Vayeishev - Uniting the Shevatim

2:17 I'll just say, meaning Reiberg is probably most known for the woman here, maybe for his so-so series for the entire program for being mashpia there, the entire all the slavim Maybe from NCSY, whatever it is. There's so many things. I'm not going to sit here and embarrass Reiberg by listing them all. But what I will say is that I just want to be publicly makir to one of my rabeim. I've had the privilege to know Reiberg for I don't know. I can tell you exactly 13 years. And I've never formally been a talmud, never been in Rabbi Berg's shir in a class or anything like that. But just over the years, we've spent so many summers together on NCYKOL, and I want to thank Rabbi Berg for two things. One, me and my wife were consistently talking about the way you raise your daughters. Rabbi Berg and his wife Who was not speaking, but also very special. If I am allowed to say that

3:05 Their family is incredibly special. We spent a lot of Shabbos meals with them on NCYKOL, and it's a shush to see the way they raise their family, and we thank you for the hadracha you've given us, whether it's verbally or through osmosis in raising our family. And then personally, the many conversations we had in Eitzos, I've reached out to Rabbi with. It's such a privilege. And someone like Rav Berg, who's as popular and as great as a public speaker as he is, you might think, in the personal, he doesn't have time for that. But at least for me, maybe he doesn't have time for anyone else. But at least for me, he makes time. So I very much appreciate it. Thank you so much, Rabbi. Thank you. Can everyone hear that music? Is it just me? Is this like a Washington Heights thing? Is this a backdrop of? It's worse in the summer. It's worse in the summer.

3:56 It's worse in the summer. I feel very far from Eretz Yisrael, but I also feel very close. So it's a It's a unique type of situation. First of all, thank you for that very warm, very beautiful, wonderful introduction. I know you're zaycha to have a tremendous rav here, and like you said, we know each other for 13 years. I certainly don't consider myself a rebbe. I would absolutely consider myself a friend. But I know how lucky the community is to have you. And you should be zaycha to be here for as many years as Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants you to be here. I know that there's a migratory pattern that occurs in the Washington Heights area. It's like birds fly south in the winter. Washington Heights goes to Tenek. It's like a whole. If I keep talking, I'm going to get in trouble. Thank you for that beautiful introduction.

4:48 I want to share just a couple of small ideas tonight, but ideas that are very meaningful to me personally. We're holding now in the parashas of Yosef Atzadik's dreams. It's a very strange thing. I have a friend who is a big misnagid. He's very against learning chassidus. And for sure he's against. He stands very opposed to Rabbi Nachman. He's like a juke in his head. Whatever Rabbi Nachman says, he says the opposite. It's interesting. One of his pet peeves with Rabbi Nachman is how Rabbi Nachman speaks about himself. And he says things about himself. One would assume that Rabbi Nachman is a tzaddik, and when a tzaddik speaks about themselves, they're obviously not doing it for any gaiva purposes. But it could be uncomfortable to hear people speak about themselves. I recently heard from Rabbi Doctor Yosef Bronstein. You are familiar with Rabbi Bronstein? Rabbi Bronstein and I, his older brother and I, were chavruses when we were in sixth and seventh grade. So I know Rabbi Bronstein when he was much smaller. Today he's not so large physically, but he's massive intellectually. And he just wrote this wonderful book, 'Engaging the Essence.' If you have the opportunity to really throw yourself into something, that is an amazing, amazing book to read.

6:08 Rabbi Bronstein said that in the 10,000 hours of recorded shiurim that they have from the Lubavitcher Rebbe In the 70,000 pages that they wrote from those 10,000 hours, they've written 70,000 pages, which would make the Lubavitcher Rebbe one of the most prolific authors. I don't know what we could say in hundreds, maybe thousands of years. He rarely, if ever, said the word "I." Think about the humility of somebody who spoke for so many hours to never say the word "I." Every rav gets up; the first thing they say is, "I got a fascinating shi'la this week." Try it. Try not to say the word "I." It's nearly impossible. The fact that the rebbe never said the word "I" or rarely said the word "I," he would say, "And in our generation," that's how he would refer to himself. In our generation, this is what our avoda is.

7:02 And yet we see that Yosef HaTzaddik gets up to the detriment of his relationship with his brothers And he puts himself at the center of his dreams, and everybody bows down to him. And it's such a strange thing. It's so unexpected. Yosef is literally the paradigmatic tzadik. It's what we call him. He's Yosef HaTzaddik. He shames Hashem shoger b'fiv. The notion that he has a mara nevuah, not one but two. Where he places himself at the center of it, and he goes to his brothers and he says, 'Everyone's going to be bowing down to me.' And it seems to be that that's their issue with him, like some sort of—again, obviously this is not the pshat, but some sort of like gaivul, like how could you express that? You think we're all going to bow down to you? Our mother and our father are going to bow down to you?

7:50 What exactly is going on in Yosef Hatzadik's dreams? What exactly is that marranavua? What exactly were the brothers' problems with that marranavua? That's our first question for the night. I want to take a detour and travel all the way to Parshas Naso, Just for a moment. Fascinating thing that we see in Parshas Naso to help us understand our first question. The pasuk says, 'Byom haShvi, Nasil v'ne'efrayim elishama b'nei Amihud.' On the seventh day, when the Nasiim were bringing their karbanos. The leader was from Bnei Ephraim, and the leader was Elishama ben Amihud. And he brought this karban when the Torah tells us by Yom Shvi. When did they start bringing karbanos? On Yom Rishon They started bringing karbanos on Sunday. Which would mean that the seventh day was Shabbos. If they started bringing karbanos on Sunday, then the seventh day is Shabbos. The problem is that's Asar.

8:55 You're not allowed to bring a carbon yachid on Shabbos. Why not? You're not allowed to slaughter an animal on Shabbos. You're not allowed to place the meat in the fire. You're not allowed to cook the meat. So how could you bring a carbon yachid on Shabbos? We know that there's two different types of carbonos. There's a carbon yachid and a carbon siber. A carbon yachid is a classic carbon. That's a carbon toda. That's a carbon chatos. A carbon sibor would be like the carbon tamed that everyone gave their machzis shekel for to bring the carbon tamed every single day. A carbon tamed can be brought on Shabbos. A carbon sibor can be brought on Shabbos. A carbon yachid cannot be brought on Shabbos. So how was Elishama ben Amihud from Shevet Efrayim able to bring a carbon on Shabbos? This question is addressed by the medrash. It's a well-known question.

9:47 And the Medrash says a wild answer from this week's parsha Because Ephraim was the son of Yosef. Interesting that it's Ephraim and not Menashe But because Ephraim is identified as the son of Yosef, and because in this week's parsha it says utvoach tevach v'hachen that Yosef HaTzaddik says slaughter an animal and prepare it. So the Medrash Darshans out. What is v'hachain? What does it mean that Yosef HaTzaddik is instructing them to prepare the meat? The Medrash says the hachana must have been the hachana of erev Shabbos. How does it look? That on Friday, Yosef HaTzaddik was saying, "Prepare it now because we can't prepare it tomorrow because tomorrow is Shabbos." And since Yosef HaTzaddik prepared the food erev Shabbos in that s'chus. Elishama ben Amihud from Bnei Ephraim is able to bring the carbon, which appears to be a carbon yachid, on Shabbos. That's what the medrash says. Shall I repeat it again, just to make sure everyone got it? I'll say it quickly.

11:02 You all hear the same echo that I hear. Giv'albe. We moved this way to avoid that echo. One more time, what's the halacha? Are you allowed to bring a carbon yachad on Shabbos? Only a carbon zibur can be brought on Shabbos. So how could Elishama ben Amihud bring a carbon yachad on Shabbos? The Gemara, as the Medrash answers, says that since Yosef Atzadek didn't violate Shabbos and he was mechin, he prepared the food that he was going to serve to his brothers when on Friday in that schus. Elishama ben Amihud was able to bring his carbon on Shabbos. What's the obvious question? Meaning, if Yosef HaTzaddik kept Shabbos, then we would expect what? That if anybody should bring the carpet on Shabbos, it should not be from the progeny of Yosef HaTzaddik. It doesn't make any sense. The Medrash's answer seems to be completely backwards. We would have thought, since Eliezer ben Amihud comes from Bnei Ephraim, who comes from Yosef Hatzadik, and since Yosef Hatzadik was so machted on Shabbos, the last person in the world that should have brought the carbon on Shabbos was from Yosef.

12:15 And the Medrash says it's in the schus that Yosef Hatzadik kept Shabbos that Bnei Ephraim were able to bring the carbon on Shabbos. That's one obvious problem. There is another obvious problem, girls. What does Gemara say? The Gemara says that all of the avos kept Shabbos before Matan Torah. They all kept all the mitzvos before Matan Torah. Which means who else kept Shabbos? Every other one of the shvatim. So then, what's the significance of the fact that Yosef hadad kept Shabbos? They all kept Shabbos. So this happens to be a raya in the Torah that Yosef had kept Shabbos. But all the shvatim kept Shabbos. So hod ya kushlo l'dukhta. We're back to our original question. If the whole reason that Bnei Ephraim were bringing the carbon on Shabbos is because Yosef HaTzaddik kept Shabbos, so did Reuven, so did Levi, so did Yehuda, so did everybody.

13:03 So why is it Dafka Ephraim's shevet that brings the carbon on Shabbos? So to answer this question The Labavitcher Rebbe Zechariah Levracha gave an unbelievable answer. It's a Yeshayistic answer. It's a foundational answer. It's an answer that every one of us needs to lock in on. I would say every moment of every day. It is so fundamental. It's probably the most fundamental thing, and it's something we need to instill in our families, in our children, in ourselves. Sometimes I think that because we grew up on the little Medrash says version of Judaism. You ever? I'm sure you had this in seminary, but I know guys in yeshiva all the time. Isn't it like a Gemara, or a Medrash that says it's a pasuk? It's a pasuk. Like it's a pasuk. You just gotta look inside. It's a Rashi. Just look. Just turn the page. It's right there.

14:06 You heard a gematria from your third grade rebbe, and somehow that became pshat and chumash. We're so familiar with these stories that, in a certain sense, we're not astounded by them anymore. But if we would actually hit pause and read the stories as if we were reading the stories of Chumash for the first time, there is so much suspense. There's so much power. There's so much. You'll forgive me for using this word because I mamish don't mean it this way. I don't mean it in the sense of humanizing the avos. They were certainly tzaddikim on levels that we can't understand. But there's so much humanity to these stories, no? There's such exceptionally powerful stories that if we just hit pause and read them simply It gives us the most incredible insights that we know we just never processed. There's a basic question everybody knows the answer, but I want to re-explore it.

15:04 Everybody knows how Yosef Acedik withstood the temptation of Esau's Potiphar? What's the answer? We all know we grew up on the Gemara. What does the Gemara say? He saw the image of his father in the window. Maybe we know the Gemara that Yaakov Yenua came to him and said that all of the brothers are going to be on the begadim of the Cohen Gadol, and you're going to remove yourself. Everybody knows the Gemara. I'm with you. Good. We'll get to the Gemara in a second, but we take a step back for one second. I just want to sensitize us. What was it like to be Yosef Hatzadik? Let's look at the story again in a very simple, not complex way on any level. Step one Yosef Hatsavik was a slave. We're accustomed. How do we think about Yosef Hatsavik? He rose to power in the house of Esau's Potiphar. What does that mean?

15:54 In our head, what does that mean? We think he was free. That's the way I think of Yosef Hatsavik. He went in a caravan down with the Yishmaelim, and originally he was in the house of Potiphar, and originally it was so bad. But then he became like the CEO. That's the way I think of it. Like he probably had a nice Bekasha and a Shrimol that he walked around in. That's not what it was like. Potiphar was an exceptionally cruel man. His wife was an unusually disturbed person. Like a really disturbed person. And in that house, he feared for his life all the time, as we're going to see in a moment. The fact that he rose to power in that house in no way made him free. Kaviyachal, if you've ever seen or read about what it was like to be a slave back in America when they brought all the slaves over from Africa, there was always one slave in charge of the other slaves. He was still a slave.

16:56 That guy still got whipped. He was just in charge of the other slaves, so maybe he had it a little bit better. Can we imagine what it's like to be owned? What is the lack of dignity in being owned? None of us have any clue what that means. I imagine I imagine that the chaturfim, the hostages that have been for over four hundred days We cannot possibly imagine. The level of trauma that they are experiencing, and I don't care if they would be living in the lap of luxury, if somehow they got them out of Gaza, and if somehow they're living somewhere in the Middle East and they're living in a palace. The trauma that these people are experiencing, and that's why we must be emo anochi bezara. We must every day take time to process and pay attention to the fact that our brothers and sisters are still living under these horrific conditions, where they're not in charge of their own person. In Yiddishkeit, we don't even have a concept called jail.

18:02 Because even jail is so demeaning to a person's dignity that it cannot exist within our halachic universe. Because to trap a person, to hold a person in that way, is beyond the pale of anything that a Jew could believe in. As Haskacha would have it, it happens to be this morning. I had an opportunity to go to the Rebbe's oil. My daughter is getting married, but Hashem, next Wednesday, and I wanted to be able to. That's why I'm here. That's why it's good to be away. If you were a kallah, you know what I'm talking about. But Hashem, you'll be a kallah and you'll know what I'm talking about. If your fathers leave a week before the wedding, just know they got advice from me. Brilliant move. Absolutely brilliant move. It's like I should give her to the cadence of the music. It's so good.

18:49 Can you focus, or is it just my ADHD? You're okay. Say it. Here. So it happens to be I was at the Rebbe's oil this morning, and there was a group of soldiers that came to America. And this morning As I was there, they were at the Rebbe's oil. And I walked in, Mamish, at the same time as them, and they read off at the Rebbe's oil all the names of all the Chaturfim, and all these soldiers. Maybe it was about 15 or 20 soldiers. Just sitting there, every one of them you saw with deep meditation. Some of them were crying as they were just saying the names of the chaturim. And then they just started singing Achenu. How amazing that I came to the Rebbe's oil exactly at this moment. Yosef HaTzaddik was not in control of his own person. There is no greater affront.

19:44 To a person's dignity Than not to have control over your own body. That, at a very basic level We talk about Yosef Hatzadik withstanding temptation. To withstand temptation means that you're a human being. It means that you're a mensh. If you're being held as a slave, not just in jail, as a slave, you're not a mensh. You're not a human being. Do you see why it makes the kasha so much more powerful? And not only that He was exceptionally lonely. Not only was he lonely, but he left his family with the knowledge that he was unloved. There are those today that want a darshan that even Yosef HaTzaddik might have thought Yaakov Avinu was part of the sale. I don't believe that. I don't buy that idea. But for sure, he saw his own brothers sell him into slavery. Today we have all these anti-bullying initiatives.

20:39 If you bully a kid in school today, you're going to get unbelievable levels of therapy. Every kid who's a bully is going to see a social worker, a physical therapist, a speech therapist, an occupational therapist, an art therapist, a hydrotherapist and a talk therapist. These kids get every single service that we could possibly give to a child. If you're bullied or you're a bully, it's like What if you sell someone? Can you imagine a yeshiva kid who sells another. Imagine bullying somebody by selling them. I'm picturing I grew up in a yeshiva called Yeshiva Darkei Torah. I'm picturing a bunch of kids taking a kid to Secret Boulevard and auctioning a kid off. And he just went. They said, "What happened to Yankel? We sold him. We told his dad he was dead." The level of being unloved—not only do you not own your own person Every one of us is loved into being.

21:35 There is no such thing as a person that raised themselves. Everyone here received love from somebody. The greatest trauma in the world is to be robbed of those people that love us. That's why it's so difficult when we lose a loved one, because we won't be nourished by their love anymore. But what if exactly the people in the world that were meant to love you sell you? What if you've lost your mother and your brothers? And you're a slave? You see how bad it is. Where did he get the kiyach to stand withstand the temptation? Let's take it a little further. No one would have ever found out. It wasn't in Asher's Potifar's best interest to tell anybody. He would have gotten away with it. I heard a shir. I don't remember when it was. Six months ago, seven months ago. I heard a shir from Rav Daniel Kalish. He was giving a parenting shir, and he was talking to the parents who were having a hard time understanding why kids were struggling with Shabbos.

22:37 And Rabbi Kalish said Come on, you can't empathize with a kid who's struggling to keep Shabbos. You can't empathize. You've never found yourself in a room alone with your phone, and nobody would find out. He's talking to the parents. He said, 'You never had a tayva for even one minute, just to check, just to see. You were never that bored.' "No one will ever find out." The only person that would have known was Yosef HaTzaddik. So not only does he withstand the temptation without having any sense of self, without any sense of dignity, any sense of love He also had the knowledge that no one would have ever found out. And not only that, it might have been halakhically permissible. Because when are you chayav to die for gilai arayus? Only after matan Torah. But pre matan Torah, it could very well have been that Yosef HaTzaddik would have said, "It's not even usher for me to do." She would come home every day. She would dress in different clothing. And she would try to seduce him every single day. She made his life a living gehenna.

23:32 And not only that, not only did she make his life a living gehenna, but she said to him, "If you don't do this, I'm going to tell everyone that you did, and I'm going to get you sent to jail, and I'm going to blind you." She meticulously tortured him. So it could very well be that it was even murder for him to do, because maybe he thought it was under the penalty of death. Which, in the end, it was because he got sent to an Egyptian jail. The Gulag in Russia, Siberia in Russia, was nothing compared to an Egyptian jail at that time. We don't understand the world as it was back then because we grew up. I know, even though we're not necessarily in the most civilized place in the world right now, but we grow up more or less in a civilized society. Yosef grew up in barbaric Egypt.

24:19 We don't have any notion of what the world was like 4,000 years ago. 4,000 years ago, child sacrifice was a real thing. Some people in this room have little baby children. Can you imagine if you came home one day and you asked your husband, 'Where's the baby?' and he goes, 'I had to do tshuva, so I sacrificed the child to Bal or to Moloch.' That's a real thing that happened. There were people walking around murdering children for the sake of doing tshuva to their idolatrous God. Genghis Khan. These were barbaric people. Could you imagine what it was like to be in that jail? So Yosef Hatzadik had every reason in the world to give in And now we grew up with the little Medrash says version of Judaism that says what? But he saw the image of his father in the window, so somehow he withstood the temptation. That cannot possibly be a deep enough answer for anybody in the room. If we were even fractionally sensitive to what we just said about the condition of Yosef Hatzadik, there's no way that we could convince ourselves that just seeing the image of his father in the window was enough.

25:24 So there's a deeper explanation, and the deeper explanation the Rebbe says is as follows: We know that the Gemara tells us that Yaakov Avinu had the same face as Adam Harishon. So when Yosef HaTzaddik looked in the window, he saw his father. Da'ainu. What did he really see? He saw the image of Adam Arishon. That's what he saw. And we know that Chazal tell us that Yosef looked exactly like who? Looked exactly like Yaakov. Which means Yosef looked like Yaakov. Yaakov looked like Adam. So when Yosef looked in the mirror, who did he really see? When he looked in the window, he really saw himself. And when he saw himself, who did he really see? He saw his father. And when he saw himself, which was his father, who did he really see? He saw the image of Adam Rishon. Says the Lebavitcher Rebbe as follows: When Yosef was in that moment And he came home lassos malachto, he came home according to one opinion Ready to be over the avera. The show's over. I will not be able to withstand this temptation.

26:32 The message that Yosef HaTzaddik saw was. One small act has the capacity to change the life of every single human being that ever exists. One small act reverberates throughout history so powerfully that everybody in this room is still suffering from the sin of Adam Harishon. When Adam Harishon was chote, he changed the nature of the world. He changed the nature of our bodies. He changed the relationship between our soul and our bodies. He changed the very definition of what self means. It's not obvious today. If you ask somebody, 'What is self?' What do they say? If you ask somebody, any social workers in the room? I was expecting like half of you. I'm doing like Sarah Schneer, same degree, different money. What's the definition of self? It's a thing to struggle with. Before Adam and Eve sinned, self was "I am a godly soul housed inside of a corporeal body. I'm a spiritual being on a physical journey." It was obvious. When Adam and Eve sinned, he distorted the notion of self for the rest of history until Moshiach comes.

27:51 What did Yosef Hazadik see? And this is the most fundamental thing that every one of us can know: our actions matter cosmically. Our actions matter infinitely. One of the reasons people are so in tune today with the kabbalistic approach to what a mitzvah does and what an avera does is because people are tired, and rightfully so, of looking at yiddishkeit as ritual. It's a very empty way of looking at a mitzvah. I give tzedakah. It's a ritual. I light candles. It's a ritual. It's part of a tradition that you pass on. It's like a fiddler on the roof vision of Judaism. It's like tradition. But it doesn't. What am I doing? People want to know. I'm doing something with my life. What am I doing with my life? When the Ari Zal said that every single mitzvah that we do is healing the world. Every single mitzvah contributes to the tikkun of the chait of other marishon. It changes the way that we see a mitzvah and the way that we see an avera.

28:59 In the privacy of my own bedroom, where nobody's going to know And I have the ability to withstand and to say no and to say I'm not going to lose my dignity. In that moment You've changed the world. When you did these small mitzvahs that nobody else is ever going to realize, that nobody else is ever going to talk about, a person walks away from that mitzvah saying, "Today I mattered." This is why kids today are right They're wrong, but they're right. Kids today say, "I'm not doing a Judaism without knowing why." They're wrong to say that because we can't possibly contain an infinite The infinite will of Hashem in a way that we can articulate to a human being, let alone to an 18-year-old. And that's the height of hubris to think that in a year in Israel I'm going to know why we do everything in Judaism. Of course, that's not going to be sufficient. But they're a hundred percent right when they say I'm tired of doing things and I don't understand what the impact is. I don't understand where this fits in my life. Why am I waking up in the morning and saying words and putting on phylacteries, and why am I dedicating my life to learning arcane texts if I can't see the impact of it in the world?

30:11 They're 100% right to say that. They want to know my life matters. My life is meaningful. A yid has to live that every single moment of their life is meaningful. That if we would understand what it means to wake up in the morning and say Modaani, then we would wake up in the morning and the first moment that our lids opened, we would be rushing to say Modaani. They say that somebody once asked the Labavitcher Rebbe's wife. What was the Rebbe's favorite tefillah or what was the Rebbe's favorite thing to say in all of Judaism? She said that's a great question. Let me get back to you. She asked the Rebbe, and the Rebbe said, 'His favorite thing to say was "Moda Ani Levanacha Melechay V'Kaya." Shechazarti B'nai Shmossi B'Chem LaRabba Monusach.' That was his favorite thing to say. Do we understand what it means to say 'Moda Ani'? Do we understand the simcha that the rebbeinu Shlom gets when we say 'Moda Ani'? Do we understand how that rectifies the world? Do we understand how the world is changed from my 'Moda Ani'? The world was changed from my Berchas Hatarah in the morning. The world was changed from my Kriyashma.

31:13 That the world was changed by one small act of chesed. You made a difference to that person. You made a difference to all of human history. In other words The reason that Yosef HaTzaddik came home to be Lasos Malachta when he came home to do that affair with Eshter Potifar is because when you have no dignity Your natural response is so nothing matters. Nothing matters. That's the way most of us live. That's the way most of us live within our relationships. You'll notice when you get married, if you're already married, that at a certain stage, you could be in a fight with your husband, and you'll go from 'I would do anything for you,' to 'I'm not interested in doing anything for you.' Because the moment that the relationship loses its dignity, the moment that core essence of connectivity is no longer felt, then nothing matters. People vacillate in these extremes, and it makes sense. A person who lives without dignity is capable of doing anything.

32:13 That's why it's so dangerous to take away a person's dignity. You remove a person's dignity, you just created a monster. You have no idea what they're capable of doing. The reason that Yosef HaTzaddik was able to come back to that place with Aishas Potifar, and if you look at the Gemaras in Sota, it's clear that he was like in the midst of the avera. I'm not going to get into the details; it wouldn't be appropriate. But he was in the midst of doing the avera. Why? Because what does it matter? I'm unloved. I'm alone. Nobody's gonna know. Maybe it's mutter. I don't even own my own person. Of course, he was capable of doing the avera. What restores Yosef Atzadik's dignity is he looks in the mirror and he says, "No, every action matters. Maybe this action more than any other action. I can't possibly be mashiach or how much this means."

33:08 A male, we can understand something very deep. The Shvatim kept Shabbos. The Shvatim, for sure, kept Shabbos. If they kept Shabbos because it was pre-mat and Torah, they kept all the mitzvot. They kept Shabbos. But there was a difference in the way the Shvatim kept Shabbos and the way that Yosef HaTzaddik kept Shabbos. The Shvatim kept Shabbos because it was the right thing to do. Yosef Atzad kept Shabbos because my mitzvah matters eternally. That's the difference between the way we do our mitzvot. There are some people who show up to Yiddishkeit and they check the box, and they check the box so well. You ever meet people that check the box so well? They're like robotic people, and they're very, very. And again, I'm not diminishing it. It's an awesome thing to be able to check a box.

33:55 There are people that are robots. They wake up every morning and they daven and they do exactly the chesed that they're supposed to do and they do the learning that they're supposed to do. And if there's open base maggid, they come to open base maggid. If there's a shir, they do everything right, they're amazing people. But you should know that there is an enormous difference between the person that checks the box because it's the right thing to do and the person that does the same exact activities, but they do it because they live with the knowledge that my actions matter eternally. That my actions matter cosmically. That every time I do a mitzvah, I'm fulfilling the infinite will of Hashem and the ratzon of Hashem to have a dira betachtonim. That's a completely different mitzvah. It looks on the outside like the same tefillin. You see, two people they're shuffling the same way, and it could be that on the outside it mamish looks exactly the same, but on the inside those are two completely different things. Yosef haTzaddik t'vachtevach v'achen. He said, "Be mechin for Shabbos. We can't cook on Shabbos. To cook on Shabbos would go against the very reason for creation itself."

34:59 It's a completely different Shabbos-like activity. Which means that Yosef HaTzaddik contained within him who Not just Yosef HaTzaddik Not just the Frayim and Menashe, but the way that Yosef HaTzaddik looked inside of himself. Who did he see? He saw ganz klal Yisroel. This is what it means to be a tzaddik, and this is the avoda of our generation, which is the final moments before Mashiach. We all have to be in this state of tzedkus. We all have to be that aspiring tzaddik. A tzaddik lives with the knowledge that I contain within me every single Jew. That's what it means to be a rebbe. When a person is a chassid to a rebbe, it means they believe that the rebbe has the neshamas of all of the chassidim inside of him. They access their own neshama by being in touch with Him. That's what it means to be a tzaddik. Yosef a tzaddik knew about himself. That's why he was the paradigmatic tzaddik. I can't do this avera because, just like other marishon, if other marishon contains every single soul inside of him, and he does this avera, he corrodes all of the souls for all of time to come until the times of Mashiach. Yosef Etzadik says about himself: My actions matter cosmically because I also contain all of the neshamas of all of Klal Yisrael within me.

36:14 That's why I have to be mekim for Shabbos. Memela, we understand. Why can Efrayim bring a carbon on Shabbos? Because when Efrayim brings a carbon on Shabbos, it's not a carbon yachid; it's a carbon sebor. Because Ephraim, this is unbelievable var from the Lubavitcher Rebbe. When Ephraim brings a carbon, it's not for Ephraim. He doesn't have the consciousness of I'm an individual. He has the consciousness that I contain, like my Zadik, like my father before me. I contain within me every single neshama, and that's the whole shavat Ephraim. That's what they're about. That when Eliyama ben Amihud brings a carbon, he brings a carbon for ganz klal Yisrael. It's a carbon sibor, and that's why he's able to bring it on Shabbos. Memaleh, we can understand the question that we asked at the very beginning. What does it mean that Yosef HaTzaddik says everyone's going to bow down to me?

37:11 It was not given on any level. There was nothing arrogant about it. What was Yosef HaTzaddik saying? I'm the aggregate. This is what I do. I'm bringing everybody together. I'm creating an asifa. It's not about me. I'm just the clea. I'm just the vessel that's going to contain everybody because that's the nature of Yosef HaTzaddik. The nature of Yosef HaTzaddik is to create a sibor. It never occurred to Yosef HaTzaddik that his brothers would get jealous because, from Yosef Atzadik's perspective, he was saying, 'What I? There is no I. I is just a collection of all of the souls of all of Klal Yisrael.' And this is why the brothers got so upset. They said, 'You're removing individuality. That's a dangerous thing. You're creating this notion of community. But what about us as individuals?' Yosef Etzadik said, 'No, I'm not taking away your individuality. But your individuality has to be part of Etzibar, otherwise you're just floating digits. You're not part of anything.' So you know what they say about Yichus? What is Yichus? Yichus is a lot of zeros.

38:10 You have to put a one in front of it. My wife's grandfather had unbelievable yechos. He never spoke about it. He was related to the Bluzhaver Rebbe. He saw a picture of my wife's grandfather at a funeral, and they said to him, "Zady, whose funeral is this?" He said, "It's Rav Meir Shapiro, the founder of the Dafyomi." Zady, you knew Rav Meir Shapiro? He goes, "Of course, he was my cousin." It was a very matter-of-factly thing. But he never bragged about it because he would always say, 'It's just a potato. The best part is underground.' It's just a bunch of numbers until you massage them together. Klal Yisrael cannot consider itself to survive. Klal Yisrael cannot just be a group of individuals. There's something called a community. A community is not just we all happen to be sitting here in shul together on a Monday night. That's not a community.

39:00 A community is when all of us retain our individuality, but we're part of something so much larger than ourselves. That's why the community is always able to do things that the individual is not able to do. Not just because there's power in numbers, but because we're part of something greater. There's something transcendent. Mameila, we can understand why Yosef Hatzadik is so deeply connected to the concept of Menorah, to the concept of Chanukah. We know that there's a concept called seven and there's a concept called eight. Seven means Teva. Shabbos has a capacity to unite the week, but Shabbos remains distinct from the week. Shabbos is Shabbos, and we have Sheshes Yamim Tavod. There's six days and there's Shabbos. They're not the same thing. But there's a dimension called eight. The dimension of eight is that which is the aggregate of all of those things. From the perspective of the eighth dimension, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven—they're all the same. It's the perspective of the essence that's beyond categories.

40:03 Yosef HaTzaddik is this essence that's beyond categories. When Yosef HaTzaddik sees his brothers and he sees himself, he doesn't see himself at the center. He doesn't see himself as the individual, and his brothers are individuals, and he's just higher than them. He's that bechinah of the essence of all things, and that's why he's able to unite. And this is our avoda. I want to bring this down in a very practical way. We are right now on the verge of bringing Mashiach, and there's a very specific avoda of our generation. And if we don't talk about it, if we miss it, then we're missing the entire thing. This is the key to the door that will open to bring Mashiach. We have to start looking at things from the perspective of the essence. The entire world is talking about this right now. People are dying to get to the essence of things. People are not satisfied with the outer shell. Even in science, we want to know the grand theory that unites everything in the world. We're looking for that koyach hamasei. We're looking for that koyach that unites everything in the world together. The only way that we're going to have a hava sishrael is if we stop talking about ourselves on a chitzoni level.

41:11 Today, achdus has become a cudgel. If somebody disagrees with you, what's the first thing that they say? Where's your actus? Actus doesn't mean that we agree. Actus means that we're so deeply connected to each other that when we disagree with each other, we appreciate the beauty of elu ve elu diber lechem chayim. But because we keep getting caught up in the petty squabbles of our chitzonius, we have no real actus. Does he hold of the army? Does he not hold of the army? Is he zionistic enough? Is he anti-zionistic enough? Everybody's got to be in their little box. Everybody's got to be in their little daladamos. Just enough to separate themselves from everybody else. There's nothing wrong with being in our dalaramos, and there's nothing wrong with seeing the world differently. There's shivim panim la'tayra, and if you have a gadol b'tayra that you're following, and you have yerubayim that you're following, and you have a masorah for what you're following, then gavaldik.

42:03 But how could we not reach out across the aisle and love our brothers and our sisters when we share the same essence? It's like one hand being upset at the other hand. But we don't define it that way in our own heads because we're not connected to the essence within ourselves. We're not connected to the essence within each other. The answer of sinas chinam is ahabas chinam. The answer to sinas chinam is ahabas chinam. Ahabas chinam is a belief system. It's not just a practice. It's the belief system that every single Jew is connected to every single other Jew. Memeila we have ahabas Yisrael. Memeila we have ahabas chinam. We're holding in these sukkahs now of Yosef Hatsadik to remind us of the danger of what happens when brothers sell each other into slavery. When we define each other by our differences and not by our complementary talents that we have.

42:53 So I just want to be Masayim with a quick bracha. It's a very big privilege to come here to Washington Heights. And I know that sometimes, especially in this period of life, there can be. A feeling of loneliness and a feeling like I'm not part of something And I know that we could come to shul and we could have our chevrah, but we're sometimes in a place where I'm badeirch to go somewhere, but I'm not yet there. But the answer to that question is to create a real community here. It's to create something that we're sensitive to what other people are going through, and that when we look at them and feel their pain with them and reach out to them. We create a real sense of community because we're living from the essence. So you're asking the avinu shabashamayim that this Hanukkah, when we're lighting our menorahs and illuminating the darkness of Washington nights, we should also illuminate the darkness of each other. We should be zeicha in a very profound and real way to be able to see through the darkness, to see the essence of each other. And beis Hashem, this should be the yamtuv of gur.