teach your kids that Shabbos is awesome? That Shabbos is to be treasured. When are your kids going to see when they sit next to you during davening? They see somebody flipping the pages, or they are going to see somebody who actually cares? How do they see you being mechabed, the rov of the shul? Is that somebody who you look at and you go, "Wow, that person is my mora derech. They're teaching me how to live a life Or is it somebody you complain about and you can't wait till the next elections because you want to fire him? I remember the first time I told a bunch of guys in Mevaseret we were talking about firing the rabbi, and I had three guys in the shir. They looked at me like I was from the moon. They said, 'What do you mean, fire the rabbi?'

37:58 I said, "like when the board gets together and they call a meeting that the rabbi, his contract is coming up, and they're like A board? The rabbi has a contract? I was like, 'What are you guys talking about?' And they're like, 'It turned out they all davened in Chabad.' The Chabad rabbi lives in the shul, he doesn't have a contract, and he certainly doesn't have a board, and he also doesn't have a salary. People are dying to give to him because they appreciate the passion he has in his life and the enthusiasm he's giving to the community. Passion is contagious. You want your kids to grow up with it? Have it yourself. If you're really passionate, you won't need to shove it down their throats because it's so contagious that the kids will want to do it. It's no small thing that Hakadosh Baruch Hu says, 'Who should give the money? Who should build the mishkan?' The people that actually care The people that aren't apathetic The people that don't just show up to life to check a box. You want to build a home? A home is built with passion.