Toldos - Impact From the Inside

2:05 Medrash continues, Ma asa Hakadosh Baruch Hu. So how did Hakadosh Baruch Hu respond to these late zaneh ador to these scoffers? Tsar kolst er ponav shel Yitzchak to Olam Avram. When Hakadosh Baruch Hu was shaping the features of Yitzchak. He shaped him to look exactly like Avram Avinu. The heido akol Avram holdes Yitzchak. It's like that game when you meet a baby for the first time and the mother and the father are holding the baby. You go, he looks exactly like. And then they say his father, his mother, some sort of hybrid in between. Sometimes people go, he looks like nobody. Like that's a very insulting thing to say. That's not a positive thing to say. You never know what could come from it. The fact that Hakadosh Baruch Hu made Yitzchak look like Avram was a response to the late Zuney Adar that none of the late Zuney Adar could say that really Avimelech was the father. The Zehu Shakas of Kan Yitzchak ben Avram, and that's why the pasuk says specifically Yitzchak ben Avram.

3:07 Now we had a testimony, we had proof that Avram was the father. So that's all well and good, a very beautiful answer. But there is a technical problem with Rashi's answer And we're not going to give an answer right now. But just to try to feel our way through this. It's one thing that Yitzchak looked like Avram But we know that whenever the panim, the face of somebody shines in a certain way It's an insight into their personality. You ever see somebody's face and you can tell right away. Are they kind? Are they critical? There's a certain wisdom of the face that we all have that we could look at somebody's face and we could see how they're feeling. And Moshe's face glowed, meaning and the depth of that would mean that Moshe Rabbeinu was so deeply connected to his neshama that his neshama shone forth and it literally became so godly that you couldn't even look at him. But this is what we do with little children. Little children, we tell them. We show them like now they have like the emoji faces. But we show little children. We say to the child, we say

4:19 A person who has this type of face, what are they? And go angry and go excellent. We train people to look at people's faces because people's faces reveal what goes on the inside. That's why the Gemara says no two people ever had the same face. Even identical twins have some mark that you could tell the difference between them because no two people are ever created the same. So Yitzchak had the same face as Avram. What does that mean? It doesn't mean the same exact face. It means that he bore a resemblance to him. That the late son of Ador couldn't say this is the child of Avimelech, because clearly he's the child of Avram Avinu. But if the panim, if the face reveals the panimiyut, reveals the insides of somebody Then we would expect, at least on some level, for Yitzchak to be like Avram Avinu.

5:10 And the truth of the matter is that Yitzchak was the exact opposite of Avram Avinu. And that's what we're going to explore today. If Avram Avinu was the midah of chesed, Avram Avinu was constantly giving. Yitzchak is known for the midah of gevura, which we're going to discuss. Yitzchak was very strong. Chesed means very out there. Gevura means very internal, very much to himself. So it's difficult for us to understand what Rashi is saying. Rashi is giving us a great, a beautiful Midrashic answer to the question of Avraham is clearly the father of Yitzchak, and yet Avraham is so different than Yitzchak. What lesson are we meant to learn from that? If they literally have the same face, how could they have such radically different personalities? Avraham being chesed, Yitzchak being the exact opposite in gevura. In fact, where do we see this? So we see that in the times of Avraham Avinu, there was a famine, and when there was a famine, what did Avraham Avinu do? He left Eretz Yisrael and he went to Mitzrayim.

6:11 Look at the pasuk. The pasuk says, 'Vayihira av ba'aretz melvad ha'ira avarishon asher ha'yav b'me'avram.' There was a famine in the land. This is a new famine. The pasuk tells us it's not the same famine as in the times of Avram Avinu. It's a brand new famine. Vayilech Yitzchak el avi melech, melech plishtim gerara. Where does Yitzchak go? He goes to the Melech Plishtim. He goes to Avi Melech, the king of the Plishtim. Where would you have expected Yitzchak to go if there's a famine? Expect him to go to Mitzrayim. Why would you expect him to go to Mitzrayim? Because that's what his father did. And the pasuk here highlights it's a famine, not a new famine, not the famine from the times of Avram Avinu. And what if it was the same famine? It's a new famine. What's the Torah teaching us here? Again, let's look at Rashi.

7:01 Rashi says, "Al terid Mitzrayim, shahayadaito laredes Mitzrayim." Hakadosh Baruch Hu tells Yisroel Avinu, 'Don't go down to Mitzrayim.' Why? Because Yitzchak said I should go down to Mitzrayim. Where did Yitzchak get that idea from? From his father. If my father went to Mitzrayim, Ma'ase Avosim lebanim, I should do what my father did. Kemoshe Yarat Aviv b'Merav, just like my father did. Amar Lo, I'll tarry in Mitzrayim. Hashem said to Yitzchak, Don't go down to Mitzrayim. Sha'ata Ola Tamima. You are an Ola Tamima. What does an Ola Tamima mean, girls? A perfect burnt offering, a perfect carbuncle. You're a perfect carbon, and therefore The ein chutz la'aretz kedaylacha. Therefore, chutz la'aretz is no good for you. You can't go to Mitzrayim. You can't go to America. You can't go to Canada. You can't go to England. Yitzchak only lives in Eretz Yisrael. So we see an unbelievable thing. Yitzchak wants to act like his father. There's a famine, a new famine.

8:01 But what does Yitzchak do in the new famine? He says, 'I want to do what my father did.' What does Hashem say? You're different. So now we're emphasizing this question even a little bit more. Yitzchak Avinu, on the one hand, looks exactly like his father, but he's literally being told, 'No, you can't leave Eretz Yisrael. Your father can, you can't.' What does that mean? Avram Avinu wasn't a perfect Olam Tzimimah. Avram Avinu was lacking in some way. Was Yitzchak on a higher level than Avram Avinu that he couldn't leave Eretz Yisrael? So it's a strange thing. He looked exactly like him. Avram was Chesed; he's Gvura. Avram somehow doesn't seem to be an olah tamima. He doesn't seem to be a perfect burnt offering. Yitzchak is so much so that he's not allowed to behave like his father. He's not allowed to go out of Eretz Yisrael. Avram Avinu can go down to Mitzrayim. Yitzchak, you can't go down to Mitzrayim.

8:49 Does it have something to do with Akedas Yitzchak? By Akedas Yitzchak, Yitzchak reached that level of being an olah tamima. But we still need to understand lemaisa. What does it mean that he was an olah tamima? Let's hit pause on these questions for a second and start speaking practically a little bit. I want to talk about two ways of making a meaningful impact on the world. My father had a company that he created, and it was called Impact Communications. It was his personal company, and my father was a consultant for major companies, and they paid him through this company called Impact Communications. I must have been 16 years old when he founded that company. And I asked my father, "Why'd you call it Impact? Why Impact Communications?" There's a lot of words when you're starting a company. The name of the company matters. Because whatever your brand is, that's how people are going to relate to you.

9:53 So I asked my father, "Why Impact?" So my father said a deep thing. He said my goal in life is to make an impact through communication. That's my goal. I want to make an impact through communication. My father was in advertising, so literally, what he did is he communicated. That's what advertising is. We tell you what our product is so that you can buy our product. So my father said, I want to make communication impactful. Impact is a very big word. So to talk just for a couple of minutes about what it looks like to make an impact. What are the positives and negatives of certain types of modalities of making an impact? So the first type of impact we're going to call an external type of impact. When I say external, I don't mean that it's impacting you externally. I mean the forum in which the impact occurs is external. For example If a person is on a college campus and they're not observant, and they didn't grow up in an Orthodox Jewish home, they didn't have access to a school system that would teach them what's halachically appropriate and what's not. They're Jewish, so what do you do?

11:02 You send someone out to the college to go make an impact. It's an external move. I'm leaving the comfort of my own home and going to make an impact on them. How do we do that? So the way we're going to do that is external, not external in that we're not going to reach their internal self, but it's external in the sense that I need to create a forum for us to have this communication now. So what would we do if I was sending one of you girls out to be a shlucha, to be a madricha on one of these college campuses? So what types of things would you probably do? You'd probably make a Friday night dinner. You'd probably make like a sushi and Tanach. You'd probably make some sort of forum where they could come for Shabbos. Come for Yom Tovim, teach them all the halachas. It's very external. And if somebody had a question What would you do? If somebody said, "Well, I don't believe in Hashem"

11:56 So you'd pull out your handy dandy little Asha Torah chart, and you'd go through all the different proofs of God. And because you girls, no doubt, have scoured all the svarim on these shelves already, we've been here a couple months. I imagine you finished. Most of them by now. You probably spend all day long sitting in the beis medrash, reading all of these very beautiful, wonderful svarim. I know Rabbi Zvi Herman has a number of svarim here. I'm sure you all read about the lessons of Disney. Does he have that? Does he have that sefer on the shelf? Rabbi Herman wrote a sefer on Disney. Ask him about it. See, I know the secrets of Rabbi Herman. I don't know if he publishes them anymore, but he definitely did publish it at one point. So a person goes out and they're gonna make all these arguments and they're gonna have logical, deep arguments with a person. I'm going to show them all the different proofs of God. Do you see how it's a very external type of change? This is Avraham Avinu.

12:44 Avraham Avinu had tens of thousands of followers. He had tens of thousands of followers. He made an impact at that time on half of the known world. How did he do it? He went out. He didn't stay in the confines of his own home. He didn't sit comfortably in his Jewish community when people out there didn't know about Hashem. He went out and he said, "We have to spread the word of God." What does it mean to be a Jew? To be a Jew means to make for Hashem a dira b'tachtonim, a dwelling place in the world down below. Avram Avinu said, "If I stay at home, how are we going to reach all these people?" And by the way, which people does Avram Avinu want to impact? He doesn't want to impact on the low-hanging fruit. He doesn't want to impact just on the people that are very close to him. He wants to go down to Mitsrayim.

13:31 Mitsrayim were the lowest people at the time; these were the most idolatrous, most baric people that lived at that time. We don't think of Mitzrayim that way. We don't think of Mitzrayim as a baric society necessarily, but the truth is, because we're very civilized, we don't realize how much the Judaic values have already impacted the world. We live in a very civilized world, but roll back the clock, go back to the times of Avram Avinu. What was Avram Avinu preaching? Don't murder your baby children to fake gods of stone and wood. Today, as we said, don't no child sacrifice. They used to burn and barbecue their children to a god named Molech. In the hopes that Molech would forgive them. Avram Avinu said, "Don't murder your children." Could you imagine if you were in a seminary, and a rabbi got up with a long white beard and he gave a charismatic speech about "Don't murder your children."

14:24 This is what Avram Avinu had to do. He didn't just go down one second. He didn't just go down to the Pelishtim. He didn't just go down to Avimelech. He went down to Mitzrayim. When a famine hit the land of Israel, what did he say? Must be that I'm not meant to be here. I have to leave. I have to go out. I have to share the word of God. So he didn't just look at it and say, "There's a famine. I don't have food." Hakadosh Baruch Hu could have provided for him food. The same God that saved him from the Kivshana Eish could have provided him food. What does Avram Avinu say? If there's a famine, it must mean what? I'm not supposed to be here. This is Hashem pushing me somewhere else. But this is the difference, as we're going to see soon, between Avram and Yitzchak. Avram Avinu, because he's such a holy person, he doesn't want to keep his holiness for himself. He wants to share it with the entire world. So if you think about Noah, Noah was a big tzaddik in chassidus. We call him a tzaddik in pelts. When it's cold outside, you have two options. One option is you could wear pelts. You could wear a fur coat, and then you'll be very warm. Another option is to light a fire.

15:29 If you light a fire, you can be warm and other people could be warm too. Noach was a big tzaddik from his kepilah all the way down to his feetziloch, right as the song goes. He was a big tzaddik, but he was a tzaddik in pelts. He didn't impact the world. Avram Avinu was the exact opposite. Avakadosh Baruch Hu is going to destroy Stolm. I've got to argue for Stolm. Even after the Malachim left, he's still standing in front of Avakadosh Baruch Hu trying to save them. Because the lowest people, if Hakadosh Baruch Hu is going to be comfortable in this world, then he needs to be comfortable everywhere in this world. It's like when I was growing up. First, before we moved to a town called Lawrence, we lived in a town called Far Rockaway. Far Rockaway at the time was not a wealthy neighborhood. Today, Far Rockaway, Baruch Hashem, is a wealthy neighborhood. Back then, it was not a wealthy neighborhood. My parents lived in a one-floor One-floor house with three bedrooms, a tiny kitchen. A tiny dining room, a tiny living room. I didn't think it was tiny at the time. I was little myself, but we had an unfinished basement, and I was terrified of the basement.

16:30 I was terrified of it. It's scary when you're a little kid. The only thing that was down there was a washing machine and dryer. My parents didn't have money to finish the basement yet, and I used to play a game with myself that my mother would say, "Can you take down the laundry?" And I would run as fast as I could, drop the laundry, and run back up because it was so terrifying to be down in the basement. Then we had a little bit more money. We finished the basement. Finished the basement by putting down carpeting and wood paneling on the walls. This was not a fancy finished basement. The ceiling was lower than this, and we couldn't play. My taller friends couldn't play ping pong in my basement because the paddles would constantly smash the ceiling. It was a very low ceiling. But once there was light Once it was comfortable, once there was carpeting, then me and my brother moved down there. We had our Nintendo down there. We spent hours wasting away our lives on that thing. But you feel comfortable.

17:18 Hashem doesn't want to come to our world if he can't come to Mitzrayim. He wants to be comfortable everywhere in the world. So Avraham Avinu says, "In the greatest place of darkness is where I have to shine my light." Exactly, to go down to Mitzrayim to impact those people, and that's the thing about relationships. If I want to be in a relationship, I've got to give somebody the opportunity to give to me. So of course, Hashem could snap his fingers and we'd all be malachim, but then it's not a relationship. That's why Hashem doesn't desire malachim; He desires us. So wherever the darkness is, that's where we want to bring Hashem in. I thought we're not supposed to missionize the Torah. Again, we're not speaking about post-mat Torah. You're talking about not missionizing. That's where there's already a Jewish people. Avraham Avinu, remember, is Av Hamon Ga'im. He's the father of all nations of the world. So we don't necessarily want to make people Jews, but we do, as the Rambam says, want to teach people about the Shavuot Mitzvot Vanei Noach.

18:11 We want the entire world to believe in God. We don't care if you're Christian or Muslim. It's not a form of proselytizing. It's not proselytizing in the sense that we're not trying to get you to be Jewish. And we say that trying to get you to follow something from our Torah. But if you look at the Shavuot Mitzvot Bnei Noach, they're universal laws. These are not what's. But the whole point of them is that they know they're doing it for God. That's right. We want them. That's exactly right. Principle from our That's right. We have a principle from our Bible, a principle from reality. But not everyone believes that. So in a way, you're imposing your belief on others. There's nothing wrong with imposing our beliefs on others. We impose our beliefs on others all the time. We like to give you an example. Do you ever go to the doctor? Yes. Is that somebody imposing their beliefs upon you?

18:52 Medicine heals. It's not imposing our beliefs to bring a child to a doctor. If somebody came to me, that's right. I want them to follow the idea that the entire world is one, and that everybody in the world should be treated with godly dignity. Nobody should murder each other. There should be a just system of courts. These are things I'm trying to sensitize you to, and we're going to move on in a second. I'm trying to sensitize you to the fact that if somebody came to me from Africa and they had never heard of penicillin before, I'm not proselytizing to them when I say I can heal your strep throat. You don't need to die from this anymore. If they come from a culture where they Serve multiple gods, and you're saying there's the idea of oneness of God.

19:28 Then you're right, because the concept of multiple gods, the concept of idolatry is a concept that throughout history has led to the death and murder of millions of people. It's not a Stam concept of Avodah Zarah. Actually, I heard from one of my rabbis that Avodah Zarah was responsible for more deaths historically than Nazism. To believe in a god of stone is to be, as a person, again, I'm not going to engage in this anymore because I need to move on in the shir. But to believe in a god of stone is to basically believe that I am in control of God. I am the power. All I need to do is manipulate God correctly. So that is a very dangerous belief system because it puts a human being and his power at the center of the universe. That's what people do to destroy civilizations, to destroy cultures. In Judaism, it's the opposite. What we want people to do is believe in the oneness of all things, so that we believe in the peace and harmony of all things. I don't necessarily need you to put on tefillin. But I need you to believe in this oneness so that we can all participate together in this oneness. It's a different type of thing. It's medicine. This is not proselytizing in the sense I want you to believe in random things that I believe in.

20:29 I for a Jew, they should put on tefillin. I have no need. Hashem has no need for a gentile to put on tefillin. In fact, we know that Chazal say they shouldn't. But say there. This Avraham Avinu in a nutshell. Very simply, very basically, if there's a problem out there, then where am I meant to go? Out there. Of course. But you said very beautifully before. On the other hand A holy person going to such an unholy place—it's something about that, right? So there's another type of impact because we still haven't have we still have to have an impact, right? But there's another type of impact, and this is the impact of Yitzchak. The impact of Yitzchak is internal. If Avraham Avinu is external, the impact of Yitzchak is internal. In other words, Avram Avinu is willing to descend all the way down to Mitzrayim. Yitzchak's not willing to. Not only is he not willing to, Hashem says to him, "For you, it's inappropriate to go down to Mitzrayim. You are in Ola Tamima, meaning the nature of your service. Of course, Avram Avinu was also an amazing tzaddik.

21:36 But the service of Yitzchak was fundamentally different. This is the difference. Imagine you're walking by a Shabbos home. You're walking by a Shabbos home, a home where there's beautiful Shabbos And the lights are bright, right? You're walking by, and you hear from inside the home, you hear the most exceptional music Not music like the music today, where you're dancing to whatever types of crazy beats they have. Talking about really beautiful music, where you know when you hear beautiful Shabbos mizmoros on a Friday night, and the music is wafting out of the home. And then you look inside because you're a little maybe inappropriate, and you just want to see where that beautiful music is coming from. And you see a family sitting at a Shabbos table, and all of the children are singing. And there's and it's the finest china. The food looks delicious. You see there's smiles on people's faces. They're happy. They're having amazing conversations. They're talking about Divrei Torah. How attractive!

22:40 How attractive is that? I was talking to a gentile recently. And he happens to be a bodyguard. That's what he does for a living. And this bodyguard, he said to me, goes, Rabbi, do you have children? I said, I have six children. He said, 'Wow, it's amazing you have six kids.' I said to him, 'I'm actually a grandfather.' He goes, 'You're a grandfather?' I said, 'Yeah.' He looks at me and says, "I have three kids." Man, I don't know what I would do if my daughter came home and told me she was pregnant. And I was like, No, she's married. I'm married to one woman, six kids with one woman. I realized we were having two completely different conversations. He thought I had six kids by four different women. And I'm like, No, I have a wife. I have one wife, and we have six children. And my daughter got married, and she had a child. He's like, that's different. And then he said, Rabbi, do you notice that kids these days are less respectful?

23:38 I said, What do you mean? So he said, where I'm from, I grew up in a place called Compton. You girls know what Compton is, straight out of Compton. He's like, I grew up in Compton, and when I was coming up in Compton. He said if a known man rolled up on the streets of Compton, you didn't mess with him. If a known man, somebody who's let's say dangerous. He's taken. He has receipts. He's a dangerous man. He said, "You didn't mess with that guy." He goes, "Rabbi, I'm a known man, but if I rolled up on Compton today, these kids wouldn't hesitate to bust a cap in me." So I said, "I hear that. Sometimes girls in Shear like using their phones in the middle of Shear." Tony, we're having two totally different conversations. We're talking about Eurydos Adoros. He's talking about murder. I'm talking about texting under the table. Like we're not having the same conversation. So when somebody like that gets exposed to ideas in Judaism, when they get exposed to the beauty of Judaism, they're like, 'Whoa, this is amazing! I never saw this type of life before. I never saw this type of family structure. I never saw these types of zmiros. I never spoke about.'

24:47 I definitely want them to want it. I don't want them to have Shabbos, but I want them to know that there's such a thing as this life of high-level values. So when that guy walks through the streets, like I was in. I was in. I just came back. I landed yesterday from America. I was just away for a couple of days for a wedding. So I was in the DoubleTree Hotel in Newark, New Jersey. And as I'm checking out, this African American gentleman says to me, 'Vus mach du Yid?' So it's Yiddish for "What's up, Jew?" So I was like, "What? What's your deal? Where are you from?" He's like, "I'm from Staten Island." No, he wasn't Jewish at all. So I said, "How do you know Yiddish?" So he goes, "What do you mean?" I goes, "I live next to Satmer Hasidim," and he said it like that, Hasidim, like he didn't say Hasidim, he said Hasidim. So I was like, "Oh, you live next to Satmer Hasidim?" He goes, "Yeah, I know all the things," and he starts talking Yiddish. I don't speak as much Yiddish as this guy does, but he was telling me how much he loves the Jewish community.

25:46 How warm, how welcoming they are. It's so beautiful. We want to have an impact, not just on Jews. We want that Jew who didn't grow up with a Shabbos house to be walking by that house and to see something amazing. And you don't need to leave your house necessarily to do it. Sometimes, like moths to a flame, if the flame is so bright, people can't help themselves. They're just so deeply attracted. They're like, I've got to be a part of this. That's what a kiddush Hashem really is. A kiddush Hashem is when you see somebody and there's so much dignity there, so much majesty, such royal people that you can't help yourself. When we see people who are supposed to be dignified, who are supposed to be majestic, who are supposed to be royal, and they're acting in such a low class way, it bothers us because we know about these people. You lay claim to this title of rabbi, right? You're like supposed to be this big rabbi, or you're supposed to be this very holy school system. But I see the duplicitous nature of that person.

26:46 Or I see the duplicitous nature of that school. It's a very big turnoff for us because we're expecting this flame. We want them to be that flame. It's why we're there to begin with. We were attracted to something. There's no charisma there. I just want to be clear. There's no charisma. There's no excitement. There's no argumentation. You don't need to bring proofs of God. People just walk by this and they go, "I want a taste of this. This is awesome." When I was growing up, there were two people I knew. One more famous than the other. There were two people I knew who, in my school system growing up, two again Gentiles who became not Jewish but became deeply connected to God through the school. One's name was Mr. Shiko. Mr. Shiko, an African American gentleman, was a math teacher in my school, and he saw the kids in the school and the kids in the neighborhood. He said, "This school is amazing. I want to be connected to Judaism." He went to Rabbi Bender, and Rabbi Bender told him, "We don't want you to be a Jew. You don't need to be a Jew."

27:42 Just keep the shevah mitzvos bnei noach. And he did. He wore a yarmulke around school. And when I was cutting class when I was a kid, and let's say I was cutting mincha, he would go. Did you have mincha today? He was the greatest guy. And he was literally. You ask Mr. Shika, how you doing? Go bruch Hashem. And he wanted to keep Shabbos, but he knew that a guy is not allowed to keep Shabbos. So every week he would keep mostly Shabbos, but he would always violate some mila of Shabbos because a guy is not allowed to keep Shabbos. The other person also became much more famous. Who unfortunately just passed away. He was a very good friend of mine. His name was Everett Fortune. Everett Fortune is the security guard in Darchet. I was very close with Everett. Everett and I were boys. Everett came to the school when I was in eighth grade. And he loved every kid in Darchet. And this guy, he became famous because he had cancer. And he was walking around in Sloan Kettering, I think, is where he was in the hospital. He was walking around with his "Thank You Hashem" bracelet, and he was cheering everybody up. He's like, "If we're here, it's because Hashem wants us to be here, and we have a mission."

28:48 Did you say Thank You Hashem today? Did you give gratitude to Hashem? It was unbelievable. Everett and I became very close because we worked together for many years. First, when I was younger in the camp, and then as I got older and started becoming one of the leaders of the camp, we were very, very close. His death hit very close to home. He was a walking advertisement for what could happen. You don't need to go out, but just by being a light so bright, he was so connected to Rabbi Bender. If you walk into Darche now, I haven't walked in. I'm going in a couple weeks back to America. I'm going to go visit my Rebbe. I'm going to visit Rabbi Bender. What I'm told is that Darche, right near his seat, has a massive mural of Everett that's still there because they're paying tribute to a man that protected us for so many years. I can tell you, kam of the kam stories, the craziest stories of how much Everett loved the Darche boys.

29:37 Because he had such a deep connection, because there was such a kiddush Hashem there, the light was so bright that he was so attracted to it. I'll tell you that I myself saw many times where Everett had to be physically violent with somebody who was potentially going to hurt the children. And Everett was a monster of a human being. He was a massive, massive person. Even when he was older, he was still very, very, very strong. Everett used to take every morning. He and his brother Elliot used to take a fifty-pound medicine ball, and they would throw it at each other, and it would hit them in the stomach, and then they would catch it, fifty pounds every day, every morning, back and forth. It was the most unbelievable workout. And these guys were enormous. And I one time saw Everett. He had to take care of somebody who was he came to the campus in the middle of the night and was doing something inappropriate.

30:29 He wasn't allowed on campus, and Everett had to beat him up pretty good. He beat him up pretty good, and he called the cops. I'll never forget this. He called the cops, and of course Everett was friends with all the cops. And when the cops were filling out the accident report, I was so excited. I was like, "This is the coolest thing a Jew has ever experienced." And I don't get to fill out a report with the cops. So I was maybe 21 years old, and I'm sitting next to Everett, and it's three o'clock in the morning, and the cops are there, and this guy is bloody and mangled, and like the cops say to Everett, they're like, "What happened?" And they're writing in the report, and Everett goes straight face, he goes, 'He tripped,' and the cops just wrote, 'Okay, he tripped.' And I'm sitting there going, 'He tripped right into your fist like 20 times in a row,' you know. But Everett's like, 'Gotta keep the boys safe,' you know. He was so frum. In some ways, I think we had something to learn from him. He was I was jealous of his connection to Hashem. He wasn't Jewish, but he had this. He had no because I wanted to reach that level. I wanted to be like Ever. Like he was really, he just like he spoke about Hashem and like it was so real to him in his life.

31:29 Where did he get it from? He got it from my Rebbe, Rabbi Bender. What was that? Why didn't you convert? It's not because Rabbi Bender told him not to. Because he doesn't have to be a Jew to get a chelak and olam haba. The Rambam says that anybody can get a chelak and olam haba. So he followed the shavuot mitzvot. That's what he did. He would come sometimes. He couldn't go to every bar mitzvah, obviously, but he would come to bar mitzvahs, and he wore a hat. He wore like a gray bowler hat, and he also didn't have a suit that really fit him because he was enormous. The funniest thing when he came to our simchas from the yeshiva was that he looked so cool. He was the coolest guy. But he would come with a mazel tov. It was the most beautiful thing. It was such a shining light, but of course, Everett changed. Rabbi Ben, he saw in Rabbi Ben there our Rebbe, me and Everett, that was our Rebbe. He saw in Rabbi Ben there yashrus. He saw the way he treated kids with respect. He saw love.

32:19 And he said, "This is amazing. I want to be a part of this." Sometimes we think, and this is not wrong. Sometimes we have to go out to that college campus to reach that kid. But sometimes we have to turn inwards and say, why aren't we turning up the volume on our own homes? Why is our light not bright enough that we will shine so brightly that people will be attracted like moths to a flame? And this is, by the way, what the Gemara says. The Gemara says that in the times of Mashiach will be known as the children of Yitzchak, not of Avraham and Yaakov, the children of Yitzchak. And we too won't leave Eretz Yisrael, and the light of Eretz Yisrael will be so strong that everybody will be attracted like moths to a flame. Everybody will want to visit the Beis Hamikdash because everyone wants to see what's that about. What's this idea of godliness really about? There's a story with Roshach, the Rosh Yeshiva of Panovich That Roshach said if a Jew is not keeping Shabbos in Tel Aviv, it's because we're not keeping Shabbos in Bnei Brak.

33:12 And they said, Rebbe, what are you talking about? We don't keep Shabbos in Bnei Brak. He said maybe we keep Shabbos. But if we were keeping Shabbos appropriately, if the light of Bnei Brak was so bright, it would be hispachit; it would spread out all over Eretz Yisrael, all over the entire world. So these are the different modalities. There's Avram, go out, have the argument. Yitzchak, stay in, turn up the volume, turn, make the light brighter, and you'll see people will be attracted like moths to a flame. So who's right Avram or Yitzchak? The answer is both, but they're right in different ways. Let me explain. What was that? Of course we need both. Of course you need an Avram. Of course you need a Yitzchak. But I want to show you the positives and negatives of each side. So obviously Avram Avinu. Very successful, but did it last?

34:00 No. It doesn't last. Explain what I mean. If somebody has an impact on you because they're very charismatic and very dynamic What happens after you leave their presence? What can happen? Either it impacts you Or so sometimes, if they really got to you and they really convinced you to change your way of thinking, then it lasts. But sometimes you only change because of your environment. Sometimes you don't really change at all. It's just that in the presence of someone who's so charismatic, who's so dynamic, you start to think like them. But when they leave, what happens? They go back. This is what sometimes happens, not always, and certainly not here in Bermerium. But this is what sometimes happens after a girl comes to seminary. Because if she's behaving, this is why again I hate this year. They always say, 'How do you make it last?' I always get hired by certain seminaries to come speak at the end of the year about how to make it last. That's the most ridiculous thing. You can't hire a rebbe to give a shiur on how to take it with you, how to make it last. That had to be your job the entire year, not just to be dynamic and not just to be charismatic. Because if you're only dynamic and charismatic, then what happens?

35:12 Doesn't last because as soon as they're out of Sem, as soon as they're out of Yerushalayim, so then it doesn't last. So Avram Avinu, we know the balei tshuva that came from the time of Avram Avinu; those people that really came in contact with Hashem It didn't last. On the one hand, he was able to make this exceptionally deep impact; he was able to go all the way to Mitzrayim, but we also know that they were connected to him, not connected to themselves. Yitzchok was exactly the opposite. Let's look at Yitzchok. The Medrash in Bereishis Rabba says that the Plishtim, remember, because Yitzchak couldn't leave to go down to Mitzrayim, he couldn't go all the way down. But the Plishtim, he was able to go to, and there was a famine. Remember, where did he go to? He went to the Plishtim. The Medrash says that the Plishtim used to say that the manure of the mules of Yitzchak was more precious to them than the silver and gold of Avimelech. You just learned this.

36:05 We're doing. But what's the deeper meaning there? The deeper meaning is when they saw Yitzchak. And they compared. They said, "Here's our king" Here's our king, and here's Yitzhak. And when you put leaders like that back to back, what becomes obvious? Yitzhak never needed to make an argument to them for silver and gold of Avimelech. Avimelech was their king. He was the king of the Pishon. It's like Kaviyachal. I certainly don't mean to be political. And I'm not saying that I don't have a karsatov to Donald Trump for all the things that he's doing for Israel. I'm just saying that Donald Trump is not a tzaddik. Everyone should be clear. This is not like a paragon of moral virtue in the world. He just happens to be on our side. This is not somebody that we look up to in that sense. Is he really on our side?

36:49 Or just okay? And that's a good question. I said I don't want to make it political. But when you take somebody like Rav Chaim Kanievsky Zeir Chet Sadik LeBracha, you take somebody like Rav Moshe Hillel Hirsch, you take somebody like Rav Bender, you take like big people, and you put them in the same room as somebody like Donald Trump, the distinction is so obvious. The distinction is so clear. What's the difference between righteous and not righteous? And the righteous person doesn't need to open their mouth. It's the humility. It's the way they walk. It's the way they talk. It's their kindness, their generosity, it's their gentleness. You see, leaders today These political leaders, what do they want? They want power. Gadolim don't want power. You know what they want? They only want power to serve another. They're not interested in serving themselves. The difference is so obvious. When Yitzchak went to the Plishtim, he had such an impact he never had to open up his mouth. The wells of Avram Avinu. Let's look at the pasuk. What does it say?

37:39 The pasuk says VaYoshev Yitzchak vaYachber es be'irus haMayim asher chafru b'may Avram Avinu. They stemma ma Plishtim acharei Mos Avram. After Avram Avinu left the Plishtim, they filled up his wells. What does it mean? What's a well really? What's the symbolism of a well? He went down into them, and he said, "No, look, here's your godly essence." But after they left, they stuffed up the wells. What did Yitzchak do? He unclogged the wells. You see the difference between Yitzchak and Avraham Avinu? Avraham Avinu made arguments with them, so he's able to go anywhere. That's incredible, but it doesn't last. As soon as he's done, they clog up the wells. Yitzchak comes, the wells are unclogged. Who named the town Bereshiva? Have you girls been to Bereshiva yet this year? You may have driven through Bereshiva. Who named the town? Alkein Kar Lamakamahu Bereshiva Kisham Nishbu Shneym. This is talking about Avram Avinu that he named the town Bereshiva. But if you look in our parsha, the Yichro also Shiva Alkein Sheima Er Bereshiva Ad Hayomaze. When Yitzchak named the town, how long did it last? Until this very day. Ad Hayomaze. You see the difference?

38:47 Avram named the Bereshiva, but it didn't last. That name wasn't. The Torah doesn't tell us that when he named it Bereshiva, it was Adiyomazet. It's only when Yitzchak did it, because sometimes charisma and dynamism and the Eishat Torah Sheir is awesome. But you know what's even greater than that? Even greater than that is the Rebbe that doesn't open up his mouth at all. But when you're in his presence, you can't help but be inspired. When you're in his presence, you can't help but say to yourself, 'Man, I want some of that.' It only affects the people around him. That's right, and that's why I said there's a negative impact to that in the sense that it's much more limited. But if you dial that up, if you dial it up to its maximum degree, then somehow, and this is what's going to happen in the times of Mashiach, the light is so bright, like moths to a flame, people will be attracted to it. So ultimately, in the end, it's true. Yitzchak doesn't go to Mitsrayim, and that's why you need an Avraham Avinu. But ultimately, in the times of Mashiach, you won't need an Avram Avinu. We'll only be the children of Yitzchak because the light of Israel will be dialed up so high that they'll come from all over the world and they'll say

39:47 I want to see what it's like in the Beis Hamikdash. And that's how the change in the world is going to happen, and that's why the change in the world is going to last. Avram Avinu's change is somewhat more shallow. We're not denigrating Avraham Avinu at all. The most important thing in the world is to go out of your comfort zone to help another Jew. And if you're that girl that's called upon to go to that college campus or to go to that NCSY event or whatever it is to be a madricha and to share that message, kol hakavod. But just know that's an Avraham Avinu move. There's a deeper move that when you show up to that NCSY event, there are some madrichot you should know. They show up to an NCSY event. They don't have to say a word, and all of a sudden they have a group of girls that are just around her. They're asking her a million questions, and she's like, I don't even necessarily know the answer to all your questions. But again, it's still very limited to the people around. It's limited in the sense that that's how. I feel like in today's day and age, it's not

40:33 Again, I'm not, I'm not, I just want to be clear because I think you keep pushing back on the same point. Right. I'm not saying that it's not limited. It's limited, but the impact is much deeper and more long-lasting, and we don't know what would happen if we dialed up that light all the way to 10. Can you encompass both things? I think so. I think for us right now, clearly we're not in the Yitzchak Avinu posture, and we have to go out. So for sure, there's an Avraham Avinu modality. However, I think we have to remember sometimes we can be victims of our own charisma. And sometimes in a certain way we can be so overbearing that the change that we're creating in another person isn't real. We might have to be in a posture of more outward today than ever before. But at the same time, we can't forget the internal mechanism of Yiscah. Because we know girls have a beautiful Shabbos.