Terumah - Filling In The Empty Spaces

2:05 So right now, a person could come to rely on iron domes, which Baruch Hashem we have, but it's an instrument of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. And I'm sure you also saw that video from Uri Poluchowski, who's a very old friend of mine. He did a 14-minute video that went viral in Eishat Torah when he spoke about all the literally the nisim galuyim that are happening in the world right now. For sure, that video is 100% true. And I think that Rav Uri did an excellent, excellent job of saying we have to give shavach v'haydoya to our kadosh baruch hu. And of course, it goes without saying. Today, the things that go without saying need to be said. That we also have to have a deep hakarosatov to the vessels that Hakadosh Baruch Hu has created, and those people that are sacrificing themselves and that are being meiser nefesh to do it. So we can walk in shugam at the same time. We can be makor tov to human beings that put their lives on the line without losing sight of the fact that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is in fact running the world.

3:07 So Agun chaydash ader. I just want to share. That Barry and I did not speak before this And what that means is usually I get a shnickle podcast from Barry. She said, "I need two minutes from you." I've never once had two minutes with Barry. That's what I love about her. What Barry does is before she goes, 'Rav Berg, we need to speak before this is the most important chesed mission we've ever had.' She says we need to talk about the theme. And she has something in her heart that she wants to bring out, and she doesn't exactly know what it is, but she has a lot of words around it. If you know Barry And she speaks out all these words. By the way, I just realized, you know what this is? That was an ADHD moment. You know what this is? It's the first time I'm speaking here in the Chizuk Mission without a Barry introduction. It's the first time Rav Gav never made it into a Berg Chizuk Mission speech. So Rav Gav, if you're listening to this recording, I just want you to know you're present in my heart.

4:10 So usually what Barry does is she speaks for around fifteen to twenty minutes and then she says, "Do you know what I'm looking for?" I go, "I know exactly what you're looking for." And because I heard enough words, like they have those word boards where it's how many times a word was used. I just pay attention to the words. Here, Barry and I didn't speak for a bunch of reasons. I was very busy. She was very busy. And so I prepared a shir. And then Barry said to me, "We should probably talk," because I already prepared the shir. So I don't know what the theme of this chizuk mission is. She sent me like a one-liner on WhatsApp, but I told her I know that it's going to be perfect because this is Mamash coming from Hakadosh Baruch Hu. I prepared without talking to you. You prepared a chizuk mission without speaking to me. So what is about to happen may have nothing to do with the chizuk mission. It may have everything to do with the chizuk mission. Next Monday, just drop me a line and let me know how we did. But I won't know until then if the words that we're about to share and learn together have anything to do with what this chizuk mission is about.

5:10 I want to talk about the Menorah in this week's parsha. The pasuk says I'm getting older. I need to take off my glasses. The asisa Menorah zahav tahir miksha te'asa haMenorah yirecha veKana giviyah veKaftorel ufrachelah miMenayu. You should make a Menorah of pure gold. The Menorah shall be made of hammered work. Its base, its stem, its goblets, its knobs, and its flowers are all one piece. So if we look carefully at the pasuk, we see that there are two movements in the pasuk. The first movement in the pasuk is "va'asisa menoras zahav tahir" That you shall make a menorah of pure gold. This implies action on the part of Moshe Rabbeinu. The very next words seem to contradict the words that came before. Miksha teyasa ha Menora That the Menora shall be made of hammered work. So it's like, is Moshe Rabenu making it, or should it be made? Which one of those two things? There are actually two modes of existence that are around, and it's a little bit of an ontological shear. There are two modes of existence that exist around this pasuk.

6:36 There's the avoda of becoming Which is constructed reality. Constructed reality means something that's brought into existence through human activity. I'm making something. I'm doing something. There's a becoming, and I'm actively engaged with the becoming. There's action. There's effort. There's cause. There's effect. I do X, Y occurs. So in this, from this mode of existence. Existence emerges through a process. I'm engaged in a process. I think most of us think about our own becoming as I am in process and I'm working on myself. You've used these words before. I'm working on myself, and I think perhaps what we're going to learn is that it might not be everything it's cracked up to be. In fact, that goofa might be a problem. There's a space in our world for human creation. A person made the stender. That means they took certain materials. They went through certain processes. There was a hammer. There were nails. There's a stender. That's how we make things in this world. But there's another level, not of becoming but of being.

7:53 This by this process of being is much more feminine than masculine. Being is not so much about creating reality, but it's more about revealing reality. There's a reality that's already present And all I'm trying to do is reveal what already is. Does this make sense? We'll speak it out a little more. It's almost like this reality emerges. There's not so much of a process involved. There's much more of a Removing the obstructions to allow what already exists to become visible. Does that resonate? An unveiling, a revelation. It's like this thing already exists. I just haven't yet seen it in the world. We tend to think of the things we do in this world as discovery. That's a very good word, to discover. It already was there. I'm just discovering it. I'm removing the cover. I like that word to unveil the reality. The only thing that I'm doing is actually stepping out of the picture in a certain sense to allow the reality to emerge.

9:10 I happened to say this last night to my children. One of my kids. I don't exactly know how it came up. A seminary girl said that Columbus discovered America in 1992, and one of the rebbeim who heard this. Said I was born in 1981 in America. I don't think that's true. She meant to say 1492, and I said I'm like, I don't actually think it's true that America was discovered in 1492. That's a very, that's actually a really not nice way of thinking. There were people that were living there, and they showed up. We discovered you, and it's like, no, we've been here the whole time. You didn't know about us. We already knew about America way before you came, and we're doing fine. But we don't really know what sales are, so sure we'll sell it to you, and then that's how America came to be. The domain of this world is given over to human activity.

10:06 But the domain of the divine reality is not given over to human activity. I can't make the divine happen. That's not the way revelation occurs. I can't make, for example, nevua occur. Nevuah is something that comes from a higher order of reality, and nevuah is something that can be revealed in this world only through not the process of becoming, but only through the existence and the emergence of being. So it's almost like I'm stepping out of reality and allowing a higher order of reality to manifest itself in this world, or to reveal itself in this world. Being, becoming, human activity, process, action, cause and effect, versus the revelation, the unveiling of what already is. So you give an example of the Zohar. So, we're let let's see Because I think it's going to emerge that Nivua might be the highest level of being, but in truth, I think you're already kind of seeing where I'm going. That all divine reality can only come into the world through being, and then we have to understand what the role of becoming is.

11:26 Vis-a-vis being. What am I meant to do? So it goes like this. Is the menorah something that Moshe creates? Am I Moshe Rabbeinu working, so to speak, on making a menorah Or is the menorah something that already exists and it's simply waiting to be revealed? That's a good question. Let's make it a little bit deeper. Does form originate from above or below? When we speak about formation, think of yourself as a sculptor. When we think about form, does form originate? We're going deep today. Does form originate from above or below? So either there's only two options: either form is imposed on matter from the outside Or form emerges from within the matter itself. And so, if you speak to a sculptor, what would a sculptor say? That form actually emerges from within matter itself. In fact, the avoda. You want to say it again? No. I was just thinking there was a there's a quote from the famous. I'm sure there. And what is?

12:47 See, for me, Michelangelo is a ninja turtle. What's the quote from Michelangelo? I don't know exactly But he saw the person in. He saw David in the rock. Correct. I think that's the way that the great artists see it. It's almost like it's already there. It just has to come through me, and then I have to almost step back to allow it to emerge from the negative space. Was that? There's the potential for the David already to exist within the stone. And my avoda is to chisel away anything that's excess to allow it to emerge from within the form itself. And so that's not always true? For example, if I'm building a bridge, I can't I can't step back to allow the bridge to appear. No matter how much you step back, a bridge will not appear. The realm of human activity. I'm going to assemble all of these parts to create something that does not yet exist. As opposed to art, which is much more in the realm of being than doing. Where I'm actually stepping back and allowing the art to emerge through me. I'm simply the vessel, the conduit. I have a talmud, a very, very dear talmud Who's right now becoming a pretty well-known musician in the Jewish world. Very young guy.

14:14 His name is Gabe Bauman. Some of you may have heard of his music. Your children certainly have, or your grandchildren. And he speaks to me a lot about I just never know when it's going to come. Like songs emerge. I don't know if you Ty. I think just yesterday released a new song. I spoke to him once, and he said to me I don't release a lot of songs. I only release like one a year, right? It's because he's not doing what everybody else is doing, which is just how much music can I put out? You even get the sense that there's almost like a race with Jewish musicians today. I have to keep myself relevant, so I need to constantly be putting out the next song, even if that song is bashing a different movement in Kallah Yisrael. And then we're going to have a song that bashes that bashing. I'm not entering into the world right now.

15:06 That's I have a lot to say on that, but not for right now. But the idea that I have to be in this arms race of producing music, by definition, the music that you put out that way, it's not going to be the music that's actually going to hold anyone. What was that? It's because I've not actually allowed the music to emerge. It's the I can't like do music, right? I can only be music. Like Dovid Amalech said about Tzviya. Tefillah. He said, "Va'anit tefillah. Tefillah is not something that I do. It's not something that I create. It's something that I am." Tefillah is something that emerges from within us. It's one of the reasons we have so much trouble with davening today. Because davening was always meant to be something that emerges from within us. We made a very big mistake. This is not a podcast about tefillah, but we made a very big mistake when it came to davening. We taught our children, and frankly, we ourselves have to unlearn how to use a sitter.

16:02 A sitter was not something that you were supposed to daven to And people do that, by the way. They literally daven to the sitter. I didn't mean I said all the words. Like it's not you would never act that way. Imagine an actor got up on stage and read the words of the script that he memorized. That's not what makes a great actor or actress great. What makes them great is the exact opposite of that. They know all the words, but the words flow through them. So the Anshe Knesset Hagodola understood that our access to the words of our soul became limited after the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash. So they gave us the words that we no longer had access to, but the whole point of davening was to connect those words to what's actually happening inside of us and allow the tefillah to emerge from within. Instead, we taught people the siddur and the motions of what they're supposed to do and when they're supposed to bow. And then the guys and girls are saying today, I just don't find davening meaningful. Of course you don't. Why would you?

17:03 And then we say that the good boys and the good girls are the ones that daven. Those are just very obedient children, and there's something beautiful to being obedient. But I'm not sure what that has to do with davening. They're very good at showing up and saying words. So good for you, and it is good for you. That's awesome because you have the opportunity now to daven. But we're not necessarily taking that next step towards like we. It's an amazing thing when people like I'm getting into Buddhism because I really want to become much more contemplative. I want to meditate, and I really want to be present and mindful. I'm like, we have things in Yiddishkeit that introduced these concepts to the world before the idolatry of Buddhism. But we moved so far from being that we've actually taken things that are meant to be in the world of being and made them into the world of doing.

17:51 And then we wonder why it doesn't work Same thing with Shabbos. We've turned Shabbos into a break from technology. What was Shabbos 200 years ago? What was Shabbos before we had phones? That's when people went crazy. I was so. I'm not making a commentary on Charlie Kirk here. I'm just saying Yidden were walking around going, 'Do you know Charlie Kirk keeps Shabbos?' I'm like, 'What are you so proud of? We keep Shabbos. Goyish Shabbos is chayv misa.' But he's speaking about how we need to take a break from technology. I'm like, Shabbos is much more profound than the absence of technology. Shabbos is this contemplative, meditative time of twenty-five hours of stepping back from the world of doing and being a human being, and how we connect in this, in that space of I'm not doing anything. Literally, anything that even schmeks of malacha of creation in this world is out of the picture. Has nothing to do with your phone.

18:47 But why can't you say it's both? You have the aseret yemei shabbos. You have things in life that are. You know the words that you have to do. You have to. We have to do this. We have to action. But there's also the other side of it, the feelings of it. And I. But I don't. But I want to be clear. I don't actually mean feelings here. I mean something even more profound, because even feelings can be in the world of doing. What I mean is a deep sense of intuitive presence. That's beyond what I feel, and it's beyond the feelings. They are a manifestation of that core sense of being. The doing is, and I think you're right. In that world, there's a synthesis for sure. But when we show up to Davin, well before we feel anything, and well before we do anything, there's a sense of I have arrived in this moment, standing before my Maker. And that is not something that we are teaching our children.

19:53 Again, I think we're teaching it to them, but too late in life. We need these things to be embedded. And again, these are very sophisticated concepts for a third grader. But at some point, I want you to know, I think it's earlier than we think it is. People tell me you can't teach these concepts to high school kids. I don't think it's true. Every summer, I teach NCSY co-ed kids. Summer after tenth grade, I go around speaking to public school kids and TJJ. I speak to the girls on give and michlelet, the boys on jolt. These kids are thirsty already. Summer after tenth grade, in my opinion, is too late. We don't give enough credit to sixth, seventh, and eighth graders for them to be able to do this, and we don't have an education that uses this type of language at an early enough stage. Again, I don't think a third grader can handle it. I'm not sure a sixth grader can either, but maybe a seventh or eighth grader is already in the world of starting to understand things about themselves. What's so frustrating to me? I just got back from America.

20:46 Running around, Baruch Hashem, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, New Jersey—it was a very busy trip. It's so sad that when you are doing interviews with these young men for yeshiva They have very little original thought. Very little original thought. They're just saying the same thing over and over again. My best interviews are with the kids that have really gone through some stuff. And they show up to an interview so genuinely real. And some of these kids shared with me real things on an interview, and I'm sitting there, I'm fascinated by them. And these kids think that it's a hindrance to them getting into Mivasseret. One of them walked out with a vulnerability hangover, and he's like, "I think I just messed up my interview." And I'm like, "You just had the best interview of the entire week because you were so real, and you could tell because they're using real words. Like one of the kids said to me, "Is like, yeah I really spend every single day trying to make conscious contact with Hashem.

21:41 And I'm like You're 17. I'm like, what have you been through? How do you even know those words? And then over the course of the interview, I found out, and I'm like, this guy's going to be a rock star because he's already gone through some stuff. So now he had to learn these things that we're all learning in our 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s, and he's learning it Baruch Hashem at 16, 17 years old. Good for him. But why do we have to wait until things fall apart to teach our children this language that they desperately need? And that's why they're struggling with Yiddishkeit because what they're getting is the external manifestation of Yiddishkeit. I want to drill down on a point you made. Part of the reason why our children go up and down so much in their Yiddishkeit is because they rise and fall with their emotions, and because even that we teach them like first we teach them to do, then we teach them to feel right, and that's like this hype.

22:39 Kids use this word that everything is hype. Have you heard this word? Rebbe, that's hype. It means it's exciting, right? It's lit. That's gas, right? I've learned all the words. I know what the words mean when they say them. If you've heard lit, that's a go. This is lit, right? It's an education. But then they say, but I'm not into it. I am into it. I am into it. But I'm not into it. They're constantly taking their emotional temperature. Why are they doing that? Because there's something even before their emotions. That is a person who's a person present, firmly rooted in their own soil. So then. I have a feeling like this. I have a feeling like that. They say that it's all just information. It's profound. It's painful. It's meaningful. They're going through things, but we know how to remain steady. As we're going through these emotional vicissitudes Because there's a deep sense of presence that we have well before we felt anything. And then, I could feel those feelings and process them, or I could think those thoughts and process them. It's all just grist for the mill.

23:49 Today it's like, how long can I stay emotionally high before I fall? And then with it, my observance falls as well because I'm just living on the energy of my own emotion, as opposed to a deep sense of presence that precedes the emotion. Does that make sense? That also requires a really strong sense of self that they don't have. It requires the unfolding of the sense of self that they deeply have, but they have not yet perhaps revealed, unveiled, or cultivated. For sure. It's very like I said. Unfortunately, these kids can reveal it, but only after they went through something. Then when they go through something, I have a friend who in his life suffered tremendously. And he told me within a minute of meeting somebody, he knows if they've suffered. You can see it on their face if they're real. And because they just wear it differently, you know what I mean.

24:47 So I definitely think a 15 or 16-year-old kid has it. It's just a question of whether we are giving them the language or the tools to be able to reveal it within themselves. And the challenge becomes that when we go through stuff like that, and there is no container to put it into, they're gone because there's nowhere to be in this world about do it like this. I think it is like what you're saying; it becomes too late. It's the They're oh yeah. First of all, I've said this before publicly. I'll say it again. People talk about Erida Sadoros. I have no idea what they're talking about. I don't understand it. It's a Dor Mitsuyon. These kids are incredible. They're lifting much heavier weight than I was lifting when I was a kid. They're dealing with challenges that, in a million years, I never would have passed. If I was a kid growing up today, I absolutely would be a drug addict.

25:47 I would absolutely be hitting my vape every second of the day, like these kids. The fact that not everyone is doing these things. The fact that there are more Li Ma Torah than ever before. There's more authenticity. I never would have spoken to my rebbeim about the guy, the things that guys will speak to me about today. It is such an incredible generation. Again, it was different. I don't hold my rabbis accountable. Everything had to unfold. The point you're making about the shviras hakelim when they go through it because they've never been given the language, they don't know what to do with it. It's very painful. And yet, I think we all had to go through that. On some level, the only way to learn these things, as much as we could teach them about it, until it becomes your lived reality, there's not really much you can do about it. So let's start to get a little deeper into this.

26:42 A hundred percent right? Because these things are yoga moves, right? I can know it, but until I actually embed it deep in my muscle memory, there are real neural pathways that have to be shifted here. It's very and that can only be done in a lived way. Up until then, it's academic. Let's see if we can get a little bit deeper into this. Why is it so important that the menorah be made of one piece of gold? That's like critical. We hear that over and over again in the pesukim. What's the significance? So assembly By its very definition, means that there are parts that I'm imposing. It's beautiful music. Everyone's like, look, I just like the music. It's just a ringer. Who cares? So that's okay. I don't know what it was about this moment that it required those things, but I'm all in. Assembly requires composition. That's what I'm doing. It's like I don't know. Do people go to IKEA in America?

27:46 Here in Israel, everything is IKEA. I hate IKEA. I hate every aspect of it. I like going to IKEA for scavenger hunts. I don't actually like building a thing. And the whole thing seems to me to be very flimsy. Exactly. The assembly assumes that form comes from the outside. I'm going to take this and attach it to that. The nature of having a menorah that comes from one piece reveals that the highest orders of reality, because the menorah stands for wisdom, can't be assembled like that sculptor we were talking about. It has to just remove everything away. That's why there are so many various parts of the menorah. But the menorah itself is fundamentally unified. The nature of true unity is that unity actually expresses itself in multitudes. We are many trying to become one. Hashem is one expressing Himself in the many. So the nature of the menorah is that it has all these various parts, but it's really all one piece. No assembly required. It's really just pulling back and allowing the menorah to emerge, which in a certain way kind of mirrors light itself. Like if you light a candle

29:06 Where exactly did the flame come from? The flame appears from nowhere. There's only the striking of the match, and then all of a sudden the flame appears from nowhere. And what I'm really doing is just creating a vessel to hold that which almost appears from beyond. So that's kind of like what the menorah is. It's a vessel that appears from beyond, and this is actually what Rashi says. Although this Rashi is going to make our lives a little bit more complicated. Rashi says, 'What does it mean, Te'asa haMenorah? What does it mean that the menorah was made?' Because we're going to see in a second that Moshe Rabbeinu, we know he was instructed to make the menorah, but at the same time we said the menorah was made. We've been drilling down on the menorah was made part, right? The being part of it, not the doing part. But how far does this being go? So listen what Rashi says.

29:54 The menorah happened by itself. Nobody actually made the menorah. It kind of just appeared. Lefishahayim Moshe miskashavah. Moshe Abinah was struggling. He said, I don't know what to do with this. I don't know what to do with this thing. I don't know how to make this thing that you want me to make. So Amar LaKadosh Baruch Hu, hashlech es ha kikar loar, vinasas me'aleh. Throw it into the fire and it'll appear on its own. And that's what happened. And that's why, at the end of the day, it's not that Moshe Rabbeinu makes the menorah; the menorah is made on its own. He throws it into the fire, and mamela, it's made. But yes, the obvious question is What was that? Very good. Very good. Let's see. Let's see. We're going to see. There's a fundamental difference. So. Two questions I'm going to ask you. First of all, what was so difficult for Moshe Rabbeinu to understand?

30:48 Moshe Rabbeinu Hakadosh Baruch Hu to make a menorah. He doesn't know how to make a menorah. By the way, everything else he knew how to make. Mima noshakh. Either they knew or they didn't know. There's nothing. It doesn't appear on the outside that there's anything more fundamentally different than the menorah than any other aspect of the Mishkan that needed to be made. Number one. And number two, what's the whole point of Moshe Rabbeinu struggling over this? Why does Moshe Rabbeinu have to struggle over this? And then in the end, it's made on its own anyway. If it's going to be made on its own anyway, why doesn't Hashem just say, 'Throw the gold into the fire, and the menorah will appear'? It's almost like there has to be a process of Moshe Rabbeinu not understanding. And then ultimately relinquishing and saying, "I don't know what to do." Hashem says, "Just throw it in fire. I'll make it." Why didn't you just do that to begin with? So what's going on over here? Let's talk about what Moshe Rabbeinu was having difficulty with. What he was having difficulty with is like this.

31:41 How can something exist that must be made but can't be made? That was what he was struggling with. How can something depend on human action but not originate in human action? How can something exist? How can something exist that must be made but can't be made? I can make a bridge. I know how to do that. How can I make something that can't be made? What am I supposed to do? What am I? What exactly am I supposed to do here? But he's being told to make something. But in the end, he can't make it. It must be made. It's from Hashem Himself. What exactly is Moshe Rabbeinu struggling with? What is my role here? What am I supposed to be doing? Is there a role of doing that Moshe Rabbeinu is meant to be involved in? Because that's what it sounds like. Normally. And this is what we spoke about before. There's action, right? There's becoming, and that produces an object.

32:41 Here, the action must exist, but it produces no object, and yet the object is made. Moshe Rabbeinu doesn't know how that gap exists. Where? How am I supposed to make something? Pause, and then it's made. I know how to make something, and then it now exists. I know how to make that bridge. I know how to assemble these parts, but this no assembly required. This one thing. It's clearly coming from beyond. It's a higher order of reality that's manifesting itself in this world. What do you want me to do here? What is my role in doing? This is not just a question of Moshe Rabenu and the Menorah. I imagine that you're already seeing where I'm going. This is every one of us. Where does the divine order of reality come into play? Because ultimately, we are making ourselves. But we all know that as much as we make ourselves in a certain way, we emerge from beyond.

33:38 It's like we said in the beginning, I'm working on myself. Really? Just tell me how that goes. I just play it out. I'm working on myself. I'm working on my anger. Tell me exactly what you're doing. I'm counting to ten. How's that working for you? By the time ten comes around, I'm furious. I'm working on my jealousy. What exactly are you working on? What does that mean? Has any of us actually ever worked on something to notice that we no longer have that thing anymore? I don't think that's ever once happened to any of us. We've done something, then there's a pause, and then something else emerges. So actually, the human process of becoming and being, it perfectly mirrors this process of the Menorah. Both becoming and being. Moshe Avinu wants to understand the depth of that. What does working on ourselves mean? Well we have Say you're working on the conversion of Kara or the deal we're talking about. And you consciously make decisions about things that happen in your life, or that you're going to keep yourself from reacting that way or speaking that way.

34:51 So it's funny you say lashon hara because I think that's probably the single best example I could have given. So let's play this out. So I have this tayva to say lashon hara And I'm working on myself. So I suppress the lashon hara that I want to say. Which is meaning which is meaningful. I'm not saying it And yet And yet I would say two things, at least for me That lashon hara is just coming out eventually. It's like that suppressed anger. It may not come out in this conversation. It may not come out in the next conversation. But eventually, I'm going to slide right back into it. I've been working on my loshon hara for a while. It appears to me that it's difficult to stop saying loshon hara. And even if I wouldn't say loshon hara for a thousand times in a row, which would certainly be meaningful, why do I still have that innate desire to say loshon hara? And what would it look like within myself? To work on myself to the degree that I wouldn't have that taiva to say lashon hara. So when we say working on us Was that right? Exactly, but I'm trying to figure out what that work is.

35:54 So because people talk about shifting consciousness, but at the end of the day, I keep making these shifts within me. There's an active process that I'm going through, and yet I still have that taiva. So you could say that taiva is fundamental to your being, but what if it wasn't? What if there was a way of 'working on ourselves'—that would be fundamentally a different type of work that would make a radical shift we wouldn't make at all, where we would be allowing a higher order of divine reality to express itself through us. That might be a completely different vision of working on ourselves. By the way, this is the Alcoholics Anonymous model of working on yourself, which is a totally different model. I just wanted to say this struggle that Moshe Rabbeinu had. How do we get from here to here? I feel like that's what we all go through all the time. We know what's going to happen is going to happen.

36:51 We also have avoda And how does that right? That's the vidyu. Come together exactly. And then, what is the point of actually doing vidyu if everything's going to happen anyway? Exactly. That—that—that's. I feel like that's my whole life in a nutshell. That's my whole life in a nutshell too. I'm emo and no chibatzar. I think this is what this sugya, this parsha, is trying to teach us. That's what we're here for. That's what we're here for. On the chizuk mission. But in this world, correct. But what is it? But again, what if working through it is the problem? What if not just the way that we're working through it, but the notion of working on it is the problem? There is a level of doing, but what if we don't know exactly where the boundaries are, and as a result, we're doing more than we ought to be, which is why we're not being the way we were meant to be? So this isn't obvious. Last question, just because I need to finish up because I think they want you to go to some spa, and I definitely don't want to stand between women in a spa.

37:58 So if I'm hearing you correctly, it's the difference. Between Sormera and Acetone So you're saying get things out of the way so that what exists can come forward naturally And also there is some effort. Even Moshe Rabbeinu's case here, there is some effort. There is a hichnadel, and the process that ignites is hidden. But it's necessary. Critical. Moshe Rabbeinu at the end of the day still has to throw the gold into the fire. So where Moshe Rabenu struggles Exactly. So most of us are in the question phase. That's where we are. We're in the struggle, and Moshe Rabenu is modeling for us what human existence looks like. We're in the struggle of figuring out how am I supposed to make something that cannot be made. Ultimately, the conclusion that Hashem teaches Moshe Rabenu is that your job is to throw it into the fire, and I will make it.

39:00 So now let's unpack what that is. It goes like this: the Menorah always existed. Moshe Rabbeinu's job is to allow the Menorah to emerge. When Moshe Rabbeinu throws the gold into the fire, that does not create the Menorah; it just now allows the Menorah to be visible. But the Menorah. What was the work? But not more than that. The work is throwing it into the fire. Now we're going to unpack exactly what that means. But he didn't do anything more than that. Until he throws it into the fire, he lives in the tension of that ontological tension of being and becoming. But then Hashem gives him the answer. Your job is just to throw it in the fire. And now the thing that always existed just becomes visible. In other words, there was always a menorah from Sheshes Yimibereshes. A menorah always existed. Moshe Rabbeinu, your job is to throw it in the fire, and now I'm going to show you what's always been almost like Hagar in the river. There was always a river there; she just couldn't see it. It just had to become visible.

40:12 Why fire? What does it mean to throw something into the fire? What fire does is return matter to its undifferentiated state. Everything in this world, in the physical world, is in a state of differentiation. This chair is different than this chair is different than this chair. What happens when you throw it all into the fire? It dissolves. It returns to its most basic, primal form of matter, where it's totally undifferentiated. In other words, the gold, until Moshe Rabenu threw it into the fire, was shaped by human intention. It was Moshe Rabenu trying to figure out how to make this thing. When he throws it into the fire, what he's doing is releasing it from all human intention. Or to put it a little bit differently, as long as the gold remained under the control of Moshe Rabbeinu, it was too much his authorship. Moshe Rabbeinu was the author of the story of how I will make a menorah.

41:17 And the authorship is what stands in the way of the revelation of the menorah. That's what's critical. The problem is the ego that ascribes itself as I am the author of this thing. I've signed my name on it, so to speak. At the end, the artist signs their name on the painting. That authorship is the problem. When we relinquish authorship, the deeper form emerges. This is the humility of Moshe Rabenu. The humility of Moshe Rabenu is to struggle and then to ultimately recognize my job, the work, is to let go. So when we talk about working on ourselves, there's a paradoxical nature to working on yourself. Work. We think working on ourselves is this very active thing that I'm doing. When in reality, working on ourselves is relinquishing the authorship over our lives. And people think, but am I? What do you mean? I'm in control of myself. Are you?

42:20 Are you genuinely in control of yourself? This famous line from Alcoholics Anonymous, you have to recognize you're an addict. If you could have stopped, you would have stopped. The fact that you can't stop tells you that you're not the author of this story. You're not in control of this part. So what do you have to do? These are the first steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. You have to let go and let God. I have to recognize that only God could heal me in this place. So the work, when we talk about working on ourselves, and this is why that lashon hara example is so good. What I can do is suppress my lashon hara. I can come into greater contact with Avos Yisrael. So I can make certain meaningful shifts. I'm not minimizing it, but that's not actually the work. The work is letting go of the need for me to control this part and giving it over to Hashem. Because at some point I can't make this. But it's critical that I take ownership over throwing it into the fire. My job is to let go. Just in case you think that's easy, try it.

43:22 If what you think I'm saying is okay, I'll just let go. Go ahead, give it a shot. Just try. Spend a week just trying to let go. You will notice, as soon as you try to let go, that the following voice will come up within you. If you let go, it's never going to happen. Because that authorship that we take is a form of control. What we call working on ourselves is very often our own ego. And that's actually what keeps us entrenched in the problem. So there's a paradox of all these people that are working on themselves, and they're further. By the way, that deep breath that some of you just took, I love that. Thank you. I'm with you on that journey. The 'I'm working on myself.' There's that 'I' that's in the beginning of that sentence. 'I'm working on myself. I'm owning this. I'm in control of this. You're not.' You're not in control of others. You're not even really in control of yourself. The only thing that you're in control of is to step back and allow Hakadosh Baruch Hu to make the miracle to heal you.

44:18 That's the work. The work is to throw ourselves into the fire. That's the chiduna. Exactly. That's the bechira. And by the way, you see this everywhere. It's what the Gemara says. The Gemara says if somebody comes along and they say, 'Yagati, I worked hard, v'lo matsasi, but I didn't find success,' or 'Lo yagati v'matsasi, I didn't work hard and I found success,' al tamin, don't believe that guy. Yagati, I worked hard, u'matsasi. What does matsasi mean? And it happened. If you worked hard, then you earned it. You worked hard in learning. You became the vessel through which Hakadosh Baruch Hu could fill yourself up with Torah. So you have these guys in yeshiva that are working very hard But haalevi, right? Working very hard to become kli, that's awesome. Working very hard to become, it doesn't work. And that's what the yagati v'lo matzasi. What does that mean? There are guys that work very hard in yeshiva and they understand every block gemara, but there is something missing.

45:19 And what's missing is that humility. Because there's still a lot of authorship over that. Look at this thing that I did. I'm the top boy in She'er. I understand everything. I chazored a thousand times, and now I could repeat it by heart. You may know all of this Torah, but you're a professor of Rambam. You're a professor of Rashi. It doesn't in right because it doesn't suffuse you because that's something that's matzasi And that's about becoming a vessel. The best way of thinking about this is as follows: Moshe's efforts to produce a menorah don't produce a menorah; they produce Moshe. He had to go through that process Because the work here wasn't for Moshe Rabbeinu to make a menorah. The work that he did was to produce a Moshe Rabbeinu that could step back to allow the menorah to be made. So the fundamental shift was in Moshe Rabbeinu himself.

46:15 Does that make sense? So perhaps that's what it means that when Moshe Rabbeinu wrote the Torah, the Shekhinah was medaberes mitoch grono That the Shekhinah spoke from within Moshe. What does that mean? It means in a certain sense he was the Menorah. It's the same way the Menorah contains the light. Moshe Rabbeinu contains the Torah. He's the vessel that contains the Torah. How does he become that vessel? Moshe Rabbeinu is anav mikol adam. He's the ultimate in humility, the ultimate in the recognition that I can't make this happen. I can only make myself into a vessel that could receive it. Whether Hakadosh Baruch Hu will give it to me or not, I have no control over. But to the degree that I know that I have no control over it That's exactly how successful I'll be. So there's an inverted reality. Actually, stepping away from the need to control and make it happen is paradoxically what makes it happen. And every moment that you're conscious, I'm stepping away. Why isn't it happening?

47:10 Because you're asking yourself why isn't it happening? It's like when the Mishnah Avot says, if you run away from Kavod, Kavod will chase after you. So there are people that are running away from Kavod, but they're looking backwards the entire time, going, 'No, chase me. I'm so humble. I've stepped back. How come it's not happening?' As long as we're asking ourselves the question, 'How come it's not happening?' It will never happen because we're standing in that space. We're not allowing Hashem to fill up that vessel. Our own ego is the problem. I'm working on myself is exactly the problem. So two thoughts. One is metacognating can definitely get them away. Absolutely. The second one is so today just to bring it back to today's generation. These millennials, the new generation right now. They are more primed for being able to do this because of the pain, the anxiety, the depression, the struggles, the drugs.

48:10 Absolutely. They're much more primed there because they struggle much more with the question than we ever did growing up. They're much more in that state of Moshe Abinu having difficulty, not knowing how to do it. They actually arrive in a more profound way at the recognition that they can't And the fact that they can't is what humbles them, and the humility becomes the vessel that actually heals them. And we can do that by doing exactly the same thing when we see. We do it by not helping them. Our need to help them is our need to help them. We just turn radically inwards and say, "I cannot make my child whatever I want to make him." No child has ever been assembled by a parent. And the tools would be for our children to see us going through that process and the humility to give them that space.

49:06 Reminds me of Rabbi. It ties right into what Rabbi David Aaron said about three years ago. He said, "Hashem only exists in the present moment" And the entire point of what he was saying is that only when we're present do we make the opening for all potentiality in that moment. When we're trying to control the outcome, we're not present. Exactly. Listen. Anytime I say something that Rabbi David Aaron says, I'm. I'm good. The reason the kids or anybody who goes through something gets there quicker is because the faster you come to the realization that you're not in control of anything. Then you have to let go because you don't have a choice. So there's so much out of their control. That's why. Because exhaustion is actually the greatest gift. When I'm so tired of trying to make it happen, and I finally relinquish control, it actually happens.

50:05 By the way, the fact that just happened in the room when I said that resonated is the biggest proof. The fact that a hundred percent of the people in this room just went like this. I'm exhausted. Yeah. Well When you say hishtadlus, what do you mean? It depends. It does. That's exactly. Not a lot. In other words, you. The answer to your question is there. Where is the shidduch coming from? What's your job going to get into? X, Y, Z. The question is You have to do. People could say, I'm going to daven, and that's your shidduch. They could. Or I'll make two calls, or I'll make one call. But then you have to step back and say it's not in my control. It's the Avi Shetan. You have to have that understanding. So the answer will emerge. Would you mind if I push back on that a little bit? Please, because I'm actually not sure I agree with that.

51:04 It when you make that phone call for that shidduch It's not then I have to step back. I had to step back before I made the phone call. But you can't cross the street without looking. You still have to look. But let's stay in the shadchan question for a second because that's where it's really hard. I'm making that phone call. And I and what most people do, I think, is express it exactly the way you did it. I'm calling that shadchan to say my daughter's in the parsha. I'm calling this person to find out what's going on behind the scenes. Is this a healthy boy? So I feel like I'm putting in my hestadlus, period, and now emuna. Just the opposite. Emuna was way beforehand. I am not in control of my daughter's shidduch. I am not in control of when it will happen, who it will be, or how our marriage will play out. It is not my responsibility to control things that are beyond my control. It's barely even my responsibility to control things that are quote unquote within my control. My job is to relinquish all forms of control from the very beginning. That's my first step. I'm throwing it into the fire, and that shidduch will come from a divine order of reality that is well beyond this world.

52:14 Now that I've thrown it into the fire, when I make that phone call, it's absent that anxiety. It's absent that need of control, right? And I'm okay knowing that whatever happens is okay, will be okay. It's already exactly what it will emerge eventually to be. It's already here. It just needs to unfold and allow itself to be. So it's not, but that's not together hestadlus anymore. That we think of hestadlus is this. I control until X. I know we really got to go. I control until X, and now why? I control nothing. And the fact that I sat for so long in this space of trying to control it is what got in the way of allowing it to unfold. I have to finish because you have to go, and I also have to go. But I just want to say this: you're about to embark on a week of quote-unquote working on yourself.

53:08 And I just want to say that there's a very big danger. In the way that we frame this, because I came to Israel to work on myself for a week. Maybe the work is exactly the opposite. I came to Israel to reach that essential point of recognition that I need to remove my own authorship from the process of working on myself and allow Hakadosh Baruch Hu to make the miraculous changes within me that will allow my true self to emerge. And so, as you hear things this week that deeply resonate with you, I would only want to encourage you to step back and not control the work, but allow the work to unfold.