Vayeitzei - Developing a Relationship With Hashem

2:06 Number two, we're going to be exploring a well as it relates to the specific midah of each one of the avos and how that midah relates to shaduchim. You understand? Clear? When we speak about a well, what is a well? What makes a well such a powerful image? What did you say? Beautifully said. A well is different than a reservoir or a cistern. Because a well seems to have an infinite amount of water inside of it. Of course, that's not true because a well is not infinite. But when you find a wellspring It seems like no matter how much water you take out of it. There's still more water in it. So what is a well? And this is again a little bit of a sophisticated idea. See if you can have this idea. I'll try to be as clear as possible. If you don't understand it, it's because I'm not being clear. It has nothing to do with you. It's a hard idea.

3:10 If the water itself represents an infinite God, an infinite amount of water can come out from the well. The well is the vehicle through which we discover water and take it out. Does that make sense? In other words, the well stands between you, the person, and the water itself. So if the water represents a locus, if the water represents Hashem, and I'm me, the person trying to connect to Hashem. What's the vehicle through which we connect to Hashem? That's the well. Does that make sense? Everyone clear on this idea? No. I'll say it again. It's not an easy idea. A wellspring, not the well itself. A wellspring is the infinite amount of water that exists, as opposed to a cistern or a reservoir that have a limited amount of water. When you find a wellspring, that wellspring seems to have an unlimited supply of water.

4:09 The well is the vehicle through which I can bring that water up. Because the water itself is very deep, you drill down to find that water. Then you put that well in place and pull the water up. So what stands between me and the water is The well. What stands in between me and the water is the well. So I want to speak about three ways of relating to the well. Three ways of relating to the vehicle through which you get to the infinite. So we're not talking about the infinite. We're not talking about the water. We're talking about the well. How do I relate to that well? The first way of relating to this well is through Avraham Avinu. Avraham Avinu is the midah of Chesed. Avraham Avinu is the midah of love. What does this look like? First, we're going to talk about it in terms of a relationship, and then we're going to move it back to Hashem.

5:05 What is love? No one talks about love. What is love? You'll hear all these shmoozim. To love is to give. You have to give in order to love. Loving is giving. You've heard these shmoozim before. It's a little bit deeper than that. I want to try to explain it in a little bit of a deeper way. Love means that there's a gap between me and somebody else. So love is the fuel that moves me across the space into the realm of another. So without love. And you'll see this for example. When do you need a fiery love? When do you see a passionate love? You see a passionate love when two people are very far apart at the beginning of a relationship. What do you see as a relationship continues? What do you see as a relationship continues to develop? The love moves from being fire to being like water. Why is that?

6:06 Because in the beginning of a relationship, if you're over here and he's over here, what do you need? It's not your fault. What do you need in order to bridge the gap? You need passionate love in order to bridge the gap between one person and another. If you have two people who just met each other and their love is deep Doesn't that sound a little bit strange? In the beginning of a relationship, it should be exciting. What's the excitement of the relationship doing? It's not an accident that you're excited. If you want to move from point A to point B, you need fuel. The fuel is that fiery love that moves you from one place to another. So if I want, this is how you relate to the well, not to the water. If you want to relate to somebody else, the first movement is the movement of love.

7:00 So if you're people, if I'm in a relationship, girls say this all the time. I'm in a relationship. I'm dating somebody. I just don't feel anything for him. What's the problem with that? He's a great guy. We share all the same values. There's just no chemistry. What do we really mean when we say that? It means I feel stuck on this side of the aisle. I don't feel like I'm moving from point A to point B. In order to move from point A to point B, there needs to be fuel. There needs to be fire. There needs to be love. So the first well is the well of love. This is the way that Avram Avinu relates to the well. He says there's an infinite God. But I'm all the way over here. How do I bridge the gap between me and God? I love God.

7:47 Now I think everybody in the room intuitively understands what I just said, but I want to say it in a little bit of a different way. How many people in the room have said to themselves? Just raise your hand. How many people have said to themselves? I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing, but I don't feel anything. I'm davening, but I just don't feel anything. You ever say something like that? I'm learning, but it's just not speaking to my soul. That's the same exact thing as saying, I'm dating a guy. He's interesting, but I don't feel anything. Do you hear that point? Is there ever a shiur that was interesting, but it doesn't move you? It's like it was interesting. It was an interesting concept. The Rebbe said an interesting concept. The teacher said something I had never heard before. What leaves us feeling depressed? What leaves us feeling depressed is I heard it, but I'm not passionate about it. I said the words of davening, but I'm not passionate. What you're really saying is the gap between me and Hashem is too far.

8:48 And I don't want to serve Hashem this way anymore. It's like imagine if you had a couple that just doesn't feel anything about each other anymore. How sad is that? That's what we mean when we say, "I just want to love Hashem." The beginning of our relationship with our Kodesh Baruch Hu has to be love. How many of you came here this year? I know it sounds like a cliche thing To fall in love with their Judaism. How many came this year? I just want to be more passionate about it. If you wanted to have an intellectual pursuit of Judaism, you probably could have gone to another seminary. Why'd you come here? Because I want the classes that are going to inspire me. I want to have the teachers that I'm going to build a connection with. That's Avraham Avinu, and it's the first stage of every single relationship. Stage one of our relationship with Hashem has to be: I'm learning how to love Hashem. I know there's an infinite God. I know that I'm here, but I need my well to be love. Otherwise, I have no access to that water.

9:53 So far, so good. Questions, comments, reactions. We're all on the same page. Let's say you achieve that love. Are you done? No. Why not? I bridged the gap between me and the guy that I'm dating or married to. So what's the problem? So problem number two is like this And this happens very often. Couple dated. They get married. The first couple years of marriage are great. And then they slip into the day to day life of every relationship. So when a couple goes out to eat after ten years, what's the only thing they talk about? The kids. What they talk about when they were dating? Ask a couple ten, twenty years into your marriage. What you speak about when you were dating? You didn't speak about your kids. You didn't speak about your job. What you talk about? It's an amazing thing that happens. Relationships are like flowers.

11:00 If you tend to them, water them, and garden them, they'll grow. But there's a gravitational pull to every single relationship. A couple starts off, they're dating, they're on fire for each other. It's amazing, it's beautiful. They get married. The way that they look at each other under the chuppah is delicious. Except. All the married couples in the audience are going like this. Give them time. How sad is it that we become cynical about relationships? Why do you think people are cynical about relationships? It's because relationships have a gravitational pull. If you don't invest in the relationship, it will naturally deteriorate. What happens to a well? A person digs a well. They dig deep. They find all the water in the world. Then what happens? Naturally, the well starts to decay. You ever see that? You ever see over time the sand will start pouring in, and then all of a sudden it becomes that much more difficult to find the water. Did the water disappear?

12:06 What changed? Meaning, what a couple does in the beginning of their relationship is they bridge the gap. The step two of every relationship is making sure that the well itself remains clean. How do we do that? How do we make sure that the well itself remains clean? I want to share with you an amazing story. A friend of mine A couple of years ago Went through something in his life, and he decided that he no longer wanted to be an observant Jew. He didn't want to keep Shabbos. He didn't want to learn Torah. He didn't want to wear tzedes. He wasn't interested in Yiddishkeit, to say the least. And he's married with a couple of kids living in Eretz Yisrael. And he was a guy who was learning, who was davening, who was a pillar of the community, and all of a sudden, literally one day to the next, he was like a completely different person.

13:04 It was a whole story; it was a whole wild story. But somebody convinced him to go to Uman for Rosh Hashanah. I said, "Look, you're heading in a certain direction. Why don't you come with me to Uman for Rosh Hashanah to visit the Tzion of Rabbi Nachman of Breslev?" So he went to Rabbi Nachman. He came back from Uman on fire. He came back from Uman. He was a changed person, davening, learning, saying Tikun Kli, saying Tehillim. I asked him What saved your marriage? Do you know how hard it must have been for his wife to watch her husband not keeping Shabbos? This is not a joke. Imagine if it was your dad, you have a from father Chassvashol. Imagine if it was your dad, you have a from father, a stable family, and then all of a sudden your father stops keeping Shabbos. All of a sudden your father starts smoking up. All of a sudden your father stops learning. All of a sudden your father stops wearing tizis. All of a sudden he was dressing in one way, and now he's dressing in a completely different way. It'd probably be very disconcerting, right? If you were a child. Think about it. What it's like to be that guy's wife.

14:12 So I said to him, "He's a good friend of mine." I said to him, "How do you manage in your marriage?" What he told me is an unbelievable thing. His father-in-law gave him a piece of advice. His father-in-law said, "When he was engaged, he said, 'I want you.' He said, 'You don't have to do this, but I want to give you a piece of advice." Every single week Please take your wife out to eat. Please take my daughter out to eat. He said, 'How and it has to be out to eat. Don't go for a walk because if you say we're going to go for a walk, you're not going to do it. Have a standing place that you go every single week.' So we had a thing every single Thursday night. They would go out to eat at different restaurants. Sometimes it was pizza, sometimes it was Chinese, sometimes it was fleisch. His father-in-law set them as follows. He goes, 'What's it going to cost you to go out to eat? Fifty bucks maximum. With a babysitter, maybe it's seventy-five.' He said, 'If you think about the money, it's not that much money.' You're talking about Sacha calling three hundred dollars a month.

15:11 If it's seventy five dollars a week, you're talking about three hundred dollars a month. Three hundred dollars a month means you're spending thirty six hundred dollars a year. Listen to this line that his father in law said. Then he said, 'Three hundred dollars a month, thirty six hundred dollars a year, is a lot cheaper than going to marriage therapy, and it's a lot cheaper than divorce.' Now, his father-in-law, being a good guy, said, 'I'm gonna write you a check. I'm gonna pay for the first year, thirty-six hundred dollars on me. After that, it's on you.' So his father-in-law gave him a gift to go out to eat every single week. The guy told me they did it. It was a game changer, and they never missed a week. After the first year of marriage, he took it on himself. After all, seventy-five bucks. Who doesn't have time? Who can't make time for an hour or two hours a week to go out with their wife?

16:02 He did it for fifteen years. And then he went off the darch. I asked him, "How'd your marriage survive?" You know what he said? We went out to eat every single week for the last fifteen years. He said, "When we were living in America, we went out Thursday nights. When we moved to Eretz Yisrael, we went out Sunday nights. Going out to eat saved my marriage because my marriage was so strong that even though I fell apart, my wife was with me a hundred percent." Stage two of every marriage is called yira. Yira doesn't mean fear. Yira means keeping the marriage intact. It means I don't want to bring anything into the marriage that's going to decay the marriage. So step one of the relationship is bridging the gap. Step two is making sure the pipeline is clean. How do you make sure the pipeline is clean? Don't do things that are going to decay the marriage. What are the things you can think of right now? There's people in the room that are struggling with this right now. What do you think are things that in a marriage will decay the marriage? I'll give you an example. You want to see something that's going to decay your marriage?

17:14 If you're talking to your husband and he's doing this I'm listening to you. Huh. Huh. Why does being on your phone decay your marriage? After all, isn't he present in the room with you? You're in the same room, but you're not in the same room. You've brought something into the relationship that's decaying the relationship. Do you understand? People think it's obvious. We're married; it's good to go now. You can't be married and just let the marriage atrophy. If you don't have what's called yira Then you don't have healthy boundaries for the relationship. What does it look like to pay attention to somebody when they're talking to you? It's eye contact. I want you to know there's a gift that every one of you can give to me right now. It's not just to me; it's to every one of your teachers. Every one of your teachers gets up here and speaks to you.

18:07 And girls, I did this also when I was in high school. I don't blame you at all. But girls, do this. They think the rebbe is not speaking to me; he's speaking to the group. He's speaking to the class. But the truth is, I'm not speaking to the class. I'm speaking to a whole group of girls. Do you want to hear the difference? What it looks like? I know you girls are sitting on that end. Do you want to see what it looks like to me? This is what it looks like to me. There are some girls that are like this when I'm speaking. They're like You do when you nod your head? You're letting me know you're present in the relationship, and I'm just the Rebbe. What would you want your kids to feel when you're talking to them, or when they're talking to you? You want your kids to feel I'm here, I'm in the relationship. You know that famous story of the little girl that's tucking on her mother's skirt, and the mother is washing dishes. And the girl's going, "Mommy, pay attention to me." And the mother's going, "I am paying attention to you," but she's washing dishes. And the mother and the kid goes, "No, mommy, pay attention to me. I am paying attention to you. Mommy, pay attention to me with your eyes."

19:06 If you're not paying attention with your eyes, you're bringing something else into the relationship. Gvura means having healthy boundaries in the relationship. If you bring outside things into the relationship, you're not present in the relationship. Does that make sense? It's the same thing with Hashem. Let's say you come this year to Sharfman's, and let's say you're passionate, you're on fire about your Yiddishkeit. You heard amazing shiurim. You saw. You went to your teachers' houses. You saw amazing people, and you really started thinking differently about your Yiddishkeit. You want to know the difference between the girls that make it not. This is one of the famous things about Sharfman's. Girls who come to Sharfman's when they make a move, the move lasts. Have you ever heard that before about Sharfman's? That when a girl in Sharfman's really gets into it in Sharfman's, it lasts for ten, twenty, thirty years. They raise their kids differently. That's what I. That's the you should know. That's Sharfman's reputation.

20:02 You want to know the difference? The difference is some girls get inspired in seminary and they fall in love. Some girls get inspired in seminary and make decisions about how to structure their yiddishkeit. Who are my friends after I leave seminary? What are the places that I will go? What are the places that I won't go? What are things I'm willing to do? What are things I'm not willing to do? What are the relationships that I will participate in? The relationships I won't participate in. You understand? It's it's a it's not a small deal. A lot of times, a girl comes to seminary and they go, "Yeah, it was like a seminary bubble thing, but it didn't last." It didn't last because when you were here, you fell in love, but you never kept the structure of the well intact. Hashem is there. You're over here. You bridged the gap, but what happens? I don't know. I just am not so into it anymore. It didn't happen that people just fall out of love. That's not true.

20:59 People bring external things into the relationship. Does that make sense? You hear it. Clear. Before I move on to the third one, because that's the main one I want to get to in this week's parsha. Everyone understands. The year as a structure. Correct. It's one thing that you fell in love when you were dating. Now you actually have to be married. Yitzchak's thing is gevura, boundaries, structure. That's Yitzchak. So Yitzchak, when the Plishtim came and they filled up the hole that Avram Avinu had dug, Yitzchak removes all the impediments to entrance. He reveals the well as Avram Avinu dug it. But all of those things are not the things that I wanted to talk about. All those things are just a precursor to what I want to talk to you about today, and that's the main thing. The hardest thing in the world is when you see a couple And that couple has fallen out of love with each other.

22:00 The most painful thing in the world is when you see a girl And she comes from a good family, and everything is there for her. And there was a time in her life when she was passionate and she even worked hard to create the structure. But there's such a thing as I feel blocked. You ever have that in a relationship where there's this blockage and you have no idea what it is? The well itself is clean. The well itself is open. The well has been dug. The love is there. I just don't know what's going on. I think for most of us, this is what our yiddishkeit is. Some people are sitting here going, "I have to fall in love with Hashem." It's not true. It's not true. You already had avrumavino moments in your life. Some people say, "I have to rebuild the structure." I know if you're doing certain things out there.

22:53 There's a rebbe in yeshiva. He has a great line. He tells the guys, "If you go to sleep like a pig, you're not going to wake up like a lion." You know what that means? If you're doing certain things at night Vahamay vinyavin. There's certain places that people go. Certain funny places. Like certain funny places. You know I'm talking about. I'm talking about certain funny places. I'm not. I'm not saying. I'm just saying. Everyone knows. If you're going there, the well is not clean. There are girls that are not going to those places. And still they feel blocked. What is that? You understand the problem? How many of us identify with that? How many people feel like I don't know? There's some blockage. I don't know what it is. There's some block. I'm not a bad girl. There's some blockage. This is Yaakov Avinu. Yaakov Avinu comes, and there is a giant boulder on the well.

23:49 And there is Rachel Imenu, and somehow he's able to just lift the boulder off the well and throw it off, even though it would normally take a tremendous amount of people. What is the pshat? So I want to share with you. This is the deepest pshat. In truth You don't need the well. In truth, everything you need is already there. Yaakov vino is the midah of emes. If Avram vino is the midah of love, if Yitzchak is the midah of gevura, Yaakov is the midah of teferes. Yaakov vino is the midah of emes. Yaakov is truth. When a person lives with truth, they know they already have a relationship with Hashem. The only thing they need to be able to do is unplug it. I'll give you an example of what this looks like. We had a boy in yeshiva many years ago. I don't know if I told you the story. I told you the story. Guy with a big jufru.

24:48 The same year as him There was a guy in yeshiva that was always on the verge of greatness. He was from the same. I don't want to give too many details away, but he was from the same universe as this other guy. But whereas the guy with the big fro needed to see that learning was awesome. This guy Somehow, just he would come out of a shir and he would go, I get it. It's not speaking to me. I get what you're saying. I agree with what you're saying, but it was intellectual. Some rebbeim said, yeah, but you maybe need to learn chassidus because maybe it'll help you fall in love with Hashem. He learned chassidus. He's like, no, it's not doing it for me. Some rebbeim said, look, you're doing all these other things, so it's blocking the well. It wasn't that either. He had this blockage.

25:43 And sometimes a person needs to just become like accessing the truth, knowing that blockage is his to take off, and he's capable of taking it off, but it's his to throw off. So for this guy I'll never forget this. For this guy, at some point, he was sitting in my office and he burst out crying. And he said, "I'm so sick of this. I've been in yeshiva for five months already. I'm trying, I just can't do it." And he mamish broke down crying. It was the saddest thing in the world. And I'm sitting with him, and I'm saying to him, "You should know, Hakadosh Baruch Hu, mamish loves all the work that you put in." And I saw I wasn't moving the guy at all. There was nothing that I was doing. Nothing that I said was penetrating. You ever have a conversation like that with a rebbe, where like it doesn't matter what the rebbe says? It's just like, it just won't go in. There was nothing that I could say to the guy, so eventually I just was quiet.

26:39 And the guy was crying and crying, and eventually he just left the office. After that, something changed. What changed? What was it? I spent a long time thinking about it. You know what it was. Everybody else was trying to get him to throw off the stone from the well. But only he could throw the stone off from the well. He had to come to the recognition. This is my truth. You understand? If it's your teacher's truth, can you throw the stone off the well? If your teacher comes to you and gives you the most amazing sheir, can you throw the stone off the well? You can't. I'll tell you. I teach in a different seminary, and one of the girls once told me, "I'm not coming to your sheir anymore." She said, "I'm done coming to your sheir. I dropped out of the class." I said, "Okay." It's like a strange thing to tell me. Like just drop out. Like why do you have to come tell me? So I want to tell you why I'm dropping out of your class. I said why. She goes. I come to the shir and I really like it and I'm makabel on myself. I'm not going out after the shir.

27:43 She said I never do it. I never. She said while I'm in the shir, do not go out tonight. Inevitably, what did she do every single Wednesday night after the shir? She went out. She said the shir was creating so much guilt that she didn't want to come anymore. She said, "Because you're telling me don't go," and I'm saying, "Yeah, I don't want to go," and then I'm going anyway. She said, "It's too much guilt for me. I'm not coming to this year anymore." I understand where she's coming from. When does a person change? Only when they want to. Only when it becomes their truth. But once it becomes their truth, then it's unstoppable. Imagine what it's like. You ever meet someone? Maybe I shouldn't say this. I'll say it. You ever meet somebody that you go, maybe I could marry them? Too often. First of all, I love that honesty, and second of all, what an amazing line. You meet people and you're like, I can marry you. It's like an amazing thing to think about a person.

28:43 You must be deranged. You must be a person who's very open to the possibility of relationships. We'll say it that way. When you meet somebody, and somewhere in the back of your head, you go like this: you go maybe. Isn't there something very exciting about that? How many times do guys come over to me after? They're like, okay, so I know I shouldn't be in a relationship this year because I know I'm not ready. But the thing is I met this girl and I'm thinking, Rebbe, this could be it. Like what? What could be it? They're like Was that? Guys, for sure, do it too. Guys, for sure, do it too. I know. The girls think that the guys are like the guys do it. It's different, though. I'll tell you what's different about it: the way that the guys and girls speak about it is very different. Because a guy comes in and he goes, "I met a girl, and I think maybe." That's the whole conversation.

29:37 A girl comes in three hours later. She's unpacked every single possibility in the relationship. Even they only met for half an hour, and then we were also at a friend's house together. But I saw the way he was with his friends. But I'm not sure if that relates to the way that I relate. But it was definitely fun to watch him. And it's like a whole conversation with the guys. It's like I know I shouldn't, but maybe that's the whole conversation. What's the power of meeting somebody and going Maybe? It's MS. When you meet somebody and you go Maybe that's my person. The truth of that relationship is very powerful. You want to know when you find out the real truth of a relationship? It's not when you're dating. The real truth of the relationship is not when you're dating, and the real truth of the relationship is not when you're creating boundaries so that the relationship can exist. The real truth of the relationship is when you find each other in the dark.

30:37 That's the real truth of the relationship. The most powerful moment in a relationship is when we've been fighting, we haven't been seeing eye to eye, we've been so distant from each other for so long, but somehow We just keep finding each other. It's an amazing midah. You know what that midah is? It's the midah of emes. You know what it's like. You know how powerful it is when a couple finds each other in the dark and they're like, 'You, it's you.' You say to them, Why? Why is it her? She's making you so miserable. Why is it him? You're so miserable with him. You know. You know what they say? I don't want anyone else to make me miserable. That's the ms. The ms is so powerful. They don't need love. They don't need love, and they don't need boundaries. They need the truth of the relationship. The truth of the relationship is the most powerful thing.

31:29 Where do we see the midah of ms by Yaakov Avinu? So listen to this. Chazal say afal pisha chata Yisraelhu. Even though a Jew doesn't have avar, which avar are we talking about? Afal pisha chata Yisraelhu. Even though you sinned, you're still a Yisrael. What avar are we talking about? Any avar. What if it's the worst possible avar? Afal pisha chata Yisraelhu. Why doesn't it say afal pisha chata Ivrihu? Why does it say Dafka Yisrael? Because the Midah of M's tells us that even when a relationship is so deteriorated that a person is mamish so far from Hashem The Midah of M's says, but they're still a Jew. In a relationship, it's not enough to have love, and it's not enough to have boundaries. You know what you need to know. I am yours forever. Today it's very popular not to get married. In the secular world, they don't get married anymore. They do something else instead.

32:35 We'll live together. What happens if you don't want to live together anymore? Then we won't live together. What's missing? What's missing is commitment. Girls, intimacy should not occur. I don't mean physical. I mean the creation of oneness. Intimacy should not occur without commitment. That's why dating for a very long time is a very bad idea. Dating is building a relationship. I should not be building a relationship with you unless there's a commitment. What does a commitment mean? A commitment means I am yours. What does it mean? I'm yours. I'm yours when things are good. I am yours even when things are not going so well. To be a Jew today in two thousand twenty-three And this is what we do right before Mashiach comes. To be a Jew means to be a person of loyalty. Today, it's a very in-vogue thing. I was once walking with a boy in Los Angeles. I was walking down Pico. I was from L.A. Here. I was walking with a boy down Pico.

33:37 And he says to me, and he was very proud of this, and he wasn't sfiarty. I could see it in his face. This boy wasn't a sfiarty boy. We were walking down Pico, and he said, "I'm coming to Eretz Yisrael because I'm not going to do anything unless I understand why." Doesn't that sound like, at seventeen years old, that sounds like a very good thing to say? But if you think about it, I knew that kid would never be Sfardi, because what would a Sfardi kid say? Sfardi kid would say, "of course I know what the right thing to do is." Because my mother told me. How does a Sfardi kid know that there's a God? Because his Moroccan mother told him that there's a God. And if he would tell his Moroccan mother, "I don't think there's a God," what would his Moroccan mother do? The recording can't hear it, but it's the Hamayvenyaven. For those who know.

34:26 In a Rabbi Saffron's line. Rabbi Safren says, "My mother's Moroccan, my father's Chabad." You know what that makes me? Abused. It's one of my favorite lines. There's such a thing called emuna. Emuna means I don't necessarily understand why. Of course, I want to learn why, but I'm loyal to this relationship. In Yemos HaMashiach, the most important thing is not being cerebral about the relationship. The most important thing is participating in a relationship. And you know this. What if your husband said to you, 'I don't feel like you love me.' The husband goes, 'I love you. I said I love you all the time.' Goes, 'Yeah, but I asked you to take out the garbage last night.' What are you really saying when you say that? Don't tell me that you love me. What does love mean? Love means that you're loyal. Love means that I can count on you. Love means I'm a person and you're a person, and we're participating in a relationship.

35:24 If you don't have all three of these things, the relationship is fundamentally flawed. If you marry somebody and you don't love them, then you're always going to be over here, and he's going to be over here, and that's not a relationship. If you love somebody but you don't invest in the boundaries of the relationship, it will naturally decay. But even if you have the best boundaries in the world And even if the relationship itself has so much love, you still have to be able to know the truth of the relationship. The truth of the relationship is that this relationship is forever. Nothing can stop the relationship. I'm able to pull the plug off when I know the truth of the relationship. That's what Yaakov Avinu does. This isn't a flashy thing to say. Most girls walking out of here tonight will not be inspired. I want to be in love with Hashem. That's an inspirational thing to do. I'm going to make sure that I have boundaries set up. I'm going to make sure that I choose the right things when I leave shul.

36:21 That's an exciting thing to hear But nobody wants to hear the truth of this relationship. The truth of this relationship is that a relationship with Hashem cannot be deteriorated in any way. And even if you feel so distant from Hashem, the truth is that we've never been distant from Hashem. Does that make sense? Girls? I want to wish you a beautiful Shabbos, but I just want to say one thing. I'm watching you girls. I want you to know it's very different coming here in September, and it's very different coming here in October. Baruch Hashem, we're already in November. I'm seeing. I'm only here once a week, so I could see it. I'm seeing that there are girls showing up with more attention, with more growth. You could see it. There's people here that are real. There's people that are very real in this room. It's very impressive to watch.

37:11 The biggest move you can make is to say whether you're in or whether you're not in. I'm in. Whether I feel like I want to be here with Hashem or I feel like I don't want to be here with Hashem, the truth of this relationship means I'm always going to be loyal to the relationship. You hear? You girls are ready to hear this. You've taken big steps already, and be'ez Hashem, we're going to see you take many more.