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One of the strange things that we see in this week's parsha is that Yitzchak loves Esav. And the way the Torah frames it is that Rivka loved Yaakov and Yitzchak loves Esav. This can't be the simple explanation because no parent favors a child over another child. I know that right now, as you heard me say that, many of you in your head are going, "Yeah, but my mother likes my sister better," and don't tell me that she doesn't. And parents have this platitude We love every child, but we love every child differently. And until you have children yourself You won't know how true that is. Every single child really is loved, with all of a parent's heart. What could it possibly mean that Yitzchak loved Esav? What does that look like? That's number one. Number two. If there is something called loving a child. The first question is very simple. What does it mean that Yitzchak loves Esav? Yitzchak must have loved Yaakov also.
But if one was going to play favorites It's strange to play favorites with Esav. If you have one child who's sitting and learning, connecting to Hashem He's described as ish tam yoshev olalim. Ish Tam Yosef Ohalim gives us the sense that Yaakov Avinu was to be a Tam, meaning to be somebody who's whole. Have you ever met somebody who has a certain presence about them? They're just complete. They're not lacking in any way. Like children that are just okay for themselves. They're very pleasant, those children. So to love a Yaakov is very easy. To love an Esav, to love someone who's a murderer. Who pillages and plunders and hurts people and takes advantage Marries women that are idolatresses. We know that Yitzchak's nose was burning from the incense that Esav's wives were offering to their idols. So how could it be that Yitzchak loved Esav? Of course, every parent loves every child.
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But the Torah seems to put a dageish, an emphasis on it. He loved Esav. You love Yaakov. In Esav, you love. But it's like the Torah is almost communicating to us in this very strange way that Esav had a special place in Yaakov's heart, and that is true. There are children that have a very special place in their parents' heart. So the simple answer that people give is like, yeah, Esav was like the troubled child, and the troubled child is always somebody that has a special place in your heart. But there has to be a deeper answer here. What could it possibly mean that Yitzchak loved Esav? Why is that the emphasis? So I saw a very beautiful answer from the Alter Rebbe of Lubavitch, and the first Lubavitcher Rebbe, and I want to share with you the Alter Rebbe's answer because it's really something very astounding, and I think it has a very deep message for all of us.
Now the Rebbe says, in order to answer this question, we need to explore what it means that Yitzchak was named Yitzchak. It's a very strange thing. Today you see that they name their children very strange names. You ever see this? They name their children like green. They have a what? What's the cloud? The name The name Yitzchak means laughter. And on the one hand That could be seen as a very beautiful name for something. But on the other hand, it seems like a strange name. Yitzchak, laughter, a future-oriented laughter. What's the pshat that Yitzchak's name was laughter? It's a strange name to give a child. Especially because Yitzchak's way of being doesn't seem to indicate laughter We would have thought Abraham's name would be Yitzchak, because Avram is the Bal Chesed. Avram is the one who seems to have love pouring out of his heart.
No matter who Avram Avinu encounters, he somehow has the capacity to draw them in. When we think about Avram Avinu, if you had to picture Avram Avinu's face, you would picture Avram Avinu's face as having this beautiful smile on his face. And when we think about Yitzchak, the midah that we think about is not chesed, but it's gevura It's strength and it's discipline. In fact, it's called pachad Yitzchak. If Avraham Avinu is the midah of a havis Hashem, then Yitzchak is the midah of yiras Hashem, being in awe of Hashem. Fearing Hashem. So if one pictures Yitzchak's face, you don't think of laughter. Laughter goes the exact opposite of what you think of Yitzchak. Almost like stern, disciplined. I'll tell you who I think of when I think of Yitzchak. There's a rebbe I never had him as a rebbe. I wasn't in the school where he taught, but all my friends had him. He's like a famous eighth grade rebbe. This rebbe is the most disciplined person I've ever met in my entire life. Somebody told me that every single day for the last forty years, he brings the same peanut butter and jelly sandwich and has that for lunch. He's having the same lunch every day for forty years, and every day he comes and he sits in the rebbe's room. And he eats his peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and he sits in the same spot. He's a very disciplined person.
When I think of this Rebbe, he's a very nice Rebbe. He's a very warm Rebbe. I would never picture him belly laughing. I would never picture him crying from tears. He's a nice Rebbe. He's a really good Rebbe. In fact, maybe one of the best eighth grade Rebbeim in the country. But he's a very disciplined person. He's a very serious person. That's not the type of person that we would call Yitzchak. When somebody names their child You name their child, and afterwards, you see as the child grows up, you're like, I don't know how I knew that was the child's name, but I just knew, and it worked out perfectly. Somebody told me this week about a young man whose name is Yosef Leib. Yosef Leib means the addition of heart. And this guy, he's just pure emotion. And his mother told me the whole story of why she named him Yosef Leib. I'm not going to get into the details; it's private. But she told me this whole story of why he was named Yosef Leib.
Where did you get that Ruach Hakodesh from to name this boy Yosef Leib? It just works out so perfectly. The name of a person embodies their essence. The Gemara says that a parent gets a little bit of Ruach Hakodesh when it comes to naming their child. My wife and I have a joke because of my son. I have five daughters and one son, and both of us thought to name the child Mechal Yosef. But my wife wanted to name the baby Mechal Shlomo because that's what she thought I wanted the baby's name to be, and I thought she wanted the baby's name to be Mechal Shlomo. So we named the baby Mechal Shlomo, and afterwards we were like, 'It's so funny.' I was thinking the name Mechal Yosef, and I was like, 'I was also thinking the name Mechal Yosef,' but now that I see that he's Mechal Shlomo, it's perfect. He's not a Mechal Yosef. He's a Mechal Shlomo.
There's something about it. The name Yitzchak. It doesn't seem to fit the story of Yitzchak. You know what I mean? It's like Yitzchak Avinu. He's like stern, serious. He has a serious life. He never leaves Eretz Yisrael. He's an Oyla Tamima. We don't think of laughter when we think of Yitzchak. So what's the depth behind the name Yitzchak? Listen to this word from the Alter Rebbe because it's a life changing, game changing idea. The inner nature of laughter is when something unexpected happens. Have you ever heard this before? Did you hear it recently from someone? I promise you it won't be the same. But the inner nature of laughter is unexpected. Just by a show of hands, without comments and without saying crazy things. Did you ever see a video where somebody gets really hurt and laughs? Is there anyone here who enjoys watching those videos?
You'll go on whatever app you have and just do that, and some people hate it. Some people see that stuff and they're like, "How could you watch that and laugh?" You laugh for maybe a second. I remember I had a nephew that fell asleep on the stairs. And in his state, he was like a little boy. He was maybe three years old. In his state of sleeping on the stairs, he rolled And he rolled down the stairs. Now it was only three or four stairs. So he wasn't really hurt. But everyone because this particular family of this young boy, they love laughing at that type of humor So they burst out laughing, and here's this little three year old sweetheart of a kid, and he's on the floor crying. I ran to pick him up. I'm like, "What are you laughing about?" And they're like, "It's so funny. He just fell down the stairs."
And I'm thinking about the trauma that this kid grows up with. They talk about trauma from the time you're very young, like this kid who's three years old. In therapy, he's gonna be unpacking years from now. Yeah, they laughed when I hurt myself, and that was the norm in my family. I'll have to be working with an IFS therapist to develop an understanding of how the parts developed from these exiled wounds of people laughing at him when he was in pain. When something unexpected happens, we laugh. That's why the job of a comedian is all about timing. Because you have to say the right thing at exactly the right time. Do you ever try to repeat the joke of a comedian and the person? You thought it was really funny when they said it, but when you say it over The person doesn't laugh. It's not execution. You have to say it exactly the right way and at exactly the right time. And when a person is ready to laugh, right there.
And if you don't, that's why comedians say they have this thing like shock comedy. They just want to say the thing that's totally unexpected to get you to laugh. Why was Yitzchak's name Yitzchak? Yitzchak's name was Yitzchak because Sarah Imenu totally didn't expect him to be born. She was a very old woman. A very old woman doesn't expect to have a child, so she named him Yitzchak. Listen what the pasuk says: Bar Tomer Sarah Schoke Asal Yelokim Kol Hashoamei Yitzchakli. God did. He made it. He made a joy for me. He made this laughter for me. It's totally unexpected. And anyone who hears it is going to laugh because I'm such an elderly woman. Who would have said that Avram and Sarah are going to be able to have children? Who would say that they have children at such an old age? Yitzchak's named Yitzchak because he is unexpected.
And what does that mean for us? It means for us that we are a nation that somehow has the capacity to defy expectations. To be the child of Avraham Avinu means to be the child of Chesed. Klal Yisrael does unbelievable Chesed. I want to share with you right now. There's a group of Mevaseret boys. Shalom Aleichem. Right now, there's a group of Mevaseret boys at an army base making a barbecue for a group of Tzan Chanim and paratroopers. Where did they get the money from? These boys fundraised in twenty four hours a couple of weeks ago. They fundraised three hundred thousand dollars. Three hundred thousand dollars. We are an unexpected nation. Everything about Klal Yisrael is unexpected. What do you think they would have said about us after the Holocaust? It's over. It's finished. It's for sure finished Orthodox Judaism, but probably even Judaism B'chol. How could you come back from losing six million people?
The way the world operates when it comes to Jews is they set an expectation, and when we defy all expectations. How could it be that a nation of only twelve million people has as many Nobel Prize winners as we have? How could it be that we have batay medrash? How could it be that we have shuls? How could it be that you girls are learning here in Yerushalayim erakodesh? Eighty years ago, if you would have told your grandparents that your grandchildren, your great grandchildren, are going to be learning in Yerushalayim, they would have laughed. Because it defies expectations, that's what we are. As Yemale Yitzchok Pino in the future, why do we describe the time of Mashiach? It will be a time of great laughter because it's completely and totally unexpected. That's what a Jew. That's what the child of Yitzchok is. Someone who defies expectations.
Now let's think about this for a second and this is where The meat of today's she'er is. What was it like to be someone who met Avraham Avinu? So I think this is what it was like. You came You didn't believe in God. You were an idol worshiper And you came into Avraham Avinu's orbit. However, you got there and came into Avraham Avinu's orbit. What did Avraham Avinu say? Avraham Avinu came towards you, and he overwhelmed you. He overwhelmed you with love. He overwhelmed you with logical arguments. He overwhelmed you with his charisma. Everything about Avraham Avinu was overwhelming. Could you imagine? It's like you ever go to a shiur and the Rebbe is so captivating that you have no choice but to be paying attention. And let's say you have a Rebbe who's and he's and you say this and he comes at you with a logical argument and he invites you for Shabbos. Right? Everything about the experience is drawing you in. You ever have a Rebbe like that? They're very exciting to be around.
But there's another type of Rebbe. Another type of teacher, another type of mechanechet. And this is the Yitzchak model. But listen carefully, because this is the more subtle model, and I really want you to try to hear this. There's a certain type of Rebbe that isn't the most charismatic speaker. They don't have the most dynamic content. We might even describe them as boring. Maybe, But they have the capacity to do? They have the capacity to say something, not to convince you, not to overwhelm you. But that just makes you think. And when you hear what they have to say, it's subtle. It's not exciting. There's no fireworks. But when you hear what this person has to say, you stop and you go I never thought about it that way before. Instead of the information being overwhelming from the outside, it's almost like what they say resonates so deeply within you that it makes you shift the way you think. Did you ever have a she'er like that where the Rebbe just said something?
Oh my gosh! I never saw it that way. It's something inside of you. It's not outside overwhelming you. It's inside coming from within. The difference between being the student of Avraham Avinu and the student of Yitzchak is if you were in Avraham Avinu's she'er, you walked out of the she'er. It was like an Eishat Torah class. You walked out of the she'er and you're like, I know for sure that Hashem is true. That's it. I know for sure. If you walked out of Yitzchak's shir, this is what it felt like. You saw a group of people that walked out, and they were absolutely silent because every one of them, as they walked out of the shir, was located inside of themselves thinking about it. And they were just like, "Wow, that's so deeply resonated within me. Like for example This past week I was very privileged. I had a training this week with a very famous IFS therapist whose name is Aynat Bornstein. She's one of the If you say her name in the world of IFS, everyone knows Aynat Bornstein.
Aynat Bornstein is a wonderful speaker. But she's not really exciting, making jokes. She just has a very strong sense of presence. So we were in San Pedro Morchevet, right down the road And we walk in and we're all sitting in this giant circle, and it's about thirty guys in the circle. And she starts off Just like you see her. She's very centered and very present. And she starts off by saying I want to just recognize the time period of history that we're living in. And we're all taking our place in Jewish history. And she just said it in a very calm way. It wasn't said in a charismatic way. It wasn't said in a dynamic way. There were no jokes. Nobody was laughing. But I started thinking to myself as soon as she said it, because of her presence, I started thinking to myself, 'Wow, I never thought about it like that.' I'm taking my place in Jewish history, just like my parents told me what it was like in 1967 in the Six Day War.
You're gonna tell your children what it was like on Simchas Torah of October 7th. We're taking our place in Jewish history. She didn't say anything charismatic or dynamic. She didn't say anything that was so deep or so profound. But what she said It makes you think from the inside. If Avram Avinu is the year where you walk out and you're on fire, Yitzchak Avinu is the year that you walk out and you're quiet because you're like Whoa, I totally didn't think of it that way. Totally, even if I did think about it that way, you ever have a teacher who says something and you're like, I knew that to be true already, but just the way that she said it, it really struck a chord. That's what it means to be the student of Yitzchak Avinu. Who is a Talmud that excites Yitzchak Avinu? Yitzchak Avinu would have loved to teach in Sharfman's.
Yitzhak Avinu would have loved to teach in Sharfman, and I'll tell you why. What did Yitzhak love? Yitzhak loved because his name was Yitzhak to defy expectations. Yitzhak saw someone who appeared to be one thing, and he was able to see them for something totally different. Or a different way of saying it is, he saw the laughter, he saw the joke inside of them. I want to share with you. I want to share with you that there's a this it doesn't happen as much anymore But when I was a young man There was a certain base medish in the Mir And from time to time I would go to that base medish and I would walk into that base medish and I would start laughing Because I would look at this guy and I would say that guy was the captain of Haftar hockey, and that guy was the captain of MTA basketball. And that guy was the captain of Frisch basketball. And one by one, you would see these guys who were the biggest talmidei chachamim, the biggest yarei shammaim. And I want to tell you something about these guys. It was totally unexpected.
If you saw that guy five, six years earlier, you would have said to yourself, "There's no way that guy's going to end up learning in Mir yeshiva." What's the pshat? How does that guy end up in Mir? So I want to tell you that there are certain rebbeim that know how to reach these guys. That there are certain guys that you look at them and you go, I know what you are. This is your ceiling. This is who you are. There are people that they box you into your expectations. They say to you, what do you mean? You went to this elementary school. You went to this high school. You went to this seminary. You're going to become this. You're going to marry this type of guy who went to this type of yeshiva. You know that you've seen this show before. We use this word, typical. She's a very typical girl. You ever hear something like that? People say it as if it's a positive thing. She's a typical girl. She's going to marry a typical guy. They're going to have a typical family.
They're going to live in Muncie. He's going to be an accountant. She's going to be a physical therapist. They're going to send their kids to typical schools. Everything is going to go exactly the way you think. The entire story is typical. And then there's other girls Girls that somehow, no matter where they go, they don't fit into any box. You know those girls? You live with those girls? You know I'm talking about girls that like if they're in their school, they just. I'm saying this in the nicest way possible. They just don't conform to any rules. You know what I'm talking about? If the school says something, they're going, "Okay, that was cute. They made a rule. It's nice. It's cute. They made a rule." Rabbi Sharman's has a box. It's okay. They made a box. They're going to put the phones in. There's always that girl that has that extra phone that she puts into the box so that the girl won't know the majricha who's collecting it won't know that there's another phone. You've seen the show before.
Anyone here ever have a spare phone that they took with them? But say that everyone has their thing, and within that system of expectations, there's always that girl that says, "I don't fit any of your expectations." And there's a lot of frustration around those girls. There's a lot of frustration. There's a lot of like, she. We have to figure out how to get her to follow the rules, to conform to the rules. But there's always one teacher in every school, maybe even in your Beis Yaakov. There's one teacher in every school that somehow knows how to connect to those girls that don't fit into the box. When you think of that teacher, isn't that like a beautiful teacher? They just put them into a box. That's not exactly nice. So the teacher who's the nice one, the teacher who somehow connects, she's not operating within the box. In fact, she sees that girl who's doing whatever she's doing, and she's like, it's okay. I know within you there's something unexpected. Everyone sees you behaving this way, but there is something unexpected in that girl that's going to lead her towards her path of avodah shem, and her path of avodah shem might be higher than anybody else's path.
That teacher is a Yitzchak Avinu type of teacher. Yitzchak Avinu sees that person that defies all of the rules and says, "I know that there is laughter somewhere inside of there." You know why Yitzchak loved Esav? Because Esav was that guy who broke every single rule. Everyone in the world who looked at Esav said, "This guy is terrible. He's pushed off the derech. The recipe for going off the derech is if your father is a rebbe." You've seen that show before. If your mother's a therapist and your father's a rebbe, there's no chance that you're going to stay on the derech. My wife is a therapist. I'm a rebbe. Baruch Hashem, so far all my kids are on the derech. But you never know. It's like there's a certain sense that I'm not conforming to the rules, like a rabbi's kid. And then somehow There's that Rebbe that manages to connect to that kid. Yitzchak looks at Esav and he says, "You guys think Esav is Esav." Yitzchak is laughing the entire time. Yitzchak, because his whole life is about he lives within expectations, right? He's a very boundaried person. But the genius of Yitzchak is that he's able to understand the laughter of those people that live outside of those boundaries.
So Yitzchak sees an Esav, and he says, "You guys think Esav is Esav. Esav is not Esav." I know who Esav really is. And that's the whole Torah of Yitzchak. The whole Torah of Yitzchak is to see that child that's behaving in a way that, like everybody else, is going, "I can't, I can't understand how you could like that kid." And that Rebbe is going, "I don't understand how you could not appreciate that kid." Aren't we living in times like that today? In Mashiach times, it has to be a combination of Avram and Yitzchak. So there's some teachers that are so charismatic, they're so dynamic, and there's other teachers that they're like, I don't need to overwhelm you with my dynamic shirim. What I just need to do? I need some help to communicate that I know there's something unexpected inside of you.
That's the whole tirah of today's generation. The whole tirah of today's generation is there's a girl who's out there who she thinks. I have nothing to do with Yiddishkeit. I have nothing to do with this. I don't want this. As soon as sheer is over, I'm going out. I am only here because I don't want to get early curfew on Matzah Shabbos. I'm doing whatever I'm doing. There are people like that, and there are people that are going to define those people like that. She's only. You should know Rebek. She wasn't really. You think she was at your sheer? She wasn't at your sheer. She sat in the back. She was talking the entire time. She had an AirPod in. She wasn't paying attention. She. I'm telling you, there are people like that. They're sitting there and saying, so that girl. There's a certain sense. There's a certain sense of like. I need to overwhelm you with my charisma, I'm gonna invite that girl for Shabbos and we're gonna pull her in and we're gonna show her so much love and she's gonna change.
It's one method. It's a good method. There's an Avraham Avinu place for teachers. But there's another teacher. I don't need to invite you for Shabbos. If you want to come for Shabbos, that's great. But I don't need to invite you for Shabbos. I don't need to give you the most charismatic or dynamic sheir. It doesn't need to be that. All it needs to be is that I see inside of you something more than you see inside of you. That you think you're acting like a vil dechaya, but I know inside of you there's something very godly and very precious, and Yitzchak knows how to bring that out. He knows how to bring out that laughter. All of Yitzchak's talmidim, if you see them years later, you go, I never would have thought that kid would have ended up that way. That's the hallmark of a Yitzchak Avinu talmid. You look at that kid. He was the captain of Haftar hockey. How did he end up? The captain of Haftar Hockey, from when I was a kid, has been sitting and learning in Kibbutz for 21 years now.
He got married a week after me. He married one of my wife's closest friends. In high school, we would have looked at this guy And we would look at this guy. We thought this guy is going to go to Israel. We thought he's for sure going to waste his year. This guy is going to become a Masmi. This guy is going to become a Lamdan. He's going to sit and learn in Kibbutz for 21 years. Nobody saw it coming. And now, when you see him, it's a joke. Whenever I see him, even he came. He came by my when my daughter got engaged. He came to the vart. When I saw him walk in, in my head, I'll be honest. In my head, still, even though it's twenty one years later, I'm laughing because I remember him running around like a mashugana on the court. He was an unbelievable hockey player. Today, he's a balamachaber of sfarim. You see, there was a guy who came to yeshiva once. This is a true story. Guy came to yeshiva. The mashgiach of the yeshiva interviewed him, and he said, "I don't think this guy is a good fit for the yeshiva."
He pushed his way in. He convinced the rosh yeshiva of Mevaser; it's a very big, softy. He came to Mevaser at day one. I've never seen a Jew with a fro this big in my entire life. His hair was out to here, enormous fro. And within a short couple of weeks, he was already sticking like crazy. Rosh yeshiva gave a sheir. He was a brilliant guy. Rosh yeshiva gave a sheir, and he really was like, "Wow, that was an incredible sheir." And I started to really learn. I even made a comment to him. I probably shouldn't have said this. I said, "Alex, it's a little weird. You have your hair out to here, but you're sitting in Bais Medrash all day long." Finally, when he shaved his head, he gave me his hair. He gave it to me in a bag. I kept it by my muckum for a very long time. I know it's gross, but it was a good joke to me. This guy Alex went to every festival. He did every drug under the sun. When he came to Yeshiva, he's like, "I totally shouldn't have gotten in."
But he's stieg like crazy today. Alex is in an amazing kaiul in New York. He's sitting and learning. His father is a caterer. His father is a caterer. When this kid was off the derech in high school, the father used to tell all the chassanim and kallas that he was catering their wedding. He would say, "I'll be your caterer on one condition: you have to daven for my son." Now you know what the father goes around telling people: be careful what you daven for, because my son is sitting and learning in kaiul. The father wants his kid to get a job. It's totally unexpected. But there's laughter there. There's a certain type of rebbe that they see a guy like an Alex or a guy like this guy Mayer, and they go, "You think you know this guy? You think he's a hockey player? I'm telling you, there's a Ben Tira inside of there. You think this guy is going to every festival? You'll see this guy is going to be the biggest lamb than the biggest Masmid."
Avraham Venu, he sees you and he sees you as you are. He says, "I'm going to overwhelm you with love." Yitzchak says, "I don't need to overwhelm you with love. You're already good. There's goodness inside of you. I just need to bring it out." In the times of Mashiach There's a place for Avraham Avinu to overwhelm us with love and charisma and dynamic shiurim, and it changes people's lives. There's no doubt about it. But if you want to know who are the most impactful rabeim, who are the teachers that are really going to get you to where you need to go in the times of Mashiach, it's that person that looks at you with kindness and with gentleness and says "I don't believe you. You're acting like an esav, but I know you're not." You're acting like an esav. You did this thing. I'm a rebbe. You don't understand who I am. You don't understand. I went to that forest. I did that thing. I was with that person. I don't believe you. It's not who you really are. That was just a thing you were acting out at that particular time. But inside of you, there's something bigger. We should be blessed to have Yitzchak teachers in our lives. People that believe in us. People that care about us. And people that will help us care ultimately about ourselves.
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