Vaeira - The Wisdom of the Heart

2:53 But it's a little bit of a complex answer, so if you can come with me on this, it's worthwhile. I'm not going to say over everything the Rebbe said. I'm just going to take one slice of it. It's the slice I think that's relevant to us tonight. There's two movements in the world. They're called Ratzah V'Shov. How many of you just show of hands have heard of this terminology before? Ratzah V'Shov means that everything is in a process of moving away and returning to its source, moving away and returning to its source. We see this in the physical world. In the physical world, for example, we see that lungs expand and then contract. Your heart beats, right? It moves outwards and then it moves inwards. The seasons always move from summer to winter. Everything in this world is expanding and contracting. We go from sleep to awake. Everything is in a state of ratzavishov.

3:51 So far, so good. The same is true when it comes to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. The same is true when it comes to Hashem. There's something called concealment and revelation, and we tend to think of these things as two individual movements that Hashem sometimes conceals Himself and sometimes reveals Himself. It's a very big mistake to think of it that way. It's a very big mistake to think sometimes Hashem reveals Himself and sometimes Hashem conceals Himself. These are not two movements. These are not two movements. There's Ratzah v'Shov, meaning everything in this world is constantly in that state of expansion and contraction, and that means that when Hashem conceals Himself, that's the same movement as Hashem revealing Himself.

4:50 It's one moment in a two-step process, but it's not at all disjointed from each other. What does it mean that Hakadosh Baruch Hu revealed Himself to the Avos as Kel Shaka? What do those words mean? That Hashem says, when I introduced myself to the Avos, Moshe Rabbeinu, I introduced myself as Kel Shaka. How many of you know that when the world was created, it exploded into being? Do you know that the world was in a state of expansion when Hashem created the world? Chazal tell us that when Hashem created the world, the way that He created the world was through a process of expansion, until Hashem said, "Ad sheamar la olam dai." Until Hashem said to the world, "That's enough. No more expansion."

5:41 In other words, as the world was expanding, Kel Shachai means the state of contraction, the state where Hashem says there are boundaries. Now there are limitations to creation. That's how Avram, Yitzchak, and Yaakov knew about Hashem. One way of thinking about it is as follows: Hashem needs to have free will in this world in order for us to fulfill our purpose. So if the world didn't expand at all, then Hashem's presence would be so obvious that we wouldn't have free choice. For example, nobody in this room is capable. I hope, and if you can do this, it means you're a psychopath. Nobody in this room is capable of taking a knife and murdering another person for no reason. Nobody's capable of doing it.

6:36 You don't have free will to do it. I know you think you have free will. You don't have free will to do it. Try it. By the way, don't try it. And also, don't suggest to somebody to try it to you, because one time, a number of years ago, when I was giving this shiur in a certain place to a group of boys, I said to them, "None of you are capable." And I was a lead pencil. I said, "None of you are capable of taking this lead pencil and stabbing me in the jugular. None of you are capable." I'll get there, I promise. None of you are capable of doing it. So this one boy in a group of about 70 boys proudly said, "I can." And I said, "Do you realize what you're saying? You're saying that you could stab me." And he goes, "Yeah, I could." So I said, "You can't." I said, "You can't." Obviously, it worked out. I'm talking to you. So I said, "You can't." He said, "I can."

7:33 So he gets up, and every guy in the room is going, "Sit down. You're not going to do it." He goes, "I'm going to do it." He looks at me and goes, "I'm not going to get in trouble." I said, "You're not going to get in trouble. The camp policy. You're not going to get in trouble. Don't worry. You won't get in any trouble." He goes, "You sure?" I said, "No problem." He goes, "You won't be upset?" I said, "You're not going to do it." He goes, "Okay," and he stabbed me. Relax. Why are you so upset? I'm literally here. You know the end of the story. So the truth is, I still hold that I was right because if he really stabbed me, I wasn't here. He just did it enough to be able to prove. See, I could do it, but the thing is, he thought it was going to get this enormous laugh, and 70 other guys in the room just looked at him like, "What did you just do? You just stabbed Reburg." So he sat back down in his seat, and it was like, you know how like I don't know, you girls are probably not as relevant as I am. Do you know the word brick?

8:33 If somebody tells a joke and it doesn't work, and somebody goes from the back, 'brick,' and everyone says, 'Ooh, that's bad. You just brick that joke.' That's like a thing that boys say. I'll teach you what it's like to be with 18-year-old boys. That's what they say. They say 'brick.' He sits down and somebody just calls out from the back. 'Brick.' The kid felt so foolish. He walked out of the room, totally red in his face. He didn't. It wasn't in the bazaar. It was in the camp. And he didn't come back for a couple of nights. I finally went to look for him because I felt so badly because the boy was embarrassed. I said, 'You could come back to share.' He goes, 'I literally cannot show you my face. I can't do it.' Happens to be he's a great kid. When I went to his school to do interviews, he walked into the room. You should have seen his face when he realized I was the interviewer. He walked and he sat down. He goes, 'I'm not going to get in, am I?'

9:22 I said no, no, not. And by the way, he almost switched him to Vassar from a different yeshiva that he went to, and I would have taken him. He's a great kid. In a moment, in a funny moment, he made a mistake. He's a great kid. The reason why 99% of us won't stab another person is because the truth of that being a totally deviant behavior is so obvious to us that we can't do it. When someone can murder somebody, if somebody's coming to kill you, fine. If your hand is stuck under a rock for a certain amount of hours and the only way to get out is to cut yourself out, that's understandable. And even then, it's very hard. But to stand, go over to another person for no reason at all and to stab them, we don't have the bechira to do that. And the reason we don't have the bechira to do that, assuming we're healthy people, is because it's so obviously wrong that we would never do it. If Hashem's presence was clear to us, if He stopped the, if He never had the expansion.

10:19 We wouldn't be able to do anything wrong. So Hakadosh Baruch Hu has to expand the universe, and Hashem's presence becomes hidden as He expands the universe. But what happens if the expansion goes too far? What happens if Hashem's presence can't be discerned at all? If you're not able to connect to, feel, or see on some level Hashem's presence, then that would also be a problem, because we can't behave in a way. That's so obviously not true to us either. In other words, the same way, if something is true, we're like, I can't stab you because the truth is it's wrong to stab you. But what if something becomes, what if the truth becomes so obfuscated that we have no idea that it's wrong? We can't be held accountable for that. So Hashem creates the world in the perfect balance where He's hidden and we have free will, but we can find Him if we look. That's what the name Kal Shachai means.

11:16 And the way that the avos related to Hashem was in that perfect balance, but they didn't have something that Moshe Rabbeinu received. There was something that the avos didn't have that Moshe Rabbeinu had. What is that? So there's something called Kel Shaka that we explained. There's something else called Yudkevavke. Yudkevavke is Hashem's name. What can this be compared to? We all wear different hats. Every one of us wears different hats. There's the job that we have. That's a hat that you wear. You'll notice that when you introduce yourself to people, when you get older, they'll tell you what they do. They'll tell you what they do, especially if it's a guy. Shalom aleichem. My name is Steve, and I'm a lawyer. Shalom aleichem. My name is Mark, and I'm a doctor. Everybody has that hat they wear. But Mark is not a doctor, and Steve is not a lawyer. That's a job that they have. It's a hat they wear.

12:13 And the way that we know that it's not their essential self is because when you take it away from them, they're still them. So when a person retires from being a doctor, they may not be Doctor Mark anymore. But they're still them. In fact, you can always tell who a person really is by what's written on their tombstone, because you'll see that the things that are written on their tombstone are much more essential to who they are. So it might say on somebody's tombstone: mother, father, brother, sister. Those are much closer to our essential self. They're certain titles that, while they're not us, they're much closer to who we really are. You can't shake that. You'll always be somebody's daughter, even after your parents are long since gone. After 120, you'll still be on some level somebody's daughter.

13:12 So those are much closer titles to our essential self. But the truth of the matter is that even those titles are not you. You're so much more than a daughter. You're so much more than a mother. Those are just ways that the you that is truly you expresses themselves. So when Hakadosh Baruch Hu says Moshe Rabbeinu, the avos Avram, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, they only knew me as Kel Shachai. They knew me as what? Listen carefully. As I expressed myself within the world, that's the way the avos knew Hashem. Avram Avinu looked at a tree; he saw the godliness in the tree. Yitzchak Avinu looked at a bush; he saw the godliness in the bush. Yaakov Avinu saw the mountains; he saw godliness within the world itself. But those are just expressions of Hashem's essence. They are not to be confused.

14:09 With Hashem's essence itself, so there's a process that's unfolding here. Moshe Rabbeinu is being told by Hashem, but listen carefully now. Moshe Rabbeinu comes to Hashem and he says, "Lama harayos, lama zet? Why did you do this evil to this nation? Lamez shalatani? Why'd you bother sending me?" Listen to Hashem's response. It's an amazing response. Up until now, the world only knew me how, through the world. I'm trying to introduce myself on a fundamentally different level. I'm trying to show you me, and that is the most difficult thing in the world. I'll give you something it could be compared to. Imagine you go out on a first date with a guy. So you go, it's super awkward.

14:54 He picks you up from wherever he picks you up from outside of Stern at the pharmacy over there. All the different places that people go to be picked up at your parents' house. You get in a car. You go somewhere. Let's make it classic. You go to a hotel lobby. You sit down. You order a Sprite Zero because just in case it spills, you don't want to feel foolish. On you, you don't want to feel foolish. You do all the classic things. And what do you do? You do not introduce yourself. What do you do? You talk not who you are, but about your life. Where did you go to camp? Where did you go to school? Where did you go to sem? It's very rare that a person actually introduces themselves on a first date. It's a process that's unfolding. Tell me, girls, don't answer. Which date do you actually introduce yourself? What's the number? How does it go? What's the stage where you say, 'I am me'? Now think about how impossible this is. Because whatever that date is, what are you going to do? You're going to say something that happened to you.

15:51 Or you're going to say how you dealt with a particular situation, but if we just said a moment ago that the most impossible thing in the world is to know someone's essential self, it's easy to introduce things about yourself in the world. It's easy to say, 'Hi, my name is Chana Abramovich, and I work in NCSY Give in the summer.' Let's say that's right. She does. And for all of you who are considering working on Give with Chana, you should definitely do it. So you could say that was a subtle plug. You could say if Chana goes on a date and she says, 'Hi, I'm Chana, and I worked on Give.' Do I know Chana? I know Chana worked on Give. Now if Chana comes along and she says, 'I worked on Give. I had a really difficult camper that it was really difficult to get to, and somehow even though Berg told me you're never going to get to this camper, trust me, I know her. You're never going to get to this camper. Somehow by the end of the summer, I got to her.' If Chana's on a date, does the guy she's dating know her? He still only knows something about her.

16:50 And the essential self is not something that you can know about. This is the challenge of introducing ourselves to people. I want you to know me. The greatest gift in the world that we give to another person is the gift of belonging. Everybody in this room, if you think deeply about it, everybody in this world wants one thing. Everybody just wants to be known and to belong to another person. The reason why there's so much pain in this world is because we are not truly known. There's nowhere where we can be our full self. That's why people pay to go to therapy. That's not the only reason people pay to go to therapy, but the gift of being in a therapeutic relationship is that I pay someone to be non-judgmental and totally secretive about who I am, so that I can finally be me. That's the gift. It's an amazing gift. There are people that I know.

17:48 That have gone to therapy. You ask them what you gain from it. They said, for 45 minutes a week or an hour a week, whatever it is, I could stop pretending. And the thing about pretending is, it's terrible because then nobody knows you. And if nobody knows you, then where are you ever going to belong? Do you remember in the beginning of this year where you were testing out the waters in Torma Devorah to ask yourself, do I actually belong here? Will I actually be known? Is there someone here that I can actually introduce myself? That's the greatest gift in the world when you make a friend who's with you, and when I say with you, I mean with you for the rest of your life. Somebody who you could just totally be known by. That's the greatest gift in the world. But how do you do that? How do you do that? Because they can only ever know about you. And by the way, even that's not a simple thing. I have two friends. They're best friends. I'm not best friends with them, but they're two amazing friends. They have a rebbe that they go to. That's their rebbe. He lives in Ramat Pechemesh.

18:45 One day, this rebbe said to both of them; they were both there at the same time, and he said, 'You guys are best friends.' They said, 'Rebbe, we're best friends. We've been best friends since we were like three. We know each other forever.' He said, 'You know what's crazy? You guys don't even know each other.' Rebbe, what are you talking about? He said, 'You each come to me and pour out your hearts and tell me the truth. That you're struggling with this and you're struggling with that, and you're not telling each other. I know you're not telling each other, even though you say you're best friends.' He said, 'You know what you guys could do? There's beautiful forests in Ramat Beit Shemesh. Why don't you go take a walk in the forest and introduce yourself?' They went for an eight-hour walk. Eight hours. They came out of the forest. One of these guys told me, 'It was the craziest thing. I knew this guy for almost 40 years, and I just met him.'

19:40 Because what we know is what we allow people to see. How do we actually introduce ourselves? Do you see the complexity of the problem? I want to tell you who I am. How can I tell you who I am? All I can ever tell you is I went to this camp, I went to this school, I went to this sem, I went to this college, I'm this job. How can I actually introduce myself? So there's something called vulnerability. You start to get a little bit vulnerable and you say I went through this trial and tribulation. In Judaism, those words always go together. I don't know if anyone's ever said the word trial or tribulation without saying the other one. I went through this trial and tribulation and I did. This was a pain point in my life and this is how I overcame it. But still, even then, what are you doing? You're just talking about yourself. How do you actually connect with another person? It's the same question God has. Moshe Rabbeinu, he says, I want you to know, I introduced myself to the Avos as what?

20:34 As Kel Shachai in the world, perfectly balanced. This is how I represent and manifest myself in the world. But I'm trying to tell you who I am. And this is, if you're listening carefully, a response to what question Moshe Rabbeinu said: "Lamah are'os l'amaze? Why are you doing evil to this people?" Hashem says, "I'm trying to introduce myself. I'm trying to tell you Yud Kei Vav Kei. I'm trying to tell you my essence. What does one have to do with the other? You hear the problem?" How is this answering Moshe Rabbeinu's question of why did you do evil to this people? So let's now take it to the next level. The word truth means that something is constant and unchanging. If something is true, it's always true. If something is 99.9% true, what do we call that? False. It's false. In order for truth to be true, it needs to be 100% true.

21:31 For example, if you do a scientific experiment and that scientific experiment goes right 99 times out of 100, will it always happen? No. That means it's not yet true. You need to understand exactly why that one time it keeps happening the way that it happens. That's when it becomes true. One plus one will always equal two. That's how you know that it's true. Listen carefully now. You ready? The name Yud-Kevav-Kev is the quintessential truth of Hashem. He's trying to introduce himself in a way that's totally unchanging. Listen to what Hashem says: the only way that you're ever going to discover me, the quintessential truth of who I am, is if you discover the quintessential truth of who you are. I'm going to say it again. Make sure you understand this. The only way, says Hashem.

22:29 That I can ever truly introduce myself, because no language could ever communicate me. It can only communicate about me. The only way you could ever know who I really am is by discovering what the quintessential truth about yourself. Like, for example, the way we use words is very interesting. I'm going to say a word right now. I'm referring to a flower, red rose. Every one of you just thought of a red rose. How did we do that? I said something that you know about, so you called up within yourself the terminology "red rose." You say, "I know what a red rose is. I've seen that before." That's the words we use. But what happens when we don't have language? How am I supposed to communicate to you who I am? The answer is you have to locate that truth within yourself.

23:22 You ever have a friend that you're so close to that you know exactly what she's experiencing, even though she doesn't have to say a word? It's because you located that truth where, inside of yourself, the truth could never possibly be communicated to anybody else. But you can relate to it because where did you discover that truth within yourself? Says Hashem, and I think this is the depth of the famous statement of the Kutzker. Where is God? Wherever you let Him in. The answer is Hashem is where Uncle Moishy sang. Hashem is here, Hashem is there, Hashem is truly everywhere. Hashem is right here. And to the degree that you know your own truth and you know who you are, then you know who Hashem is. That's the truth. How do we see this? Where does a Jew discover their quintessential truth? There's an amazing line. It's an easy line to remember. If you ever want to know who somebody is.

24:20 Just see where their undying loyalty is. What's the thing that they'll be loyal to it to the very end? That you'd be willing to die for it. That's how you know it's you. I'll share with you that this daughter who just had this baby girl, Bat Sheva Miriam. I remember when she was born. That's the baby's name, Bat Sheva Miriam. This daughter is my oldest daughter. It's crazy. Bat Sheva Miriam looks exactly like her. When I went to the hospital on Friday to see the baby for the first time, I went Baruch Hashem right after the baby was born. I was there, so they brought the baby out to me. I'm like, I know this baby. I've seen this baby before. This is literally what my daughter looked like, and I had this crazy flashback.

25:07 Parents in the room will understand this. When you hold your child for the first time, it's etched in your soul. I'll never forget the feeling of holding on to my daughter for the first time. I had the craziest feeling in Montes Hospital in Brooklyn, New York, when Bracha was born. I'm holding this tiny little baby, and I thought to myself, "I would die for you. I would do anything for you." That's what it means to be a parent. You know that you're a parent when you say, "I'll give my undying loyalty to this child that I just met within thirty seconds." You'll give it because it's you. Hashem says to Klal Yisrael, "You want to discover me? Then we need to talk about what your undying loyalty is. Let's see how you do in exile. Exile is not a punishment. That's a very surface way of looking at exile."

25:57 Exile is a way of clarifying who you really are. Who are you when they take away all your stuff? And when I say all your stuff, I mean all your stuff. Who are you when they take away your job? Who are you when they take away? Again, Chassid Shulman should never happen to any of us. Who are you when you lose your family? There was a person who came to speak in Ramah Pechamish a number of years ago, a very inspirational speaker. I don't remember if you know. I don't know if you remember this story, but do you remember there was a story of a family in Brooklyn? There was a terrible fire across the street that was my neighbor. My parents are the ones that called nine. That's obviously crazy. Who are you when you lose everything? Who are you when you lose your ability to walk? Who are you when you lose your ability to talk? You know, there's a terrible disease called Lou Gehrig's disease.

26:54 There's a Chabad shliach. He lives in Los Angeles. He has Lou Gehrig's disease. He can write on his computer using his eyes. And there's divrei Torah all over Chabad Org every single week. This guy just using his eyes. It seems mutant. It's like mutant. Exactly. I even understood that English. The when a Jew goes into galus. It's not the concealment of God. What is it? It's the revelation. Who are you when everything in your life is taken away? The amazing thing that happened after October seventh was all of these Jews. You would think October seventh Jews would go into hiding. It was exactly the opposite, and it wasn't the Orthodox Jews that were loyal. It was everybody. It's unbelievable.

27:46 All of a sudden, people who are totally not observant, don't keep Shabbos, don't keep kosher, started wearing the hostage pin, started wearing their Jewish star. It was exactly the opposite. Why? Because you press somebody against the wall, and then you determine, then you get to see who they really are. Then you find out what they're really made of. Gullus has been the most painful gift that we've ever received, but make no mistake about it. Gullus is an incredible gift. Because when you discover who you are, when you discover the part of you that is so godly that not only can't it be extinguished, but when you try to extinguish it, what happens? It gets that much more powerful. Then you start asking yourself, what is this part? What is this part of me that doesn't keep Shabbos and doesn't keep kosher and maybe goes to shul on Yom Kippur and maybe puts a menorah in the window? Electric menorah, but all of a sudden says, I'm going to Israel to visit.

28:42 What's that part? That is Hashem living and breathing inside of every one of us. It's called the nefesh elokis. It's called the godly soul. The godly soul cannot be extinguished. It's the part of you that is undyingly loyal to Hashem. Where do you find Hashem? Some people find Hashem in the waves. Some people find Hashem in the sunsets. Some people find Hashem in the mountains. That's all kel shakai. Moshe Rabbeinu is being told by Hashem, "Lama harayos lama ze?" Moshe says, "Why did you do this to your people? Why are you so unrelentingly making these people suffer for hundreds of years?" Girls, do we not have that question? Everybody in this room, whether you articulate it or not, everybody in this room has this question. How many of us have said, in one form or another, "I am sick of this 3,000-year-old galus. I don't want to be here anymore. Be awesome if Mashiach came. It'd be awesome. It'd be great to not be persecuted. Be great."

29:39 You come from America, and you think to yourself, "Golden Medina, it could never happen in America. Everything is awesome." And by the way, I'm not the guy who says you should make Aliyah because America is going to fall apart. That's fear mongering. We should make Aliyah because this is the country of our destiny. That's the message. But it's pretty crazy. It's pretty crazy what happened in America. That under those circumstances, when everything isn't going well, and you say, "Enough already," I don't want to live like this anymore. I want to live in a world of peace and harmony. I want to live in a world of Hashem. That's called geulah. Every one of us has had this question. Hashem knew enough, enough. When's enough? When are you going to bring Mashiach? No. We discover Hashem through the gullus. It's not two movements. It's not expansion, period, and then contraction. It's expansion and contraction.

30:34 It's expansion, contraction, expansion. We contract in order to expand. We go down in order to go up. We go into the gullet to discover our loyalty. You discover your loyalty. You discover God, because the part of you that's loyal is the most godly part. Now listen to this. This is the final flourish, and it's an amazing flourish. Commonly, people think, and this is wrong, that the mind is rational and the heart is emotional. So rational minds make peace with suffering, and emotional hearts can't stand suffering. I'll explain what I mean. This is the common misconception. People say suffering. Let's look in Chazal. What does Chazal have to say about suffering? The first thing you'll see in Chazal is that suffering refines you. It makes you into a better person. It could teach you compassion and sensitivity. If you've learned about suffering, what are you going to do when you see somebody else suffering? You'll be kind and compassionate to them. Suffering helps us overcome adversity, and when we overcome adversity, what happens? We unleash potential within us. So the rational mind, when it comes to suffering, what's our feeling? I could rationalize it, I could explain it away, but the heart looks at a person suffering and says terrible.

32:01 I'm in constant pain for my friend. That's the way most people think about it. The Lubavitcher Rebbe comes and he turns the entire thing on its head, and he says as follows: The rational mind will never be okay with suffering, because for all the reasons that we just gave, that suffering refines you and it makes you a kind and compassionate person, and you overcome adversity and it unleashes your potential. But at the end of the day, there's still one question left. You know what that question is? Why did Hashem have to make it this way? If Hashem was the creator of the world, then how could Hashem have made the world in a way where suffering is not needed in order to refine a person, where suffering is not needed in order to unleash your potential? So the rational mind will never appreciate suffering because suffering, at the end of the day, no matter how many reasons you give for it, makes no sense. But the heart does not live with logic.

33:00 The heart lives beyond logic. That's why a mother loves her child, even when a child does not deserve her mother's love. I'll give you an example of this. I love my mother. She is the sweetest, nicest person who will do anything for anybody. But when I was growing up, that woman's love for me knew no bounds. I know that because I lied my head off every single moment I got to everybody. I was a little kid, but I don't even remember what was true or not true. If I was accused by a teacher of anything, I'd never in my life say, "Yeah, I did that." Whatever punishment you give me, I deserve. There's something called deny till you die. I lived and breathed that. And what I got expelled in fifth grade.

33:56 I got expelled in fifth grade, and my mother, bless her soul, every time I lied, I would go to her and say, "Mom, I know that I've lied before," and she would say, "Why should I trust you?" I said, "Mom, because this time I'm telling you the truth." And that sweet woman would go to bat for me every single time. And you think, like they say, that Marshall, the boy who cried wolf. Yeah. Not true. My mother, I cried wolf for eight straight years of elementary school. And she kept going to bat for me. I cried wolf a million times, and she kept on fighting for me. She stayed in my corner. I think, and I'm not sure that what I'm about to tell you is wrong. I think my parents founded my high school because they knew that if they didn't, I'd be expelled from that school. That's how much my parents, on some level, didn't believe in me. And yet, every time I told them, "No, this time I'm telling you the truth," she fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

34:51 A mother's love for a child is not rational. That's why when your kid looks at you and says, 'No, mom, it's not true,' how many times did you lie to your parents? Not bad. About 75% of you, yeah. How many times did you lie to your parents and your parents, and because your mother trusts you, because your mother loves you, she goes, 'Okay.' By the way, your fathers knew you were lying the whole time, but your mothers, yeah. Your mother, am I? I'm not. I'm not 100% wrong, right? Mrs. Arutz. We're not answering that question. You know what? That's smart. It's being recorded. I hope I'm 44 years old and I'm a grandfather twice over. I'm still hoping that my mother doesn't listen to this recording online. Parents love their children irrationally. So you know what the Rebbe says? It's an unbelievable line. The rational mind will never accept suffering because the rational mind says, 'Yeah, but why did God create it this way?' But the heart.

35:49 The heart sometimes can accept it, because the heart is not rational. It doesn't live within the boundaries of rational. Hashem says to Moshe, "You're the mind. That's what Moshe Rabenu is. He's Moshe Rabenu. He's teaching Klal Yisrael the will and wisdom of Hashem. You're the mind, but the avos were the heart." Moshe Rabenu, you're asking me an intellectual question. La ma harayoso la amaze. Hashem says you'll never understand it. It will never be rational. I'll never be able to explain to you why it had happened this way. But Moshe, there's something that the avos knew that you don't know. They knew how to be my heart. They knew how to connect to me beyond rational. Even when things don't necessarily make sense, they knew how to connect to me. So Moshe Rabenu has an implied question. He says, "Yeah, but they were the avos. How are we supposed to do that?"

36:46 Now let's go back to that original question that we asked all the way in the beginning of the Shir. Hakadosh Baruch Hu says, 'Listen to the first words of the pasuk: Va'era el Avram el Yitzchak el Yaakov.' Hashem says, 'I made myself known to who? To Avram, Yitzchak, and Yaakov.' What does Rashi say? El ha'avos. You know why you can be the heart? Because they were your parents, and your parents genetically pass it on to you. So Rashi is telling us the most incredible, unbelievable, important, inspiring idea that we'll ever hear. You look at tzaddikim and you say to yourself, 'How in the world could I ever be like that person?' You know what the answer is? Because they're your grandparents, they're your great grandparents. These are not foreign people. This is not something michutz la'machane. Sometimes you see somebody and you say, 'I can't reach that madriga because what's it got to do with me?'

37:41 But if you see your grandfather, if you see your father, if you see grandmother, and you see your mother, you say, 'I know that's in me, because they're in me.' So Moshe Rabbeinu, Hashem is saying, 'Don't think for one second that you're just the mind of the Jewish people, and that you're just Moshe Rabbeinu giving over the Torah. You're much more than that. You're also the grandson of Avram, Yitzchak, and Yaakov. They're your avos. You have the ability to be in a relationship with me that's beyond rational. Rational is kel shakai. It's what I can measure. It's what I can see. That's unbelievable. But that's not where a relationship is. A relationship is not in the mind. It's in the heart. How do we meet somebody? When we know ourselves, then we get introduced to somebody and we can connect to them on a soul to soul level. That's how you know when you're in shaduchim. There's a pro tip. When you're in shaduchim.

38:33 How do you know if that's a good shidduch for you? You have to cultivate something called intuition. Where does intuition come from? When you're in self. For those of you who know IFS language, and I assume everybody in Talmud Torah knows IFS language because every single teacher in the school speaks an IFS language. I don't even know if there is a God in Talmud Torah anymore. It's just self. Self imparts human beings, right? But of course, when we say self, what do we mean? We mean Hashem. How do you develop intuition? Be deeply connected to yourself, and when you are deeply connected to yourself, and he is deeply connected to himself, what happens? That's where a beautiful relationship begins. I had a conversation with the boys in yeshiva today, and I want to share it with you. We were talking about the value of, and again, I want to be careful how I say this because I don't want Katsurasholm say anything negative. We were talking about the value of these proofs of God. Guy goes to one of these like shiurim.

39:32 And he hears all about the proofs of God. One of the guys in the shir now is going through this process and reading all the books, which are amazing svarim: permission to believe and permission to receive and Kuzari. He's listening to shirim online and doing the whole nine yards, and he's stigging from it tremendously. He's really seeing the depth and the brilliance of Yiddishkeit and he's like, wow, it's unbelievable, Rebbe. Did you know that this thing is provable?

40:02 And at the end of the day, our relationship with Hashem will not change. And this was the conversation we were having in Shira today, because someone proved to you that God exists. You know why? Because it's quite possible for you to go to one of these Eishat Torah discovery seminars, and you walk out of there and you say, 'I know God exists,' and then you wake up the next day and you have no desire to daven. It's quite possible that you'll wake up the next day and you'll have no desire to keep halacha. And they'll say, 'What do you mean? I thought your question was, 'Does God exist?' Didn't I just show you five different proofs? Obviously, God exists. Why do you not wake up to daven the next day? Or if you do daven, why do you daven like you're in a completely different universe? You ever do that? You ever wake up in the middle of Shemona Esrei and just take a moment and think about where you are? Where are you? It's anywhere but Yerushalayim Yerakodosh. The Rav of my shul is very fond of saying, 'When does a Jew need to pay attention in davening for the first time?'

40:58 By the Shira Shal Yom, because you need to start thinking about what day it is. You ever wake up at the end of Shemona Esrei taking three steps back and go, 'How did I get here?' Probably would have been more appropriate to make a Tefilas Aderech than Shemona Esrei. The amount of miles I would travel. Why is it? Why is it that way? Why is it? That I just heard the most amazing Eishat Torah discovery this year, which are amazing. I'm not chassidish on being mezazel them in any way. But why is it that it doesn't necessarily get me to shachris the next day? Why is it that it doesn't get me to the beis medrash? Why is it that it's still hard for me to be a tzanua person? Don't you know that God exists? The answer is you know it here, and that's not where our relationship with Hashem is. Of course, it's valuable to learn all these farim. Go learn Ramchal and go learn Maral and go learn Kuzari and go learn the Rambam and learn all of it because it's amazing.

41:46 And we do have a mind, and you should use your mind in the service of Hashem. But don't think for one moment that you're going to be introduced to Hashem just by learning about Him. You could learn every sefer in the world, and it won't necessarily bring you closer to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. And this is what, and I give you girls a lot of credit for it. This is what your generation pushed back on so hard to my generation. My generation, I remember when I was in yeshiva 30 years ago, everyone was handling, and they were like, 'I want this amazing book came out, permission to believe, permission to receive.' Everyone was hocking about all these different proofs of God, and then we said, 'Okay, the next generation, we're going to raise these kids on proofs of God, and our kids are going to know it. It's going to be unbelievable.' And all the kids today said the same thing. They said, 'Yeah, but we're not missing proofs of God. We're missing God. It's not that I don't believe in God. I don't connect to Hashem.'

42:35 My problem is not that I don't know the words of the seder. It's that even when I know the words of the seder, I'm still not connecting to Hashem. A chaver of mine is a rebbe in a certain state in America. He was hired by a father, a very ambitious father. He wanted his son not only to lay for his bar mitzvah, not only to lay the haftorah for his bar mitzvah, but to daven musaf. Not only does he want him to learn the entire parsha, plus the Aftar and the Musaf, his father said, I want him to know the translation of all the words. I want him not just to learn, I want him to actually know the parsha. So he hired this Rebbe when the kid was 11. It's like usually you do it for a year before your Bar Mitzvah. This kid started two years beforehand. And at the very end, they're learning Musaf, and the kid is going through the Musaf, and he's explaining to him all the different Karbonosim, what each word means. And the kid, very sheepishly, looks at this Rebbe, and he goes.

43:34 I know 'Amen' means 'kong,' but what does it really mean? It takes me time to get it also. I know 'Amen' means 'kong' because it says 'kong' right next to 'Amen,' like congregation. But what does it really mean? You see, sometimes you see people, and they seem to be deeply connected to their davening. And you go, do you know what you're saying? Maybe they don't. You know what? Doesn't mean that they're not connected to Hashem. If they're deeply connected to themselves, maybe they're just saying the words. But maybe when they're saying the words, they are connected to something. And I'm not saying it's not important to know the words. Of course, you should know the words. There's a story many years ago in a yeshivah. I can't tell you which yeshivah. I wish I could.

44:22 In a certain yeshiva many years ago, the boys in the yeshiva were known to be like the biggest flip out boys. I'm talking about like they came and like three months into yeshiva, they were like totally different people. So there was a shanabek guy, and he, this shanabek guy, who today is a well known rebbe. Today he's a well known rebbe. He was the tish rebbe at mishmar in this yeshiva. So he decided to teach the boys a song. I know that I'm saying the wrong niggin, but I'm going to say it in the niggin that I remember, even though this is not the niggin he used. He starts get telling the boys, "Okay, guys, Yad is ketana chazi mechal, Yad is kedayla mechamale, a Yad is ketana chazi mech." And he's going crazy, and every guy is going crazy with him. And then there was like a word like prozvor, and that was like part of the niggin, and every guy's going crazy.

45:16 And at the end, he said, "Guys, was that awesome?" And they said, "Yes." He goes, "Can I teach you what the meaning of the words?" And every guy goes, "Yes." He goes, "Yadis ketana, small handle; chazi mechal, half a flush; yadis gedola, full handle; mechal mali is a full flush." The old toilets in Israel used to have two handles, a small one and a big one. And the boys were going crazy. Yadis ketana, chazi mechal. And that guy today is a super popular, super well known Rebbe, and maybe you could have seen it already in that tish. And there's something silly about the fact that these boys were saying words that they didn't know, but you know what? There's also something beautiful about the fact that a Jew can close his eyes and even say words that they don't understand, and maybe they are on some level connected. And it's very possible that the very big Talmud Chacham, who could quote Yeshas and Piskeim left and right, it's very possible that he's serving his intellect and that he's not serving Hashem.

46:15 Coming close to Hashem is not a joke. It doesn't happen in svarim. Svarim are awesome. We should learn, but we should not chas v'shalom confuse that just because we covered a certain ramban means you're any closer to Hashem. That's something that happens inside. That's something that you discover about yourself. And when you discover yourself, you discover the ramban v'shalom. Girls, have a wonderful shabbos.