Tetzaveh - Seeing Actions and Intentions

2:17 It's a wild medrash. You girls must be jumping out of your seats from such a medrash. Moshe Rabenu comes down. He sees Arna Cohen involved in the Chayta Egal, and Moshe Rabenu's response is to say, "How could you do this?" Hakadosh Baruch Hu says, "Dafka, that's the Cohen Gadol." That's very strange. Seems like Hakadosh Baruch Hu said that Arna Cohen didn't do the wrong thing. The problem is, it's against a pasuk. A medrash. Can be understood on many levels, but a medrash cannot go against a pasuk in chumash. A medrash cannot go against the pasuk in chumash. What's the pasuk in chumash? The pasuk in chumash later on in Devarim, Moshe Rabbeinu reports at the time of the Chet HaEgel Moshe Rabbeinu says. Hakadosh Baruch Hu was furious with Aaron the Cohen. He wanted to destroy him. And I, Moshe Rabenu, davened on behalf of Aaron the Cohen.

3:20 So which one wasn't? In our pasuk, the Medrash says Aaron the Cohen is clearly right. Aaron the Cohen is going to be the Cohen Gadol. Seems like Aaron the Cohen did nothing wrong. Later on, what does Moshe Rabenu tell us? Arum was going to be destroyed by Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Destroyed by Hakadosh Baruch Hu, and I davened on his behalf. Now let's think about it. Which one makes more sense? Did Aaron Akoyin do the right thing or the wrong thing? I would have said that Hakadosh Baruch Hu should be upset at Aaron Akoyin. After all, what's the halacha? What are you supposed to die for? Avodah Zarah. So Aaron Akoyin, I understand that Chur was already killed because he refused to make the egal azov. You should have done the same thing. You're saying that Klal Yisrael is going to kill you. Beseder. So Klal Yisrael is going to kill you.

4:14 That's the halacha. Aren't you supposed to die? So sounds like Arna Cohen did the wrong thing. It's not like he's dealing with calm, rational people. There's a murderous mob. Arna Cohen is not in control of them. Fine, Beseder, you're not in control of them, but die al Kiddush Hashem. On the other hand Seems to me. It seems to me that I can understand where Aaron Akoyin was coming from, because if Klal Yisrael would have killed Aaron Akoyin, what would the halacha be? The halacha would be that they wouldn't be able to do tshuva at that point. So Aaron Akoyin, maybe Aaron Akoyin was saying, if we want to be malamed tzchuson, Aaron Akoyin, maybe Aaron Akoyin was saying, 'Einachanami, I know that I'm supposed to die al Kiddush Hashem. I know that it's an aveira for me to participate in this, but better for me to get an aveira than for Klal Yisrael to be destroyed.' So I could see it from both sides. The problem is, it sounds like from the pasuk that it's not that way. Sounds like from the medrash that it is that way, but the pasuk it's not that way. So we have a very serious contradiction. Did Aaron the Cohen do the right thing, and therefore he's rewarded by being the Cohen Gadol

5:21 And Hakadosh Baruch Hu says nobody else is allowed to be a Cohen, just Aaron the Cohen and his children in the merit of what he did. Or is it the opposite? Is Hakadosh Baruch Hu furious with him? You should have died al Kiddush Hashem. And Moshe Rabbeinu has to daven to save Arna Cohen. You hear the problem? Let's take a pause in the action. Just to talk about something that might seem completely random, but it's not random at all and you'll see that it ties back in. I want to talk about just for a moment the way that we behave And the reasons that we behave in those ways. We're very accustomed to thinking I behave in a particular way for no reason at all. It's just what I do, or even worse, it's just who I am. So very often people will identify themselves by a particular behavior. For example You ever hear a girl say, "I don't know, I'm just lazy."

6:25 This is where you give me feedback with your eyes. Getting better. You ever hear a girl say, "I don't know, I'm just lazy." Good, we're coming along. Thank you. It's called classroom participation. What is she really saying? She's really saying, if you're watching carefully, what she's really saying is "I'm behaving in a particular way, but I don't know why I'm behaving this way." And because she doesn't know why she's behaving this way, what does she do? She identifies herself with that behavior. Of course, she's not that behavior, but she doesn't know that. Because she doesn't know what's driving that behavior. What could be driving the behavior of laziness? I'm choosing laziness as an example because I want to illustrate a point. The truth is, we could have used anything. I'm using laziness as an example now. Maybe we'll do a couple of others. Is it possible, just for a moment, to consider that laziness is a coping mechanism?

7:22 And that it's not true that a person is lazy? I can prove to you that a person is not lazy. Did you ever see a year-and-a-half-old child be lazy? Year and a half old children. I have a grandson who is a year and a half old. He is like in a constant state of motion. An Ellie that is in motion stays in motion. I don't know how my daughter gets him to sleep. This kid is constantly moving. He's constantly chasing me, and you'll chase him, and then he runs away, and it's very cute. And eventually, you have to go, Ellie. I need a break. But he's a year and a half old. He doesn't have a stop button. He just goes. Children aren't lazy. Here's the thing: until they learn that they need to be. Why would someone be lazy? Perhaps if I'm not lazy and I try and I fail, then I'm not worthy of love and connection.

8:11 So it's better for me to be lazy than fail, because failure means death. There are people like this. There are people who would rather not study and cheat on a test. Even though it violates their basic morality, they're terrified of failing. So when you look at someone, or when you look at yourself, and you say, "I'm lazy," "They're lazy," that's not actually true. What you've done is you've identified someone by their behavior without looking at that which is driving their behavior. Does that make sense? Let's do a different example. Let's make one that's a little bit more difficult to swallow. Let's say there's a girl. I'm not saying anyone here in Talmud Torah, but let's say just for the sake of argument there's a girl in Talmud Torah that explodes with anger on her roommates. Now her roommates are sitting there going, she's got real problems. How could she have exploded with anger over something as ridiculous as the temperature in the room?

9:17 Just interesting to see which 30% of you were bothered by that. And thank you very much for playing that game with me. About 30% of you went like this. Yeah? Now she explodes with anger. Is that appropriate to explode with anger? Obviously not. Let's try that again. I'll go a little bit slower. Is that appropriate to explode with anger? No. Excellent. And yet Her anger didn't happen in a vacuum. She'll come along and say, "Well, I only got angry because you treat me in this way," but that's not true. She didn't get angry because of the way that you behaved. She got angry because that was the best way that she knew how to cope in that situation. In that moment, she felt under threat. What did that threat say to her? That threat, for example, said You're not worthy of being paid attention to in this room. What you want is not relevant to us.

10:09 So we're not going to change the temperature. Since she felt attacked, the only way she knew how to respond, even though it's inappropriate, was by defending herself. So she defends herself, and then she doesn't understand why people are upset at her. How could they treat me this way? And then all of a sudden, because I get angry, the story becomes about me. Is the story not about the abuse that I've been undergoing? Of course, that might be the story, but the problem is we can't pay attention to that story because you just raged all over everyone. And then she'll say, 'But they were rage baiting me.' I like your generation. You come up with the dumbest words. Rage baiting. That's a great one. So they were rage baiting me. So of course I was in a state of rage. Just because they were rage baiting doesn't mean that you don't take responsibility for your rage. Why were you enraged? Why were you so angry? Why were you screaming at everybody? The answer is because that was the only way that she knew how to protect herself in that situation. Do you understand? So here's the key. This is the punchline for the entire shey. If you get this now, the entire shey is going to be a lot easier to go through.

11:17 Everyone with me? The entire shey is going to be a lot easier to go through if you're with me now. This is going to be the key. You ready? Goes like this. There's always two ways to look at what's happening in the world. And you need to do both. In the world, people go. You have to do it this way or that way. The truth is, you have to do both. We have to be sophisticated enough in life to say the behavior is inappropriate, and the person is understandable. The behavior is inappropriate, the person is understandable. Here's the gift. If you do both of these, this is what it looks like. Let's say you have a child. Try this again. Let's say you have a child. By the way, you should say "Amen" to that bracha. You know why? Because it means you're married. So let's say you have a child. Great, awesome. But the child Being a human being And sometimes in order to protect themselves, they make poor choices. Let's say you have a child. I know this was none of you. I'm sure you always had your integrity. But sometimes girls will make a silly mistake and they will cheat on a test.

12:27 Gasp! An audible gasp from the crowd. Congratulations! They're paying attention. Somehow, cheating has become okay in our system. And unfortunately, there are girls that just from the time that they're a fetus, they just cheat. They just cheat their way through school. It's with the boys. It's with the girls. We all know the reality, right? Today it's more sophisticated. In my day, you had to have a crib sheet, or somebody took the answers to the test and then went to the bathroom and hid them in the ceiling. We didn't have the technology that y'all have today, right? It wasn't like we had ChatGPT on our phone and we sent it to somebody's watch and it was plugged into a Bluetooth in their ear that was giving them. I downloaded Neuralink into my brain, so I'm hooked up to this guy's brain. It was pretty simple back in the day. Akiva took the test, he handed it to me, I wrote my name on it, I handed it in to Senior Hunt. That's how I passed tenth grade Spanish.

13:17 Back in the day, I'm not saying I'm just making up a story. That's obviously not what happened. I never would have done that. Your generation is very weak. You read the Sedaros. You are terrible. I appreciate you. As a parent You can either do one of two things, and the truth is you have to do both. You can either go, it's just kids being kids. And not discipline your child for doing the wrong thing. And we have created school systems today where there's no consequences And that's terrible. Because that means that we're allowing children to do these inappropriate behaviors with all the negative implications of doing those behaviors. I want to share with you, people like the fraud that exists in adults. It didn't start. I promise you that fraud did not start when they were in their 30s and 40s. Today. Again, I don't want to say anything not nice about Klal Yisrael, but today there's Minyanim in jails.

14:18 Today there's Dafyomi in jails. Unfortunately, we have lost our way, and we are not communicating the values of integrity well. People are doing inappropriate things. There are real negative implications to raising kids to be able to do whatever they want and cheat on tests. At some point, we have to be able to say no. And I want to tell you a secret. Your ability to say no is because you can do two things at once. Number one, you can highlight that the behavior is inappropriate, and number two, because the behavior is understandable, that's why I'm able to give you the consequences. Let me explain what I mean. If you identify a person by their lowest moment, and you think, "Oh well, if I punish this child, then the child is going to go off the derech," it means you don't really believe in this child.

15:08 And you don't really understand the child. Children crave boundaries because they don't know how to make boundaries for themselves. They know they shouldn't be able to do whatever they want because it doesn't work in life to do whatever you want. So for the moment, it looks good. You're the kid that gets to do whatever they want, go to sleep whenever they want, has no boundaries, right? Has no curfew, comes home, parents don't care. That's deeply unloved. But here's the key: if you actually pay attention to what your child is communicating, because remember, children play charades. In the absence of language, children act out what's going on inside of them. So when that child is lazy, when that child is angry, when that child is cheating on a test or whatever it is that they're doing, there's a story that's going on inside of that child. The story is: this is the best way that I know how to protect myself in this moment.

15:59 So then you understand, the child is understandable, and anything that's understandable is forgivable. My responsibility right now, because I see the pain that child is in, is to give the child appropriate discipline. It's not to give no discipline; it's to give appropriate discipline. And we lost our way in this regard because now we have these two opposite extremes: either you get expelled for sneezing the wrong way, or there's no consequence ever. The reason there's no consequence is because we don't think that you have the ability to handle a consequence, and that's not true. If we understood that this child is in pain, then we would give our children the gift of boundaries, just like we would a tree. If a tree is growing up, you see in Ramah Pechamish all the time because they're constantly building in Ramah Pechamish. Ramah Pechamish is constantly covered in dirt because they're building everywhere. The dirt from Dalid makes it all the way to Aleph. If you look at the trees that they plant in Israel, it's a beautiful thing. They plant a tree, but then they put these metal trellises. That's what they're called. You ever see those metal circles around the tree, and they tie the tree to the circle. So the tree has a fifty-fifty percent chance of actually making it.

17:07 Because some Israeli child is fifty percent chance going to pull that tree out of the ground and use it for ladbaonah. But if for some reason those children don't pull the tree out of the ground, why? And I know there's some people here from Ramah Beit Shemesh, so you know exactly what I'm talking about. If for some reason that tree doesn't get pulled out of the ground, why does it need the trellises? Because otherwise it doesn't go straight. How does the tree naturally grow? The tree will naturally grow towards the sunlight because it craves the sunlight. But it might grow crooked because of that. So we give the tree trellises so that the tree will go straight because the tree doesn't know to grow straight. You have to teach it to grow straight. So from a very young age, we literally strap it into these boundaries so we teach the child how to grow. If you're afraid to discipline your child, it's because you don't understand what's going on inside of your child.

17:56 If you overdiscipline, it's because you don't understand what's going on inside of your child. Appropriate discipline means I'm looking at the behavior and identifying that behavior as inappropriate, but I'm also paying attention to the behavior that's beneath the behavior. If I pay attention to the behavior that's beneath the behavior, wow, now I understand what the child is going through. So let's say you have a child. I'm making up a story. Let's say you have a child that feels deeply unseen at home for whatever reason. This child just for some reason can't feel seen because I don't know a million other things are going on at home. Now the child starts acting out. So you identify, this child is acting out. Since you're acting out, if you continue to act out this way, then I'm going to fill in the blank. Then I'm going to take away your phone. Then I'm going to give you an early curfew. Then I'm going to do this. Then I'm going to do that. But why is your child acting out? Why is your child trying to get your attention?

18:48 That child is trying to get your attention because they feel deeply unseen. So what are you doing by giving this over discipline? What you're doing is you're actually making the child feel even less seen because now the only attention that the child will get is negative attention, and that's not what the child wants. So pulling that child close and saying, 'Yes, this behavior is inappropriate, and I'm going to give you the appropriate discipline for that behavior,' but at the same time, I sense that this child is feeling unseen. So I have to actually give the child what they need. You understand how you have to walk a very thin tightrope here? You have to give the appropriate discipline and draw the child close at the same time. Chazal had a word for this, a phrase for this. You know what the phrase is? Small doche v'yamin mekareves. Small is from gvura. The left side is from gvura. That's the boundaries. This behavior was inappropriate, so I have to let you know that's not okay. Small doche.

19:47 But if I pay attention to the behavior that's underneath, you will always find one common theme. The reason that children act the way they do is because they feel distant. So with the midah of chesed, what do you do? You draw close. Now here's the cool thing. If you push away with your left hand and you pull close with your right hand, something happens. What happens is the child turns around. And you know this because if you grew up going to camp Especially if you went to Camp Sternberg, I know this because I went to Camp Muggenoff. There's something that you do called rafting down the Delaware. Did you do that when you were in Sternberg? Was in pioneers. My wife was like the stories of growing up in the 90s in Sternberg, in the 80s in Sternberg. So you go down the Delaware, and when you go down the Delaware, they teach you how to turn around. The person in the front of the boat has to paddle one way, and the person in the back of the boat has to paddle the other way. And what happens when you paddle in opposite directions?

20:49 You turn the boat around. If you have a child that's going in the wrong direction, how do we turn that child around? The answer is very simple. The child needs appropriate boundaries and to be drawn close. The boundaries are about the behavior. The drawing close is about what's driving that behavior. How do I know if I'm overpunishing my child? Why is your child behaving the way they're behaving? If you discipline your child without understanding why they're behaving the way that they're behaving, two things are going to be lacking. Number one, you're not creating appropriate boundaries. And just as importantly, you don't know what the actual problem is. Think if you were a doctor. Imagine somebody came into your office and you're like, okay, I'm sick, and they describe to you the symptoms, and they go, well, let's try this. They're not trying it for any reason. They're just going, seems like penicillin works a lot of times in a pediatrician's office, so everyone gets a round of penicillin. Guy comes in two weeks later, goes, doc, I'm still sick. Let's try a macasson. That's not the way doctors work. What does a doctor do? First, he diagnoses the problem, and then after he diagnoses the problem, he gives an appropriate prescription. If you don't have an accurate diagnosis, how could you give an appropriate prescription?

22:00 Does that make sense? So far, so good. That's step one. Here's step two. The reason we don't give an appropriate prescription It's not because we're not paying attention to the child. More often than not, it's because we don't want to see, or because we see through the lens of our own distortion. I'll explain what I mean. When you have a child who's misbehaving And your response to that child is frustration and anger. That had nothing to do with the child. That was your stuff. You're not parenting that child in that moment. Who are you parenting? You're parenting yourself. The way that we see comes through the lens of our own perception. So we tend to see the world not the way things are, but the way we are. So when our children misbehave, we're sometimes so overidentified with that child that we can't actually see them.

23:04 I'll give you an example of what this looks like And I'm going to use first a power of example, not a power of example, but a power of example. There's such a thing called Yeshiva League hockey or Yeshiva League basketball. Have you heard of this before? Yeah. Yeshiva League hockey is not actually a sport. Yeshiva League isn't a sport. There is a sport called hockey. It involves ice and ice skates and a puck, which is flat, and hockey sticks. There's something called Yeshiva League hockey. I don't even like to call it hockey. This Yeshiva League hockey, which is on a floor in a gym with a ball. It's not the same sport. It's what Yeshiva League kids need to pretend to do to consider themselves hockey players. I have a little bit of a bone to pick here. If you can't tell, this is a little bit of trauma for me. It's not a real sport. Basketball is a real sport. That's not a real sport. However, when you go to these sports games Sometimes you'll notice there's that dad in the crowd. That dad that when the ref makes a bad call and he explodes at the ref and his kid is some of you are like this right now, like yeah. Because you've seen this show before.

24:12 I hope it's not. I'm sure it's not of your father's, right? But right. It was like Baruch Hashem you're in Bavaria, you didn't have to see it. But there's always these legendary stories of the dad that ran on the court and punched out the other coach, and then it was these brawls. There's always these crazy stories that occur. I have a question. Your son is 16 years old. And I know that this game is important to him. But you're 40. Why are you screaming at a ref at 40 years old? The answer is because you're not watching your son play basketball. You know what you're doing? You're reliving your glory days. My son is going to make it more than I ever did. And it's like you're willing and you have dads who are willing. Today it used to be yeshiva league basketball. Kids woke up in the morning and they shot around so that they'd be good at basketball. Today these kids have trainers. I don't know if you know this. These kids get private training from professional coaches. We've taken this world to a whole new level. You have 16 year old kids that are on human growth hormone. That are walking around doing crazy muscle workouts so that they could dunk by the time they're a fetus.

25:24 When I was a kid, Jews didn't dunk. The most that a kid did it was like crazy if he touched the rim. Today you have like five or ten Jewish kids that are doing alley oops. Where in the world did this come from? It's because we've become insane. That father that rushes the court, he's not rushing the court because the ref missed the call for his son. It's because he is in that moment re-experiencing his Vietnam trauma of when it happened to him in the late '80s, and he couldn't contain himself, so he had to go crazy. Okay. Problem is, only Revarez really knows what I'm talking about. We've met these parents, right? And then you look at them and you're like, you hear these crazy stories. A rebbe in high school told me a couple years ago that there was almost a brawl outside of a game between a player and an opposing player's father. Not even okay, but say there used to be back in the day. After a game, there was a little bit of a fight. Today it's like the parents are involved.

26:23 Fine. The when we parent. And I'm saying this, by the way, in parenting, because I'm really talking to every one of us. I'm really talking about the way that we treat each other. When we parent, and we see somebody else's behavior, and we see that behavior as their identity, and we're not curious enough to look underneath, it's not because we couldn't look under the hood because of them. It's because we couldn't look under the hood because of ourselves. Right now in this room, and everywhere in Klal Yisrael, there are people that are behaving in a certain way. That behavior is not appropriate. There are people I'm sure that are driving you crazy this year. They're driving you crazy in the chadar ocha. They're driving you crazy in shiurim. They're driving you crazy in the dorms. Whatever they're doing, they're doing. And here's what it looks like: we go to our rooms and we get this sick little twisted pleasure called lashon hara. There is nothing more geschmack than Lashon Hara. We go and we sit down in our room, and our roommate's not there, and we just sit there for hours.

27:24 Saying all the nasty things about her, right? And at the end, we're like, 'that's delicious,' right? Until she finds out that we've been doing it, and then we're like, 'No, I was just, I wasn't really saying it like that. It was more like I was just like expressing a feeling, right? Like, no, that was just straight Lashon Hara and no chaser. Right? Why? Why are we doing that? Why are we looking at them and not seeing the survival technique that's underneath? It's not because of them. It's because of us. It's because we don't have the capacity to look deeply in people. We don't have the capacity to look deeply within ourselves. When we look at somebody else and all we see is their behavior, and we then conflate that behavior with their identity, it's because we do the same things to ourselves. And that's why so many of us in this room won't acknowledge our negative behaviors because we think I am those behaviors. We don't say I'm struggling with the coping mechanism of laziness. I have a part of me that's lazy, or I have a part of me that's angry, or I have a part of me that's jealous. We say I'm jealous. I'm angry. We identify it with ourselves. We don't give ourselves the gift of compassion.

28:46 Because that's what we would naturally do if we understood what was going on inside of our systems. You would naturally be compassionate, because that's what happens when you hear people's stories. It's easy to stay far away from each other and to hate each other. The closer you draw to people, the more you see them for what's actually going on underneath the hood, and then you naturally have compassion. And the last conversation that I ever had with my grandmother, Ela Shalom, in person Was January, right before COVID broke out And I had the opportunity to go to New Jersey. To see my grandmother And I asked my grandmother. Why there's more racism in the world today, and why there's more anti-Semitism in the world today? My grandmother, who was 90 years old, said to me, "Brilliant concept." "She said, 'We used to play on the stoop with each other.'

29:39 That's the way it was. You came to America and you lived in these tenement buildings, and the kids didn't have anywhere to go. So where would they go? All the kids would play with each other, and when all the kids play with each other, and you grow up with each other, and the Italians are next to the Germans, and the Germans are next to the Jews. And all these kids, that's how it was. You can't hate people when you're close to them. You can't hate the kid that you play with. But what happens is that we all spread out, and in our state of being spread out, this is what my grandmother explained to me. She said, the farther we move from each other, the easier it is to hate you from afar. The easier it is to give you a label. You're that person. The truth is, we do that. We judge somebody from far away. We pull back and we go, she's that girl, and she's that girl. She's not my type. She's this. She's that. I would never want to be in seminary with that girl. I would only want to be in seminary with that girl.

30:24 There's a story, and I'm going to clean it up because I don't want to say any lashon hara. I know the story is true. I verified it with the father. I heard the story from the father. There was a certain boy. Again, I'm not going to use any names. There was a certain boy who was in a yeshiva that's known to work with kids that are struggling. It's a known yeshiva. This boy had chosen to go to that yeshiva because there were things that he wanted to work on. And in that yeshiva he flew. And he was applying to a top yeshiva in Eretz Israel. He was applying, and because he was coming from this yeshiva where the boys are struggling, it wasn't obvious that he was going to get in, even though he was doing great. He was doing great, but it wasn't obvious that he was going to get in.

31:11 And he had to have a meeting with the rasha shiva in order to get in. And the rasha shiva said to him, "Seem like a really great guy. How do you deal with all the garbage in your yeshiva?" And the boy who had been well trained by his menahel, who's a man who's known for being deeply compassionate to all of his talmidim, this boy didn't flinch. He just looks at the rishiva and he goes What do you mean garbage? Struggles. He put the rishiva right back in his place. And as a result of that, he got into the yeshiva because he was very impressive. It's not garbage. It's struggles. It's only garbage when you're far away from it. It's only garbage when you're in a different yeshiva and you're in an elite yeshiva and the boys in your yeshiva chas v'shalom have never done anything wrong. Everybody in your yeshiva is perfect, so it's easy to look at another boy and go like, "Oh, that's garbage." It's not garbage; it's struggles.

32:01 The beauty of people who work with these types of people who are struggling is they don't see it as garbage and they don't see those people as garbage. They say that's a struggle that he's going through, and I understand that struggle because I've drawn close to this person. And by the way, because I've drawn close to this person, that's why I can give them appropriate discipline, and I can tell them this is not okay the way that you're behaving, and it doesn't represent the highest version of who you are. But from afar, it's easy to call it garbage, and the reason you call it garbage is because that's how you see yourself. The truth of the matter is that if we see ourselves deeply and understand our story in a very deep way, then we would see other people that way too. In fact, we would be a circle that would encompass so many people. Shlomo Freifeld, Zecharzabek Lavrocha, was the founding Rosh Yeshiva of Shaiyashiv. He was sent on a mission with other Gedolei Yisrael when they were young.

32:50 They were sent on a mission by Gedolei Torah to come to Eretz Yisrael. Rav Huttner sent Rav Shlomo Freifeld. Different Gedolei sent their premier Talmidim to go to Eretz Yisrael on a mission. Rav Freifeld, who was a young man at the time, was chosen by Rav Huttner to be his representative on this mission to Eretz Yisrael. And Rav Huttner told him, when you go to Eretz Yisrael, have me in mind. You must meet with the Chazon Ish. The Chazon Ish was, of course, the gadol at the time. Rav Freifeld went and he met with the Chazon Ish. He had a diary. He had a journal. Used to be that people journaled, not on phones. Used to be that people had books and they wrote with pens. You're familiar with this concept, they like pens and he would write what's happening in their life because they would want to remember it. People would go back years later and look at their journals. This is a beautiful thing to do. Rabbi Meir Friedfeld wrote in his journal after he met the Chazon Ish: "A gadol is a circle."

33:41 The larger the gadol, the more people he can encompass with his circle. The Chazon Ish is an enormous circle. When you are kind and compassionate to yourself, because you really see yourself, you become expansive. You end up becoming a magnet. You draw people in. It's a beautiful way of being. The reason that we are small is not because our circles are not meant to be huge. It's because we feel small and constricted. Why would I ever let anybody else in? This is what's happening more and more in the Jewish community. We're creating these small circles where we don't let anyone in. Like at a wedding, you know how in that first circle of the Kala's best friends, only the best friends are there, and they're holding each other's hands very tight. There's always those concentric circles. On the outside circle, like the old mothers that are just there. Because that's the first circle, and in five minutes, there's going to be a circle around the mother.

34:34 And it's going to be one of these circles. I love those circles. I'm 45 years old. I love an old man's circle. When I was young, I was like, really? They love that? Now I'm old. There's nothing better than going to a wedding, and your best friend is making a wedding, and you're out there with him in that small circle on the outside, going like this. When you're young, it's like it's crazy. My friend is getting married, right? I'm going to go nuts. Everyone in that first circle holds their hands real tight and they don't allow the people in the second circle to come in. Why? Why do you have to be tightly holding your hands? Why can't you let anyone else in? Because you're terrified. Because you're terrified. Because you see yourself as very small, so you create this very small circle in your life. It's not the way we're meant to be. Ultimately, in the times of Mashiach, everybody is connected. There's a circle that encompasses everybody. And by the way, that's the way Chazal describe the times of Mashiach. In the times of Mashiach, all the tzaddikim are going to sit in a circle.

35:24 Because in that circle of all the tzaddikim and Hakadosh Baruch Hu is at the center of that circle, everybody else is going to be contained by the tzaddikim in that circle. It's an unbelievable thing. The reason we're afraid of other people, the reason we judge them based on their behavior, it's not because we're so pathetic to think that they're just bad people. It's because we see ourselves that way. Comes along the pasuk in this week's parashah and tells us an unbelievable thing. Aaron Kohen did do the wrong thing. He was meant to die al Kiddush Hashem, and in Devarim, Moshe Rabbeinu says Hakadosh Baruch Hu was very angry at him, and I had to daven on his behalf not to destroy Aaron Kohen. But the midrash tells us the deeper story. That's the surface story. That's true. On a practical behavioral level, Aaron Kohen did absolutely the wrong thing.

36:19 We can hold people accountable for the wrong behavior. But the Medrash tells us on this week's parsha, the Medrash tells us a completely different story, and it's not a contradiction; it's just a different layer. What's the layer? Hakadosh Baruch Hu comes and he says, "but since I'm God, I know what's going on the inside. What's really going on the inside?" On the inside, Aaron Cohen's intentions were noble. His intentions were to protect Klal Yisrael. So because it's Hakadosh Baruch Hu and Hakadosh Baruch Hu is perfect, he can operate on multiple levels at once. The behavior could be wrong. The person could be noble. And Hakadosh Baruch Hu comes and he says two things can be true. I can make sure that his behavior is highlighted in the Torah as wrong, but he is also my Cohen Gadol. He is the holiest person in the holiest place at the holiest time who will get Klal Yisrael Kapara. How will Aaron Cohen be the one to get Kapara for Klal Yisrael? Because what does Aaron Cohen do?

37:12 He knows about himself that Hakadosh Baruch Hu made him Cohen. Because Hakadosh Baruch Hu was able to see deeper. So that's what Aaron Cohen does. Aaron Cohen, whenever he sees a Jew, what does he see? He sees deeper. That's why Aaron Cohen was able to draw people close. That's what Aaron Cohen is known for. You should draw people close like Aaron Cohen. How did he draw them close? The Rambam says he would look at them and he would say, "Oh, you're amazing. You're this. You're that. I could see in you all these amazing things." And then the Rambam says they would rise to the occasion. I've tried that chinuch move before. It doesn't work. You just go over to a boy and just flatter him. You just go, you're Steigen in the basement, man. You're killing it. And the kid's like, no, I'm not. I don't know what you're talking about. It doesn't work. You know the difference. You know why it works for Aron Cohen? Because he actually believed it.

38:00 It worked for Aron Cohen because he wasn't lying. When Aron Cohen saw you, he saw your beauty, and because he saw your beauty, you saw your beauty. This is our job, every one of us. We're Mameleches Cohen and Vegay Kadosh. Our responsibility in this world is to be Aron Cohens. Hold people accountable for their behavior. See their beauty underneath. How do we do that? Hold ourselves accountable for our behavior. See our own beauty underneath. Girls have a beautiful Shabbos and a frail apartment.