Teshuva - Renewal of our Homes

1:43 That's the like. You remember when your husband had to come on? Like what do they really mean is does tshuva really work? It's very difficult for us to conceive of tshuva working. There's a certain disbelief that we have that tshuva could possibly work. I think the reason that we disbelieve that tshuva could work is because we're not necessarily willing to forgive others either. It's especially if we know that they're going to do it again, and especially in today's modern psychology generation, which has a lot of very beautiful things, but I think we spend a lot of time talking about boundaries and borders. And being strong. And there's a lot of that type of talk in the world today, which is very beautiful. And also, we should remind ourselves that boundaries are meant to be created in order to keep people in. Boundaries are not designed to keep people out. Really healthy walls are designed to bring people in. That the hallmark of a person's character is their ability to empathize with others, and especially someone that caused them pain.

2:47 This is such a difficult topic. I was talking to somebody today who is in a tremendous amount of pain and justifiably And this person really feels like they were hurt in a very deep, painful way. And they're sitting with a lot of pain and a lot of resentment, and not that they need me to validate it at all, but it's very obvious that it's a very valid thing that they're going through. And yet, when I ask this person, not even if they could forgive, but just can they see the humanity of this person? Can they see that this person never once woke up and said, "I'm my goal today is to hurt you" So they could only get there cerebrally, but to actually get to a fluid level of I can empathize with this person that caused me pain is probably impossible for this person right now.

3:37 Okay, so because we have perhaps a disbelief about our own ability to forgive and our own ability to heal relationships, we wonder if other people could do it for us. And if it's not true of other people, then you sort of have to get into this mystical state of well, God is infinite, so an infinite God could be infinitely forgiving for all of the many avers that I've committed. Still, I think we it's like a cerebral, philosophical type of like type of construct that doesn't really help us. Not just emotionally, but it doesn't. It's not real for us to think like Hakadosh Baruch Hu can forgive us. It's not a real thing, especially because we know we're going to do it again. Who's not going to say lashon hara next year? I imagine all of us. We're going to do our best, but I imagine all of us on some level are probably going to be nichshol in the same averas that we were last year, and the year before that, and the year before that.

4:28 And there's a certain chalishas adas of giving up on ourselves. And certainly, if I know that I'm giving up on myself, does Hakadosh Baruch Hu really have the capacity to forgive me? And so there's a vulnerability in this entire season, which is basically, am I forgivable? That's a big. Those are big words. Am I a forgivable person? I think as we get older, these questions probably mean different things to us than they did when we were kids. I just want to express what I mean a little bit. When we're eighteen years old and we're in that state of self development, and there's a real sense of discovery of self when you're at eighteen years old. Remember that? When the world was. With all these possibilities, I could be anything. There's a sense that maybe I could be forgivable if I do really well in seminary. There's a subtext in yeshivas. I'm not sure it's the healthiest subtext, but there's a subtext of Whatever I did in high school, this is the year that if I do something different, then the entire story around me changes. It's like When girls are checking them out for shaduchim, it sounds different.

5:34 In high school, they couch it, I'm saying, they phrase it very carefully. In high school, I'm not going to tell you it wasn't wild. He was always a good guy. He really got straightened out when he went to that yeshiva. By the way, it's not fair. We don't allow the girls to do it in the same way. But for the guys, that's a story for a different time. For the guys, there becomes this whole other narrative that a guy who was the biggest bum in high school could become. I'm like. And you see it, you take see it. I remember very well. When I was in high school, I had a rebbe. This is not a nice story I am going to tell you, but I'll tell it to you all the same. I am not embarrassed by it anymore. I had a rebbe who, in tenth grade, I had two rebbeim in tenth grade. One of them was known as a very big liar.

6:22 He was a very big liar. He would lie every class, and we would catch him in all these lies. It was like a joke in the school. He was known as a liar. So he taught us from ten thirty to twelve, from nine fifteen to ten thirty. The Rosh Masivta taught our sheir; it was the top sheir. And he told us a story that he had a rebbe who was a liar. And everyone in the class was looking at each other, "Oh, you have a rebbe who's a liar" And we also have a rebbe who's a liar, but nobody wanted to say that loud. And he said that the way that he tricked this rebbe is he told the rebbe, 'Yeah, there's a chuvas hagrazam.' The Rosh Mesivta's name is Rav Zev Mayer, so he made up this gadol the Grazam. And he said, okay, so I think we need to talk about this. And then the Rebbe said, there's a Chuvasagrazam, and the Rebbe acted like he knew the Chuvasagrazam, and everybody was laughing because he got the Rebbe. 16 years old, what does Matt Berg think is a good idea? 15 years old, I said I'm gonna do that next period.

7:18 So the Rebbe gets up there and the first thing he says, my Hebrew name is Mordechai Tzvi Moshe Yaakov Ben Eli Melech Mayer Isr Halevi. Have Bal Tshuva parents? They didn't really understand the implications of giving me so many names. Fine. So the first thing I want to do is just go through some of the key points that we've discussed in class and see how they apply to this particular case. So the Rebbe says something, and I am like paying attention. He says something, I raise my hand. I even remember what he said. It doesn't matter. And I said, Rebbe, doesn't that go against the Tshuva Sagramtzi? And the Rebbe, without blinking an eye, he goes, I've seen that Tshuva Sagramtzi many times. I've never understood it. The whole class laughs. Now the Rebbe has no idea what I did. But he knows I did something. So he threw me out of class and went to Rebbe Friedman's office. This is exactly what I wanted. I wanted to get thrown out to the Russian Minister's office. Because what's he going to do to me? So I went downstairs. I knocked on the door. He said, "Come in."

8:04 So I said, "Rabbi Ploni told me to come down to you." So he said He said, 'What'd you do?' I said, 'I did exactly what you told us to do. I cited the Chuvasagramtzi, and he acted like he knew it. Everybody laughed. He has no idea why he threw me out, but he threw me out. So I remember he looks at me and he goes. That was not the point of that story. So I said, "Yeah, but you know, here we are now." He told me to give it a couple of minutes and then go back to class. But the only mistake that I made was at parent-teacher conferences, which was the next week. You have to be clever, you have to clean up your act a little bit before parent-teacher conferences. It was a terrible mistake, and the Rebbe the next day walked in and he was furious at me because obviously I'd gotten called into the Rosh Mesivta's office and said, 'I want you to know why everyone was laughing because you're lying to the boys.' So I had a strategy. I'm sure you had the same strategy. I had a strategy when my parents would come home from parent-teacher conferences. The strategy was to be fake asleep when they walk in, because anything that they need to say to me is going to be better said tomorrow morning after a night's sleep.

9:09 And even then, they only get me for a couple of minutes before I go to school. And if you were really smart, pay attention. If you're really smart, I think 很好. So what's the plan? We need to make a like a thing. I'm going to a friend's house the next night to study. Because the more time you can give yourself between parent-teacher conferences and the actual conversation, I tried to get 48 hours. So I know that they're going to parent-teacher conference. I know it's going to be bad. And I hear the garage door coming, so you know opening up. So I quickly close the lights. I pretend to be asleep. Light snore. My father walks into the room. He goes, "Get up! I know you're up." All these years, you let me get away with it all these years. I was like, this is so bad. If they're waking me up So my father turns on the light, and I'm pretending to be groggy. Deny till you die. You got to live with the lie till the very end.

10:00 My father says I got to tell you the funniest story. And my parents are sitting there with the biggest smile on their face, and I was like not understanding. Was I in so much trouble that it was funny? I'm saying you don't know where you're holding. You don't. I wasn't. So they said, 'We have to tell you what happened.' We walked in, and they were prepared because I, how like you do that thing when you are a kid where you are like This rabbi doesn't like me, but you should know he doesn't like the whole class. You have to like, it's funny our kids think that's gonna work on us. We did that to our parents; they did it to their parents. But it's like a masora. So I told my parents, 'He doesn't like anybody. He's a liar,' and I caught him in a lie. I had all my defenses ready. So he, my parents walked in, and he said to them, "You don't even have to tell me who you are. You're the spitting image of your son." And he sits down, and my parents are used to getting the bad parent-teacher conference report. The one where they start off going

10:51 "He has a lot of potential, if only he would focus." Like you know that report. It's like the ADHD standard report that every kid gets. So I was, he starts off there. But then he starts talking about my drug use and my drinking and my partying and my mother, bless her soul, is the most naive woman in the world. This woman defended me my entire educational career. At absurdum like it was nuts. She would always defend me even when I was posh at wrong And she starts defending me. It's not my son, and he starts giving her a moser shmos. If you don't get your son on the straight and narrow now, you don't understand where this kid's going to end up. He needs to go to rehab. This kid. And my mother is defending me, and my father is saying, "Let's listen to him. Maybe he has something that we need to hear." And this rebbe is going off on me. Finally, my mother said, "This really doesn't sound like Matt."

11:39 And the rebbe turns red in the face. He goes, "I thought you were Akiva's parents." And then after that, he gave me the best report, which my parents knew wasn't true, and he was only doing it to cover up the fact that he gave this report to Akiva. I have to tell you, Akiva today is a dyon. Akiva today is a massive talmudachem in Yerushalayim. And people from all over go to sit by his feet. He's an incredible tamuachum. And I wonder if I would have hung out with Akiva a little bit more in high school Maybe I would have a little bit of a better career. But you get to reinvent yourself. Akiva went to Neve, and now today he has like he's a big rabbi in Yerushalayim. His best friend, who was also psychotic. His best friend is a choshav, a twelfth grade rebbe in a serious yeshivish place. There was a boy at NCSY Kollel who came, and he really did well in Kollel, and he really didn't like his yeshiva, but he really started to do well, and he came back to NCSY Kollel a second summer.

12:38 And he's sitting there with me post eleventh grade, and he says to me Rebbe, I just don't know if I could go to the top she'er in my yeshiva. " So I said, "Why?" He goes, "You know, Rebbe, I'm not proud of this, and I'm working on myself, but you know, I like talking to girls." I was like. say there's like, you're a human being, so he's he's like but this rabbi you don't understand this twelfth grade rabbi he's so intense he's like, he's like the frumest person ever is I can't talk to him about these things I said what's the rabbi's name so he told me the rabbi's name I'm like this is the guy that got thrown out in tenth grade from my high school who's best friends with Akiva so I was like I think maybe the rabbi will understand you I think it's you know like. But there's a certain level of reinvention that happens at eighteen years old. A certain level of expression of self, like the world is your oyster. And we get a little bit older, and I think it's not just that we get a little bit more cynical.

13:28 I think life has hurt us a little bit more. No You get to this stage in life and you really start to wonder Do I have it in me to forgive in a much deeper way? You talk to parents who have. One of my daughters is married now, and she's not a teenager anymore. Now I have Three teenage daughters left. And I have this beautiful nine-year-old little girl, and she's so innocent and so pure. And she still comes in, and the first thing is she gives me a hug. And we have a rule in our house. What's the rule? I said, Miriam, what's the rule? She goes, Don't grow up too quickly Because once they turn into teenagers. And Baruch Hashem, all my girls are wonderful. But once they turn into teenagers, there's like a. Is a way that teenage daughters, for those of you that have teenage daughters, and for those of you that, as Hashem will have teenage daughters, I'm preparing you. There's a way that teenage daughters speak to their mothers.

14:16 They don't do it with the dads in the same way, but there's a way that they speak to their mothers that's really painful. It's really painful. And you, I see all the women on the block. They sit on the corner of my block, and they're discussing their teenage daughters. It's a topic of conversation. How do we deal with these human beings that not that long ago were children who loved us, and now all of a sudden they sit in judgment of us like crazy. Right? And these are people that have given them everything, and there's a certain sense of distance that could come between a parent and a child. There's a certain sense of pain that needs to be acknowledged, and that we don't really want to acknowledge, because it's not polite to say it out loud. But there are parents legitimately that feel very hurt by their own children. And there's a pain of course I love my child, but they've really hurt me. They really said not nice things to me. I don't really understand this again because I'm a father, but it seems to me that mothers, when they buy clothing, if they have teenage daughters, they buy the clothing so that their teenage daughters will not judge them so badly when they walk out of the house. You ever see this move where the girls go? You see this move where teenage girls go to their mother?

15:21 Could you not wear that outside right now where my friends are? And it's like you see these mothers I was once cool, like a certain dress. It's not just from our children. It's from a job, from a boss that didn't appreciate us, from time that we put in, and let's be real, from spouses that have said hurtful things. And we do hold a certain level not because we want to, but as naturally a human being holds a certain level of fear and resentment and anger inside of ourselves. And it's hard to let go of that sometimes, especially if uncomfortable things have been said in the course of angry conversations that should never have happened. And maybe we are asking ourselves: Can I be forgiven for what I did? Knowing that I'm not a forgiving person for the hurt that I carry within me. And I think we all carry a certain amount of pain inside of us. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. I think it's probably what it means to be human.

16:15 But there's a certain discomfort that we carry with us. The question of whether we are forgivable really comes, if we're thinking about it honestly, from a place of knowing I'm not forgiving. There's a person I want you to know right now. I'm happy to share this. There's a person that hurt me. Already. It's already eight nine months ago. There's a person that did something to me that I felt very betrayed by what they did. I shared something with them in confidence, and they were public about it. It was very well. They weren't like public, but they were public to people that I didn't want those people to have that information. It was somebody that I really trusted, and it took me months to get the courage to go over to that person and confront them and say to them, "You hurt me." It wasn't just like the courage to say it. I wanted to get to a level of forgiveness before I got there. And I thought I did, and I confronted the person. And at first, they denied it, and then they were apologetic, and they've tried to make amends. I'm going to be very honest with you.

17:04 I'm still holding on to that pain. I realized that now in my process, this last two weeks, I was like I really haven't forgiven them. I thought I did, and I guess it's a cycle of having to do it sometimes over and over again until you can get to a real level of forgiveness. The question of whether we are forgivable is mostly coming from within. That we're not really willing to forgive. It's not always. I think sometimes we are forgiven, and sometimes we can let bygones be bygones. We're not tough people, but sometimes we wonder if I just paint over those walls, and are the holes still there if you look carefully? In other words, even if they do a great job, it's always like Especially if you are the one that was there when they were painting. You know what I'm saying? Nobody will ever see that hole but you, because you know it's there. So does tshuva really work, or are we just covering up what was? I think that's the real question.

17:53 I want to share with you a vart. It's a really special vart. It's not mine. It's not mine even a little bit. I hope that I can do it justice. I heard it, I read it, and heard it from my old friend Rabbi David Bashefkin, who said it over in the name of Rav Simcha Willig, who said it over. I feel like I'm really bringing the goul on this one. Said it over in the name of this man I've never met, but Rev Rob Steinberg. It's a really exquisite vart. It's really a special vart. The pasuk in Eicha says, "Hashivenu Hashem elachav nashuva chadeshiyamenu kikedem." So there is a question that the Medrash asks: What does it mean, 'chadeshiyamenu kikedem'? Which, what are they? Are they old days or are they renewed days? We don't know. If they're renewed days, then they're new. If they're old days, then they're old. What does this mean? Chadeshiyamenu kekadem, renew our days of old. If they're renewed, then they're not old. If they're old, then they're not renewed. What does this mean? The Medrash says a very beautiful thing. The Medrash says that kadem is not referring to a time but to a place.

18:56 It's not referring to a time but to a place. Where is kadem? The Pasuk says, "Vayigaris haadam." It's referring to Adam Arisham when he was expelled from Gan Eden. Vayigaris haadam that Adam Arisham was expelled from Gan Eden. Vayashken mikedem leGan Eden, and he was dwelling in the east of Gan Eden. Esakruvim es laharacharev hamizapeches l'shmaras derech Eitz Chayim, and the kruvim were holding this revolving sword to make sure that Adam Rishon would not get to the Eitz Chayim. And so, kedem is referring to Chodesh Amenu. Kedem is referring to restore us to the eastern section of Gan Eden. So Roshenberg, this fellow Rav Shainberg, asks a beautiful question. He says, if you look in the Torah, there's two times that it mentions kedem. This pasuk that the Medrash quotes is after Adam Marishon was expelled from Gan Eden. Adam Marishon was already divorced from Gan Eden.

19:53 But the truth of the matter is that there's another pasuk, chapter two, verse eight. Says Vayitah Hashem lo kim gan be Eden mikedem, vayasem shama sa Adam ashe yatsar. Hashem planted a gan in Eden, meaning from the east, and He placed there Adam that He formed. So really, we would have been expecting the Medrash to say that we're chadeish yamenu kekadem. Which kadem should it have been referring to? It should have been referring to the first kadem of the Torah, the kadem where Adam Rishon was originally placed, where he was actually formed and he hadn't yet done any averus. Why does the Medrash cite the pasuk after other Marishan was already expelled from Gan Eden? Why do we say Chadeishu Menu Kedem, putting us in Kedem where the Kruvim are standing guarding the Eitz Achaim after the Chid of the Eitz Adas? If this is going to be a renewal, it should be a renewal to our original state. It should be factory settings mamish. It's really a pele that the Medrash quotes the later pasuk.

20:55 To answer this question, I'm going to use his answer, but I want to spell it out a little with some ideas that I think are relevant. To answer this question, I want to share with you a Rambam. It's not much a Rambam that you all heard before. The Rambam in Hilchot Tshuva, two four. The Rambam there says that there was a minhag, a tradition that people would change their name when they did tshuva. It's hard to conceive of. It's like imagine you're in Yesh And like somebody says hello, Sarah, and you're like, it's Rofkaneh. Sorry, I actually did a big avera and I did tshuva, so I'm going by Rivka now. A week later, hi Rivka, back to Sarah. I did that avera again. It feels a little bit schizophrenic, but there was a tradition this way. There was a tradition to change your name. Shaila is what was the Rambam telling us? If the Rambam is citing a tradition, it must be relevant to the essence of tshuva. The Rambam doesn't just quote things that people did.

21:52 The idea of changing your name, I think Is what Roshalovitchik refers to as tshuva being the process of self creation or self discovery? If a name reflects the essence of the person Then what tshuva really is This is the person that I am. That's the person that I was. In other words, there's a certain type of death. That a person undergoes when they go through a tshuva process, forgiveness is a certain type of death, which is why forgiveness is so hard Because in order to forgive, we have to be willing to kill. And that's why it's such a gift that we give to ourselves. They say resentment is like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies, right? When we forgive, what we're actually doing is creating space for a new life. And so let's say in the context of marriage. We said things we didn't want to say. He said things he shouldn't have said. The pain lives within us. To forgive means mechila from a lashon of chalal. It means to reopen a space inside of ourselves.

23:02 Which doesn't mean that the pain didn't happen. It doesn't mean that it's wiped away. What it means is that a new relationship has the potential to form. Out of the destruction of the old relationship, if something dies, that's a place where we can plant something new, and there's a certain fertility that exists within the infertile. In other words, when something dies and it returns to dust, that gives us the opportunity to bring something new into creation. Thinking about this person who I was speaking with earlier today, who's in so much pain, what I would want to share with them is, and obviously forgiveness, can't be weaponized. I think today. I was in a situation recently where somebody like did something and like without even thinking like you're my chole, I was like no, I'm like, what do you mean you're not my chole? I was like no, like when I'm my chole, it'll be for real. Like I don't want to just be my chole you like this. I want to actually give the gift of mechila to both of us. I want to say that that's not our relationship anymore. I want to do it for real, not willing just to say these platitudes anymore of just like you're forgiven.

24:04 Is there anything more atrocious? Forgive me for saying this. I hope that I don't mean to offend anybody. I shouldn't say not nice things. Everything that Chayyshal does is amazing and beautiful, and I'm sure that there's kedusha to this. But I have a hard time wrapping my head around the WhatsApp status. Are you molchel me? That seems to me to be funny. I can even wrap my head around the broadcast. At least you clicked my name. At least you said, "Yep, need to ask mechila from there." It's a very low level mechila request, but I saw statuses. Are you molchel me? Who are you asking forgiveness to? There's like ten thousand contacts in my phone, in case I offended any of you. Just swipe up and reply. I'm sugar. And now with the new WhatsApp channels, maybe we should make a channel of forgiveness. This is my. I have like a video of ourselves going. I hope you could be me for anything that I did.

24:55 Years ago, my father wanted to create a shiva video. For out of town shivas that he couldn't make it to in the days before Zoom. Of just my father sitting there like this. And where did he learn in yeshiva? Very nice. That's what it is. It's the equivalent of like it's not a. We're not asking mechila to ask mechila is something very real, and to give mechila is something very real. It means that part of our life is it's a chapter in our story, and that chapter has come to an end. And we don't want to end that chapter because you hurt me And I don't feel like restitution was made And so there's a sense of like I'm holding on. We hold on to pain. It's an insanity that a human being has. We hold on to pain because of the vulnerability of what will happen if we let it go And in the meantime, we're sitting in the destruction of that pain, and it's eating us alive.

25:45 And it manifests itself In all sorts of very terrible ways. The stress that a person lives with, and the coping mechanisms that we have to come up with in order to survive. The pain that we're living with. But the vulnerability of letting go of the pain is so impossible that we're willing to live with the pain, which is crazy, but it's true. So forgiveness is a real avoda because it means that's dead. It's over. So, I think that's the main point. I think that's what the Rambam meant when he said change your name. Change your name is the person that I was, I am no longer And that's a very profound thing for a person to say. Is it true for just first name or also last name? I don't think they had last names, so it must be first names. I don't think they had Berg and Schwartz back in the times of the Rambam.

26:32 Maybe they had Ibn whatever living in the. I don't think so. But I do think that there's something very beautiful about the shinoi of the last name that occurs by marriage. I think there's something very, even if it's not necessarily halachic. That's a very beautiful thing too. But the idea that there is a process of self discovery and this is really befei shagamara The gemara says In the name of Reish Lakish, two contradictory statements. The gemara says, on the one hand, if you do an avera and then you do tshuva, so those averas that you did b'mezid become like shogeg, they become like you know accidental averas, and then there is another mimer from Reish Lakish where Reish Lakish said it's nasalo k'shuios they become merits. And the Gemara answers the question. The Gemara says, "Well, it depends how you did tshuva. Did you do tshuva me'ava or tshuva me'yira?" Now the Rebbe explains as follows: Tshuva me'yira is what I did is like that aspect of like doing something on purpose Not owning, not having the agency of myself.

27:46 To be able to not do this, that's tshuva meyira, a restoration of that agency, and so the avera that you did on purpose is now like you did it by accident. But tshuva me'ava is something else, and the Alter Rebbe describes tshuva me'ava as the process of a person saying I can really appreciate that this was a step on the journey that I needed to take. That it's not an accident that I went through this. It's not an accident that I married that person, or had that child, or chose this community with that neighbor. It's not an accident that I was in this friend group that treated me in a certain way. Those were all This is a perfect story that needed to be told in order for me to arrive at this moment. And so the Alter Rebbe explains that a person who does a real teshuva me'ava, their love for Hashem is so deep that they have a chukah to reconnect Him. They appreciate every step of the journey, and what that does is it re-narrates that part of the journey in our head.

28:43 You hear all these stories From people who are going through terrible pain in their life And sometimes they're sitting there looking back on their life and saying, if you speak to people who got divorced, the biggest mistake I ever made was marrying that person. They're carrying that pain in such a deep way because I'm sure there was so much pain that they experienced. Not judging that at all. There's a later stage that they get to Hopefully, which is a stage of. There was a lot of beauty there. There were a lot of good things that came out of that very painful marriage, and I myself needed to go through that marriage in order to become the person I am. It's a stage that people often overlook. But when you speak to people that have been through that type of Gehennim, it's a re-narration of the past and almost an appreciation of the person that caused them so much pain. It's a very, very high level.

29:35 But the idea that we can look back on our story. The facts remain the same, but the narration of the story is completely different. Does that make sense? It's like it wasn't a bad thing that happened to me. It happened for me, and the question is, what am I learning from this? What am I gaining from this? We all have pain in our lives that we act out. There's a book called Getting the Love You Want from Harville Hendrix. Anyone here ever? I could. By the way, you don't have to betray yourself, but I want to thank the five or six of you that just smiled at me to let me know that you are the people that have read it. I've read it too, right? All the people that have read it, we're in the same boat, right? And what he describes in the book is this concept called imago therapy, which is basically you marry somebody because you think they can heal your childhood wounds, and then of course they don't, and then the friction that comes from that is actually what can ultimately restore you to your most beautiful state, and probably what Azeri Kinegdo really means. It's a phenomenal book.

30:33 If any of you want to get it and freak your husbands out, it's like getting the love you want is like a bad title. I remember the first time I saw it. I was like, 'Oh no, what does she want?' But there's something very beautiful about it. What I think, at least for me, what I benefited from, and I think what a lot of people who read the book benefit from Is the idea that we married people on purpose. This didn't happen to us. This happened for us. The question is, what are we going to do with it? How are we going to reenarrate our stories? There's a process of self-discovery and self-creation that comes from the avera that we did. Which is why, as adults, we have to stop being afraid of our lowest parts. We have to stop being ashamed of the things that we did that weren't aligned with our highest values. Those things are part and parcel of the process of becoming who we are.

31:22 I personally am looking around, and I don't see any blemishes on these walls, and they look beautiful and wonderful. And I think that is how Ataka looks on the outside. And if there is a place where you see in that big picture with the giant birds, we'll go over it, and nobody will see it. But even you, you'll know it's there behind it. It's like If your husband's not handy, and you have a small hole, you're really supposed to spackle it. I imagine some of your husbands are handy and know how to do it, and they use those things and paint over it. Some of your husbands probably just use Crest or Colgate toothpaste, and it's fine. It's good enough, right? And really, nobody sees it except you know it's there, right? And even if you put the painting over it You're like, nobody take off that painting because there's a tiny little piece of toothpaste from 1983 that's behind it. Why are we so afraid of that?

32:16 It's because we don't really want to stare into the blemishes of our lives, but we should. We really should, because those are the places of the ultimate self creation. If you look back on the hard things that you went through, and I don't mean in the cliché sense of like, sometimes you have these like sixteen year old boys and girls that like went through something like horrific, and they're like, but it made me the person that I am. You're sixteen, like nothing has made you the person that you are. You're still in formation stage. You're still like, but then you get older, and it's like, I think I'm going to put in the work, and I put in fifteen, twenty, twenty five, thirty years of work on this. And I really am able to look at the darkest parts of my life and to be able to appreciate the gift that they've given me. I think that's what Rish Lakish meant. I think that's what the Rambam meant. So maybe one approach to tshuva is, it's not about restoring ourselves to factory settings. There's a certain renewal that we hope for, that perhaps is not a reasonable hope.

33:14 It's I want to pretend as if this never happened. And I don't know that we're ever going to get there. I don't know that we're ever going to be able to look in our lives and say, 'This thing never happened.' I wish those words could be unsaid. Those words can't be unsaid. But does it? It doesn't matter at a certain point. If you re-narrate the story and you've truly forgiven yourself and truly forgiven the other person, then it's okay that those words were said, because your relationship can contain painful moments. That's a good thing to learn. There's a sense of resilience that we have. Even when we've heard hard things from our children, we can say it's okay. Those words were spoken out of pain, and the love is deeper than the pain. The love is deeper than the pain. Those are important things to learn, and so this is what Roshenberg answers to this question.

33:59 Which I think is a stunning question. We wouldn't want to go back to the state where Hakadosh Baruch Hu put us in Gan Eden and we hadn't yet sinned. That's not. That's not. That's not what we're shooting for with tshuva. Chadeish amenu kekadem is: Can we go back to the moment Right where you expelled us from Gan Eden When we were in Kadem, right after the getrishin, right after the divorce, right after the expulsion. Can we remember what it was like to live in that place? And in that pain and the desperation you can sense in the psukim of Adam Harishon sitting there, and there's the Eitz Chaim, and it's not that far from him. He knows now that he's eaten from the Eitz Hadass, and he knows that he's going to die. He knows that death is now part of life. He knows what he's done. He's integrated Ra into his being. The world is no longer, as the Rambam and Mordechai Mivuchim describes it, this binary mathematical place of true and false. Now morality has become a part of the process.

35:02 There's good and there's evil, and he's looking at the destruction that he wrought in the world. And that's a big. If you're Alde Marishon, think about the level of guilt that you have. Think about the level of shame. All of humanity, and it's like one thing. I think if you mess up your kids, right? But imagine if you mess up all the kids forever. You're like it's a big thousands of years of torture and war and atrocities, all because I ate from the etz adas. That's a lot of shame. I'm sure if Adam Baruch had a psychologist, had a therapist in that moment, it would be like, "Can we hold space for what you just did?" No, because I just destroyed all of space. It's like it's a hard. That's a hard place to be. And there's the Eitz Chaim, and the Eitz Chaim is like, okay, I could undo all of it if I could just get to that If I could just eat from the Eitz Chaim and bring back vitality and life.

35:54 And there's these giant kruvim that are standing there with these flaming swords in their hands, going, 'You're not getting anywhere near this.' And there's that longing to fix everything that you've done, and the sense of, 'I'm going to make this right.' There's a sense of after the fall. After you said that thing to your husband, then you're like, 'I'm gonna fix this. I know what I'm gonna do. Like, I'm gonna make his favorite cake.' By the way, why is it always food with us? We all know what you're doing, but we do appreciate it. But cinnamon buns, if you're asking. The you could sense the desperation of Ademarishon to make it right. Isn't that a beautiful moment? I just want to fix what I did. I want to be back with you. But I know that I can never get back there. Adam Rishon was buried in Chevron and Maras Machpelah. Chazal tell us that Avram Avinu bought Maras Machpelah because he was able to smell Gan Eden. He knew that through Chevron was the way. There's a secret passageway. The Mikubalim speak about there's a secret passageway through Maras Machpelah to get back to Gan Eden. That's why Chevron is from Loshon of Chibur. The whole of connection really comes from Chevron. They didn't daven in Yerushalayim when they came with the Miraglim.

37:11 They davened in Chevron because Yerushalayim could be destroyed. Chevron can never be destroyed. Chevron is the ultimate place of connection because it's kashur to the Eitz Chaim. It's kashur to Gan Eden itself. That's what we long to get back to. We don't want to get back to the stage before we sinned. When we say we want to be innocent again, we don't mean innocent in the sense that it will never ever happen. We mean innocent in the sense that we can still feel innocent with each other. Given all that's happened. That's what we really want. It doesn't. But nobody here is expecting, especially as we become adults, we're not expecting for those words to be unsaid or for those things to be undone. Just we want to know that our relationship can hold those things and that we can still feel that feeling that we once felt for each other. And I think that's what we long for as we become adults. That's what we long for with the Ebbister. We come to Akon Shorach on Yom Kippur, and we're not saying forgive us in the sense of like

38:00 Forgive me. You're good God. You're infinite, so you're all compassionate. I think it's much more sophisticated as we get older. It's appreciating this process, appreciating that we're in a relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu, and that we did something in the relationship that hurt the relationship. But we're in this together, and that the relationship is large enough to hold this. I want to share with you, and I'm sure some of you heard this story before, but it's an amazing story. I'm sure everybody here remembers that terrible accident that happened with the bus. In Yerushalayim by Rav Shaffa, when the driver was off the bus and the bus went careening down the hill, pretty scary stuff. My daughters were supposed to be at that stop at that time. Baruch Hashem, Rebbeinu Shlom runs the world. And of course, we know that there was a mother who was expecting, and she was killed, and two children were killed. But there was also a newly married woman whose name was Pali.

38:55 Who was there, and her father-in-law actually lives here in the neighborhood. Her father-in-law is a rebbe in one of the local chadarim. Rav Pali, and he's the composer of Achilu Lakel. You know that beautiful Achilu Lakel—that's his song. And his son married this girl, and she was hit by the bus. And she went into a coma and unfortunately had to amputate both of her legs above the knee. If you lose your legs below the knee, it's obviously terrible, but it's a completely different life, especially today. They have prosthetic legs with computer chips inside of them. I think I can remember this. I think it's every one six thousandth of a second, the computer chip is calculating the rate of descent and ascent of your leg and swinging accordingly. I know this because I have a chaver who has this leg. And like He used to have to press the old legs. You had to press on the toe to make the knee bend, and today it's mamish automatic. And it was big shailas on Shabbos.

39:58 Could you have such a knee on Shabbos? And but it's also if you don't charge it, so it freezes Which is not like losing battery on your phone. If you're walking and all of a sudden your leg freezes, you fall. But if you've amputated above the knee, it's a completely different lifestyle. And so she was in this coma, and she wakes up eventually. They sedated her because they needed the body to recover, and she wakes up and she sees that she's lost her legs. And there's her new chassam. And in her state of grief, she says to her new choson, "You never would have married me like this." And as Rav Pali said, they don't teach you how to answer that in yeshiva. There's no shir in Rambam and Taisus, and what to do if your wife's legs are amputated. How do you respond to that question?

40:51 So this bacher must be a very special person. He answered her. It didn't happen to you This happened to us. Baruch Hashem, it happened after we're married, because now it happened to us. And the question is, what will our new relationship look like? And he asked her if they could make a brit chadasha. Can we renew our vows? He said because the marriage that was is over. Let's not pretend that marriage is going to continue. That marriage was over. There was a marriage when you had legs. It'll be a new marriage when you don't have legs. And the question is, can we renew our vows and can we build a new relationship? And it was the perfect answer to the question, because to pretend that it didn't happen is silly. To say life will be the same, no, life will not be the same, and that's okay.

41:38 But there'll be a new life, a better life that's born out of this tragedy, and it will come with its challenges and its opportunities. I imagine that the love they discovered between them is so much more profound because they're going through this together. An exceptional marshal for what we're all going through in this season. To pretend that we didn't do these aviyers is silly. But I think maybe what Hakadosh Baruch Hu was saying to us in a very real way, not in a kitschy way, Hakadosh Baruch Hu was saying these aviyers didn't, they weren't done by you. They happened to us. We're in this together, and the question is, can we make a brit chadasha? Can we say, okay, that's that. What was. We're not going to pretend that there's not things under the paint, but those things are under the paint, and there'll be a new relationship. And the imperfections are what make it beautiful. If you have the opportunity to go online and to type in Japanese art on Google Type in Japanese art, imperfection.

42:35 They have these stunning, stunning like vases that they make these vases and then they break them, and then they fix them. And there's like the way that they fix them is like exquisite And it highlights the fracture. And I think that's a more mature way of looking at tshuva. Tshuva highlights the fracture, but it shows us the beauty. The cracks are where the light is allowed in. So I want to give my very humble bracha to the Lubets. First of all, once again, thank you so much. So many of you, Baruch Hashem, we have had the opportunity to be in your homes, and it's always a privilege to come to Amadhei. Mrs. Lubet, for a very long time now, has been organizing this shiur, and it's a privilege to come into your home. And this is this home. It already is, but it will continue to be a base for lechachamim. And whatever cracks there are underneath the paint, I know for sure that these cracks are going to illuminate this home and not chas v'shalom in any way deteriorate from the beauty of this home. The marchasimatayven a good bench jar.