Teshuva - Building A New Relationship With Hashem

1:55 It's always funny when I get introduced in the seminaries as the Menahel of Mivaseret, and you see certain girls go like, "Oh," and there's like a little like they don't say anything out loud, but you see their eyes just go like It's like, "Thank you for introducing yourself." I'm sure none of you know Tani or Ari or any of the. Thank you for the three of you that just did that. I just wanted to see who you were, so thank you very much. I want to try today to share something that's very real for me. And because of that, on the way over here, I was struggling myself with two different aspects of this shir. I'll share with you the struggle that I have before I even say the shir, just because I want you to understand that there's really two parts of me here.

2:48 There's a part of me that has a certain I don't want to chas v'shalim call it academic. There's nothing academic about Yiddishkeit. But there's a certain part of me that has a question and answer, a hashkafa that I want to give over In terms of a way of seeing something in Yiddishkeit. And then there's another part of me that wants to share something very human, very real. Even as I was writing this shir last night, I was struggling to put it together. And in the spirit of vulnerability, I'd like to share with you that if it doesn't come out—not that I don't think Teshuva will come out well—but if you feel yourself like we're sort of bouncing between two worlds here, it's because I myself am bouncing between two worlds. I want to share with you something Tiyurdek But I also want to share with you something that's very human Because the topic of Rosh Hashanah, of Aseres Yemei Tshuva, of Yom Kippur Of Sukkot—it's very much a Tiyurdek topic. That one needs to see through the lens of Chazal, through the Torah.

3:53 But on the other hand, there's a very human element, something that we're all going through in this time. Of just a struggle, a sense of lack, perhaps a sense of growth that comes from that lack And I want to really try to address both. So we'll start just with the more Targumic part a little bit. The Alter Rebbe in Tanya says a very beautiful thing in Yigeras Hachuva. He says that the word to shuva comes from a lashon of toshuv hay. To return the hay. The Alter Rebbe explains that Hashem's name is Yud Kei Vav Kei The four letter name that Hashem has in this world, which is His most essential name And that when a person does an avera, the Alter Rebbe explains. The final hey detaches from the first three letters of Hashem's name. And that tshuva returns hey to Hashem's name. The question I'd like to explore is: What does that mean? That sounds like a very kabbalistic idea. It doesn't necessarily sound like an actionable idea. It sounds like something very high. I don't know if it's something that is going to help us as we're sitting on Song Gedalia, on Erv Yom Kippur. I don't know if we're going to be thinking about Hashem's name and returning the hey to Hashem's name. What can we do to take this idea of the Alter Rebbe and bring it down for us?

5:27 To obviously, if the Alter Rebbe said it, he said it in a way that it's supposed to be meaningful. The question is, what was the Alter Rebbe trying to communicate? That's the first question I'd like to ask. The second question I think is a little bit more understandable for us. I'm getting the sense in my life and you'll tell me if you have a similar experience. That everything in this world is in a state of continuing disrepair and repair. Everything in this world seems to be breaking and being fixed at the same time. Have you noticed that in your relationships? Things are well, then they're less well. Then they're really less well, then they're really good again. And there's a, and sometimes they're really good, and sometimes there's less good, but there's more good, and there seems to be this very fascinating vacillation that exists in the world between You. We're doing We're doing okay. I know it's different here in the seminaries than it is in the yeshivas.

6:28 I know in the yeshivas, when there's a breakdown in the relationships with the guys, I can share with you what it looks like if you're interested. It's like somebody had a fight with his roommate and they told each other off. And then I talked to the guy. I asked, "How's it going?" He said it's fine. Just that he has nothing to do with him. It's just fine. That's the whole thing. And then you speak to the girls about it, and they're like, I just feel like we were so close, and there was a deep sense of belonging, and now I guess I'm just feeling like a certain emptiness. On the other hand, I'm feeling much closer to other girls. It was a five-hour conversation with the guys. It was less than thirty seconds. And by the way, when they get back together with the guys, it's also less than thirty seconds. You want to know what it looks like when the guys get back together? It's a fascinating thing. They go, "We good?" The guy goes, "Yeah." And then they dap it up, and that's the whole thing.

7:17 It's like ten hours of conversations for the girls. I guess I just wanted to share with you that when you did that, I'm sure you didn't mean it, but the way that I experienced it and what I felt, and it triggered this from the past. It's an amazing thing that Hakadosh Baruch Hu created this thing called marriage. Let's take these two completely different species and put them in a home together and just see what happens. Hakadosh Baruch Hu has a wonderful sense of humor Because I know I don't want to say anything. Happens to be rabbits and rich and my wife are very close friends. I really would have wanted to move out of my house years ago. But then Rebbetzin Rich bought the house next door, and now I'm stuck there for the next forty years because my wife's like I'm not leaving Rebbetzin Rich and they sit on the corner with all the children playing.

8:08 And I know what they're doing. They're talking about their husbands. And they say I just don't understand these people. And me and Rabbi Rosenblum and Rabbi Rich were all in the window, going, what don't they understand about us? We're not that complicated. But in shuls. We're talking about your half of the species. Going, what does she want from us? It's an amazing thing. Where was I? It's pretty early in the morning. I know for sure that whatever I say here is going to be discussed at around five o'clock. It's ten o'clock in the morning. It's way too early for my ADHD to have kicked in. I barely remember where I was coming from. Oh yeah. The idea. The idea that everything is in a state of disrepair and repair. And it seems that when you look at the Torah, you see this idea on every possible level.

9:04 The soul is sent down into this world in a state of disrepair. The soul was in a state of harmony with Hakadosh Baruch Hu before creation. And then it's sent down into this world away from Hakadosh Baruch Hu And then we're called. That we should be davec to Hashem, we're told that we should be cleaving to Hashem. So there's this movement away And this paradoxical movement towards Does that make sense? We were with Hashem, we were fine. And then we're far from Hashem, and we're told to come close to Hashem. Adam and Chava, we know, were originally created in one body. Adam was facing one way, Chava was facing another. And we were split. And then we were told, 'Vahayul basarechad.' Now come together. There's this movement away, and then there's this movement towards. We were exiled down to Mitzrayim, away from Eretz Canaan. Only eventually to go back to Eretz Yisrael.

10:01 Yerushalayim is in a state of destruction. But ultimately we're told that there's a state of rebuilding called Mashiach. There's a kibbutz galius that's occurring now, today in the world. A person doesn't need to be a prophet or even a genius to be able to look at the world today and be amazed—amazed is not even a good enough word; it's not even close to a good enough word—that we're all here in this moment, that we're sitting in your shulayim irakodash. In Eish Gasher. I assume you're all from not Eish Shulayim, and that you've been able, from the various places that you come from, to come back to Eretz Yisrael. That's a miraculous thing. You're from Eretz Yisrael. The same way we're all from some variation of the five towns, right? We're all from Florida or Montsie or New Jersey or New York or Chicago. We're all, and we're not from here. And in an amazing way, we've come back. So again, there's this movement away. There's this movement towards.

11:00 So what is that? Why does the world operate like that? Why did Hakadosh Baruch Hu create the world in such a way? That's in terms of the more Tzairidic part. But there's a more. Human question, a more vulnerable question, which I want to put to you today Which is when we speak about tshuva. Maybe there's a sense that we have, if we're being honest with ourselves. Can I come back? Is that a realistic possibility for me? If the average that I committed in my past was truly serious If I did something. Do you remember when you were in eighth grade and you promised yourself you would never cross that line? Do you remember when you did that? Do you remember the summer after tenth grade when you did? I don't mean summer after tenth grade. I mean summer after tenth grade. Everyone has their summer after tenth grade. It seems to me that N. C. S. Y. C. O. L. only exists in order to stop boys from doing what they're doing the summer after tenth grade.

12:00 These 360 kids come to Cole every year so they can avoid having whatever summer they were going to have after tenth grade. There's a sense that I get just from speaking to people, and I know it even in myself. Of undamaged goods A lot of times we don't even want to go to that place inside of ourselves. If we're not in contact with this place, it's either because we don't have it, which kolakavod to you if you don't. But a lot of times there are people that are unwilling to feel the feeling of undamaged goods because of what it would mean to encounter that emotion. I could lose myself to that. If I really look back and go, I can't believe I did that. Will I be acceptable? Will I be acceptable if somebody knows that about me? There's this question that exists in dating.

12:50 You get it a lot from both the guys and the girls of how much I have to tell I'm sure you've asked that question before. When I'm dating someone, how much do they have to know about the past? And I'm not here to say what the right answer or the wrong answer to that question is, if there even is a right answer or a wrong answer. But I just want to talk about the shame that exists in that question for a second. What are we really saying when a person says, 'What do I have to tell her? What do I have to know about my person's past?' That question at the core of it is: Am I still lovable? Am I still worthy of connection and belonging, because of what I've done? How far is too far? And so, you have guys that'll say it like this. Maybe I'll tell her after I'm engaged.

13:38 And I'm like, so she'll be trapped. That's the goal. You'll already be engaged and she won't be able to leave. And they're like, yeah. So I'll be like, okay, so let's play this out. You're willing to get engaged to a girl. Who you don't know if she could hold space for some of your lowest moments. And when you unpack that, you think about how ridiculous that is. What we want more than anything, and I'm not here to say that we should share everything, is a deep sense of belonging. We use a very flimsy word. We use the word connection. And we're looking for connection. Girls, we have connection. Every one of us has amazing connections in our lives, and some of us feel a sense of being unfulfilled by these connections because we didn't unpack what the word connection really means. Connection could be a friend. Connection could be a rebbe, a teacher, a mechanecher, a rakeset.

14:29 Connection could be a brother, a sister, or a parent. That's not really what we mean. What we really mean is, I want a deep sense of belonging. I want someone who will sit there with me in a non-judgmental fashion and say As you are okay and enough. And I can appreciate who you are and your humanity. I can empathize deeply with you, even when you share with me the lowest things that you've done. Every one of us wants that. We want that in another person. We want to be able to be. If you just want to put it simply, I just want to be able to be myself. I don't want to be in hiding anymore. Every person in this room, including myself, on some level, we're two people. There's the person that we are, and then there's the person that we show to the world—the best self of who we are, and that's a very painful experience.

15:14 You might see me right now as Mordechai Berg sitting in this she'er, sitting at a stender, giving over a shtikel taira, and you think this who I am. This is not who I am. This is one dimension of who I am. It's a mask that I wear in this particular arena in order to convey Torah. But there's other dimensions of me, dimensions that I'm not necessarily as proud of. And it's not necessarily appropriate for every person to see that part. But I want some people to be able to see those parts. I want some people in my life to be able to say, "I see you for that person," and I want you to know that person is also lovable. Like I actually read on like. Ideally We strive to be But we're not. We're human beings. In the ideal, of course, we want to be tochol kibarol. We want our insides to match our outsides.

16:14 We all strive for something called authenticity. But how many of us, if we're being honest, can say that I am authentic one hundred percent of the time? It's a beautiful thing. It's a wonderful thing to be able to be that. It's something to strive for. But I think all of us on some level can say that we're not, and that's okay. There's, I remember when I was in high school, I was a very angry tenth grader, and I was angry at the school that I was in And they had an open house. You remember when they had an open house in your schools. And so the week before open house, everything got fixed, every broken window, every broken door. They were buffing the floors. I said to one of my teachers, "This is the biggest faker school in the world." It's the biggest faker school. All of a sudden, before the parents come, the floors get buffed as if that's what's happening all the time. All of a sudden, the school's not like a loony bin like it's been for the last year and a half since I've been here.

17:08 And this very clever teacher He said to me, 'Are you interested in any girls?' So I was a tenth grader. I was very firm with the kids. I said, "No, never." But I was honest with him, so I said yes. And he said, "When you go out with a girl, you don't like put on your best clothing. You don't like put on your best self." So I was like, "Of course." He goes, "That's what we're doing here. We're not faking. We're just showing our best self to another person." I think we all do that. But when it comes to tshuva, there's a certain sense. There's a certain sense of fakeness to our tshuva, no? Like you see some guys. Baruch Hashem, not many today, but you see some guys on Yom Kippur. And it's like it's like they're going to the gym, when it comes to, clapping alchet.

17:56 You see, some guys are like regular, and some guys they become very frum. It's like I'm like, you're gonna hurt yourself. This is not what the Rebbeinu Shlom wants. But all of a sudden they're like, and these are some strong guys. They spend a significant amount of time in the gym, and I'm like, this is not what the Rebbeinu Shlom means. But there's a sense of intensity. Perhaps to compensate for the fact that we know this is not a hundred percent real. Can we really say we're not going to do these averas again? And if we know that we're going to do these averas again, am I really acceptable? Is my apology really meaningful? I'm really damaged goods. Let's just be honest. I've done these things. I am this person. I'll probably continue to be this person. So there's a certain sense of I'm a fake. And why in the world would you want me back? And then we get this shmuze. Which is a very beautiful shmuze, and I'm not chassidish on being mezazel in it, but we get a shmuze of like Hakadosh Baruch Hu loves you no matter what, and I think there's a part of us that would like to believe that. It's like a very sweet sentiment.

18:57 Hakadosh Baruch Hu will always take you back, an infinite God can forgive infinitely. But I think at least for me, there's a part of me that says you know, and I'm into chassidus Like really I don't know. I think there's a certain sense of real shame that I don't know if I'll be acceptable. I don't know if I'm going to be able to do this. And so I'd like, in a very human way, to address that. And to begin to address that, I want to share with you a story that I just heard from Rabbi Y Jacobson, and it's a good idea to hear it again. It moved me very deeply when I heard this story. You girls know the niggin alchil l'akeil, It's such a beautiful song. So it was written by a man who lives here in Eretz Yisrael. His name is Rav Hillel Palei.

19:53 Do you girls remember that there was that terrible maysa that bus went by Rav Shaffa went down the mountain and killed that pregnant woman and her two children last year? And all of Eretz Yisrael was mourning. It was a terrible thing. Rav Hillel Pali's daughter Whose name is Batsheva Pali? She was at that bus stop. And Baruch Hashem, she was not killed. She was a newly married woman. But she was hit by the bus. And she went into a coma. And they had to amputate both of her legs. Above the knee. Do you guys know the difference in above the knee and below the knee? Below the knee. You can have a lot of mobility. One of my closest friends in the world had his leg amputated when he was a child. Below the knee. He had cancer when he was 12 years old. Some of you guys might know anyone here from the Five Towns or New Jersey?

20:50 So you know Yitzi Haber. He's one of the. He's a dan. He dances for a living. He's one of the Schnitzel guys. So he's my closest. What do you mean? You say the Schnitzel guys? Everybody knows Yitzi and Donny. So Yitzi Haber was one of my closest friends. He's an amazing person. He dances for a living. He had his leg amputated when he was twelve years old. And he has a prosthetic leg, and he can literally dance for a living, hundreds of gigs a year, and he's been doing it for over twenty years now. Above the knee is a terrible tragedy. Above the knee means the level of mobility you're going to have in your life is Significantly diminished They amputated her legs and kept her sedated because of the physical trauma she had experienced. And she woke up. And she discovered that she had lost her legs.

21:48 Newly married woman And in the beginning of her process, her husband, who she was newly married to She said to him in her grief. Would you have ever married me? If I had lost both legs? Like, you wouldn't have. You would never have married me like this. It doesn't mean to say that a person can't marry somebody with a physical disability. But all things being equal, we choose people who are healthy and well. And she was feeling a sense of like you would have looked at my shidduch resume. And unless you were an exceptionally special person, you probably would have said, "I want to marry somebody who's going to be able to have more mobility in their lives." And so, her husband, the Rav Hillel Pali, the father, tells this story. This newly married husband said something you don't learn in yeshiva. There's no yeshiva in the world that teaches this in their curriculum.

22:50 He said It doesn't matter what would have happened in the past. This happened now. It didn't happen to you. It happened to us. And the question now is How will we make this a new relationship moving forward? And he said to her I want to renew our vows. I want to make a brit chadasha. I want to renew our vows. Because the relationship that we thought we were going to have The relationship that we knew we were going to have, that were all sitting here saying, for sure, this is what our lives are going to look like That relationship is over. But this didn't happen to you. This happened to us. And the question is, what will our relationship look like moving forward? And so let's renew our vows, and let's take the opportunity now to explore what a new relationship will look like. And I want to share with you that this story, when I heard it, moved me so exceptionally deeply. Not only because of the love that this newly married husband showed for his bride.

23:57 But on a deeper level, it spoke to me because I think that's the answer I've been looking for so many years. There's something very beautiful about telling us that Hakadosh Baruch Hu will always forgive us. But to me, at least, there's something even more beautiful about saying Hakadosh Baruch Hu says when we did this avera, when we brought this level of distrust into our relationship with Hashem, instead of just saying Oh, Hakadosh Baruch Hu will forgive you. Maybe Hakadosh Baruch Hu says, 'This didn't happen to you. This happened to us.' And the question is, 'What will our relationship look like now?' And the reason it excited me to hear this is because it gives us an opportunity to do something very meaningful with our tshuva. It gives us an opportunity to re-explore, to re-examine To renew our relationship with Hashem. And perhaps find new ways of being, and I want to share with you what that might look like.

24:59 Let's say you have a person who's doing tshuva for the avera. Let's say a person wasn't davening. The person wasn't davening, or they were davening but they weren't davening with very much kavanah. And now they're doing tshuva for it. They're looking back on this year and they're saying I have with myself. Rebbe Nachshon, you asked me to speak to you And there were times where I did, and times where I didn't. And even if I did, there were times where I just said the words and I didn't really have any kavanah. The Rav of my shul is very fond of saying that the first time that we have kavanah in davening is by the Shir Shal yom Because you have to think about what day it is. So you actually stop and go, what day is today? Hayom sheni, Hayom shlishi.

25:49 And very often, I think you know, sometimes we have to make a tefillah saderich. In the middle of davening, because we were six thousand miles away, ten thousand miles away, perhaps we were in a different universe. We were in the future. We were in the past. We were anywhere but here. How many times have you found yourself in the middle of modim, going, "How did I get to modim already?" You ever have that feeling that you're just like, "Okay, I guess I'm at this point in davening," and a person says, "Okay, I'm going to do tshuva." So they say, "Okay, Rebbe Nachman, I didn't daven well. I regret it. I'm going to daven more." That's a very low level of tshuva. It's a tshuva, but that's a very low level of tshuva. In the sense that you have the opportunity to ask yourself real questions that allow you to explore why you weren't davening to begin with. And when we explore those things They teach us things about ourselves. You have a very I'm sure I don't know if you had this shnailaf where you're asking yourself like I don't like to say the words of the seder because it's the same words every day And I don't know what these words mean.

26:47 Did you ever have that experience? And then some rebbe told you or some teacher told you. Well, maybe say it in English. And you said it in English, and it still didn't help. Right? Somehow, saying the words in English doesn't matter. Because half the time you don't know what those words mean anyway. I'll share with you a very beautiful story. It's a friend of mine who's a rebbe. He's also a bar mitzvah teacher. And he was hired by a father, a very firm father. He was hired by the father to teach the laning, but also he wanted his son to daven for the amud. So he wanted his son to daven musaf after he landed. And he wanted his son not only to learn, but he wanted him to know the meaning of the entire parsha. Not only did he want him to know the meaning of the entire parsha, he wanted him to know the meaning of all of mussaf. So teach him all the words, teach him what they mean. This obviously they set out two years beforehand because it's a tremendous project, and they're learning the parsha and they're learning what the words mean, and then they get up to mussaf and they're learning what the words mean. And this beautiful twelve-year-old boy looks at this bar mitzvah teacher, this chaver of mine, and he says to him.

27:48 I'm embarrassed to ask you this question, but can I ask you? I know "Amen" means "Kong But what does it really mean? At the end of "Amen," it says "Kong," C-O-N-G, and stands for the congregation should stay "Amen" at this point. Here was a kid who was growing up for 12 years of his life, and when he said 'Amen,' he's like 'Amen' means 'Kong,' but he didn't know what 'Kong' was. How many of us have that feeling when we say words we're like, 'I said those words. I don't know what it means.' You read the Ark scroll; it says 'Sela' in English. I didn't know what 'Sela' meant in Hebrew. I don't know what 'Sela' means in English. So a very simple thing to say might be, I don't know what these words mean, but perhaps a more profound question we would ask ourselves is, does it really matter if I daven? Perhaps a more profound question would be, I davened and I was hurt. I was hurt by Hashem, and I didn't want to daven anymore.

28:37 Perhaps I felt estranged from people that I love in my life And because I felt estranged from those people, it was hard for me to relate. One Talmud said to me very beautifully. He said, "I could handle Malkenu" I could handle God being my king, but I can't handle Avinu. Because my father was abusive. His father was a physically abusive man. And he said to think about Hashem as Avinu. And he had deep levels of resentment towards God when he referred to God as his father. I was so impressed. I learned so much from this Talmud because he was saying a very real thing to me. He was saying this relationship that I have with Hashem is filled with pain and anger and resentment, and there's a sense of longing that I have to be closer to Hashem, but there's also a sense of I want nothing to do with Hashem in my life because of the pain that I've been through.

29:28 So many of us are afraid to say those things. We're afraid to talk about the pain that we have in our relationship because we don't want to confront the darkest parts inside of ourselves. It's not to say that everybody's going through this all the time, and it's not to say it's a very dramatic thing that I just said. I don't want anyone to think that everybody's in this situation, but all of us on some level experience something, some block when it comes to our relationship with Hashem. If we didn't experience that blockage, then we would be fine all the time. We would be serving Hashem passionately all the time. You know that flipped out Shana Olaf guy that's davening like he's having a seizure. You know that guy that daven's right by the mechitza in Campask. He's right there. And he's. And it's like, sweetie, it's not Neila on Yom Kippur. It's like a Mincha in August. Like, what's what happened?

30:23 When I say this to the guys, they go, "Facts." It's so true as the female version of that. Thank you for sharing. I'm learning the lingo. I know all the things. I know all the words. I know about swiping left and swiping right and sliding into the M's. I know about. I learned a new word this summer. W is. I'm holding. I'm holding in all the language. I'm 43, but in my head I still think I'm 18. But this idea Like, come on You weren't there six months ago. What happened? We're not like that. We don't move from one end of the spectrum to the other. We all have things. That guy is probably overcompensating because he doesn't want to deal with that blockage that's inside of him. It's very difficult to be real with what's going on inside of us. It's very difficult to say I'm disappointed by life.

31:14 And it doesn't mean that life isn't amazing. It doesn't mean that life doesn't have a tremendous amount of gratitude. But can we also say that there are things in my relationship with Hashem that make it very difficult? It makes it. It's not a bad thing to say. It's a real thing to say. It's being honest with yourself. There's a movement in the world today, a very beautiful movement, Baruch Hashem, of people. I think your generation taught our generation that it's okay out loud. I think my generation is trying to teach your generation to be a little bit more modest with your out loudness. But I think your generation told our generation it's okay to be who you are and to share that with people. There are rebayim in the world. There are certain people that are making big revolutions. Whether it's Reb Fisher, Reb Kalish. They're speaking a certain language of be honest, be real, be yourself, and let's deal with what's actually happening. The reason why these people are pushing this agenda is because a person who's real A person who's able to name, to give language to what's actually happening inside of ourselves, is also then able to say

32:23 And this is what I want. From the distance that a person feels from Hashem, there's also a certain sense of longing. I want to share with you a Talmud sent me a message this morning. I woke up on the average day. Everyone has their, everyone, all Rebbeim have this dread of WhatsApp Because you wake up and there's It's 50 messages, 60 messages. It depends how many messages you wake up to. And so this Talmud sent me 25 messages. So I was curious, and Baruch Hashem, none were voice notes. Sometimes you get a 17 minute voice note, and it's like, I love you, but I don't have time to listen to your shir. And then they say, no, Rebbe, listen to it on double speed. It's like you're talking about a very serious thing. I can't listen to it on double speed. And also, double speed somehow when you listen to it, it sounds very different. Sounds very angry. If you listen to something on single speed, you'll see they're very calm. So I can't listen to that. But this part, this Thomas sent me twenty five messages, and the messages he sent me were so profound.

33:15 He said to me in the messages. These are the blockers. I really had aspirations for this year. I'm feeling like I just can't get into it. There's something that's very blasé, something I didn't want. I'm so exceptionally impressed by him. I feel like I have so much to learn from him, because he's really saying, if you unpack the words I so desperately want to feel like I'm having the most meaningful year. You remember when you came Shana Aleph? Do you remember the hopes, the dreams, the expectations that you had? Do you remember the moment when you realized that those expectations were premeditated disappointments? Do you remember when you realized your shana alef wasn't going to look like you thought it would in tenth and eleventh and twelfth grade, and then it was going to be full of twists and turns and things that you never expected? So this guy is going through that, but what I heard from him is I'm feeling blocked and I'm not into it. Is the level of desire that I have enough? The question that he's asking, in a certain sense, is I want this to be more than it is. I really want for this to be something special.

34:22 In other words, from the distance comes the longing. From the distance comes the connection. It's not possible for a person to have a level of intimacy, to have a level of oneness without a degree of separation. The question is: Are we willing to say that relationship is over? The person that I was last year—it's finished. It's Kol Nidrei, right? I'm breaking all the vows that I took. That person that I was—I'm not that person anymore. And it's not like that person was a bad person, but it was an old relationship. When you get married, you'll see this. I'm sure that Rabbi Rich and Rabbi Zinrich could attest to this. I don't want to speak for their marriage. I don't know their marriage at all, but I think every married couple has this: that the relationship that you thought you were going to have when you got married is not the relationship that you'll have at all. It will be far better in some ways. It will be far different in other ways. And there's an unfolding, a process of letting go of that skin. And rebuilding something new—it's a very special process to go through.

35:19 If we allow ourselves, if we're willing to say, "I'm willing to renew our vows." The relationship that we had when you had legs is going to be different than the relationship when you don't have legs. But that doesn't mean it won't be an amazing relationship. It'll be a different relationship, but it'll be probably a more beautiful relationship. And here's why: this is the big punchline for this year. If you strip away all of the stuff, what you're left with is the essence. What's there? What's there when everything gets taken away? What's there when a person is sick? Literally three minutes before you girls walked in A very dear chaver of mine is very sick. And he's a person I worked with for many years. And he has cancer, and he's going for a very serious PET scan today. And he messaged me Just to have me in mind in his tefillas.

36:21 And I daven for this person every day, three times a day. He's a very special person. An exceptionally special person. And I'm watching him. And I'm blown away. I knew him as a kid, I knew him as a young adult, I know him as an adult. I want to share with you that the person he is now is so different than the person he was a year ago. Because when you strip away everything, what's left is who you really are. When you strip away a person's wealth, when you strip away a person's family, Chassid Shalom. When you strip away a person's health, when you strip away a person's limb, what's left is the essence. I imagine, and if I could speak to the Pali's, what I would want to tell them is That it could very well be that while this is the most difficult thing that you'll ever go through, and not at all to minimize that level of tragedy for a person to lose their limb, but I'm telling you this as Yitzi's best friend, if Yitzi didn't lose his leg when he was 12 years old, I promise you he wouldn't be the person that he is today. And he said that to me many times. Is who are you when you're 16 years old and all your friends are playing ball, and you're a regular TABC kid growing up in New Jersey

37:35 And you're playing ball with them to the best of your ability. Lamaisa, you have a prosthetic leg. You have to discover who you are and discover talents that you never knew you had. I have a daughter. I'm not allowed to tell this story. I have to pay her 10 shekels every time I tell this story. I'm asking you, Mrs. Rich, please don't tell my daughter that I told this story because she hates when I tell this story. I have a daughter who lost her thumb or a significant piece of her thumb in a door when she was a very little girl. And she hates when I tell the story. And I'm not going to tell you the story. But I want to tell you an amazing thing. She was not just shy, she was meek. She was a meek child. She has a counterpart in my brother-in-law's family. A kid that was born the same age. He's also a very meek child.

38:22 My wife basically took off weeks and weeks of work and just stayed home with this child because she couldn't get this thumb wet or dirty or anything. For weeks and weeks, my wife just invested total time into this child. And she is a fundamentally different person. Not only is she not meek, she's exceptionally strong. She's exceptionally capable. Her counterpart in my brother-in-law's family still remains a very meek child. And this daughter losing that part of herself helped her discover a brand new part of herself. In some ways, obviously, I would always want her to be whole. I would always want her to be healthy. But in some ways, losing that little bit of flesh made her into the person she is. That, and she has a very obnoxious older sister that she had to learn to contend with. I think that's a fair assessment of it. But I'm telling you that it began with losing this part of her thumb.

39:25 Losing—we think we've lost what we are. We think we lost. Let's be honest. We think we lost our innocence. I did that, avera. I'm not innocent anymore. You can't say I'm innocent. Just the opposite. You think you lost your innocence? What you're discovering is yourself. That thing, that standard that you held, it was an old standard. It was a standard that was born, perhaps of some beautiful things, perhaps of some less beautiful things. But if you let go of that standard, there's a level of discovery that you could have from within. The person that says I refuse to daven out of a sitter anymore because I don't want to say these words by rote. Is baderech to having a real conversation with Hashem? They're in a process to go to a forest somewhere and to just cry to Hashem and say, "Pati, I hate this."

40:11 And there's something so real and so beautiful about that. The kid that's acting out, that's doing averes, that he knows is wrong. If he's actually willing to pay attention and say, 'This comes from a place of low self-esteem. This comes from a feeling that I'm not enough. This comes from a feeling of abandonment and a need that I have.' To connect because I don't know how to settle that abandonment within me. I had a Talmud last week who said to me, he's so, and he, and rightfully so, he is so angry at Hashem. He really went through something terrible in his life. I don't want to give any details. He is so angry at Hashem. I told him, I'm so happy for you that you're so angry at Hashem. The contrast is that there's somebody in the yeshiva who went through something very similar, and he said, I'm not angry at all, and I stay away from all negative emotions. And I was sitting in my office and I wanted to say to him.

40:58 Like that's like I don't want to tell a person how to feel, but I did want to say to him, like that's not a move. It doesn't work to not feel negative emotions. You don't get to discover who you are in that way. Yerushalayim was destroyed. The word Yerushalayim means Yira Shalaim. It means something complete. How could something complete be destroyed? The answer is that it can't be complete until it's destroyed. That the Yerushalayim that we had in the first base on Mikdash and the second base on Mikdash. It was something that had the capacity to become complete, so it needs to be destroyed. The third Beis Hamikdash is the complete Beis Hamikdash because we had to suffer the gullus of thousands of years. When we left Eretz Canaan and came down to Eretz Mitzrayim and then went back to Eretz Yisrael again, it wasn't like oh we're just coming back to the place that were. We had gone through gullus, we had gone through Mitzrayim, and we weren't the same anymore. We came back with a tyra.

41:51 It wasn't. Stam. We went to Galus, and then we came back. We came back fundamentally different people. Exile changed our nation. For thousands of years, every Pesach we have to continue to talk about the exile that we went through because the trauma of Mitzrayim is so deep inside of us that if we're not in a constant state of talking about it every single day, twice a day in Kriyat Shema, and specifically in the month of Nissan on Pesach, we have to relive that experience because the trauma is so real. But from that trauma, freedom is born. A soul comes down into this world and says, "I'm so distant from Hashem." If you were up in Shamayim, you were not close to Hashem; you were just next to Hashem. To become davek to Hashem means that you have to become distant in order to become close. Chava and Adam were originally one body; they were next to each other, but they were facing in the opposite direction.

42:39 Everything in this world is in a state of disrepair because it's in a state of repair. There's no such thing as things falling apart. Things are, in the words of Shel Silverstein, falling upwards. You girls know Shel Silverstein. Isn't he a wonderful writer? The notion of falling upwards. When I read that, it changed my life. I always thought I was on this trajectory in my life. I didn't know falling could go that way. I didn't know that losing something could be finding something else. I didn't know that I could say it's okay for me to kill that relationship. By the way, that's what forgiveness is. Forgiveness is a form of death. Do you know that? That's why it's so hard to forgive a friend. Because if you forgive, you have to be willing to say that thing we had is dead. There might be something new.

43:26 That's why it's so hard to forgive ourselves. It's letting go of a piece of ourselves. There's tremendous vulnerability in forgiveness. Because if I forgive something, that means I killed it. That's why forgiveness is a gift that we give ourselves. I can finally let go. I don't need to carry it with me. There are people living in our head rent free. We're holding massive levels of resentment against them. And the reason we're holding that is because of how much we care about them. That's why we're in so much pain. Learning to forgive somebody is learning to say it's okay for you to be a part of my past, and maybe not to be a part of my future. I think that's a deeper meaning of what tshuva is. Tshuva is And this, this again, don't I'm not a kaifer. I promise you, but it's it'll sound a little bit like kaifer for a second until you realize what I'm saying. In a certain way, Hashem's name in this world is not complete, and we are the ones that broke it. Now it doesn't mean that God is imperfect But in this world, His shchina is not manifest the way it should be because of the averas that we do.

44:29 We live in a way that is not necessarily makados shem shamayim. We live in such a way. And so there's a break in Hashem's name. The hey, in a certain sense, is removed. We want that in the future, in the times of Mashiach, that His name will be one. We get to restore Hashem's name in this world. Hashem is always perfect, but His name in this world, His presence in this world, we get to rebuild it. I want to share with you. It means that when Hashem initially came down into this world, it wasn't as good as it could be. It's better when we rebuild Hashem's name. If you did an average and you're feeling a sense of chalishus, a sense of doubt about yourself that I'm not good enough to participate in this relationship anymore, what I want to say to you from the bottom of my heart is: first of all, I'm with you. I also feel that way.

45:21 I also am coming to Yom Kippur feeling like I have no reason to believe that Hakadosh Baruch Hu would accept my tshuva, but I'm trying to access this part of me that's willing to say I forgive myself. And I am going to let that go, and that's going to be an old version of myself. And this year, there could be a new version of my relationship with Hashem. And I think that that's a restoration of Hashem's name. That's perhaps much better than the old relationship that I had. I want to finish with one of my favorite stories ever. Some of you may have heard it from me before, but it's worth hearing again. Famous story of Eli Weisel and the Labavchir Rebbe. Eli Weisel was a Holocaust survivor. Was a visionary Chassid, and after the Holocaust, he came to 770 in Crown Heights And he introduced himself to the Lubavitcher Rebbe, and he said, "But I'm a visioner, sir. I'm not a Lubavitcher."

46:11 "And the Rebbe said to him, 'It matters that you're a Chassid. It doesn't matter who's Chassid you are, but it only matters that you're a Chassid.' And one year, Eli Wiesel came back on Simchas Torah. And he went over to the Lubavitcher Rebbe. And the Lubavitcher Rebbe said to him, "How do they celebrate Simchas Torah in visioners?" So Eliwizel said, "We make a lechayim." The Rebbe said in Labavitch too. So he poured a lechayim for them. I'm not advocating drinking. I'm just telling you a story. I don't know what Aish Keshia's policy is. I have very strong feelings about the way that alcohol is consumed in our community. I'm not here at all to say anything about alcohol. I'm just telling you a story. So they made a lechayim. And then the Lubavitcher Rebbe said to Eliyitzchok. In Viznitz, they only make one lachaim. So Eliwizel said back to the Labavitcher Rebbe, 'He said, in Viznitz, one is but a drop in the ocean.'

47:05 The Labavitcher Rebbe poured a second lachaim, and they made another lachaim, and the Rebbe was feeling good. It was some chas Torah. It was a time of great joy. It was a time of an overflowing of abundance, and the Rebbe said a very big thing to Eliwizel. He said, "Ask me for a brach." This was not the way that the Rebbe usually spoke. The Rebbe was a very, very careful, very modest, very hidden person. He didn't really want to say things in a very open and revealed way. When the Rebbe says, 'Ask me for a bracha,' that's a very big deal. And Eliwizel he writes that he was like floored by it, and he was quieted by it. He didn't know what to ask for. It was such a huge moment. And he was silent. And the Rebbe looked at him and he said Ask me for a bracha that you should begin again.

47:55 Ask me for a bracha that And what he meant was that after all the pain and suffering and all the loss that you had in the Holocaust Ask me for a bracha that you should be able to begin again, that you should be able to restart your life, and to be able to build something. And Elie Wiesel writes that he said yes, Rabbi, that's the bracha that I want, and that's the bracha that he received. All of us need that bracha every moment of our lives. The world is in a constant state of hachashus. The world is in a constant state of recreation. Every one of us in our lives needs this bracha to be able to begin again. We need to be able to say that what was, and that's okay, but it's also over. And be'ezus Hashem, this tshuva season—by the Ga'ym they have Christmas season, we have tshuva season. This tshuva season, we should be zaychah to forgive ourselves. We should be zaychah to say, 'I'm going to begin again.' And be'ezus Hashem, this brit chadasha, this new covenant that I'm going to have with Hashem could be more beautiful. It could be more meaningful, more deep, more significant than ever before.