Vaeira - The Fifth Cup of Belonging

2:08 Why is it called the Kosheleliyoh? It's called the Kosheleliyoh because since we don't know what to do here, one day Mashiach will come and he will answer what is the deal with the fifth kos. So we have a kos named after Eliyahu Navi. The Kos itself stands in a state of suffering. We don't know. Are we obligated in the fifth Kos? Do we? Are we not obligated in the fifth Kos? So we have it. We call it the Kos El Elyahu. We call it this Kos of one day. Eliyahu Navi is going to come and answer us. What's the deal with this Kos? Where does the notion of Four kosos come from So it's a Yerushalmi. We all know this Yerushalmi. There's many reasons that are given, but the famous one that's given that we all know from reading our Haggadahs growing up is the four lashonos of Geula that we find in this week's parsha.

3:13 The shaila is: Are there four lashonos or five lashonos? What's the answer? There's four. There's five. It's almost like the fifth cup itself. There's a fifth lashon, but it seems to stand apart, and we have to understand why. We have in front of us two major questions tonight. The first major question is: It's such an interesting thing we don't generally find this in Judaism that we have a suffik. We don't know whether or not this fifth kose is a real thing. Maybe it's not. Maybe it is. We pour it. We kind of stand with it in Suffolk. There's a representation of Suffolk at our seder. There's a representation of doubt. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. One day Mashiach is going to come. That's a very unusual thing. Obviously, there's a pneemius hatira here. There's an inner understanding of tirah that exists. That's meant to teach us something about the way that we're supposed to be at the seder. That's our first question for tonight. And the second question is, it's a very similar question.

4:20 It's a very similar question. The second question is, what's the deal with the four lishonas of geula? Are there four? Are there five? What's the story? I want to go through with you tonight. Four. And five. We'll go through the fifth also. To go through these four or five lishonos of geula to understand what they mean practically And hopefully once we understand what these four or five lishonos mean practically, we'll be able to have some insight into why we have this fifth koshel elio at the sefer. What is the nature of this suffik? So it goes like this. Every one of us in this room right now is living out a psychological reality that most of us don't understand. We all kind of think that we have self-awareness. Most of us come into the world thinking, "What do you mean? I know myself." But when you actually start to learn the system of what's going on inside of you, you'll see it's not obvious at all that any of us really know ourselves. I think this is my thesis for tonight. The four lashonos of geula represent how a person both falls into an inner state of slavery, an inner state of Mitzrayim, an inner state of constriction, where I'm not able to live the life that I want to live.

5:51 And at the same time, how we actually release ourselves from this slavery. In other words, what I'm saying is like this. At least for me, I can only speak for myself, but I imagine that a lot of people in the room have a similar experience. Most of us in the room I would say, are living with some sort of very deep restriction that comes from within, but it's very hard to break out of. There's something about us that's like living in a state of terror. Living under the threat of tyranny. I'm not able to be the person that I want to be. There's a young man who I love dearly. He's amazing. He's like a superstar person. But this is the way I see him. I see him walking through life with a straight jacket on. Mamish with a straight jacket. Literally, right before I walked in, he was sending me a WhatsApp telling me there's this amazing opportunity that he has to really build a special relationship.

6:52 He's absolutely terrified. He's terrified to build this relationship. He knows the relationship is right there. He wants it. He's living in the chains of being unable to actually assert himself, be courageous, and do the thing that he knows might bring him a tremendous amount of joy. And he's living in this state. He's living in a state of mitzrayim. He's living in a state of restriction. By the way, I only feel comfortable saying this because it's a painful thing to watch. This is a superstar human being. The most he's a five-tool player, somebody who can literally do everything. This guy is a five-tool player on the inside. Anyone who meets him knows that he's an absolute superstar. But for him to take that into the world of reality, he simply can't do it. He's living shackled into the world of Mitzrayim. I imagine that many of us feel the same way. I imagine that there are people in this room right now that are living with this inner state of Mitzrayim that's preventing us from bursting onto the scene and saying Hineini, here I am in my full glory.

8:04 Rather, what do we do? We take tiny little baby steps, which is understandable. Vulnerability is difficult. We want to be careful about how we show up in the world, but we take tiny little baby steps to actually let people know us. And it's painful to watch big people dim their own light. We're all suffering from the paro within. If we weren't suffering from this paro, this room would be on fire. If we were deeply in touch with ourselves, fearlessly allowing ourselves to show up in the world, we have no idea what this room could look like. As a young man today, I was talking to him. Not for frumkait reasons, fascinating. Not for frumkait reasons, totally not for frumkait reasons. He took a challenge to totally cut himself off from his phone for 24 hours. 24 hours, not Shabbos. 24 hours, just take away a smartphone.

9:02 After he loved that 24 hours so much, he decided to do a 10-day detox. 10 days, no phone. After the 10 days, he said, "Don't give it back to me." He got a flip phone. Totally not for religious reasons. I went out with him today. I went out to lunch with him. He's in from America. It's hard for me to get in touch with him now. I can't just shoot him a WhatsApp. And it's an unbelievable thing. He's a different human being. And he's much more present than reality. I'm talking to him. I ask, "What's it like?" He says, "It's amazing. It's an amazing thing to live your life unshackled." That's what every one of us is yearning for. We're all yearning for an unshackled lifestyle. Which means that we have to understand the mechanics of how we got into this shackled lifestyle. We have to understand the mechanics of how we get out. Here's the way it goes. I'm going to do it piecemeal.

9:48 The first lashon of geula is v'hotzeitz yischem mitachas sivlos mitsrayim. That's the first lashon of geula. What does that mean? What do those words mean? V'hotzeitz yischem means. Let's try this again. Vehotzeitziaschem means like from a lotchon of Yitzia. Just want to make sure you're here. Vehotzeitziaschem, and I will take you out mitachas from under. What's that next word? Sivlos. What does that word mean? Burden. Something. Something. It means something. Very good. I like that. Let's call sivlos burdens. Let's call sivlos. The following imagery comes to mind when I think about this. Imagine a person who's living their life, walking around with a ten thousand pound knapsack. What does that person look like? You ever see? This is one of the most cruel things that we do to children. When kids get to high school, we give them lockers. And in the lockers, they keep their books.

11:02 So they don't need to schlep home every book every night, and when they come to school in the morning, they shouldn't have to schlep their books into school every morning. The cruelest thing that we do to little children is we don't give them lockers, so they have to have all of their books in their bag. And they're tiny human beings. You ever see a seven-year-old go to school in the morning? It is watching a fight with gravity. You see them And especially if it's like the winter in America, and they've got that big down coat, their mother decided to get them triple down goose, and getting it over the sleeves is like a big avoda, right? And of course, they have the wheelies, but let's say this kid didn't get the wheelies, the parents couldn't afford it, right? So they put on the napsack and they're literally walking out to get on the bus like this.

11:57 And they take that one giant step, and they're literally on the verge of falling over. And sometimes they fall over. Adults are always going, obviously we're sensitive. We don't want to see our children fall. But a little bit, we're like, "Fuck God!" They just fell over from their knapsack. That's a crazy thing. So how do you manage a knapsack that weighs more than a human being? So what do we do? When you watch kids with a knapsack that's too heavy for them, this is what it looks like. They're hunched over. They literally have to keep their knapsack on their back because the weight of the knapsack is greater than the weight of the human carrying the knapsack. Then, when they get on the bus First of all, it's also a little bit of a cruel thing. Some of these yellow school buses have a first step that is very high.

12:43 A seven-year-old kid with this knapsack hunched over is like trying to figure out how to take that first step, literally falling out of the bus. That's why it's important they have the stop signs on both sides of the bus. Otherwise, literally, cars will be running over children that are falling into the street. Because it's important to take home your math book and your science book and your history book and your English book and your art projects all every single day. This is what needs to happen. This trauma. Just in case you can't tell, this is my personal story. My mother insisted it was. It's very cold outside. You're going to need a heavy jacket. Mom, I can't put anything more on my frame. I'm going to die. But I love you, mom, and I appreciate you did everything for me. We see people. I see people in this room right now. I'm sure you see it better than I do. We see people that are living under the crushing burden. The crushing weight of their own lives—they're walking around as hunchbacks, hunched over, and they have no idea that it's even happening.

13:54 There are people living out their lives under this extraordinary pressure. And they're walking around like this, and they don't know why. And if you ask them, 'Why are you walking around like this?' they go, 'This is just who I am. This is just the way I walk.' No, it's not. And the proof is Go back to the age before you stopped, before you started walking like that. Have you ever seen a four-year-old burdened by life itself? Four-year-olds are not burdened by life itself. Five-year-olds are not burdened by life itself. They're very carefree. They cry when they're sad. They laugh when they're happy. They just walk around. They're unbelievable. Isn't it an amazing thing to see children just live? I have a two-year-old grandson. He's amazing in every possible way, the apple of my eye.

14:46 And not but, and this kid in Hebrew we call it mishuchrar. He is absolutely free. From one moment to the next, he does whatever he pleases. He could be sitting at the table. The next moment, he's in my house on his bimbo, flying around the house. Crashing into the cupboard. Like my wife's, my wife's building our kitchen now. We haven't had a kitchen for five years. She decided now is the time to build a kitchen. We're building a kitchen with my grandson Ellie in mind. I'm like, don't spend too much money on it because he's going to be smashing his bimba into whatever it is that we build anyway. So we're going to spend all this money on a kitchen. It's going to have dents all over it within the first ten days of it being around in our house because my grandson doesn't care to smash into a wall. When was the last time you smashed into a wall on purpose?

15:34 When did we stop living free? You ever watch people walk in the rain? Isn't that crazy? People walk in the rain like this. You're going to get wet. Even if you're like this. Wouldn't it be an amazing thing if the next time—maybe not hail, but the next time it's raining in your shuliyum? What would happen if you walked and you breathed and you just allowed yourself to walk through the rain? You will get just as wet as you would have otherwise, except it'll be a pleasant walk because you're going to get wet either way. So what's the difference? You're not actually protecting yourself by walking that way. We live under this crushing burden of this weight that we don't even know what it is. And the amazing thing is that when you start to let people know that it's okay to put down this knapsack, they naturally return to their upright position.

16:35 Which is a beautiful gift that you can give somebody. So we ask people who are holding this crushing weight when they come into therapy. We say to them, 'This ten thousand pound knapsack.' Whom does it belong to? Who does your ten thousand pound knapsack belong to? And most people at first will say "It's mine." What do you mean? This is my knapsack. No. At some point, you picked up the knapsack when you were four years old, and you were five years old. You were not walking around with these sivlot. You were not walking around being crushed under the weight of this burden. Whose burden did you pick up? And then you start to think about it, and you go, "Actually, this was somebody else's burden, and I chose to pick up this burden." But first, you have to be able to say, "I am not meant to live like this." And most people in this room don't think that's the wrong way. Most people in the room think that your natural posture is hunched over. Most people in this room think that their natural posture is terrified, anxious, depressed.

17:35 Unable to meet reality. These are all inner scripts that we carry with us that let us know stay and stay under the weight of these sivlos because that's who you are, and it's not true. Have you ever met someone who freed themselves? Have you ever met someone who's just like not the same as they used to be? Maybe they went to therapy, and six months later you meet them and you're like, you're a different person. And here's what we say: you just seem lighter. You ever see someone like you just seem lighter? You just seem happier. Just seem genuinely more joyful to be alive. What happened? They put down that 10,000 pound knapsack. There is an inner script that we carry that weighs us down. Can I give you an example of an inner script? Yeah. How many of you this year don't raise your hand? Just think to yourself.

18:28 How many of you this year have an inner script of what success this year looks like? Before you came to Israel, there's this word that we use. You want to hear what it sounds like? It's very obnoxious. You ready for it? Girl comes back from sem, and a teacher or a parent or somebody in the community goes like this. She did very well. What exactly do you mean by very well? What's the definition of very well? What is this expectation that you're putting out in the universe that girl, that twelfth grader, she heard it and then she said "I need to do very well." Or this is the very definition of very well. Even though maybe your definition of very well looks something completely different. I have a question. What's your definition of success for this year? Who does that voice belong to? It's an uncomfortable question because I'm guessing that your first glance, at first blush, you'll be like, No, what do you mean? That's my voice, right? Is it? Maybe it is, but I wonder: Is there perhaps a teacher or a parent that you are trying to please? Is there something you need to do to reinvent yourself? You know that this happens sometimes when boys and girls come to yeshiva and seminary for the year.

19:43 You ever see this with the boys that like they come in and they're like, okay, I just got my free pass for four years, and now I'm gonna come to Israel. I'm gonna flip out. Six months later, I'm gonna be wearing a white shirt and black pants, chuckling like I'm having a seizure, right? And then all is forgiven, but I just have to get to that stage where I'm from enough to do the The that type of move. Or girls, you have this move? Girl used to like dive in the morning. Now she's doing this. She's so from the sitter is covered with her makeup from the tears From the tears that she cries over the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash. Is it possible that a young man or a young woman could be coming to Israel for the year? And it looks on the outside like they're having the most phenomenal year, but on the inside there's something deeply toxic weighing them down, and they don't understand why. They're like, 'I'm doing everything. I'm showing up to every class. I hand in my little Greek card.'

20:51 It's a funny thing. It's like there's a border wall here. We have el presidente standing. You have to hand in. You can't go around. I'm showing up to every class. I'm doing everything right. Why doesn't this feel good? Why don't I feel proud of myself? Maybe because there's an inner script that's weighing you down. That even though you're doing everything you're meant to be doing right now, maybe it's not you. Maybe you're lacking the courage to put down somebody else's version of success and free yourself from the burden of having to live up to other people's expectations. It's pretty uncomfortable even to say out loud, and I can tell that it's pretty uncomfortable from the look. That's about 75% of you right now. Because most of you are looking at me like this right now, and that's understandable because it's not to say that we're inauthentic. How many of us don't even realize that we have an inner script that's weighing us down?

21:52 So step number one of leaving Mitzrayim is a basic awareness that I might be living somebody else's life. Which is why I might actually feel that something is not working for me. Judaism is meant to encounter your deepest self. People are very scared. They go, "If I start following halacha, if I start learning, where might this take me? What do they mean when they say that?" What they mean is, I'm not trying to lose myself to my Judaism. I'm trying to find myself within my Judaism. I have bad news. You will not find yourself within your Judaism if the thing you are trying to do is live somebody else's Yiddishkeit. There's a system here. Don't you see the system? There's a system that told you what it means to be a Jew. I'm not talking about the halachic system now. I'm talking about how do you have to be? Can I share with you an example of this that I struggled with when I was a kid?

22:49 I thought that to be a frum guy meant that you had to become Like, like some guys become like. I don't know how to say this nicely. They become girls. You know what I'm talking about? You had this guy who was a cool, normal, assertive guy in high school. He was the captain of the hockey team. He was the captain of the basketball team. And he comes back from Israel, and you're like, "Hey, man, how's it going?" He's like, "Good. I'm doing very well. And you like look at him, and you're like, "Okay." So that's frum, right? So that's frum. So I came to Mevasseret my second year. There was a guy in yeshiva. He was like an older guy who was learning full time in yeshiva. He had finished college. He came back, and this guy was a pillar in the basement. Literally a pillar. He did not move. He ate. He learned. That's all he did. I'm sure he slept, but I don't know when. And I would look at him. I'd be like, okay. So if I'm frum, I've got to become like Adam. That was my vision. Like Adam is frum, and I have to become like Adam. And I saw a picture of Adam in high school.

23:46 And I was like, "Oh my God, Adam was cool in high school, and now he's that." This is the dream, right? I'm going to be cool in high school, and I'm not going to be that. And so I started doing things that Adam did. So Adam walked around like the Rebbean says, and he would hold his hands clasped in front of him like this. And he looked at you very nicely, and he was like when you're talking Like a nice little hunch, and if he would walk like the Rebbean said, he wouldn't take long steps, he would do. That's too arrogant, and so I started doing this because that's frum, and so frum meant that I had to do this. One day, the mashgiach of the yeshiva is sitting by the window of the bais medrash where he always sat, and he sees me walking up the mountain towards the bais medrash, and I'm very frum now. I'm learning yigeras ramban every single second, and I'm taking my small little steps, and I'm walking like this. And the mashgiach calls out, he goes, "Berg, come here."

24:36 " So I'm like, So the mashgiach called me, so now I was like. The Torah is calling me now to do something. This is like the definition of frumkeit. So I'm moving along, waddling, right? And then he goes, Berg, now. So I don't know what to do because I've got to waddle faster. And he's like, and then he screams, and he's like, run. So I'm like, okay, now Das Torah has told me to run. I can still run a little bit. I haven't been sitting in base med for that long. I take off and I come to the mashgiach and I stand in front of the mashgiach like this. Rabbi. And he looks at me and he goes You're not Adam. I was like, 'But I'm supposed to be.' I literally said that out loud. Looking back on it, it's so cringy that I thought that or even said that. I was like, 'But I'm supposed to be, right?' Like Adam is a walking igeras heremban. I'm supposed to be like Adam.

25:34 And he's like, what are you crazy? The Rebbe Nachshon made you different than Adam. Adam's a soft-spoken tzaddik of a human being. He's still like that today. I see him about once a week, walking through the halls of yeshiva, and he's still like that. Today, I see him in the morning, "Hey, man, how's it going?" "Good, doing very well. I'm like, 'You haven't changed since I was 19 years old. It's a beautiful thing.' And Shikach said to me, 'He's like, you're loud, you're obnoxious. You could be a little less obnoxious, but like, this is you, man. Do you.' And I didn't realize that I was living out somebody else's inner script, and my year in Israel was so difficult because I was being weighed down by it. Step one of leaving Mitzrayim is the awareness that you might be living out someone else's definition of success. Step two The Hitzal the Eschem me Avodasam, and I will rescue you, Hatzala I will rescue you from your labor. Isn't it an interesting thing? We were talking about burdens. Now we're talking about actual work. Isn't it interesting? You see the progression. It starts off with this inner script that weighs you down, and then it moves from your burdens into your labor.

26:48 So here's the thing. Step number two of how we enter into Mitzrayim and step number two of how we leave Mitzrayim is when you have an inner script. That inner script drives behaviors. You don't act for no reason. "Why are you doing that?" even if they don't mean it in a judgmental way, we go, "What do you mean? This is what I do. There's an entire script that every one of us has inside of ourselves, and this script says, 'Act like this.' Or to put it a little bit differently You are only valued if fill in the blank. You have an inner script. What does the inner script say? The inner script says, "This is what it means to be valued. Therefore, you must X" Whatever that X is, fill in the blank. Have you ever tried to stop doing something? You ever try to diet?

27:48 One honest person. You ever try to diet? How does a diet work? We go like this. So I'm gonna eat healthy. I'm gonna buy myself a salad bowl, and I'm gonna start going to Mayan, and I'm gonna buy out all the lettuce in the store. A week later, it's twelve o'clock at night, and you're sitting there with a jar of peanut butter and a bag of pretzels, and you're just scooping it like it's a spoon. Right? And you're like, and you're like, well, I guess it's kind of protein, right? And like. First Tamar Davor moment of the night. Why is it so hard to change a behavior? The answer is you can't change a behavior without changing your inner script. You can't change a behavior without changing your inner script. That's why resolutions never last. Do you know that there's something called Quitters Day?

29:00 It's not January 2nd. There's actually a lot of research being done. I think there's a company called Strava. Is that like a running thing? They have something called Quitters Day because everybody downloads that app on December 31st and January 1st, their traffic spikes like crazy. This year I resolved that I'm gonna run, right? I'm gonna run, and I think it's like 14 days, and then you just see the numbers all of a sudden drop like crazy. Why? And people can go on streaks. People can do it sometimes three months, six months, but eventually they always come back to ground zero. Why? Because you can't change a behavior long term if your inner script is telling you something completely different. And this is a very challenging thing. So you decided you were going to diet. Why did you decide you were going to diet? I can pretty much guarantee you that it came from, again, not for everybody, but for many people, it comes from a toxic script. I am unworthy if I weigh fill in the blank. Therefore, I must lose X amount of weight because the script is toxic.

30:10 The behavior becomes toxic. In that toxic space, you go like, now I'm going to lose these 20 pounds, 30 pounds, 10 pounds, whatever it is. You'll go for a week and be super motivated for a week until you find yourself eating a tray of brownies, half a brownie at a time, with all the justifications and rationalizations. Three weeks later, you're heavier than you've ever been before because you're living out an inner script that's unhealthy. Watch this. Step one of leaving Mitzrayim is you have to relieve yourself of the burden of your inner script. What's the next natural step? If you change your script, what changes? The behavior changes naturally. The Torah is giving us an unbelievable prescription for what actual change looks like. You change your script and then you change your behavior. Don't try to change your behavior without changing your script. You have to become aware of your script, otherwise you can't change it. And by the way, just because you change your script doesn't mean you're going to change your behavior.

31:11 How many people say, "I went to therapy, I changed my script, now I feel amazing about myself?" That's great. So what are the behaviors that you're doing that are still unaligned with that deeper vision of who you are? Step two Step two is not just to relieve yourself of the burdens, but to relieve yourself of the toxic behavior. Step three, this is a tough one. The ga'alti eschem. What does ga'ula mean? Redemption. I will redeem you. You see how it keeps leveling up. The Hotseitsi. What's the next one? The hitzalti. The ga'alti. You see how it keeps getting. It keeps leveling up. What is the words of the pasuk? Listen carefully. The ga'alti eschem. I will redeem you. Bizrua ntuia. What does bizrua ntuia mean? With an outstretched arm, which you know from the Pesach Haggadah. Ubi shvatim gedolim? What does shvatim gedolim mean? And with great judgments. Why? Why does the Kadosh Baruch Hu have to take us out of Mitzrayim with an outstretched arm and with great judgments?

32:15 This is a deep one. I love this one. You can change your script. You can even change your behavior, but you're still a part of a system. Mitzrayim will resist change. And if you want to leave that system, the system requires total eradication. Otherwise, the system will pull you back because freedom, in the beginning, feels like loss. That's why, whenever you seek to make a change, the first thing you naturally start to think about is But what happens if I do? What's the negative impact if I do? Let's say you go. I really want to be myself. I really want to be authentic. What's going to happen to my friends? Maybe I'm going to be rejected by the people that I love. And freedom will always collapse back into slavery if the system, which is larger than you, is still intact. You have to learn how to say no to the tyranny of the system.

33:21 So here's what that looks like. You ready? Just because an identity feels familiar doesn't mean it's you. Just because you've taken on this role for so long doesn't mean that identity isn't destructive in your life. Imagine the following scenario: somebody is in a toxic relationship. What's the role they play in the toxic relationship? They're the giver. They're the one that saves the other person. And so it becomes familiar. There's people in this room. I can guarantee you, there's people in this room that struggle with this. In every room, there's people that struggle with this. They're like, these are the girls that, at 17 years old, go, I should probably be a therapist because I'm already everyone's therapist. People come to me, and I just somehow know what to say, and I'm attracting these people into my life, and they may not realize that they're behaving in very toxic ways in relationships because nobody wants you at 15 years old to be their therapist. What do they want you to be at 15? A friend. Why did you take on the role? Why do you have these friends? Why do you somehow find yourself constantly surrounded by the friends that need to be saved by you?

34:34 And then you point it out to them and you go, Do you realize that you're living under the crushing expectation of having to be somebody else's therapist? Do you realize the behaviors that are toxic in your life that you're participating in these relationships where people are calling you at three o'clock in the morning and you're picking up the phone because you don't know how not to pick up the phone? They go, I recognize this is my inner script. I see that this came. They do a whole psychoanalysis. When I was a child, I felt unneeded, so now my way of getting love is to feel needed. So they change the script, they change the behavior, they stop picking up the phone. But what happens every single time the phone rings? Somehow they still have that urge to go pick up the phone. Here's why: I don't know who I am if I don't pick up the phone.

35:17 I don't know who I am if I'm not participating in a corrosive, destructive, toxic relationship. I don't even know who I am anymore. I've been the fix-it girl for so long that what does it even look like for me to show up in a relationship not being that way? Because it's quite possible that if you stop trying to fix people, what might happen? Those friends might leave because they might have been your friends because you were trying to save them. So there's a very vulnerable step towards leaving Mitzrayim. Even if you change your script and even if you change your behavior. Mitzrayim itself will pull you back in because there's a moment in this process where you're nobody. You've eradicated the entire system, and because you've been redeemed from the system itself, and that's why it's with an outstretched arm. Hashem says, if you want to leave, there's going to be great judgments here. We're going to eradicate the entire system with my outstretched arm. I will actually destroy Mitzrayim itself. And then, who are you? What's the answer in that moment? Nobody yet Which is why step four comes. And what's step four? Step four is v'la'kachti, v'la'kachti eschem lila am

36:27 Viyisem lachem lelokim, vi'adatem ki yanei Hashem lokechem, amotzi eshem mitachasiv olamitzrayim. The next step of redemption is the formation of an identity. You now have the knowledge of who you deeply are. Who are you when you strip away all of the stuff? You know the answer is You are a godly soul. That's what you are. You are not the things that you do. This is the tough part about retirement. My wife said this to me many years ago when we got married. She heard it from one of her teachers. I believe, and I'm probably getting this wrong, but I believe that it was Rav Nachman Bolman Zecharia Tzadik Lavracha who said, 'Learning Torah is an unbelievable retirement plan.' What happens if you are now 67 years old and you've been a dentist for the last 40 years of your life? Who are you when you don't go into work anymore?

37:20 An interesting question. Who are you when everything else in your life falls away, when all the doing falls away? What is your identity? It's an interesting question. What are you at your core? What's the answer? Hashem says. As we destroy the system, it becomes replaced with the knowledge: you are a godly soul. That is your identity. In other words, redemption can only be complete when your identity is restored. And this goes from what we call freedom from to freedom to. The difference between freedom from and freedom to? Freedom from the system that oppressed me. But now what? What do I do with the freedom that I have been given? Rav Aaron Saloveitchik, Zechut Sadik V'Kadosh L'vrachu, who I was privileged to learn under in high school. Rav Aaron Saloveitchik was the brother of Rav Yasha Ber Saloveitchik, one of the great Talmidei Chachamim of Chicago. He used to come to New York every single week. In high school, I don't know why, once a week, I would stay after school, even though I was totally disinterested. That Reb Iron would come and he would give a she'er and have a question and answer almost every week in our school. It was an unbelievable privilege. The man was a walking tzaddik.

38:36 His half of his body was paralyzed because he had a stroke when he was younger, and he would walk through the halls of our yeshiva and schlep his body along with him. And under his breath, he would say the Yom Kippur avoda achas va achas, achas u'shtayim, achas u'shal. She felt it was a kapara. Reb Iron Salavetchik wanted to change the words of Hatikva because in Hatikva it says 'Leos Am Chavshi to be a free nation.' He didn't like that because free and now what? So Rav Aaron himself wanted to change the words, and I believe this is what he said: Leos Am Kadosh. Not that our aspiration should be to be free because you're free from But rather what are you? Leos Am Chavshi to be what? Lios am kadosh. The nature of a Jew is not simply to run away from tyranny. People find themselves in all sorts of complex situations. My family is complex. I need to leave my family to go where to do what.

39:42 Once you establish that your identity is I am a chelak elokami mal mamish, now what do you do with your life? What is it that you're bringing into the world? The answer is if I am a godly soul, I know what I am here and I know what I'm doing with my life. I'm no longer reactive. I'm responsive. How many people do we see that they're reacting so fast? You ever see somebody get angry and it happens at the drop of a dime and it's so fast you didn't even see it coming. All you did was walk in the door. You were a little too loud. You woke her up and it's fireworks. It's an actual explosion. Why is that? It's because that person is living mitachas siblos mitsrayim. Once you open the door, you're no longer a reactive person. So there's four lishonas of geula. We should end the shir. Isn't that perfect?

40:32 Isn't that an unbelievable piece? It's an unbelievable. First, we recognize our inner script. We're living way down. Second, what do we do after that? We stop the behaviors that come along with that inner script. What do we do after that? We have to destroy the system itself because the system will put us back in. What do we do after that? The formation of an identity. It's not enough to destroy the system. There has to be ase tov. Isn't that perfect? That should be the end of the story. There's a fifth. But the fifth is a standalone pasuk. It's separate from the four. The hevesi eshem el aratz asher nasati es yadi lasayso sal abram liitzchak kol yakov. I'm going to bring you to the land that I gave to your forefathers. The Nasatiyos alachem Morasha ani Hashem, and I will give it to you as what Morasha mean? A Yerusha, an inheritance, a heritage.

41:21 There's a fifth step. And this is a step that all of us have not yet achieved and will not be achieved until the coming of Mashiach. All of us are living in a way. Where even though we might have done a lot of this work I changed my inner script, I changed my behaviors, I let go of an old identity, I adopted a new identity. I want to share with you the single most powerful word you could have in your life. And that word is belonging. The truth of the matter is, how many of us feel, even though we've done a tremendous amount of work on ourselves I don't actually belong anywhere. You know Today anti-Semitism is on the rise. And most of us may not realize how much we're impacted by it. How much does it show up on our social media feeds? Even if you're not on social media, if you have WhatsApp, you have social media, because the status thing is just social media. That's just your contacts telling you their things. How many times on somebody else's status do you see some post from somebody on Twitter or Instagram posting something deeply anti-Semitic?

42:41 Do you know that there's a picture of me on social media from a major anti-Semite An anti-Semite who has hundreds of thousands of followers on his social media? I'm lying. Millions of followers on his social media. This particular post has hundreds of thousands of views. Tens of thousands of likes and reposts. And it's a picture of me And the caption of the picture is me saying the most vile, despicable things. A Talmud of mine sent it to me. I was so excited Because this Talmud is a lawyer A very good lawyer. And I said Do I have a lawsuit? Because that's the way a Jewish mind thinks. Unfortunately, I do not. I won't show it to you, and you probably won't find it. But it is vile. What's going on in the world today is vile. I think it was 11 years ago. I went to San Diego for Shabbos. I was invited as a scholar in residence to a program in San Diego. I was taking a walk on Shabbos afternoon.

44:00 Right off the beach of San Diego, that's where we were staying. We had three beach houses. That's where the scholar-in-residence was. And a man rolls down his window. And he looks at me, clearly Jewish, wearing my yarmulke, and the other person I'm with, clearly Jewish, and he begins to shout at us the most vile racial epithets about being a Jew. And I was taken by surprise. When you're a kid growing up, they push you off your bike and they steal your bike. That's the way it used to be in Farakwe. But they didn't call you dirty names while they did it. I had never actually encountered real anti-Semitism until then. The truth of the matter is Everyone in this room, both on a psychological level and on a broad, literally on a global level, knows we don't belong. That's why people today, how many of you heard the news about what's going on with Iran and you're like, okay, now where do we go?

44:56 Jews have been asking themselves that question for a long time. Where do we actually belong? Where are we rooted? Most of us don't realize, but we're probably in survival mode. And no matter how much work you do, the reality is that none of us belong. We don't really belong in this world. The truth is Some of us feel like we don't even belong in our skin. Even if you do all of this work and you say, "Great, I'm a godly soul. I know I am here, and I know my mission." But it's like, am I known? Because this is the way it goes. If you want to belong to someone, you have to be known. If you want to marry somebody, so this is what you do: you show up and you basically you're saying, if you think about it, obviously it's going to sound very silly, but you know what dating is? Dating is a question that goes like this: when you meet someone, you sit down in a hotel lobby with an awkward sprite in your hand, right? And you go like this: Can I belong to you?

45:49 That's what dating really is. Can you belong to me? But you can't actually belong to the other person. Because in order for you to belong, they have to know who you are. And how do we show up on our first dates? Perfect. Unwilling to tell you anything real about myself. You do the first date awkward dance. You know what the first date awkward dance is like? It's like I don't want to say anything real, so I'll just tell you things about me. It's like this: you show up, you're like So where did you go to yeshiva? It's not a real question. You know where he went to yeshiva already. You're not asking a real question. Why do you? And because you don't want him to ask you a real question. Because if you go, where did you go to seminary? And you go, Talmud, Devora. And if any, and he goes, how was it? So there are people who are awkward daters. They just go like this. They go, it was good. I don't want to tell you anything more, because then I'm going to actually have to say something about myself. So what? How does successful dating look? Successful dating is basically being willing to be vulnerable enough to let you in enough to give myself some sense of belonging. But how much does your husband really know you?

46:51 Eighty percent. 85 percent. How many of us are? How many times have I gotten this question, Rabbi? Do I have to tell her before? Can I tell her after we're engaged? For real? So then she's trapped. That's what you're trying to do. And by the way, don't you yourself deserve the gift of being able to enter into this relationship to say, 'I want to marry this girl because I can tell her anything about myself and appreciate that I belong in that space.' That's what we want. So why are we hiding? The answer is because to deeply belong is the hardest thing in the world. It doesn't really exist. We live in a state of limbo. But you know what? You pass it on to your children, don't you? Because if you don't belong to yourself, then what? What do you? What does it feel like to be raised in your home?

47:39 If your parents don't belong to themselves and don't belong to each other, then a child growing up in that home is looking around, going, 'Is this a safe home?' It doesn't feel like a safe home. It doesn't feel like people deeply belong. It doesn't feel like I can be myself in this home. So there's as much work as we do. There's a lack of belonging, and then we pass that on. You know what Hakadosh Baruch Hu says? There's a fifth stage of goul. You know what the fifth stage of goul is? You'll actually have a home. And you can pass that home along to your children. Because when you deeply belong to yourself, that's the gift that you give the people around you. I'm sharing with you my gift of belonging. Let's go back to our original questions. Why is the fifth cup in limbo? Because that's life. We're not even sure if it exists. Even according to those shtetls that say that it exists, it's certainly not an obligation. It's a mitzvah, but it's not a chiyuv. It's a reshus. Rashi and the Rashbam. Does it even exist? So we put it on our seder table.

48:38 We pour the cup, but we don't drink. You know what we say? That's the Mashiach orientation. We put Mashiach at the center of our seder table and we go. I can't wait for Hakadosh Baruch Hu to come and send someone into this world that will give the entire world a deep sense of belonging. The Kosh Shel Elio is not something we drink. It's something we stare at. It's a part of our seder table, but not really. It's like hovering around our seder table. It's on the kaara, but it's not something we actually engage in. It's the fifth cup. It's that highest dimension. Girls, how many dimensions are there to the soul? There's five dimensions of the soul. There's nefesh, ruach, neshama, chaya, and then there's that thing that's bigger than the soul itself. It's the unifying force of the entire soul. It's called the yichidush of nefesh. It's the part of you that is Mashiach. Every one of us carries a spark of Mashiach within ourselves. At the seder table, that fifth coast is the Koshalal Yom Anavi. It's the coast of Mashiach that we carry along within ourselves. It's the coast of I deeply yearn to belong, but I don't belong yet. But I want to create a world of belonging. I want to live in a space where people feel comfortable around me. Girls have a beautiful shabbos.