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Every single word in the Torah is measured precisely. And there are no extra letters. Every single aspect of the Torah is one hundred percent divine. And therefore we see that sometimes in Chazal they darshan a letter A funny usage of a word. The what appears to be and is obviously not, but what appears to be the exception to the rule Is the building of the Mishkan. The entire story of the creation of Bria Saolam is only thirty-two psukim. But the story of the building of the Mishkan is over four hundred psukim. So If every single word. If every single letter is absolutely necessary Then as we examine the parshios of Vayakhel and Pekudei Obviously this year it's only Vayakhel. So we see that there's a redundancy Because in Truma and Tetzaveh There were hundreds of psukim that told us exactly how the Mishkan was meant to be built.
And in Vayakel Pekudei We have two hundred psukim that tell us exactly how it was built. So it seems to be redundant. It's like you know how they do like the architect's rendering of something. Like if you ever see like when they in this country when they build a house on paper. So you sit down with an architect and they have all these fancy razzle dazzle computer programs that show you exactly what the house is going to look like, and you can even almost walk through the house before the house is built to see what's going to be. So in Vayakel Pekudei It's like and this is what was. Is that absolutely necessary? You tell us what the base Hamikdash, what the Mishkan is going to look like, and that's what it looks like. So one question that we have to deal with today. Is what's the pshat that the Torah has to tell us? Not only what is going to happen, but what happened.
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Either just tell us what's going to happen, and then we'll assume that it happened. Or tell us what happened, and then we'll know that that's the way Hakadosh Baruch Hu told us to build it. Why does the Torah have to tell us both? So I want to be in this year. I want to be as real as possible with you. I'm going to try to say things in a clear and straight way, and not in a poetic way. There's a gap in this world between the real and the ideal. Many of us have a tremendous amount of difficulty with this concept. Right now, every single girl in this room. Has an ideal version of what her life looks like. If you actually took the time And I hope that actually I hope you do To take the time to chart out what your life could look like.
They ask you that question like on a job interview: Where do you want to be in five years? Where do you want to be in ten years? If I asked you to write an essay about what the ideal marriage you would want to have is. I imagine that you would say things like, "I'm just making up a story." I want to meet a guy who's kind. Who's responsible Who makes me laugh Who's a good father Who's empathetic Who's warm Who's community-oriented You would say all of these beautiful things And I want to date that guy, and I want him to love me and to feel safe with him. I want to get married, and this is what I want the wedding to look like. We all have a vision. We don't necessarily mentalize that vision, but we all have a vision.
And it's actually valuable to spend time thinking about what do you want your life to look like. I imagine that many of you, without even realizing, have done this. I bet you've pictured yourself walking down the aisle. I bet you've pictured yourself under the chuppah. I bet you've pictured yourself being that kallah to come out for that first dance and run through those arches. I don't know what happens after that, but all the zaken, all the things that happen. I imagine that you've pictured yourself walking into your first cute little apartment where it's just the two of you. I imagine that you've imagined for yourself like what it will be like to be a new mother and then to As Hashem, build a family. You might have even pictured yourself picking kids up from carpool and running around, shopping, having a baby on your hip, and also having a three year old in the shopping cart, and trying to keep everything together while you're going. You've built a life for yourself.
I imagine that you've pictured yourself even in conflict with your husband, and what would it look like to be in conflict with him? And you have this very beautiful picture And it ends. I'm skipping a couple of steps, and the picture ends. This very beautiful picture is a picture that I have of sitting on some porch. In my world it's like a wraparound. You have a wraparound porch around the house, and it's screened in, and you have a very beautiful view, and you have this sunset, and you're sitting in two rocking chairs. You're on one side, and he's on the other, and you have a cold glass of lemonade next to you. I have this whole thing pictured, and you don't even have to say any words. There's no words. You're just sitting there, next to each other, and there's this very beautiful, sort of end of the life.
Type of reality where you've just built a life together. It's a very beautiful vision. That's an ideal. But something is going to happen. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Something is going to happen at some point in the relationship. There's going to be. A chait. There's going to be a rupture. There's going to be some things that come into the relationship that make the ideal version of what you wanted in that relationship go askew. And you might marry a caring and kind and empathetic person, and he might be funny and he might be a great husband and he might be a great father. But you imagined in your head this conflict and you said, I'm sure. That right now in seminary, as I'm developing all of this emotional awareness and this emotional language, I'm sure that when we have a conflict, we'll sit down and we'll talk it through and we'll find a middle ground, and each one of us will want to be on the same side, only trying to make sure that the other person gets more than I do.
But Lamaisa, what happened in that rupture, in that moment of hate Lamaisa, you blew up at each other. And Lamaisa, you were yelling and saying things that you aren't proud of, and he was saying things that he's not proud of. And there was pain that was brought into the relationship. And in a certain way, now the relationship has a fracture to it. And things have now seemingly gone off course. That's where we're holding things; they went askew, they went awry. It didn't go exactly as planned. And now all of a sudden, the ideal relationship. That you meant to build, right? There was this, we'll call it, this journey, right? You're on this path, and it's supposed to be A, B, C, and now all of a sudden you're in A, B, X, Y, Z, and you see how the journey is just going a little bit skew.
And it's not what you thought it would be. It's very different than you thought it would be. That's called real. There's always a gap between ideal and real. And in that gap between ideal and real, there's chait. We live the ideal life until we don't. Until we bring something into the relationship that starts the path, that starts the journey, heading in a little bit of a different direction. And now all of a sudden, we're sitting here in this very real place, and we are And this is chaval. We're mourning. We're mourning. The ideal—it's dead. It'll never happen. I can no longer be that person. We're in a state of avelus over it. There's something beautiful about that state of avelus because any time we're misavel on something, any time we're mourning something, it means that we know what's deeply important to us, and the absence of it calls us into being.
The absence of something ideal in our lives raises a level of consciousness and awareness, and it teaches us to pay attention because this is not the life I want. And that's a beautiful thing. However In our state of avelus, if we mourn too much, there's halachas of avelus There's halachas of avelus. The halachas of avelus include seven days of shiva, shloshim, and a shana. But it's supposed to lighten up. If you're still sitting shiva Seventy, eighty, ninety days after the person has passed, it means you're holding on too strong to the avelus. Sometimes, in our state of real, we mourn the death of ideal and we let it go. We're like, there's no more ideal anymore. It's never gonna happen. It's over. It's finished. It no longer is an ambition. It's no longer horizon. It's like a couple that had this big fight. And because the relationship is no longer perfect They don't know how to find each other anymore.
And slowly but surely, because they don't hold on to the ideal version of the relationship They start to drift away from each other. This is called perfectionism. Many people in the room struggle with perfectionism, and even if you say I don't struggle with perfectionism, believe me, I'm the least perfect person. Sometimes the least perfect people are actually struggling with perfectionism a tremendous amount, because the whole reason they've given up is because if it's not perfect, it's nothing. Anyone here? Don't raise your hand. You could just show me by visualizing. So I already found one person in the room. That was a. I'm not going to say who it was, but there was a gift of a person who just went like this Thank you very much to that person. You know who you are. I appreciate it. But there are people that have so once it's not perfect, it's over. You ever meet people like that?
And sometimes they do it perfectly and amazingly, and sometimes it's like a zero. Why is that? It's because we have a tremendous amount of difficulty living with the dialectical tension. Of this is the ideal And this is the real. They're very stuck in between those two things. This is what I ideally ought to be doing, and this is really where I'm at. Most people, in my experience, once it's not ideal, it's over. It's like imagine a guy who comes to davening And he knows what it looks like to daven bechavana. But now he wakes up in the middle of shemona esrei. Do you ever have that moment where you wake up in the middle of Shemoneh Esrei and it's literally coming back? It's like coming back to consciousness. You ever wake up at Shema Kolenu and go, How did I get here? Did you ever have a moment where you're like, Wait a second, what bracha am I up to? And then you start to consciously remember the words that you weren't saying. You're like, Oh yeah, I just said Ropheinu, right? Like those words came out of my mouth.
Sometimes because. We've because we're not in the ideal state of davening. I'm not going to daven because I know what it looks like to daven amazing. Because I know what it looks like to daven be kavana. Because I know what the ideal is, and I know where I'm really at. It's not worth it to daven at all. Or the opposite. Because I know what the ideal is, and because I know where I'm really at, and because I know that right now I'm not at the ideal, what do I do? I say that's no longer the ideal. It's like imagine you're in seminary and you set for yourself an ideal And now after seminary you go through whatever you're going through, and now you're no longer in that place of living that ideal life. So you know what you do after seminary? You go like this. You go, that was just like the seminary bubble. That was just like the seminary fantasy. Rabbis are crazy. They just want us to follow the Torah all the time. Like this crazy thing. Listen to the word of God. We came back down to earth. What does that mean? It means that.
I know at some point that was the ideal, but I can't have that be the ideal anymore because that's not where I really am. Two things are allowed to be true at once. I could really be in place X. And ideally this is where I would be. And you don't have to sacrifice either one of those things. Really healthy people who have broad this is a key word perspective. People who perspective means that you're able to see multiple polarities at once. You're able to see this truth and that truth at once. It's the hallmark of great thinkers. That's why in yeshivas they study Gemara. I see Abayah's perspective. I see Rava's perspective. I see Rashi's perspective. I see Tossef's perspective. I see the Rashba's perspective and the Ramban's perspective and the Rambam's perspective. I see Rav Chaim's perspective and Rav Shimon Shkop's perspective. The Yisodeh Torah is to be able to take two opposing views and to be able to see the truth in both of them.
There's a real life and there's an ideal life. And both of them can be true. And a person has a responsibility on a psychological level, on a mussar level, on a growth-oriented level, to be able to say, "This is my ideal," and just because I'm not there, doesn't mean it's not an ideal. And this is my real. And just because I'm imperfect doesn't mean that where I am right now is not beautiful. Where I am right now is beautiful and precious, and it's a healthy part of my journey, even if that part of my journey is not going so well right now. It's a very difficult thing to do. There's an ideal that I have And just because I'm not living up to the ideal doesn't mean that that's not the ideal. That's the ideal. But also there's where I'm really at. And that real is very beautiful and very precious. And even if I'm not always proud of where I really am, it's a healthy step in my journey.
It means that I'm bad to go somewhere. I want to share with you a beautiful thing. Many, many, many years ago A young man of Sephardic heritage asked to come visit Mevaseret to check out the yeshiva. He was in a Sephardi yeshiva and he didn't feel like he was having the most growth-oriented year. He didn't feel like the chevra was what he was looking for, and he asked if he could come to visit Mavasar. He was given permission by his yeshiva to come visit Mavasar. And so he came and visited for the day. Relax, I didn't say like everyone's going to get married within the next year. That was very too vibrant of an amen for Torma Devora. It's usually when I make a bracha on a shachal, it's like amen. When I say everyone, but Hashem should get married to the right boy in the right time.
It's like amen. It's like a wild thing. I appreciate it. It's amazing. So this Sfardic young man comes to yeshiva and he sits in on the Rosh Hashanah shiur. He goes to morning seder, learns bechavrusa, and at the end of the shiur, I ask the boy. I said, "How was it?" He goes, "That was the most learning I've done all year. That shiur was incredible." During the break, he hung out with the guys. After the break, I said, "Get along with them." He said, "Absolutely. These guys are awesome." Afternoon seder, he went. He sat in on different shiurim. At the end of afternoon seder, he said, "Incredible." I went home. He stayed for the night seder. The next morning, he said, "The shiurim in this yeshiva are absolutely off the charts." I said, 'So, do you think you want to switch?' He said, 'No.' I said, 'I'm so curious. It sounds like your entire day was amazing.' He said, 'It was.'
I said, 'So, what's the problem?' He said, 'Too many Ashkenazim here.' So I got very upset. I don't like that. First of all, how many girls here are Sfardi? I want you to know. That's crazy. I did not realize who I was talking to. I want you to know I stand with your people. I will march with you. Your lives matter to me. We are saying that to you guys. I know that right now there's a girl sniping a picture of me. And I know this is about to become a meme. I'm just letting you know that I reserve the right to all memes. Only if underneath it it's Swarthi Lives Matter. Give it a minute. After she. After she. See, this how I get in trouble. So what happened? So what happened? I didn't realize we were actually interested in the content of the shir. I thought it was only the jokes. Yes.
So. So he says too many Ashkenazim here. I get very upset. It's one Klal Yisrael. What are we doing? It's ridiculous. He goes, No, Rabbi, you don't understand. I don't have a problem with whiteies. My problem is this. He said, "There's a big difference between a Sfaridi boy and an Ashkenaz boy." The Sfaridi boy He goes out at night. Maybe he shouldn't do what he's doing. He goes to a place, a silly place. It's like a strange place. It has this morph type of reality where, by day, it's a gentle fruits and vegetables place, and by night, it's a whole different type of experience. I'm saying, let's say. It's like marzipan ragalach or that. I don't know how one got to the other, but say. So let's say a Sfaridi boy goes there. So he goes, he does his averas. The next morning he wakes up and goes to davening.
He said the problem with Ashkenazim is they go to the same place, they go to the same shul. But the next morning they show up to davening and they go, how do I know there is a God? He's like, you know how you know there's a God? Because your mother told you there's a God Is what the Saudi boy said to me. He goes, I don't need an Eish HaTorah class to prove to me that there's a God, and just because I do an avera doesn't mean that there's no God. He said, I don't want to be around that environment and I want you to know I totally respect where he's coming from. We do not know how to do an avera in a normal and healthy way. When we do an avera I guess it's over now. What do you mean it's over? There's still the same ideal that there was. You're still on a journey. You just have no capacity to appreciate the beauty of this particular fall.
This is where you really are, and right now, in that moment, you can. There's something to be gleaned from that. There's something to be mined from that. There's godless in a fall. There's a way to lift yourself up after the fall, but so many of us, in our state of fallenness, we go. It's over. It's not over just because you fell. You don't have to lose the ideal just because you fell to a low place. There was a boy in yeshiva. I think I said this once. It was a boy in yeshiva who said, "Rebbe, I need to speak to you." We took a walk. As soon as we started talking, he started crying. What's going on? He said, "I'm going to tell you a secret, Rebbe. It's very embarrassing." Really, when I was in high school, I always knew I wanted to be a Rebbe. I was like, that's not so embarrassing.
It's okay. You're not going to be the biggest loser in the world. You don't have to be overweight with a beard. It's not part of the journey. You could be a skinny rebbe. You could be cool. So I said. So what's the problem? You want to be a rebbe? That's a beautiful thing. You want to give to Klal Yisrael. Rebbe. I think a lot of people think in high school that I was somebody that I wasn't. The truth of the matter is, I've eaten Burger King. Burger King's—that's not kosher. It's not like there's that move of like I keep kosher, but I eat non-kosher gum because I once heard this rabbi said it's okay. And then there's Burger King. That's not the same averu. Burger King. And he was bawling. I said I don't understand. What does one have to do with the other? He says you don't understand.
My rebbeim in high school They were malachim. And by the way, his high school rebbeim really were incredible people, high level Talmidei Chachamim. He's like, my rebbeim just never did those types of averas. It's just not possible for me to do those types of averas and then to be a rebbe. The dream is over. It's dead. I can't be a rebbe anymore. I started cracking up. I was like, your rebbeim were awesome. But what do you think they were like at sixteen? At 16 years old, you sit. You think they were sitting there, b'dusha v'taira, and they never made a mistake in their life. You know what he said to me? Yes I think my rabbim, every single one of them, was a top guy in his yeshiva the entire time. And because of that, he goes, once I did that avera, I knew it was over. Once I ate Burger King, that's it. It's the death of that dream.
Because he was a high school kid, he had a taiva, he had a ruach sh'tos. Why do any of us do averas? He didn't do anything. He didn't do anything by the way that we haven't done. You say I didn't eat Burger King. Okay, but we, every one of us at some point has done some avera. That's our Burger King. Every single person in this room crossed the line somewhere after tenth grade. Every single one of us at some point in this room did something that we're deeply not proud of. For us, it was our Burger King. Maybe it wasn't Burger King. It was our thing. I said and tell me and here in Mavasar you really look up to the rebbeim. He goes, I really look up to the rebbeim here. I said and tell me which rebbe really like, you look at and you're like So he mentioned the rebbe like this is his rebbe. It was all I could do to stop myself from bursting out of all the rebbeim in yeshiva. This rebbe was by far the most cracked out sixteen year old.
It's like every rebbe makes himself out like they were a crackhead in high school, but really they were fine. This rebbe wasn't; he was actually legitimately. All the stories they tell about him are wild. I meet people from his past, and they say he's a rebbe in Mabasa right now. I say yeah. He goes, you know, you meet that, did you hold him up? Because I don't want to throw him under the bus. I said to him, why don't you go speak to that rebbe? You can be imperfect and not throw out the baby with the bathwater. And that's a very hard thing for people to do. They think like now it's over. The ideal version has to be gone, and this is who I really am forever. I'll never grow because we all have our Burger King moment. That's the reality for most of us.
But the emes is that perfectionism is not exciting on any level to the Rebbeinu Shalom. That's not what he's looking for. It's not a Torah hashkafa. The word 'perfect' must be erased from the dictionary of Yehadus. There's a word called Shlemus, which means wholeness and completion. But wholeness and completion, by definition, mean imperfection. I'll explain what I mean. Let's speak for a moment in the world of a relationship first. I'm going to paint a picture for you. I'll paint two pictures for you. One, you're dating a guy. And he's perfect. Everything about him is absolutely exactly it. Don't. This is not the one you want to say I'm into. He's exactly. He went to this yeshiva. He had this rebbe, that rebbe that you always dreamed he would have. I'm talking about that rebbe. I know that rebbe. You are. I knew that rebbe from when I was a kid. Just like, for example, he was like a really good boy, and he went to this yeshiva, and then in Eretz Yisrael he went to this yeshiva, and he really shteig, and he's such a refined person. And he's got the perfect resume, and when you're dating him, every story about him is perfect.
Every single thing. He's like in a very humble way. He even says in a humble way, you're like, what did you do in the summer? And he's like, yeah, honestly, most of the time I was just learning, except for the three weeks at the end of the summer, I would do kiruv. It's like the perfect answer to every question. He's amazing, and every time the wind blows, it whispers the name Avram. Like it's just yeah. It's almost too good to be true because it is, because none of us are perfect. And in a certain way, you might fall in love with the image of him, but of course that's not him. I'll paint for you a very different relationship, and I guarantee you this one is the one you'll say I'm into if you're intelligent. You're talking to the guy and you're getting closer with him and the dates are going on a little bit longer. There's more trust and he decides to be vulnerable with you.
And he tells you things that he struggles with Places that he's been. He's not sitting there recounting his past. He's not owned by it. It's not like he's sitting there like when I was 15 years old. It's not like he's doing an inventory of the things he did after 10th grade. He's just sharing with you his journey, but he's real about it. And he's able to say, for me, trust is hard because I've been burnt before, but I've really worked on myself to try to be more trusting. But I know that it's something that will come up in a relationship, and I'm hoping that it's something that I'll be able to continue to rise above. It seems to me that the relationship is much healthier than the relationship where everything is perfect. If you fall in love with somebody who's perfect, you're bound to be disappointed.
But if you're able to love someone not despite their imperfections but because they own their imperfections, then they've really invited you in. That's why vulnerability is the birthplace of connection because when you share with somebody the parts of yourself that are more challenging, that's just code word for saying I want you to see all of me. We are not human beings on a spiritual journey; we're spiritual beings on a human journey. Which means that imperfection is exactly what Hakadosh Baruch Hu desires. Hashem doesn't want it to be perfect. He's not asking for it to be perfect. Hashem is saying, 'Can you invite me into the imperfections of your life?' That's no small matter. If we knew how much Hakadosh Baruch Hu craved our imperfections, then when we did an avera, we wouldn't lose everything. We wouldn't lose our minds. We would be like, I did an avera. This is an awesome opportunity for me to reflect inwards and to discover the person that I truly want to be and make moves towards being that person. It's an awesome opportunity for me to say, I don't want this anymore in my life. I want to stay in the world of appreciating.
I call this baruchu, but I don't need to be fake with God. I don't need to be fake with God. So many of us are fake because we're so afraid of being rejected. But the Torah has no interest in perfection. In fact We know that in this week's parsha, over 18 times it says that Moshe did exactly as Hashem commanded. What does that mean? Moshe did exactly as Hashem commanded. When they were building the Mishkan, let's say it was one millimeter off. Did they have the absolute perfect rulers? Is it possible that it was even just one tiny millimeter off? What is the Torah telling us? Says the Brisker Rav, the Torah is telling us something unbelievable. If it's a millimeter off, you know what it is? Exactly what Hashem commanded. It's not the pshat that it needs to be perfect in order to be what Hashem commanded.
In order for it to be what Hashem commanded, it needs to be. This is what I've put out there today. Is it exactly what Hashem wanted? Let's say this. Lashon hara is a really hard thing. I don't know why, by the way. I've never really fully unpacked why lashon hara is so gishmak. But I know it is. I know it tastes delicious. Even though it's so gross. But have you ever sat around with a group of friends and just trash a person? Everyone's done it. And there's power in that moment. It's like this, like it's geshmack. You see, again, everyone's lost themselves for just a couple minutes. Everyone's like tasting this delicious lashonar. I have no idea why it's delicious. But let's say a person is mekabel on themselves, the most unbelievable thing. They're mekabel on themselves. I'm gonna learn. The halachos of Lashon Hara every single day. You could do it. It takes less than three minutes.
They have these little books. They're amazing. They're in English. You could choose every single day to have a little Chabura. We learn three minutes of Lashon Hara every single day. And let's say you are makabel on yourself, machsom lefi. You know what machsom lefi is? Machsom lefi is you say for forty-five minutes, for an hour, for half an hour every single day. This is my half an hour where I say no Lashon Hara. I, you should know, for years I was makabel on myself machsum l'fi. From three o'clock in the morning to four o'clock in the morning, for years I mamish never said a word of lashon hara, and I was perfect. I never did it. I was perfect from the time I went to sleep till the time I woke up. Didn't say a word of lashon hara. Very deep, very inspired. It's very hard for sleepers. Girls. Let's say a person is makabel on himself machsum l'fi, and for half an hour every single day they don't say lashon hara.
And let's say they dafka made it at a time, ten to ten thirty at night. But maybe they were looking at the clock. And maybe there's a conversation going on, and they're going, don't get involved, because it's ten twenty-seven. And now it's ten thirty-one, and you go I gotta tell you, but you can't tell anyone. Isn't that the way we say lashon hara? I'm gonna tell you, but you can't tell anyone. The last half an hour in our head, what we say? The last half an hour. No good. It was out the window. Everything I just did for the last half an hour is because I was counting down the minutes until I could say lashon hara. If you didn't say lashon hara for half an hour, that's stunning. That's gorgeous. That's beautiful. It means for that half an hour, you were the ideal version of yourself. But Akoldish Baruch Hu is not asking. We're building a mishkan. Every one of us is building a mishkan. Every single moment of every single day we're building a mishkan.
But the mishkan is not going to be the exact measurements, and it doesn't mean that it's not the will of God. Today the will of God can be this, and tomorrow it might be a little bit more, and the day after that it might be a little bit more, and the day after that it might be a little bit less. And it doesn't mean that you're like I'm done. That's not the Mishkan. That's not what Hashem commanded. Am I not supposed to do what Hashem commanded? You're supposed to do what Hashem commanded. But what does that mean? What Hashem commanded? What means is I am on a path towards serving Hashem in its completion, which won't be perfect. It will still be beautiful. There were two tzaddikim There were two tzaddikim, and they were very different. But they were both talmidim, they were both chassidim of the same rebbe, Rav Simcha Bunim of Pshischa. You've heard of Rav Simcha Bunim of Pshischa?
In Pshischa The midah was emes. That was the midah. The midah was emes. But 'emes' means different things to different people. And there was a big tzaddik who became the Katsker Rebbe. You've heard of the Katsker Rebbe? And the Katskareba was sharp. Everything had to be absolutely perfectly true because he was a Chassid of R' Simcha Bunim of Sheischa. And everything the Katskareba did was truth. And if it was fake, he threw it out. He wanted nothing to do with fake. I once heard And I don't know if you'll—I don't know if you'll get this. It's not exactly a joke, but it's like. It's like a good var, but you have to chop it. You want me to sing a katsker niggun? You want to hear a katsker niggun? This is a katsker niggun. You ready for it? That's the whole niggun. That it's a deep var. There's all these nigunim with all their flowery, different.
Katsker was not interested. He was straight fire. And if he saw a Jew And that Jew was behaving shalok kedercha emes. Straight fire—that was the Kutzker's way. There was another Chassid of Rav Simcha Bunim. Whose name was Rav Yitzchok Varka. Rav Yitzchok Varka, the Varka was an unbelievable tzaddik And he also had the same exact midah of emes. But the midah of emes manifested itself completely differently. By Rav Yitzchok Varka Whenever he would see a Jew. If he was able to find even the slightest bit of truth within that Jew He would celebrate it. So if the Kotzker would see a person and the person was doing an avera and the person was flying all over the place, the Kotzker was straight fire at the guy, and he would bash him with emes until the person would change. And there's a certain school of thought that goes in that way.
Rav Yisroch Varka was exactly the opposite. He would, but it was also the midah of emes. It's the midah of emes, but in a different way. If he would see a Jew and that Jew was behaving in a way that was not according to the status of what it looks like to be a ben melech Rav Yitzchok Varka, when he would see that Jew He would finally find that one midah of beauty, that one midah of godliness within that Jew. He would say that's the truth of that Jew. They say a story like that about Rishloam of Freifeld, Zeichet Tzaddik Levrachu, was the founding Rosh Yeshiva Oshayaoshev, and there was a group of boys who were talking about a boy. Like this. I think it was a group of rebayim that were talking. It was the toelis. There was a group of rebayim, and they were talking about a boy, and they were saying this boy struggles with this, and this boy struggles with this, and the boy struggles with this, and Freifeld just goes, but you should know, he's a boy who helps other boys. Any time he can, he's a big balchesed.
That's a revitzchok varka mahalach. That's a varka mahaloch. The varka mahaloch is that if you see someone find their nikkuda of truth. And the emes is that in today's generation A katsker chassid is a dangerous way of being. It's a dangerous way of being, and you should know that when the katsker passed away, because the katsker was so fire emes that he locked himself at the end of his life. He basically locked himself in his room and he didn't come out because he said, "I don't want to see any sheker." Anyone who encounters any sheker in the world And big tzaddikim got together after the Kotsker Rebbe passed away. And they said the Kotsker Mahalich It's not a Mahalich that we that's sustainable. So for the Kotsker That was an appropriate way of being, but the tzaddikim wanted to make sure that this midah of truth, this midah of emes that came from Shizko, they said we can't continue that because it doesn't have the gentleness to appreciate finding the truth within imperfection.
And this has to be our mahalach today, especially in these moments before Mashiach comes, especially when things in the world are so tumultuous and especially when there is such a deep state of confusion. It's obligatory for every single one of us to embrace this Rav Yitzchok Varka mahalach of finding the beauty in the imperfection. To find the truth, even in that which is not ideal, to be able to say this my ideal and I can hold on to it, and yet this where I really am And that's also beautiful. There's also godliness in each step of the journey. Let's go back to our original question. We'll finish with this. Thirty-two psukim. The Torah says, "Here's the creation of the world." The creation of the world is unimpressive. It's not hard for God to create something from nothing. For Hashem, that's easy. It's 32 psukim. You know what's really hard?
It's really hard to build a mishkan. It's really hard for spiritual beings who are on a human journey to take all of the spirituality in the world and to make it materially manifest in this world, and to say here's a place where we serve Hashem. That's a really hard thing to do. You know why? Because there's two versions of the Mishkan. There's the ideal version of the Mishkan. That's the version of Truma to Tzav. It's the architect's rendering. I remember when my wife and I bought our apartment in Eretz Yisrael, we were still living in America. And these Kabanim, these contractors, they give you a folder And it's got the picture of the house on the front of the folder. There's all the contracts and everything inside, including the architect drawing. It's amazing. We were living in America, and I remember I had this folder on my desk. We had a three bedroom apartment, and I had an office and the first tiny bedroom. The folder used to be right there on the desk, and I would look at it, we're moving to Israel, and this is where we're going to live. The house looked like it had trees all around it. It looked stunning and gorgeous.
And I'm not Hashem disappointed. I get to live here in Eretz Yisrael, and my house Baruch Hashem is beautiful. But I remember when we moved into it "That's not the same as the picture. That's not like what I was staring at all those years in America." Because there's the ideal version. There's Truma Tetzave, hundreds of psukim of Hashem saying, 'This is what I want you to build.' And then the Cheta Egel happened And then real life, excuse me, real life occurred. And all of a sudden, those two hundred pesukim of Truma Tetzave of discussing exactly how Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants the world to be built. The dream fell. The couple had a fight. And they're in a state of rupture. The relationship is now off course, and it's going through this very difficult maslul. There are ups and downs, and things are all over the place.
And then there's this thing that you build. That's Vayakel Pekudei. And Hakadosh Baruch Hu's message to us is Vayakel Pekudei is Kasher Tziva Hashem. Vayaka pukude is exactly what Hashem wanted. You shouldn't think that just because Vayaka pukude happened after the Chet Ha'egel doesn't mean that Vayaka pukude wasn't good. That's exactly what Hashem wanted. There's the artist's rendering and it's gorgeous and it's stunning and it's beautiful. And then there's this other thing that's messy and incomplete, with cracks and fissures, full of confusion. I don't even know how I ended up in this funny place. And you should know that's also beautiful. That Sfarati kid was right. He could shteig all day and he could learn in yeshiva. And that's ideal. And then there's a night where he makes a bad mistake. But that kid was right. He knows how to say this is also kasher tzeva Hashem. Not that the mistake that he made was good, but it's also part of the journey, and it also gets him to where he ultimately wants to go. But it's not exactly the same as the perfect ideal version. We're not asked to be perfect and ideal. We're just asked to be oriented towards building a world for Hashem—that's what we're asked to do in this world.
It's not easy But it is one of the most important things we can do. You say, 'Why am I giving this year in Toma Devora?' We have a bunch of girls here who are ideal and who never make a mistake in their lives. Because we're holding now in a tefufa, where most of us have our eyes already on Purim And we know what Purim means. Purim means that what do we have left? Three weeks—it's crazy to think about. Three, four weeks till Pesach. This is a big break. What do we have after Pesach? Seven weeks, six weeks. That means we might have ten shiurim left. Crazy. Ten shiurim. I just landed. Don't you remember? I just landed. It was just September. I just came. I was just trying to figure out what my plans are for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. I was just getting to know all the girls. How did I get here? And you might be saying to yourself.
It's not what I dreamed. This year was messy. This year was complex. I started off in one place and ended up in a completely different place. And maybe not just physically Maybe spiritually. Maybe the year had downs that you didn't expect. Maybe you came into Talmud Torah saying, 'La elul, la elam, I'm going up and up, and it's never going to go down.' So now you might be sitting here and you might be Again, I'm sure you're not. You might be disappointed. You might be saying to yourself, "Did I do it?" Did I get everything I wanted? Maybe that dream I had was a silly dream. No. This moment that you have arrived at With everything that you went through that wasn't so good Was exactly kashat ziva asha. But there were times where I slept in. There were times where I went out. Every single thing you did. It doesn't mean the ideal is over, and it doesn't mean that the real isn't beautiful. It's kasher tzivasha, and it's important for yourself to build a narrative as you wind down this man to start to realize my journey wasn't expected, but it was exactly what I needed. Girls, have a wonderful Shabbos.
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