Vayechi - Finding Our Emotional Footing in Exile

1:52 It continues. It's closed. It doesn't have those spaces. It's not open. So Rashi says, Parsha Stuma. It's because something else was closed. What was closed? The eyes and the hearts of Klal Yisrael became closed in this week's Parsha when Yaakov Avinu died. Mitzoras Hashibud. And why did it? Why did their eyes get closed? Because of the suffering of the enslavement. Meaning, when did the enslavement of Klal Yisrael really begin? From when Yaakov Avinu died, thus begins the Shibud Mitzrayim, begins the servitude. We became slaves in Mitzrayim after that, and our hearts and our eyes were closed. Our eyes and our hearts were closed. That's one pshat in Rashi. Rashi offers a second pshat. Don't worry, we're going to ask a lot of questions on this. Rashi offers a second pshat, and he says, "Davar Acher, shebi'kesh legalos asakets lebanav." What happened?

2:49 Yaakov knew at the end of his life he wanted to tell his children when Mashiach was going to come. He wanted to tell his children when Mashiach was going to come. V'nistem u'miyanu, and it was closed off from him, meaning he was not allowed to tell us the date that Mashiach was going to come. So we have in front of us two answers. Which is repeat it, make sure everyone gets it. It's a parsha stuma. It's a closed parsha. Why? Because one of two things were closed. The first shot in Rashi says what was closed. Our eyes and our hearts. Why were our eyes and our hearts closed? Because Yaakov Avinu died. Shibud Mitzrayim started the slavery in Egypt started, and that's why our eyes and our hearts were closed. And it reflects that in the parsha. The second answer is whose eyes were closed? Not our hearts, not our eyes, but the eyes of Yaakov Avinu. That Yaakov Avinu wanted to tell us when is Mashiach going to come.

3:44 And it was closed off. He was not allowed to reveal the end of days. Those are the two pshatim in Rashi. Let's go through now. Let's ask a bunch of very serious but very significant questions. And this Torah that we're going to share tonight is a life-changing Torah. It's a game-changing Torah. Every Torah is game-changing. This one in particular is a game-changing Torah. It's an interesting thing that the parsha itself, the text of the Torah itself, the way that it's written, reveals something about the parsha itself. In other words, the safer Torah was written in a closed way to reveal that something was closed in the story, either the heart, either the eyes and the hearts of Klal Yisrael, or Yaakov Avinu's ability to reveal to us the date of Mashiach.

4:40 But it's interesting. That's a very tenuous connection. It's in the Sefer Torah itself. It tells you something about the story. You don't have that anywhere else. Imagine you were reading Harry Potter. You girls all read Harry Potter? We don't read anymore. There's a concept called books, right? Before the movie, there's a script. Sometimes before the script, there's a book. If you would read, and by the way, that's something you should do in your life. Read books. It's healthy for you. Good books, obviously Jewish books, but let's say you read and you saw something interesting in the book itself, in the way that it was written. You wouldn't naturally say to yourself, "Oh, that tells me something about the story." What tells you something about the story, girls? The words, not the way that it's written. It's not like it's like. Could you imagine somebody making like a dioc in Harry Potter? Like, I see that J. K. Rowling really could have put chapter thirty-two and thirty-three together.

5:38 The fact that she didn't put chapter thirty-two and thirty-three together tells me something about the story itself. That's exactly what Rashi is saying. Rashi is saying every other time there's a space. This time there's not a space. It's closed. It tells you that something was closed in the story. Why would we see it reflected in the Sefer Torah itself? Here, so that's our first kasha for tonight. A second kasha for tonight. What does Rashi mean exactly when he says Yaakov Avinu died and the Shibud Mitzrayim started? Did the slavery of Mitzrayim start when Yaakov Avinu died? When did it really start? Later on. When what? When the Shvatim passed away. Not when Yaakov Avinu died, but when all of his children died. So it's very interesting here that Yaakov Avinu, according to Rashi, he says Yaakov died. The Shibud Mitzrayim started. The Shibud Mitzrayim didn't start till after everyone passed away. So what is the pshat over here that he identifies it now by Yaakov Avinu? That's the second question.

6:36 The first question is why does the safer Torah itself tell me something about the story? The fact that it's a parsha stuma, the fact that it was written as a run-on sentence. That one parsha connects to the other. That's strange. The second one is Gallas Mitzrayim started after the Shvatim passed away, not after Yaakov even passed away. But if it's closed off, wouldn't that be the opposite of it running on? What I mean to say, it's closed off in the sense that it's not. There's no break in between. It's closed, meaning it's not like. Usually, there's an open space in between the parshiyos. Here, there's no open space. It's closed, so to speak. When I say it's a run-on sentence, that's what I mean. Let's ask a third question. I want to ask a lot of questions tonight because I want to get to something very deep. Let's ask a third question. Rashi is very specific about his language. Rashi doesn't waste words. It's interesting the words he says. What was closed? The heart and the eyes of Klal Yisrael. Those don't mean the same thing, do they?

7:33 If it just meant what, and by the way, what does it mean? What does it mean in general for your eyes and your heart to be closed? It's not obvious either. What do those words mean? But whatever they mean, we have to unpack what they mean. It seems that Rashi is separating between our eyes being closed and our heart being closed. Which one would you naturally identify? I'm just curious. Which one you identify eyes as being closed? Maybe, like you close your eyes, that's natural. Or your heart could be closed because that would be like what? Like I'm emotionally disconnected. Like distance from yourself. So we have to figure out what exactly Rashi means when he says Yaakov Avinu died, the Golah Mitzrayim, the Shevet Mitzrayim began, which as we mentioned a moment ago didn't really begin until much later, but something happened that now not, and we're not looking for answers yet. Now the eyes and the heart are closed. What exactly does Rashi mean by that? And the last question.

8:28 Maybe this is not the last question. Maybe it's two last questions, but we'll put them together a little bit. Is what does Rashi mean? Whenever there's two pshatim in Rashi, they're always connected. We have here: Rashi says either Klal Yisrael's heart and Klal Yisrael's eyes were closed, or maybe Yaakov Avinu's capacity to share with us the date of Mashiach was closed. Those seem to be very different things. They don't seem to go in the same direction at all. They seem to be two completely different answers. And we know that whenever Rashi gives two pshatim, the answers like they like sort of merge together. It's like two sides of one coin. Here, the two sides seem to go very, very differently. It's either Klal Yisrael's eyes were closed or Yaakov's eyes were closed. Are these really one and the same? Maybe. How do they express the same concept in different ways? And also, why does Yaakov Avinu want to reveal to us the end of days? What's that all about? What does he want to tell us the end for? And by the way, is that a good thing to tell you the end?

9:26 Imagine if you were reading a book. I will do with a movie. Imagine you like there was a movie. I don't want to tell you the name of the movie. There was a movie many years ago. It doesn't matter what the name of the movie is. There was a famous movie back in the '90s. This was like the movie, and it was the ending of the movie was very famous because the whole time in the movie you think it's one thing, and then at the very end you find out that the entire story just from like one little thing. Find that the entire story was really something completely different. Imagine if you watched that movie backwards. How bad would that be? There's a famous story in a certain camp. I won't tell you which camp. Mizrach. There's a. I was just telling you. There's a tradition in Klias. I wasn't telling you the name of the camp. There's a famous story in an unnamed camp, Mizrach, that they were there was a it was a rainy day and they put this movie on in the camp. It's a clean movie. They put the movie on in the camp.

10:24 And somebody walked in, like a counselor walked in, and he was in a bad mood, and he just goes, "It's the," and reveals the end of the movie, and everyone wanted to kill him. You don't want to know the end, isn't that part of the excitement? Like the drama of the movie is not knowing what happens. That's why the end of the movie, right? Like if it's a great movie, at the end of the movie, you're like holding onto the edge of your seat, right? You're so drawn into the movie because you want to know how it's going to end. And if it's a great movie, the ending is amazing, right? And if it's a bad movie, you're like, that was such a letdown. Like, you drove me all the way to that final point, and then it didn't hit it home. The end is what makes it great. The not knowing is what makes it great. Yaakov Avinu wants to tell us the end. That's so. It's so not Jewish. Like the whole notion of Judaism is like this vulnerable. I don't know where I'm heading. Like Avram Avinu lech lecha.

11:20 Go, leave everything behind. Where are we going? I'll tell you when we get there. There's something very dramatic about not knowing. And here Yaakovinu is like, let me just tell you the end. I don't want to know the end of the story. Who wants to know the end of the story? Yaakovinu wants to tell us the end. So we have so many questions. Should we review them real quick? Let's review them real quick. I myself don't know if I could repeat them all. Let's see if we could review them real quick. Number one, the Sefer Torah itself is stuma. It's written as a run-on from Vayigash, and that somehow gives us an indication of what's happening in the story itself. That's strange. Number two, we don't know what it means that Yaakov Avinu's—I'm sorry—that Klali Yisrael's hearts and our eyes were closed. What exactly do those terminologies mean? And anyway, that's not exactly when Shibud Metzrayim started. Shibud Metzrayim didn't start until after the Shvatim died. So here, Rashi identifies it as when Yaakov Avinu died. That's very strange. Then we said, how do these two Pshatim and Rashi go together? One is speaking about Klali Yisrael, the other is speaking about Yaakov Avinu. They seem to be two totally different directions.

12:18 Can we put these things together? Are they really one thing with two sides of one coin? And finally, what's the value in knowing the end of the story? We don't want to know the end of the story. I want to be mystified when Mashiach comes. Like it's not going to be an awesome day. There's a story with the Lubavitcher Rebbe. By the way, you can talk about Mashiach without talking about Lubavitch. Just for the record, Mashiach is not only for Chabadsters. We're trying to share it with the rest of the Pla Yisrael. It's a good thing. But there's a beautiful story with the Rebbe that the Rebbe's room was the only room in 770 that was locked. The Rebbe's office, and there were kids that were running around outside of the Rebbe's office, not knowing that the Rebbe was inside of there, and they were talking about kids hanging out. They were talking about what it's going to be like when Mashiach comes, like how Mashiach is going to come, and each kid had his own pshat, like how Mashiach is going to come, and they didn't know that the Rebbe was in the office listening to every word that they said.

13:15 And he walked out of the room, and the kids were like, 'Oh my God, the Rebbe was in there the whole time.' And the Rebbe looked at him and said, 'Mashiach will come just like this, just like walk out of a room and say, 'Like I'm Mashiach.' Like that's going to be an amazing day, right? It's going to be like you know, like the Houthis, like have the sirens going off, and you're like, 'It's 2:30 in the morning.' I wasn't expecting it, right? The problem is not the sirens anymore. The problem is like it's 2:30 in the morning. I wasn't expecting a siren. I thought I was going to have a good night's sleep. When Mashiach comes, it's going to be the craziest story. Everyone's going to be like, 'Where were you? I totally didn't see it coming. I was shopping.' I didn't see it coming. I was here. I was there. I don't want to know the end. The end is amazing because it's because I don't know when it happens. Why would Yaakov even want to tell us the end? I want to share with you something very special to me. And it goes like this. There's something called being rooted. And there's something called losing your roots and becoming disoriented.

14:13 I'll explain it a little bit because it's not obvious what these things mean. We come from places that give us a sense of okayness. Let's say for example, if someone Chassid shalom loses a parent, and that parent was their everything. That parent always told them you're awesome, you're a rock star, you could do anything. You know those people in your life that give you a sense of being. They give you a sense of self. They root you. They tell you no matter where you go in this world, you won't just be blown away by the wind. My father tells a story of the one time that he met Shlomo Carbach. That Shlomo Carbach came over to him and he said, "Don't let the wind blow you away." My father was not moved by that emotionally at all. But whenever he tells me the story, I'm like, that's a pretty profound thing to say to somebody. The wind is blowing outside.

15:11 And a person, if they know that they're okay, if they know that they're firmly planted, if they know that they're deeply rooted, then it doesn't matter what winds come; they're not going to be blown away because they have a sense of self. That sense of self is a gift that we get from parents, from the time we are born, and it's something we carry with us throughout our lives. That sense of self is a gift that we get from parents, from teachers, from camp counselors, from division heads, right? Combine short, choppy sentences into fluid sentences. Fix punctuation errors to ensure grammatical correctness. Preserve original vocabulary - do NOT replace words with synonyms unless grammatically necessary. And those people in our lives—they play such an important role because they tell us, 'You're here,' and then, and this is a reality of life, and there is no avoiding this. Those people who loved you into being will one day pass away. That's a fact. The people that we love—they're not permanent, and it is the most painful thing in the world.

16:05 To lose the thing that you feel gave you permanence in your life, I'll share with you very personally. Again, Baruch Hashem, I'm blessed to have a number of people in my life that I feel gave me a sense of self. But one of the people that gave me a deep sense of self was my grandmother. My grandmother was a second mother to me. She was my inspiration in ways that I cannot possibly articulate. My mother is a baalat tshuva. My mother did not grow up in an Orthodox home. My grandmother became frum at 70 years old. At 70 years old, she started keeping Shabbos. At 70 years old, she started dressing tznius. At 70 years old, I think she always kept some sort of kosher home. I don't know exactly what level, but she wouldn't eat out anymore, not kosher. She became judgmental of all of my cousins that weren't observant. She was fully Orthodox. In fact, I remember once we had a bar mitzvah for one of my cousins in Crown Heights because where were the cousins going to get a bar mitzvah? So we had a bar mitzvah, and one of the cousins was walking with an umbrella on Shabbos.

17:03 And you're not allowed to have an umbrella on Shabbos. My grandmother couldn't believe he was holding an umbrella. I said, grandma, he drove here. Why do we care about the umbrella? She was an amazing person. None of us could do anything wrong in my grandmother's eyes. She loved us no matter what. She never got upset. The most upset she could get was if we were tearing around her apartment, running like mishuganas. She lived in an apartment building, and the hallway had echoes. We would run up and down the hallway screaming like macho ginos. I can't imagine she was so happy about that. The harshest thing she ever said to us was, "Simmer down, now, boys. Simmer down." That was the angriest she ever got. No matter what I did, and I did some things I'm not proud of. My grandmother would say, "That wasn't your best self." She was the sweetest, nicest person in the world. She was healthy until she was 90 years old. She was living in an assisted living facility in New Jersey.

17:59 And COVID broke out, and somebody passed by her in the hall that had COVID, and three weeks later she passed away. She was healthy, and my aunt, my grandmother's older sister, lived to be over a hundred. Alpidarachatava, I could have had again. Who knows? Obviously my grandmother went in exactly the right time, but for me it was like she was torn away from me. I couldn't go to America for the funeral. Nobody could travel. I am the family rabbi, so I always knew in my heart that I'm gonna be privileged to bury my grandmother, I'm going to be there at the end. I'll be there with her in the hospital. I'll say vidui with her. I'll give the speech by the lavasha. Like I'll be there with her. Like I'll give her kavod acher and I'll pay final respects to her. I didn't get to do any of that. Her funeral was on Zoom for me. I lost, and again, all of us have had this in the world. Just think for yourself. Maybe you haven't lost that person yet, but you have that person that makes you feel like you're good, you're golden. I lost that.

18:56 And I'm going to tell you the craziest thing. Obviously, I was sad beyond measure because of various timing issues around COVID. Because so many people passed away, they couldn't produce headstones fast enough. So until my grandmother's unveiling, it was like maybe close to two years later. Until everybody could get to America to be there for the unveiling, it took a tremendous amount of time. Obviously, I was there for the unveiling. I'm not going to miss my grandmother's unveiling. She was a second mother. She came on vacations with us. Like you know that grandmother that comes on vacations with you. Baruch Hashem, my father was a good—he was a good son-in-law. Like she always came on vacations with us. He didn't mind. By the by, the unveiling, I got up to speak. I thought I was fine, and all of a sudden, a torrential downpour of tears came out of me that I never knew existed.

19:55 I never knew it was in me. I thought I had cried what I needed to cry, and I could not gather myself to be able to give her the eulogy that I wanted to give her. I had never spoken at the funeral. It was on Zoom, and I had these words prepared to talk about how special she was. My family is gathered there. My extended family is there, and I'm sitting there crying like a two-year-old who has no control over themselves. Like when you just can't gather yourself. And my father walked up behind me. It was his mother-in-law. He walked up behind me, and he just sat with me, like rubbing my back. I was in my 40s. I do like to think that I have some sort of emotional balance in my life. I could not gather myself. Afterwards, the experience was, I couldn't believe that I was so emotionally disconnected for that close to two-year period.

20:52 After my grandmother passed, it turned out I was holding all of these feelings that I didn't even know existed. They were living inside of me, and I was totally unaware of them. When we lose the people that root us, it doesn't mean that we're unrooted, but what happens is this is the key word here: we become disoriented. It's like you were heading in a certain direction, and now all of a sudden, everything you knew is gone, because life is not permanent. Now I could still hear my grandmother's voice. It's inside of me. I could call it up, and it's not something I can share with you. I could share with you the words that she would say, but the tone—I hear it inside of me. It lives right here, and I could hear it in my inner ear. I could hear her saying, "Like I have a picture of her in my office. It was the last time that I went to see her. It was the best gift that any talmidim have ever given me. I went to America for Yarchei Kallah for NCSY, and it was in Deal, New Jersey."

21:48 And a bunch of guys drove early in the morning, four o'clock in the morning. They drove from Queens to Deal, New Jersey, because I didn't have a car to pick me up to drive me to my grandmother's assisted living facility. We had breakfast with her. Then they drove me back to Deal and then back to Queens. They must have spent seven or eight hours in the car. These guys, I didn't know it. That would be the last time I would ever see my grandmother, and that breakfast that we had. We took a picture with her, me and her. We took a picture together, and she was totally lucid, and she had intelligent things to say, and her eyes were open. Somehow my grandmother's eyes are closed in every picture, and that picture sits on my desk. I want you to know that sometimes if I'm talking to a talmud or I'm talking to a client, whoever it is I'm talking to, and I see her picture right there, I could almost hear her voice inside of me guiding me what to say. Like it's alive.

22:40 And when we lose the people that are so important to us, we become disoriented on two levels. Number one, we spoke about emotionally disconnected, not connected to the real feelings that are occurring inside of you. We become disembodied. There's stuff happening in our inner world and we're totally unaware of it. And the other thing is we lose our sight, we lose our vision. What does it mean to lose your vision? I don't know where I'm going anymore. Like life was headed in this direction and then all of a sudden this tragedy occurred and now it's like, I don't even know where I am. Like for example, just as a silly example, and then we'll get a more serious example. Imagine you were dating somebody and you were on the verge of getting engaged, and then all of a sudden you had this terrible fight, and then you're broken up, and it's like heartbreak is very different than just sadness. You could even use the word heartbreak. What happens when you talk to a girl after she's heartbroken, after she just broke up with this guy? She goes, I don't even know what to do next.

23:37 I had this plan. We were getting married, and now what? You know what I'm saying? I don't mean to say that it's a silly example. Obviously, that's a very serious example, but it's not anything close to imagine what the families of people who lost people on October 7th, imagine what that was like. You knew clearly, life is going in this direction. My kid comes home at night. Your kid leaves in the morning, your kid comes home at night. Imagine one time Chassv Shalom. And is what happened on October seventh? That kid's not coming home. That kid's a hostage, and I never know when that kid is coming back. Or my kid went off to war and is a soldier in the Israeli army, and I live with a certain dread of getting that phone call. My sister had a baby boy. I missed the bris because I was in America for a day this past week. My new nephew, his name is Adir Moshe. He's named after Eli Moshe Zimbalist, Hashem Yikom Dama, who was like.

24:35 A son to my mother, he literally grew up in my mother's house. He lived a couple doors down from my parents, and my mother was very close to Eli Moshe. Eli Moshe was a soldier. He was killed in Gaza. This is a real thing. You can imagine how emotional it is for my family. I'm so sad that I missed the Bris. You can imagine how emotional it was for my family when my sister was named after Eli Moshe, because ever since then, I'll be honest with you, ever since then, life is just a little bit different. It's like Eli Moshe is part of the family. Like Eli Moshe is one of us. He's like my he's not my brother, but he's my mother's son. You know what I'm saying? And then one day you get the phone call. He's not here anymore. And it's like, well now where do we go? Because it's like I was driving the car and the roads are closed now. That place where I was going, it's just not there anymore. So two things happen when we lose our sense of being rooted. Number one, we become disconnected from ourselves. We become emotionally disconnected. And the other thing that happens is now what?

25:29 Where do I go? What's my vision? Where am I heading in my life? That's like a confidence that every one of us should always have. We should always know. I'm doing this. I go to Bear Miriam, and then I'm gonna go to I'm just making something up. It doesn't have to be your plan. I'm just making up a plan. I'm gonna go to Bear Miriam, and then I'm gonna go to Turo, and I'm gonna become a speech therapist or a physical therapist or occupational therapist. And I'm saying, I'm gonna live in the city. Or maybe I'm going to live in Brooklyn, but I'm definitely going to have roommates. And I hope to be married by the time that I'm a fetus. You know what I'm saying? You have a plan. Life is very comfortable because you have a plan. But what happens if something happens and all of a sudden my plan got thrown into total disarray? Somebody got sick or somebody passed away. That thing that gave me that sense of rootedness is now gone, and it's like, now what? This is the condition of exile.

26:24 When we speak about gullus, what we really mean is that gullus means I'm disconnected from my sense of self. When we speak about gula, when we speak about redemption, redemption means I am in self. In self means I feel my feelings. In self means I have a clear direction in my life. I know where I'm going. I have that sense of confidence. I want to share with you. I got off the phone. I probably shouldn't tell this story, but I'm so proud of him. I got off the phone literally two seconds before I walked in. I was on the phone with a Talmud 20 minutes ago. Not 20 minutes, more than 20 minutes ago. But I was on the phone with him for about 25 minutes. Amazing guy. And so healthy, so psychologically aware. One of the real deal guys. Serious about his learning, but just as serious as he is about his learning as Avodas Hashem, he's serious about himself. He's serious about growing as a person.

27:18 And he called me up because he says Rebbe, I think I want to go back to therapy because I'm realizing now in my process that I think there's repressed feelings that I've never felt. I don't want to be that way. I want to be able to show up with my whole self to a relationship. And he's calling to ask me the question: Does that mean I should stop dating until I get there? Doesn't matter what the answer was, but do you hear the question? That's a great guy. That's an all star. A guy who shows up and he's like, I want to be deeply connected to myself so that I can be deeply connected to others. And I know that I'm not connected. He said to me, 'He goes, I know that the things that are lacking in my relationship with Hashem are not about Hashem; they're about myself. They're about my own unresolved issues that I never worked through. And I want to go back to therapy to work them through.' And he said, 'Rabbi, does that make sense?' I said, 'of course. Our issues with davening are not about davening. Our issues with davening are about our own things that are going on inside of us. That's a state of exile. Let's go back.'

28:12 Let's go back. We're going to go in reverse order here. Yaakov Avinu says, 'Let me tell you the end,' because Yaakov Avinu is our grandfather who rooted us. That's what he was. Imagine what it was like to be one of Yaakov Avinu's children. You come down to Eretz Yisrael. Where's your family? Where do you live? You don't live in Eretz Yisrael. Where do you live? You're Canaanite. You're Eretz Yisraelic. You're Israeli. You come down, and now it's like there's a famine. There's a story. Yosef was in Mitzrayim. Yosef's the viceroy. There's a famine. Chaver, we're going down. And it's like you know exactly where you're going because there was a bris bainabasarim. There was a covenant that Hashem made with Avraham Avinu. And what did Hashem say in that covenant? You're going to go down into Galus. So it's like, okay, we're going down into Galus. So what was Yaakov Avinu's role? Every step of the way, what was Yaakov Avinu saying to his children? Chaver, we're going to be okay. It's okay.

29:10 You ever have? You can do me a favor. Thanks so much. Imagine, you ever have somebody in your life that just gently says the words, "It's okay to you." You know what a gift that is? Like when you're not okay for somebody to just go, "You're okay. That's okay." That's the most amazing gift. That's the gift that Yaakov Yemu did. His kids were terrified. We're going down into Galus Mitzrayim. We're going to go to the lowest place in the world. Not just morally. Spiritually, everything in Mitzrayim was a deep disconnection from myself. Yaakov Avinu was the guiding light that kept saying to us over and over again, like my grandmother, "It's okay, we're going to be okay. It's okay." So now, at the end of his life, Yaakov Avinu says to himself, "My kids, without me, they're going to become totally discombobulated." So he says, "You know what I can do? I could tell them when it's going to be over."

30:07 Yaakovinu doesn't want to take the mystery away. He knows that we want the mystery. He knows that we want the vulnerability of not knowing how the story ends. But he says maybe if you know when it'll be over, maybe if you have the assuredness that it's going to be okay. You say, like, I mean, imagine Chassid Shalom. I have a chaver of mine. We should all daven for him. Have a chaver of mine. His name is Rabbi Jonathan Cohen. Rabbi Jonathan Cohen unfortunately has cancer and he's sick right now. And he could use a tremendous refuah shleima. Every limatayr that we have, every shir that I give, is in the schus of his refuah shleima. You should know. Even at my daughter's wedding, we stopped and we said Tehillim under the chuppah. Everybody said Tehillim for him and for all the chayalim and for all the chaturvim. It's gehennom. What's going to be with my life, right? But imagine if he knew the date. Imagine if somebody came. Imagine if a navi came to me and he said, Jonathan, on this date.

31:02 You're going to get called into Hadassah in Karem Hospital, and the doctor's going to tell you you're cancer-free. What would his life be like? How different would it be? Of course, it would still be hard. Of course, there's still treatments. Of course, a lot of things are going to happen. But it'd be like, I just have to make it until then, because you don't have to deal with the vulnerability of life if you know the end of it, right? It's like girls who are dating and they're having a hard time finding their chassam. If somebody would come to them and go, you should know that March 23rd of 2000 whatever is the date that you're going to get married. They'd be like, cool. Then it's all fine. Then all of a sudden they don't have to worry anymore. So Yaakovinu says, "When I'm gone, I know that you guys are going to get this compopulated. So let me just tell you the date that it's over." But of course, what does Hashem tell him? That's not the way life works. You don't get to know the end of the story, and you can be—and this is super important, critical lesson. I've had to learn this the hard way, so I hope I'm sharing it with you. Maybe you girls can avoid some of the pain here.

31:59 It's okay to be discombobulated. That's how you learn to be in self. It's okay to not know the end, because what do you discover? You discover that Yaakovinu, even after he's gone, he's not really gone. Even after Yaakovinu passes away from this world, he's still with us, and we can always draw from that power of Yaakovinu. And that's why the Gemara says, Gemara in Tanya, Gemara Olam Adal says, Yaakovinu lo mes, Yaakovinu never dies. That even though he's physically gone, Yaakovinu lives on. The power that we draw from that person that tells us we're okay, they're always with us. So Hashem says, no, stuma. It's a closed parsha. Don't tell them the end. They'll learn to be okay, and that's even more beautiful. So we answered two questions in Rashi so far. We understand now what it means that our hearts are closed. It means we're emotionally disconnected. We know what it means that our vision.

32:53 Is closed. It means that we're disoriented. We don't know where we're heading in life. And we answered why Yaakov Venu wants to give us the end. He wants to tell us what's going to be because he knows we're going to be unrooted. And now we understand these different Pshatim and Rashi. It's all the same thing. We're going into a state of being discombobulated. We're going to be discombobulated within ourselves. Yaakov Venu says, "But let me take it away from them. You can't take it away. Being discombobulated, being disoriented, is part of the process." How did this answer the question of why there was? We didn't get there yet. That's the one I want to answer right now. I didn't answer yet. All I said was, we know that there was no break. It was stuma because Yaakov Venu wasn't allowed to give away the answer because we have to learn that we're okay even when we're not. And number two, we know what it means that it was stuma from within us that we were disoriented. That's the natural state of things when we lose a Yaakov Venu in our lives. I want to tell you this the deepest one, and this the var that I heard from my friend Rabbi Akiva Block. He had this with me this morning.

33:50 A beautiful art from the Charkavir, unbelievable art. Listen to this. Why is it in the Sefer Torah itself? We don't darshan that she separated chapters. So he says an unbelievable art. If a Jew is in pain, it's reflected in the Sefer Torah itself. If a Jew is in pain, it means the Sefer Torah is in pain. The Sefer Torah itself, the physical Sefer Torah, reflects our state of being disoriented, that we don't know when one thing ends and another thing begins. We're totally disoriented. It's exactly like Hashem is with us in our pain. That's exactly what it's like. When we're struggling and we're disoriented, Hashem is right there with us in those moments. The Sefer Torah itself.

34:47 Reflects the fact that we're lost. It reflects the fact that our eyes and our hearts are closed. I want to share with you this story. It's a very meaningful story to me. There's a person in my family who got sick. Baruch Hashem they're well. But many years ago, this person was diagnosed with an illness. But it's the type of illness that when you hear its name, you go, "Ooh, that's a scary one." Like one of the scary words. It was very hard for me emotionally because I love this person so much, and it was so hard for me. Seeing them in pain, but it was also—I'll be very honest—it was very hard not knowing. Like, okay, what's going to be with this person in their life? And I woke up one night, and it was like three o'clock in the morning. I was living here in Israel at the time, and I woke up and I thought there were tears on my cheeks. I must have been crying in my sleep. And I woke up, I couldn't go back to sleep, and I went and I called my rebbe who lives in America, and seven hours behind, so even though it was three o'clock in the morning, it was a normal time to call him. And my rebbe knew what was going on. He knew that this person was sick.

35:43 And I said to my rebbe, I'm so angry at Hashem. I really am. I'm so angry. How could this happen? What did this person do to deserve this? What did we do as a family to deserve this? How could this happen? And my rebbe was very kind, and he really just listened to me in my pain, and he didn't try to give me any fake answers or anything. And then somehow it popped out of my mouth. I said, I just want to know that Hashem is with me in my pain, that He didn't do this to me, but that He's sitting with me next to me.

36:13 And my Rebbe said to me, "That's the pshat that the Shechina went down to Mitzrayim with Klal Yisrael. That we know that 70 people went down to Mitzrayim. There's only 69 listed in the pasuk. The Medrash offers different answers about who actually went down. One of the answers is that Hashem went down with us. That Hashem is with us in our pain. That when we're in our state of being totally disoriented and we're closed off from our emotions and we're disoriented, I don't know where I'm going in my life, you should know." Hashem is exactly with you in that place. The Sefer Torah is—it's expressing that idea. The Sefer Torah, as the representation of Hashem, the Sefer Torah itself is in that state of disorientation. It's in that state of being confused, in that state of being cut off. To tell you what, that Hashem is with you in your pain, and that is the greatest gift that you could know. That when everything in your life is going wrong, you're not alone. That's the greatest gift. That's the gift of emuna. That's the gift of faith. That life is going terribly.

37:10 It doesn't mean it's going. It doesn't mean that anything is going off plan. Obviously, Hashem's plan doesn't change. But you feel so broken, but you know Hashem is with you in that moment. That's the greatest gift that you could ever have, to know that you're not alone. And I think that's why we need to be together. And Rabbi Block shared the following addition to the var. Girls, the beginning of the parsha is Tumah, right? The beginning of the parsha is connected to Vayigash, but the end of the parsha is what? It's open, and the next chapter begins with Shmos, and there's a break. The beginning is closed, but the end is open. But the end is even worse. That's the gift. That as you go into galus, right, as you start that real physical shibud, right, the galus begins not physically. The galus began when the shvatim died, but spiritually, when did the galus begin? When Yaakov died, because we lost our person that told us it's going to be okay. But now, at the end of the parsha, as we're going into galus, it's open again. You know why? Because there's hope.

38:06 Because in the beginning you feel so disoriented and so closed off, but in that space, what do you learn? Hashem is with me in my pain. You discover your emuna not in the light, you discover your emuna in the darkness. You know that famous joke: a guy is on the ground and he's like at night and he's like searching on the ground under a lamplight and somebody sees him and he says, "What are you searching for?" He goes, "I'm looking for my wallet." And he goes, "Oh, let me help you." And he gets down and he's looking for his wallet and he goes, "Where did you drop it?" And he goes, "About thirty feet that way." He goes. So why are you searching over here? He goes. It's too dark over there. You don't look for your wallet in the light. You look for your wallet in the darkness. Where do you discover your emuna? You don't discover your emuna when everything is going well. When do you discover your emuna? When everything is going terribly. So as we enter into that last stage, right? As Goyis is about to start physically, you know what you have because you already learned. I am okay. Hashem is with me in my pain.

39:01 Yaakov Avinu never really dies. Even though physically he's no longer with us, I still hear that voice. I still have that guiding light of Hashem with me. The end of the parsha is open. Even though the physical stuff is about to begin, that's also the beginning of the redemption. You can't have redemption without exile. So this is an exceptionally powerful message about how to live. The name of this parsha is what? Va'yichiv. Even though it's a story about Yaakov Avinu's death, what is it really? It's a story about how we learn to live. How we learn to live in the space of losing the Yaakov Avinu in our life that gives us that sense of rootedness. Girls, have a wonderful Shabbos.