Toldos - The Power of Your Voice

2:05 So then you're going to come home and you're going to take it out on your child, right? And you're going to come home and you're going to yell and you're going to scream and you're going to try to force the child to be obedient, so that the next time you go to Asif Adorim, the Rebbe is going to say, 'Wow, this kid's a malach Hashem tzvaikos,' and now I'm back to getting my nachas. If you love someone for a reason, that's called selfish love. Because it's not about loving the other person; it's about loving what they do for you. Does that make sense? So the Torah tells us very clearly: Rivka loved Yaakov. Why? Doesn't say. Because that's a healthy relationship. But if that's the case Then we have a question: why did Yitzchak love Esav? What does the Torah tell us? Kitzayid befiv. What's the simple explanation? What does it mean, Kitzayyid Befiv?

2:54 Because he was a hunter. Because he was a hunter. If Yitzchak loved Esav because he was a hunter, what type of love does Yitzchak have for Esav? He has conditional love. Does that mean he loves Esav? No. I'll say it again because I see not everybody's with me. Thanks. Yitzchak loves Esav. Why? Kitzayid befit. What do we call that? If you love someone for a reason, that's called conditional. If it's conditional, who do you love? You love yourself. Chocolate. Correct. If I love you because you bring me chocolate, then I don't love you. I love chocolate. Because chocolate makes me feel good. So the Torah of Rivka loving Yaakov—that we understand, pure love, selfless, just about Yaakov Avinu. But now the contrast is impossible for us to understand. Yitzchak loved Esav. Is it possible that Yitzchak had selfish love? It can't possibly be. That's our first question for the night.

4:02 Second question for the night. Of all the reasons to love Esav. Does that seem like a very good reason to love someone? No. In fact, it's not even a very Jewish mitzvah. Do girls know that there's a tshuva of the Noa de'Yehuda that you're not allowed to hunt? You're not allowed to hunt. I'm gonna go kill an animal for the sake of killing an animal. A hunter is not a Jewish profession. Of all the things that a Jewish parent is gonna love a child for, I understand. You wanna love your kid for yiddishanachas? I get it. There's nothing like nachas. I give you a bracha. Everyone in this room, you should have unbelievable levels of nachas from your children. Nachas is humble. It's an amazing thing. Tell me that he loved Esav because he was clever, because he asked good kashes and sheir, because he was a lebedik kid who did unbelievable chesed. Tell me he loved him because he was a hunter.

5:01 What in the world does that mean? That it doesn't. It doesn't even. It's so irrational to believe that Yitzchak loved this child for a reason. And that was the reason. Mamish makes no sense. This pasuk has been so misunderstood for generations. You had the two questions so far. Third question, we'll finish with this. Everything that happens in this world, the Balshemtoh says, even a leaf that falls is Hashgacha pratus. It's hashgacha pratis. It's divine providence. Everything happens exactly the way it's supposed to happen in the history of the world. Nothing has ever gone wrong. Which is an amazing thing to think about. That means life is going according to plan. All of our anxiety does not move the needle even a little bit. Exactly what's meant to unfold throughout history is unfolding every day throughout history. So now let's think about this. It's an unbelievable thing. Esav comes back. Avram Avinu died. Esav goes and he starts murdering people that day. Rashi says he's manish becomes a murderer. He kills Nimrod on that day. It's a very bad day for him.

6:08 Yaakov Avinu is a from Yeshiva guy. He's making a cholent. Esav comes. He's exhausted. He's hungry. He says, 'Give me a little bit of the cholent.' Yaakov Avinu takes advantage. Give me your birthright. I'm going to die anyway. Give me the cholent. He sells him the birthright. Now it's time for Yitzchak to give the bracha. Rivka sees that he's going to give the bracha to Esav. She tells Yaakov Avinu, "Let's go. It's time for you to take the bracha that you rightfully bought. And anyway, we know that you're really supposed to be the bechor here. So let's get you that bracha." So what does she do? She goes out. He's going to hunt. Rivka is holding on to Esav's clothing. Does anyone know why Rivka's holding on to Esav's clothing? Because his wives were not good people. He didn't trust his wives. He trusted his mother. So he said to his mother, "I have a very special jacket."

6:55 This jacket was the one he took from Nimrod. By the way, that jacket that he took from Nimrod originally belonged to Adam Harishon. It was the begadim that Hakadosh Baruch Hu made for Adam Harishon when he was taken out of Gan Eden. Those begadim were passed down all the way to Nimrod. On the day that Avram Avinu died, Esav was so powerful that he was able to kill Nimrod, despite the fact that he was wearing those protective garments. Some say that those protective garments, after Yaakov Avinu got them, he eventually gave them to Yosef Hatzadik. So this garment. By the way, now it makes sense. Why was that? Why were the brothers jealous? Because that's a serious beged to get. That's not just any beged. That beged was made from Hakadosh Baruch Hu. We're not going there for now. Esav was so exceptionally powerful that he killed Nimrod, even though Nimrod was wearing the protective garments that Hakadosh Baruch Hu made for him to protect him after he came out from Gan Eden. Amazing.

7:51 He doesn't want his wives to steal it. He knows they're not worthy. So he keeps it by his mother's house. His mother says to him, "Listen" Yaakov, we need to dress you up. So what are we going to do? We all know, didn't you do that project in school where your mora had the stick figure and then she gave you some fluffy cotton balls thing? Then you came home and showed your mommy how proud she would look and how proud you should be. I made this little thing. So he's wearing Asab's jacket. He feels furry. Like Esav, Esav was a beast. He was literally a wild chayah. But he walks into the room, and who does he sound like? Sounds like Yaakov. So what's Yitzchak's natural response? He goes, 'Hakol kol Yaakov, sounds like Yaakov Avinu, but ayadayim mi day Esav, smells like Esav, feels like Esav.'

8:43 This is a weird thing. If you were Yaakov Avinu, and now your mother is going through this elaborate ruse. And she's going to dress you up like Esav. Obviously What I'm about to say is silly and it's childish. I'm just making it up. But I imagine if I had to imagine Yaakov Avinu, he's like a skinny yeshiva bachur. He's ish tam yosheva alim. He's sitting in the tent all day long. I imagine that if we met Yaakov Avinu, he has like sort of not a high pitched voice, but like one of the hi. Like that's how I imagine Yaakov Avinu. I don't imagine him to be gruff on any level. And I imagine, in its exaggerated form, that if you meet a wildebeest like Asav, that he's like One of those, you see some of these guys in the street. I'm talking about the show. They had a very deep voice. They had a very powerful voice. It was very tough.

9:35 So if I was Yaakovinu and I'm trying to trick my father, who's blind, and my mother has gone through this elaborate ruse to give me the jacket and to put the fur on me so that I feel like him, wouldn't you imagine that he would change his voice at least a little bit? And yet, what's Yitzchok's immediate reaction? Hakol kol Yaakov ayadayim idhay Esav, which means that Hashgacha Pratis, divine providence, wanted that Yaakov Avinu should receive the bracha not as Esav. Because if he was meant to receive the bracha as Esav, then he would have acted completely like Esav. It's almost like this is what was meant to happen. On the outside, he's Esav. And on the inside is Yaakov, and you can't get the bracha of Yitzchak unless you're both. That's a very deep thing to try to unpack. What does that mean? I can't get the bracha of Yitzchak unless I am living in this. Here comes an English word for you to learn: bifurcated reality.

10:33 Because you had an excellent basic Yaakov education, I have no doubt that you know what the word bifurcated means. Two split. I'm living in this split reality that's really one. I'm both Esav and Yaakov. Is that what we would have expected? I would have expected that if you're going to be worthy of receiving the brachos of Yitzchak, what would it have looked like? It would have looked like Yaakov gets the bracha from Yitzchak. Wouldn't that have been a much better message? Who's worthy of receiving the brachos of Yitzchak? The biggest tzaddik in the world. But that's not what the Ashkachah defined. The Ashkachah Prata said If you want to receive the bracha of Yitzchak, you have to look like Esav, sound like Yaakov. What's the inner message for us? What is the Torah? What is the Torah coming to? No guessing. What's the Torah coming to? Coming to say to us? So I want to share with you an unbelievable answer to this question. I never in my life heard this answer before. I think it's an amazing answer. It answers all these questions in a brand new way.

11:28 Do they still have Hallmark cards? It used to be a much bigger thing. Hallmark cards. Used to go. Remember, used to go to a Hallmark store. And they had like. If you've ever they still have Hallmark stores or now it's just like a kiosk. They still have. You walk into a Hallmark store and there's rows and rows of cards. Used to be when I was a kid my grandmother would send me for my birthday. Do you girls know what mail is? No. Mail is like a thing that there's like a mailman and he wears like the uncomfortable looking shorts. And he shows up and he shows at your house and he puts it in the mailbox and there's these envelopes and you open up an envelope and you opened up the envelope and there was your grandmother. And your grandmother bought a Hallmark card.

12:12 She paid a couple of dollars, probably the equivalent of fifteen dollars today. She bought a Hallmark card, and inside the Hallmark card was the money. And what did you do with it? If you were a little kid, what'd you do? You opened the Hallmark card, you took out the money, you said thanks, grandma. You never read the card. But people did this, and it was a massive industry. Today, I don't think it's as popular. It was a massive industry, millions and millions of dollars people would spend every single year on a Hallmark card. I always had a question. Isn't it deeply impersonal to send a Hallmark card? Imagine you go and it was your anniversary. You walk in and there's a poem they wrote and it's a beautiful picture and you hand it to your wife. Doesn't that feel like? I don't know. Does it feel wrong a little bit? Very good. So you go and sign your name on it.

13:02 But if you put a little note, you could also just put a little note and don't buy the card. But people spend money on the card, and it was always very strange to me that people spent money on the card. I'll give you another example of this to make it a little bit more understandable. Today was my wife's birthday. That's why I'm here teaching. I'll make it up some point. Today was my wife's birthday. You want to buy your wife a gift? So when I was in America, the trip before this past one. I was in America and I knew my wife's birthday was coming up. I wanted to get her something really nice for her birthday. So I went out and got her a diamond necklace, a Michael Kors diamond necklace. Now I don't know if Michael Kors is a fancy brand or not a fancy brand, but my daughter said that it's nice. So I just had it in my head. I bought a Michael Kors diamond necklace for her.

13:52 You know what I was thinking? I didn't make that diamond necklace. I didn't make it. I bought it. I bought it, and what did I do? I handed it to her this morning. I handed her the box. I said, 'Here's a diamond necklace for you.' Did I make it? No. Is it personal? No. So why is that a valuable gift? It's a valuable gift because when you give a beautiful gift that already exists, you did nothing, but you attach your name to it. You know what you're saying? I'm taking the most beautiful thing, and I'm saying here, this is for you. You know why a Hallmark card works? Because if I sit down to write some chicken scratch poem to my wife, it's going to end up sounding really kitschy. It's going to end up sounding like I'm talking about. "I love you more than anyone else. You're the best. Thank you so much for being my wife. You're better than the rest." It's signed Matt Berg. I'm saying it's not going to come out very well.

14:50 When you buy a Hallmark card, what you're saying is, "I'm going to take the most beautiful words. And the most beautiful picture for our anniversary, and I'm going to sign my name on it." Because by signing my name on it, I'm coming to you and I'm saying the most beautiful thing that already exists. I want you to have it from me. Isn't that beautiful? So I never understood the value of a Hallmark card. The value of a Hallmark card is I take something that already exists and I say, here's my name. I'm putting my name on it, and now I want this beautiful thing to go to you. So far, so good. There's another type of beautiful gift. And we'll decide in a moment which one is better. What if I took a jewelry making class? Do they offer that here in Torah Devora? Is that something you can take? We have to go to Rabbi Fix and Rabbi Rosenstein. We have to tell them we need a jewelry making class. There's to be a whole Pilates program. We need to have yoga and jewelry making. We need to expand the curriculum of Torah Devora. Let's say I decided to identify as a Tomer Devora girl and to come and take a jewelry making chug here in Tomer Devora.

16:00 Would my jewelry be as perfect as the one that you'll buy from the store? No. It won't, because the machinery they have to make these necklaces, to make these diamond bracelets, to make these diamond rings is absolutely precision perfect. Have you ever seen them cut diamonds? They cut diamonds with lasers. Everything is absolutely perfect. That's what makes it amazing. It's flawless. If I came, no matter how much I worked on it, and my grandfather was a jeweler, no matter how much I worked on it, would I ever be as good as the machine? I wouldn't be. But let's say I decided I'm going to make it awesome. I'm going to spend a month on it. And I came to my wife and I said, "Here's this amazing piece of jewelry. I spent the last month, every single day for the last month working on making this jewelry." Now my wife picks up this jewelry and she sees immediately all of its imperfections. Not because I didn't try hard and not because it's not really good, but because I'm not a machine.

17:00 But she knows that I poured my blood, sweat, and tears into that diamond ring, or that diamond bracelet, or that diamond necklace. How meaningful is that gift? It's exceptionally meaningful. Why is it so much more meaningful? But it's not as good. Because I put in the time and effort, because it's mine. Because it's an expression of me. So there's two types of gifts. There's the perfect gift that already exists, and all I'm doing is taking it and saying, 'You deserve to have the best thing in the world from me.' I sign my name on it and give it over to you. But if I go and I make a gift, if I spend time writing the most amazing poetry that I can write, now it's not Shakespeare. But it's me. And it's awesome, but it's not perfect. That's even more meaningful because what do we want from our spouses?

17:54 We don't need amazing gifts. What do we need? We need them. The personal gift is more meaningful than the perfect gift because the personal gift says "I'm giving my all, my essence, my being to this relationship." Does that make sense? That's why when you get older, you're going to learn this. If your husband comes home with a big gift for you, an expensive gift, and you have no idea why, he probably did something wrong. Know what I mean? Many years ago, my sister is 16 years younger than me. My sister was being babysat. My mother worked. My father worked. My sister was being babysat by a very wealthy woman in the neighborhood, who happens to have been my mother's best friend. And she said, "I don't have any young kids myself. I would love to take care of Becca every morning." So every morning she would take care of Becca, and this woman would spoil my sister rotten. There was nothing this girl didn't have.

18:56 Because this other woman who took care of her had one daughter of her own. She was much older and very wealthy. She gave my sister everything. All my sister had to do was ask. One day my sister asked for something. She didn't know she was a little kid. She asked for something that she should not have asked for, and this woman should not have given. She asked for a cat. That is not the type of thing that you come home and go surprise. You have a pet. It's a cat. Now there were two problems with that. Number one, my brother is allergic to cats. But if my brother was here, he would start ranting and raving. Nobody ever cared about me in the family, and that's why I was always allergic to the cats. And my brother was right. It was really not nice to him. But my father hates cats, and the last thing in the world my dad wanted was a cat.

19:44 So my mother turns to this woman and she says "You're gonna like you're creating massive shalom bayis problems." So this woman turns to my mother and she goes, "It's not a problem. I already have it figured out." What does your husband want? Like what's the thing that he really wants?" So my mother said, "He wants like a 72 inch flat screen TV. So she goes, 'Perfect.' Let's go out right now. We'll go to Best Buy. We'll buy a 72-inch flat-screen TV. We'll bring it home, and this way, when your husband comes home, there's going to be a 72-inch flat-screen TV waiting for him. And then he'll see the cat, and he'll be like, 'I'm so happy about the 72-inch flat-screen TV. I don't care about the cat.' Now, in the end, we did not get him the 72-inch flat-screen TV. We only got the cat, and he was furious. But even if it had worked out the way that woman wanted it to, what would have happened if my father walked into the house and saw a 72-inch flat-screen TV on a random Wednesday? What would his reaction have been?

20:41 Why is that? What is this doing here? Because a gift like that doesn't come unless something went wrong. But if you want to know the secret to a great gift And don't ask me about the five love languages right now—that's not the conversation. If you want to give a great gift, can I tell you what a great gift is? An unexpected gift At an unexpected time, that holds deep meaning for the person you love. Is the most precious thing in the world. If your husband comes home and for no reason You remembered that he said something he really liked. And you randomly went out and got it, and one day he comes home and it's just there, waiting for him. Something that's deeply personalized, or you had to put in your effort to get it. How loved does your husband feel? How come he doesn't have the reaction of what went wrong?

21:36 Because in the beginning of a relationship, listen carefully. In the beginning of a relationship, the gift tells you you're important. But once your importance has been established. What does a gift represent? It represents you. In the beginning of the relationship, why does he get down on one knee, or not get down on one knee, and give you that diamond ring, or that bracelet, depending on how yeshivish you are? That you already chose beforehand, but it's all a surprise, right? Why does he get down on one knee and give you that big gift? Because in the beginning of the relationship, what does he have to communicate to you? You are important. But after he communicates to you that you're important, what's the one thing you want to hear from him? I don't want to hear that I'm important. You already told me that we're married. I want you to be present in the relationship. I don't need your gifts. I need you.

22:32 You hear the difference? So if you show up with a big gift that says you're important, that means something went wrong. But if you show up with a gift that's unique, individualized, and personalized, what does that mean? That means That we're actually in a loving, caring relationship where I'm bringing myself into the relationship. Listen to this tiram of Zakutinsky. It's mind blowing genius. He says this. There are two potential avos that exist in front of us, Yaakov and Esav. Yaakov is old things that already exist, but they're the best that have ever been done. And those are the gifts that he gives to Hashem. The sitter. I know for some people, davening is triggering because they say the same words over and over again. I get it. But just listen for a second. The sitter is much better than Shakespeare. The sitter is the best words that have ever been expressed in the history of the world about what it feels like for the neshama to reach out to Hashem. That's what the sitter is. The sitter was the Anshe Knesses Gedola, the seventy greatest prophets of the time. Getting together to give language to those souls' love for Hashem.

23:49 That's an unbelievable thing. What's the challenge of davening? The challenge of davening is you say But it's the same words. It's the same words. They are the same words, but they're the best words. A boy says, "You want me to put on tefillin?" Everybody puts on tefillin. A boy will say, "I don't feel like I'm serving Hashem by putting on tefillin. I didn't make these tefillin. I didn't write the parshios in those tefillin. I didn't make up the words in those tefillin. But they're tefillin. In any relationship, you need to be able to have hallmark cards. You need to be able to take the best things that already exist and sign your name on it. Every day when you show up to shul with a sitter and you're davening, you know what you're saying? You're saying, 'Hashem, this hallmark card, these words, I'm signing my name to it.'

24:40 I want this to be in our relationship. That's Yaakov Avinu, Ish Tom Yosef V'Halim. He's a kolol guy. You know what he learns? The same Gemara as everybody else. He wears the same tefillin as everybody else. He wears the same tzitzis as everybody else. He says the same words of davening as everybody else. It's not about his unique creativity. What's it about? Signing his name and saying the most precious thing that exists, I want to give it to Hashem. That's Yaakov. But there's another super important relationship with Hashem, and it's the relationship everybody in this generation is craving for. It's Esav. Esav is a hunter. What does it mean to be a hunter? A hunter is every day hunting new animals. Because if he was matsliach, yesterday's animals are already dead. Does that make sense? Imagine you were It's hard. I don't know how it exists in machanayim. Imagine you're a basketball. You're on an NBA team. There's no NBA of machanayim.

25:46 There should be an NBA of machanayim. Sternberg versus Dina, the NBA of machanayim. Intramurals of machanayim. An NBA team. That's good. It makes sense. I get that reference right. You're nodding like I got it right. Mrs. Berg, I got that right? Good. By the way, you know we're related? We don't know exactly how, but our relatives have the same exact name, and that's pretty weird. We haven't figured out how we're related yet, but it's for sure true. Hashem orchestrated this whole relationship. Your brother and Mevasser Hashem is working out wild things before Mashiach comes for our family to get back together. It's interesting. That was my ADHD moment. It's 9:10 at night, and I've been up since 6 o'clock in the morning. Everybody in this generation wants to be Asav because the game is new. But yesterday I played a game. Why do I have to play another game tonight? Because yesterday's game is already over.

26:43 Yesterday's game is already over. The Knicks played the Magic. They won. Now they're going to play the Timberwolves. Why is it exciting to play a new game? Because yesterday's game is already over. When you're a hunter, every single day is brand new. Listen carefully now. This is an unbelievable answer. Why did Yitzchak love Esav? Of course, he loved him like a father for no reason. The same way that Rivka loved Yaakov. It wouldn't. It would be cruel to suggest that Yitzchak loves Esav for a reason. Yitzchak was an amazing father. But he said something even deeper. He said, "Esav, I love you because you're my kid." But Esav, you have to know something about yourself and listen carefully. For every Esav in the room, listen carefully. You have to know something about yourself. You might think that your need for hischadshus is bad. You might think that when they come to you and they say, 'Just say the words of the sitter; they're the best words that have ever been written.' Why do you, Asav, need to write your own sitter? Why do you need to go to the forest and do your hisbodus? Yitzchak comes to Asav and he says, 'You have to know this trait that you have. That it could be a dangerous trait' But you have to know it's beloved.

28:00 The desire to serve Hashem in your own unique way is beloved. It's amazing. It's important. It needs to be part of the DNA of Klal Yisrael. If you show up and you just say the same words of the seder every single day, but you don't have a place where you're bringing your own unique voice to your relationship with Hashem, something is fundamentally missing. And every one of us in this room knows it. And if you want to know the difference between the girls that are locked in right now and the girls that are not, I can tell you the difference right now. The girls that are locked in this moment—they made a shift already in their year. I know the shift. I'll tell you the exact shift. They stopped showing up to class just to listen. They stopped showing up to class for somebody to come and hold a card.

28:48 Adarabi? Those girls that are showing up and they're giving in their card—they even feel a little bit silly. I'm showing up to class. They're giving a card that I should get a check so that I could have gone through Talmud Torah to be able to say I did all of the things. I don't want to check the box anymore. The whole reason I'm here is because I'm tired of checking the box. I'm tired of saying the same words of the seder. Ainahanami, the words of the seder are amazing. They're the best words that have ever been written. But I also have to have a voice in this relationship. If all you do is show up with a Hallmark card and you never write your husband a letter. Something is missing in the relationship. I can tell you right now. The reason that the Jews who came to seminary and did unbelievably well in seminary and 30 years later are still inspired, it's because they never stopped contributing their own voice. Because when they show up to a Shabbos table, they don't just say over somebody else's Torah.

29:36 They say, "What do I have to say about this?" How do you think all these great Gedolim came up with the Pshatim that they came up with? You think they just copied it from somebody else? They didn't copy it from somebody else. They said, 'I have a brain.' The Rebbeinu Shalom gave me a brain. The Rebbeinu Shalom gave me a neshama. I have what to contribute. And I can do it in my own unique way. Asav has to know that even though there are going to be people that push back, and there are going to be people that just say the words of the sitter, what do you have to go to the forest and scream Tati? Isn't that what you hear all night long? It's not weird. It's ischadshus. It's being a hunter. I can't daven the same tefila as yesterday. How could I daven the same tefila as yesterday? Yesterday is already done.

30:15 That game is already over. It's a new game. It's a new day. I have to go out into the field. I'm not in the beis medrash. In the beis medrash, it's amazing to be in the beis medrash. But in the beis medrash, I'm going to learn the same gemara as everybody else. I'm going to say the same words as everybody else. I'm going to learn the same ramban as everybody else. You know what happens? You got into the field. All of a sudden, you have unique creativity. How am I going to show up to life today? In seminary, there's a lot of the Yaakov v'Inu Ish Tam Yosef v'Halim. But in a couple of years from now, you're going to be out in the field. You're going to be out in the field of life. How are you going to show up creatively to life? Where's your voice? One of the things I hate I hate. It's a pet peeve. I learned it from my wife. She taught it to me. I hate parenting classes. You know what parenting classes do? They make you into a robot because they told you. If this happens, then you have to do this. If there's this action, then there has to be this consequence, and you become a robot, and you stop parenting the way that Hakadosh Baruch Hu created you to be a parent. You know Hakadosh Baruch Hu said these children

31:23 The only parents that could raise them are you. No other parent could raise these children. So Hakadosh Baruch Hu sent these neshamas down into your care, and how are you going to parent them? You're going to parent them from a handbook. You're going to look inside and say, okay, this child did this, so therefore I need to. Chas v'shalom. Where's your unique voice in your parenting? Where's your creativity in your parenting? Your children don't need a book to parent them. There's no AI that could parent you. If you go to ChatGPT and you write in, "My kid was chutzpahik. What do I do?" You have made a fundamental error. Hakadosh Baruch Hu created you with a unique voice. You have to access that voice. Does that make sense? So Yitzchak said to Esav. He said, "You have to know that even though there are going to be people that push back and there are going to be people that say, 'Just do the same thing that everybody else is doing.'" If we don't have your voice as part of the DNA of Klal Yisrael, something is missing.

32:16 The problem is Esav never became that guy. He had the capacity to, he had the potential to He had all of that as chachos, but he didn't channel it towards his service with Hashem. So now there's a problem in Klal Yisrael, and Rivka Imenu, the brilliant mother that she was, is to every one of us. Rivkei Imenu said, "If we only have Yaakov Avinu and we have no element of Esav, then all we're going to have is a bunch of children that follow the rules. We're just going to have a bunch of children that go check" And that's not good. That's you can't build Klali Yisrael that way. So listen, what she tells him: You got to accept within yourself a dimension of Esav. You have to put on Esav's clothing. Of course, you're still going to be Yaakov. You're still going to say the words of the seder. You're still going to learn the same gemara. You're going to put on the same tefillin. You're going to wear the same tzitzis, of course.

33:10 But you have to do it like Esav. And I'll tell you what this means. You ever watch people watch a movie? If the movie is a great movie, this is what people look like when they're watching a great movie. I was just on the plane. Coming back from America. I'm very machbid. I can't sit in an aisle seat, and I can't sit in the middle seat. I have to sit in a window seat. I have to go to sleep. I can't have anything to do with the person sitting next to me. It's a long flight. I have to go to sleep. This ticket got very messed up. I ended up in a middle seat. And it was like I had two big guys next to me. On the one hand, it was very comfortable. On the other hand, it was deeply uncomfortable. So I find myself in this middle seat.

34:02 Baruch Hashem, it was an emergency exit seat, so at least I could get up and walk around, which is basically what I did the entire flight. Because it didn't smell particularly delicious where I was sitting. So I'm walking around, and people don't go to sleep right away in the beginning of the flight. In the beginning of the flight, you have to watch the movie until you're ready to go to sleep. So I'm pacing up and down, which probably wasn't nice to people. I'm pacing up and down, and you just watch all these people like this. And the movies that they must be watching. They must be incredible. Because think about how great a movie needs to be to distract you from the fact that you're 30,000 feet up in the air. Anyone here not like roller coasters? I hate roller coasters. I have no problem flying. You know why? Because it doesn't occur to me that I'm in a tube of metal, 30,000 feet in the air, hurtling through space.

34:54 But if we actually paid attention, we'd be doing the entire time we're in our seats, grabbing the armrests, going like this. We're flying. That's what we're doing. Instead, we're so brain damaged that we go. The food is terrible. It's ridiculous that you have to pay for Wi-Fi. You're flying through space. You're gonna get to Israel in 11 hours. It took my grandparents weeks to get here. People died along the way. So I'm watching. Everyone's staring because they're not even processing that they're on the plane. They're just staring. You know why movies are awesome? And movies are awesome. They're not necessarily appropriate, but movies are awesome because we find people who take scripts. They take the words that are written by the best professionals in the world and you know what they do? They give it their own unique voice. The greatest actors in the world are reading somebody else's words.

35:58 But they're no longer somebody else's words. They're his words. There was an actor; he was a method actor. I imagine some of you have heard of him. His name was Heath Ledger. Heard of Heath Ledger? Heath Ledger unfortunately passed away. He was a sick man. But Heath Ledger was an amazing actor. And the reason why he was an amazing actor is because when you watch Heath Ledger, you believe that he is the character. If you've watched a movie with Heath Ledger, you're like, he is the character. The great actors, the Denzel Washingtons and the Robin Williams, the reason they're great is because they're not reading somebody else's script. It started off as somebody else's script, and they figured out how to make it their own. That's the godless of the great actors. You have to be Yaakov. You have to read the words of the sitter, but you have to be Esav. They have to become your words. If you open up a sitter, I'm sorry, I did the wrong way. We had a Rebbe in Mevaser many years ago. He's a big tzaddik. His name is Rezucker. He lives right here in the neighborhood. If you ever heard of Rezucker Shul There was a guy in yeshiva who made a bracha. He was holding a drink. So Reuven Zucker walked by him, and Reuven Zucker is a very big tzaddik, and he just looks at him and everyone bursts out laughing.

37:24 You could and don't get me wrong. There's value in making the bracha. There's value. It's an amazing bracha to make. But if it's your bracha, how do you make it? If it's your sitter How do you say the words of the sitter? If it's your ramban If it's your ramban. Then how do you learn those words of the Ramban? They were the Ramban's words, but what do you have to say? What contribution are you making to the Ramban? Or you could just go through life saying Judaism is boring and it's by rote and I'm not really interested. But I'll do just enough to get married so that I can live in the Orthodox community and I can raise my kids and rinse and repeat.

37:58 It's a fundamental failure. The Haskakha said it can't be that there's Yaakov and there's Esav. It can't be that there's the person who does the reads the beautiful poetry and there's a person that comes with chiddush. They can't be two people. They have to be one. You have to figure out how to take the words of the sitter. You have to figure out how to make them your own. It's not by reading the English. I can't stress that. So it's not by. And by the way, you tried it. Remember, it didn't work. Remember when some teacher said to you, maybe if you learn the sitter in English, it'll mean something to you. And then you read it in English, and you're like, this is worse. O holy rock, savior of my sword, shield of Abraham. Selah. Haluka. It's not better. Thank you. I think I'm funny too. Very few people do, but I really appreciate it. You make me feel good as a person.

38:45 My children think I'm socially off because they're teenagers. So apparently they've decided what's socially appropriate. But you make me feel a little bit better about myself. And in our next therapy session, the it's not the words of the sitter. It's not because you don't know the English. You know the English. When you're saying rifaenu. The thing where you do like the lists And like the really from people have like scrolls, like CVS level scrolls. I'm talking about where it's like, and you're just saying the same names over and over. People go, yeah, I just stopped doing it because it wasn't meaningful. Of course it wasn't meaningful. Of course it wasn't meaningful. It's meaningful to say the names, but did you really think about what Rifaenu means to you in this moment? Those words are precious. Rifaenu Hashem Neirafei. Did you realize that you were speaking in plural?

39:44 Did you realize that we don't ask for Rifuah as an individual? That's like asking one cell to become healed. We don't ask for one cell to be healed. We want the entire organism to be healed. Have you thought about today what it looks like for there to be healing in the Jewish community? And when you were thinking about healing in the Jewish community, did you think about it beyond physical illness? Did you also think about the fragmentation of Klal Yisrael, that these people are on this side of the aisle and these people are on this side of the aisle, and we define the different Jews based on what labels we could give them and who's fromer and who's not fromer? Do you know that that's also something that needs healing in the world? And for those that are thinking, am I speaking between the lines? I'm not speaking between the lines. I'm speaking very directly. And for those of you who know what I'm speaking about, I'm speaking as directly as humanly possible. That's also a sickness, a disease. Sinas chinam is a disease that needs healing.

40:31 If you are really davening, you're thinking not just about physical illness. You're thinking about all the healing that needs to happen. When you said Baruch Aleinu and you were davening for parnassah and you were davening to get your needs met, did you realize that there was a Jew next to you who didn't get their needs met? And which needs weren't met? Were you only davening for somebody's parnasa? What about the girl in seminary that's having a really hard time? Were you davening for her? Because there's a lot of bracha that needs to go around. When davening becomes meaningful when you start using the sitter as the jumping point to find your own unique voice. When you stop reading the script like and then the man walked into the room and he said hi how are you Joe? That actor is never going to get hired. When you're when you're having your What do they call that? When you're trying out to be an actor, what do they call it? When you're having your audition, how do you walk into the room? You explode onto the scene And you think about what this character is, and you act like the character from the moment you come into the room because that's what convinces the directors that only you could bring out this script in the best possible way.

41:35 And Hakadosh Baruch Hu says that to every one of us. He's waiting for us to be Yaakov and Esav together. Good girls, they're Yaakov Avinu. The not so good girls are constantly looking for chiddush. The best girls are the ones that know how to put it together. And that's when we get the brachos of Yitzchak. You don't get the brachos of Yitzchak because you showed up and you checked the box. You get the brachos of Yitzchak when you showed up and you took something that already exists, the most beautiful words in the world, and you signed your name to it, but with a flourish, and you did it in a way that had your unique creativity, your unique voice, your yunashama, and that's the vessel that receives the brach of Yitzchak Avinu. Girls. Have a beautiful Shabbos.