Vayera - Are You A Bread Person Or A Salt Person (Achdus Event - Tomer Devorah and Sharfmans)

2:15 Even the Rama writes, even the carbonos that are brought in the Beis Hamikdash, every single carbon that's brought in the Beis Hamikdash contains an element of salt, and this too is a zeicher. To Lot's wife and provides some sort of token for her. You'll find some people have what's called ma'ay machronim. Ma'ay machronim. You ever see people at the end of the meal wash ma'ay machronim? Ma'ay machronim. For those that have this custom, it is to wash off what's called the melech stomas. It used to be that the salt largely came from Sodom, and so they would wash off the melech stomas. And some see in this a reference as well to Lot's wife. The obvious question that we'd like to deal with tonight is why Lot's wife is of such significance, this one pasuk in the Torah takes up so much time, so much space, so much energy in our lives. Somehow, it's connected to us in a deep way. The question is, what is that connection?

3:10 There's another more basic question that I'd like to explore before we start to get to the answer here And that is, what's this punishment of turning into a pillar of salt? Rashi says, 'Bamelech chata u bamelech laktah.' Since she sinned with the salt, so she was punished with the salt. There are many explanations as to what her sin was. I'd like to share with you a fascinating approach from the Medrash Talmiios. What was Lot's wife's name? So Lot's wife's name, the Perket that Rav Lazar says, was either Idis or Iris. Those were Lot's wife's names. But the Medrash Talmiios says that Lot's wife had a nickname, and her nickname was Melech. Her nickname was Salt. So the question is, why was this her nickname? The Medrash tells the following story. The Medrash says that poor people would come to her home. And they would ask if she had any bread to eat, if she had anything to sustain them. They were very hungry.

4:08 And instead of giving them bread, she would give them salt. And these people would eat the salt, which is a very strange thing. We'll try to understand what that means in a moment. These people would eat the salt. And they would become parched from the salt, because salt pulls out all the liquid, and it would make them even thirstier and hungrier. And they would be muttering curses under their breath about Lot's wife. But Lot's wife, Idis or Iris, whatever her name was, she would be so ignorant, so unaware, so oblivious as to what these people were saying that she thought they were giving her a bracha, and she would say amen. Really, what they were doing is they were cursing her. So when it came time for Lot's wife to be punished, she turns around and she turns into a pillar of salt, fulfilling the curses that were made against her, fulfilling the curses the ones that she said amen. She brought those curses into reality.

5:14 The medrash is a very strange medrash. It doesn't really make a lot of sense. If you came to knock on somebody's door because you were starving and you asked for bread, and somebody gave you salt, just don't eat the salt. If the salt is going to make it worse, just don't eat the salt. So if they're coming and they're saying we're hungry, and the woman says I'm giving you salt, you go no thank you. But these people ate the salt And why is she even offering the salt? And why are they cursing her under their breath? And not only were they cursing her under their breath, but Lot's wife, for some reason, thinks that they're blessing her, and she says, "Amen." What's the significance of all this? Does the punishment really fit the crime? She gives them salt. She turns into salt. The medrash, when you start to unpack it, doesn't make a lot of sense.

6:02 I want to share with you And this is really the main thing: two approaches to life. There's something called an impoverished mentality, and there's something called an abundance mentality. An impoverished mentality means I don't feel like I have enough for myself. And therefore it's very hard to give to others. There are people that are full within themselves, and so they naturally expand outwards and give to others. But I want to share with you what that looks like. How many of you girls have heard of a very famous psychologist whose name was Alfred Adler? Anyone here over here of Alfred Adler? Alfred Adler has an amazing line I want to share with you because it's a very deep line when you think about it. He says as follows: Empathy means seeing with the eyes of another. Listening with the ears of another Feeling with the heart of another.

6:58 That's what empathy means. If somebody comes to you and they're in pain That's an opportunity to share space with them. And there are people in this world that they have so much for themselves that when somebody comes and says, "I have something to share with you," they're able to pull themselves back. To be able to feel with another And not feel their own feelings necessarily, but to be able to say, "I'm with you, feeling and experiencing what you are feeling." And then lo alenu, there are people that don't have enough in the tank and aren't capable of doing that. If you've ever tried, and I don't know if you have But if you've ever tried to share with somebody who's incapable of being in that space with you. How deeply uncomfortable is that? If you're going through something and you say, "Hey, can I talk to you?", and they're on their phone I want you to know. When I was a kid, we didn't have phones. We didn't have cell phones when I was a kid.

7:59 But I want. I had a thing that I would go to sleep in class. I would go to sleep in class, and my father would say to me, "I don't understand. You're sleeping while the teacher is talking to you." So I said to my father, because I'm a very clever person, the teacher is not speaking to me. The teacher is speaking to this thing called the class. It's not speaking to me. Speaking to the class. There are girls in the room right now. That they think like I'm not speaking to them. I'm speaking to this thing called the class. So even if I'm talking to somebody next to me or on my phone, somebody next to me, there's a space that we're all occupying right now. Some people are able to honor that space. Some people right now, this moment, even as I'm addressing them, are not honoring that space because they don't pay attention enough in this moment to even understand that I'm saying to them something about this space. In other words, a person has so little in the tank.

8:54 For those that are hearing me, a person could have so little in the tank that when somebody comes and says, "Hey, we're in this space together," they literally will get on their phone and talk to somebody else while you're talking to them. Isn't that a crazy thing? It's a crazy thing. It's a cartoon that I saw years ago. That a woman was washing dishes and her little child was pulling on her apron to try to get her attention and said, "Mommy, listen to me." And the mother responds in the cartoon, "I'm listening to you." And the kid pulls on the apron again and says, "Mommy, listen to me." The kid and the mother say, "I'm listening to you." And the kid says, "Mommy, listen to me with your eyes." It's a very powerful thing that when you have enough in the tank, you put down your phone and hold space with somebody else. If they share with you that they're feeling something, instead of just going, 'Okay, they're feeling something,' and just echoing it back, you take a moment and say, 'Can I locate that feeling inside of myself so that I can experience that feeling along with you?'

9:57 When you're listening to somebody, are you listening through the lens of your own ego or actually listening to the words they're saying? If somebody says to you, "Hey, I'm in pain," and you're doing this while they're talking to you. If you're doing this while they're talking to you, oh man, that seems really hard. You're not with them. And even if you don't have your phone on you, if you're just going oh wow, that sounds hard. But in your heart, you're sitting in judgment of them, and you can't see the beauty of what they're saying to you. That's not a chesaron in them. That's because you don't have enough in the tank to be able to hold space with them. It means you're not being wholehearted. The goal of life is to be able to show up to life with all of your being, with all of your presence, with all of yourself.

10:44 There's a terrible tragedy that's happened in the world today. I'm not the guy that blames technology for things, but just as a fact. Because we don't have to be wholehearted with ourselves, because every single minute that I feel anything negative, I can run to something so that I don't have to feel my own negative feelings. I don't show up for myself, let alone for somebody else. It's impossible to come to a class without a cell phone. It's impossible to pay attention through an entire class because I've never even paid attention to myself along the way to be able to say, I can be with somebody. And then when these people get married, they go, I don't understand what's going on over here. Marriage is a shared space. It's a place where you show up with all of your being, and you say hinei. But if you've never said I'm present enough for myself, how could you possibly be present enough for another person?

11:37 If you've never been present for yourself, how can you be present with a child? And I'll share with you that being present for children can be a really hard thing to do. I'll give you the classic example of this: Your ninth-grade daughter comes home. She's in tears, but she's holding them back because she doesn't want you to see them. And why is she in tears? Because for the last eight years she was in a particular school, and in that school she had a friend group. And now the friend group has broken apart. It's ninth grade, and she doesn't know where she belongs. And there's one girl that's decided, from her own place of impoverished mentality, she's decided that your daughter is no longer part of the group. She's decided we're all going this way, but you're no longer a part of us. That feeling of isolation is exceptionally painful for a child.

12:26 And this is what your daughter is going through. Hopefully, in the ideal You've created a relationship with your child where you've invested enough time and energy and love and wholeheartedness that you can invite them into a conversation. But unfortunately, today, so many people don't have that relationship with their kids because they don't have that relationship with themselves. They're not willing to feel their own hard emotions. They certainly won't be willing to feel another person's hard emotions. So they've taught their children this is not a place where you could bring hard emotions. So now your ninth grader, who's going through terrible things, goes to school every day dreading what she's about to go through, and you say, 'Sweetie, tell me what's going on.' She's not interested in telling you what's going on because you haven't been there for her. You never created that space. But if you did create that space, the opportunity is to sit down on the edge of her bed.

13:22 The opportunity is to allow her to cry for 45 minutes with no words being spoken. No words have to be spoken. All she's going through something, and she knows that you're someone who's a witness to that journey. And in that space, when your daughter's ready, she says to you It's really hard. I feel really isolated. And you don't have to silver lining it because you're wholehearted. Because you're enough for yourself, you don't have to tell her it's going to be okay. This is an opportunity to find new friends. You don't have to make it better. There's a lot of people that need to make it better because they're making it better for themselves. None of us want somebody to come and tell us why it's going to be okay. We want someone who's going to come and tell us it's okay that it's not okay. And I have confidence in you that you're going to figure out your way through this.

14:11 That's the gift of being present with yourself. You think that when you show up to seminary and decide to skip a class, you think that when you show up to seminary you decide to sit in the back and talk or be on your phone the entire time. You think it's just like the Rebbe doesn't want you to be that way because it's offensive to the person that's speaking. That's not what it's about. It's about learning to be present with the reality as it unfolds. It's about saying this is what's actually happening in life, and I'm willing to engage life as it is. It's a tragedy. A tragedy. That's a very strong word, but I mean it. It's a tragedy of epic proportions that we never held space for ourselves, so we have no idea how to hold space for another. The godless of being a Jew, the godless of being Avraham Avinu, is that he's kolkuo for other people.

14:59 Avraham Avinu is sitting and he's talking to Hashem. That has to be an exceptional experience. I have no idea what that's like, but I imagine that it's amazing to be in communication with God. And he sees three random Arabs walking along the way. He's in tremendous pain. But because he's a wholehearted person, because he has enough for himself, he runs out to greet them. And these people come bearing the news that Stone is going to be destroyed. What's the response of a Jew when you hear that people who have done terrible things, these impoverished people who created a society of selfishness? What's an Avram Avinu personality say? An Avram Avinu personality says, 'How can we help?' How can we help them? Maybe there's a tzaddik in that town that's going to draw them out. Maybe there's a spark inside of those people that we just need to fan that flame. Avraham Avinu, because he's a wholehearted person, believes in the goodness of others.

15:59 But unfortunately, Stone is not that way. Stone is a selfish place. I want to share with you that Stone didn't look like a selfish place on the outside, even though there's all these midrashim that talk about how they did terrible things. It's never obvious that a society is evil. It's never obvious. You see it happening in the world today. It's obvious to any human being who's thinking that what happened on Simchas Torah is an act of barbarism, an act of evil that hasn't existed in this world for thousands of years. The atrocities that these people committed, but it's not obvious to the world. You look around in the world today. What are they saying? You have to understand the context in which these things are happening. If you grew up in an open air prison, you might also commit these things. You have to understand there's an occupation that's going on. It's never obvious that people are doing terrible things.

16:53 There's an incredible ma'aseh. Chesidah ma'aseh. I don't know if it's true or not true, but it's true even if it's not true. It's an incredible ma'aseh with the Rebbe of Zusha. One of my favorite ma'aseh. That the Rebbe of Zusha was walking through the forest was very late at night. It was very cold. He had no place to sleep and he happened upon a random kretchmir. A kretchmir is an inn in the middle of the forest. And he walks into the inn. He has no money, and the innkeeper is a Jewish innkeeper. And he walks in and he says, "Can I please have a place to sleep?" I have no money to pay. So the innkeeper is beside himself. He is running a small inn in the middle of a forest. How much business do you think this guy gets? He probably gets very little business. What am I going to do? A yid needs a place to sleep. So he says, "Go sleep in the chadarochel. There's a fire. You can go sleep in the chadarochel next to the fire. You can warm yourself up." So Reb Zusha goes and he puts his knapsack down and he lies as close as he can to the fire. But it's so cold.

17:49 It's so cold that he can't get himself to warm up. He's been outside for so long that the cold is in his bones. So he goes over to the innkeeper and says to him, 'Maybe you could give me a shot glass of vodka, just one shot glass of vodka, to warm me up in the cold Russian nights.' So the innkeeper gives an exasperated sigh. It's not enough that I'm giving you a free place to sleep. Now you're asking for my alcohol. What can he do? This random Jew comes in. He needs something, so he pours him a shot of vodka. And then he spills it in the sink. And he pours another shot of vodka, and he spills it in the sink. And he pours another shot of vodka, and he spills it in the sink. And he does this over and over again until there's very little vodka left in the bottle. Maybe there's enough for one shot. And he composes himself, slows himself down, and takes a deep breath.

18:39 And he pours the shot of vodka in And he offers it to the Rebbe of Ruzhina. The Rebbe of Ruzhina takes it, says a bracha, sits down, drinks it, and it warms him up from the inside. And he goes over to the innkeeper and he says, "What was that? What did I just see? Why did you pour out basically an entire bottle of vodka? You didn't want to give me one shot. You ended up pouring out the entire bottle." So he said, "Listen, this is not comfortable for me. I'm going with you. It's not comfortable for me to open up into you. You're not paying. It's not comfortable for me that I'm giving you my alcohol. This is my parnasa. It's not comfortable for me. But if I'm going to give it to you, I want to give it to you with my whole heart. I don't want to give it to you from a place of resentment." There are people that open up their homes, and it looks like chesed, but it's devastating. Nobody wants to be your pity case.

19:27 You know how hard it is for the people coming from down south right now. It's one thing if they're coming to a vacation apartment in the middle of Yerushalayim. Nobody's living here anyway. Do you know that there are people from down south that are living in people's homes right now with families that they currently have? You know how uncomfortable that is. There's a family in my neighborhood, an amazing family. I'm not going to say their name because I don't know if they want it publicized. There's an amazing family in the neighborhood that opened up their home to a family from down south. It's a Charedi family opening up their home to a Chiloni family from down south, a non-observant family. And they moved into the house. They didn't move into the basement. This is not like where you have those private rentals in the basement with their own washing machine, dryer, and their own mini kitchen. They moved into the basement of the house, and this house has no amenities.

20:15 So this mother, this Chiloni mother, she comes to the mother of this person, the mother of the house. And she says, "I feel very uncomfortable. Can I please borrow a skirt?" You're like a Charedi family. I feel like I'm walking around in pants. Can I borrow a skirt? So this Charedi mother turns to this Chiloni mother and she says, "It's okay." You don't have to wear a skirt. We allow you to be here as you are. We just want you to feel comfortable here. And this mother broke down crying And she said, "Af pan b'chayim shelilo shamat y'al kareidim kazu." In my life, I never heard of charedim like this. Where she was growing up, all she heard was these charedim hatas. And here's a person that opens her home. What does she want? She wants you to be here with no resentment. I just want you to be here. I just want you to be comfortable.

21:04 That innkeeper kept pouring it out because he said, "I'm giving you poison. If I'm giving you something with resentment" That's what I'm giving. I'm giving you poison. It doesn't feel comfortable to take. There's an art to being able to give in a way that makes people feel comfortable. There's an art to inviting somebody into your home and saying, 'This place that I'm in, we share it. It's ours together.' I'm not just talking about with guests. I'm talking about with our own children. There are children that come home that don't feel comfortable in their houses. Maybe because their father gave away their bed to my daughters. I don't know. Maybe it's the Parabela. I'm not sure. Every once in a while, maybe. The truth of the matter is, and I'm not here to embarrass the Folds. The Folds don't have a very big apartment. But how many people? Your home is like the Beis Hamikdash. It just keeps expanding.

21:51 It's this bracha that your husband has. He just keeps inviting, and Mrs. Fold somehow keeps having them. It's like a simcha. It's the tiniest, largest simcha I've ever seen in my entire life. And you would think that the entire Fold clan would come, and you would think that it would be uncomfortable. It's not uncomfortable because there's not enough space. It's just comfortable because everybody can be themselves there. It's a beautiful gift that you've given to the entire family. There's something special about creating a space where people can be. That's what it means to be a Jew. That's the home that Lote grew up in. Lote grew up as a giving person. And he went to a place. This is the subtlety: he went to a place that, on the outside, looked like they had everything. It was a wealthy land. Stone was a wealthy place. They had a tremendous amount of stuff, but on the inside, you were speaking about broken people.

22:43 And everyone knows in Stone they didn't do Chesed. But if you listen carefully There's a difference between lechem and melech. Listen to the difference. The difference between lechem and melech is that lechem starts with a lamed and melech starts with a mem. The letter lamed, when used as a prefix, means to draw towards. The letter mem, when used as a prefix, means to pull out. Melech extracts from something because it starts with a mem. It pulls out lechem. Draws others close. It doesn't extract from them. It brings people into your orbit. The reason why lechem is a food that fills you up is because it's coming from a place of I'm satiated. I'm drawing you close, not drawing you out. Melech can be amazing if it's in the right dose. Listen to what Lot's wife did. It wasn't according to the Medrash Talmudos. It wasn't what you think. She wasn't some evil woman.

23:48 She wasn't trying to get you. If you knocked on her door and you said, "I'm hungry," it's not like she said, "Okay, hold out your hands and let me pour in salt." Nobody would have eaten salt. That's not the pshat in the Medrash. She also gave them bread. But she gave them bread with an overabundance of salt. The way she gave them bread was that she was pulling from you. There's a danger. I want you to know there's a danger. There's a danger. I shouldn't say this out loud, but I'm going to say it anyway. Especially when it comes to people in power. Sometimes on the outside it looks like these people are tremendous balechesed But really, why are they doing it? Because they get to walk around saying, "Look how awesome I am." You might think they're doing a tremendous amount for me, but it could be that the whole reason they're doing it is to fill up their own inadequacies.

24:43 And they might, on the outside, do amazing things. But I want to share with you. You'll be able to tell the difference if you pay attention. If you're willing to open your eyes, you'll be able to tell the difference. The difference is very subtle. I'm going to do everything for you. I'm going to find you a house. I'm going to find you a car. I'm going to find you a job, but then somehow those people, you feel indebted to them. You know what I'm talking about? In some way, they communicated to you—not with words, but they communicated to you, "I'm going to do this for you, but you owe me." They weren't giving to you; they were taking from you. And it might look on the outside like, 'Hey, this guy gave me a hundred thousand dollars,' but that hundred thousand dollars was golden handcuffs. They made you their slave. If you listen carefully, sometimes even rabbis speak this way. They betray themselves, not even knowing that they're betraying themselves. They talk about it. They go, "Oh my God, I have so many guys that would do anything for me."

25:37 You hear it? Did you hear it? It's subtle. Of course, they would do anything for you because you did so much for them. But why did you do so much for them? The reason matters. If you're operating from a place of abundance, then you're drawing people in. If you're operating from a place of "I don't have enough for myself," then what you're doing is you're extracting from them. You're not drawing them close. You're seeing what you can get in this relationship. It's subtle, but it's everything. This was Lot's wife. She was a bala'shesed. She was married to Lot. You think this woman wasn't a bala'shesed? She was a bala'shesed. But at the end of the day, she was from Stone. At the end of the day, that's who she identified as. She was a person who didn't have enough for herself. You know why there's no achdus, and why there is tremendous achdus in Klal Yisrael right now?

26:24 It's hard to have real achdus. Because to have achdus means that I'm with you, even though we have nothing in common. It's Reverbowitz, the Rav of Sanhedrin or Chavda, the Rosh Yeshiva Veishat Torah. We did a Mevasseret, a similar thing, Mevasseret and Eish, just like Toma Dvar and Sharfman are doing here tonight. And Reverbowitz made a comment, and it's a brilliant comment. He said it's easy to make shalom, it's easy to have achdos between Mevasseret and Eish. It's much harder to have achdos with those people that want nothing to do with bnei yeshiva. The question is: Can you reach out across the divide to people that you think you have nothing in common with, and say, 'Yeah, we're here together'? I'm going to tell you honestly: It's not hard to create achdus between Tomer, Devora, and Sharfman's. This is not hard. I. I appreciate the attempt. It's a beautiful awkward moment, and personally, I love awkward moments. I make a bracha on awkward moments, and that was certainly an awkward one. So thank you so much.

27:35 This is not hard. This is not hard because we have so much in common. Do you have enough in the tank to be able to sit next to somebody on a bus who, in theory, you have nothing in common with, and love them? Do you have enough in common with the person that you're in a fight with to be able to say, I can let go of my pettiness, reach out across the aisle to you, and say, even though I feel really hurt by you, I love you anyway. That's a hard thing to do. Lot's wife turned around because, in her heart, she felt like she didn't know if she had enough to leave Stone. Loke could leave because he said, 'I have Avraham Avinu. I know I'm being saved.' Loke's wife was operating with an impoverished mentality. Even though she knew it was being destroyed, she looked back on it and said, 'Who am I without them? If you say, "Who am I without another?" then you're nothing.'

28:32 A famous line from the Kutzker Rebbe says, 'If I am I because you are you, and you are you because I am I, then I am not I and you are not you.' But if I am I because I am I, and you are you because you are you, then I am I and you are you. How many of us are I because of somebody else's you? I know it's hard to listen. It's a lot. I know it's a lot. Until you know the line, and then it's not a lot. It's a hard line. We'll come back after. We'll do a chazara. We'll sing it here one more time. The line goes again. Not only because it would be the second most awkward moment of the night, but also because it's not the time. The line is, if I am I, because you are you. There are people in this world that say, I'm only me in this context. I'm not enough for myself, but around you, I could be enough for myself.

29:20 There are girls that come to seminary. You ever see this? Remember in the beginning of the year when you did this thing for the entire first two weeks of seminary, you went like this. You're like, I don't know I don't know. Like, I don't know if I fit here. I don't know if these are like the types of girls that I want to be with. You know what I'm talking about? That's drawing power from outside of yourself. There's a guy in yeshiva today. This guy is the coolest guy in yeshiva. Because I'm super relevant. This guy has all the riz. I know all the words. Trust me. It's my fault. I did that on purpose. I take responsibility for it. This guy is the coolest guy in yeshiva. He's the best ball player in yeshiva. He's an amazing guy. You know what he said to me today? You know why I love Mavasaret? Because it's the weirdest place in the world, and everybody could just be themselves. I was like, exactly.

30:18 Because you're not trying to be somebody else. How much time do we spend in our lives trying to be somebody else? That's Lot's wife. She's running away. She's going, but without stone, who am I? That's why she behaved the way she behaved. That's why she was punished the way she was punished. It was her nickname the entire time that she was giving people under their breath were whispering, "That's a salt lady." Nobody feels comfortable around her. She's salty. I never thought of it until that's brilliant. She's salty. She's not a comfortable person to be around because she might be giving you a tremendous amount, but you don't feel safe. You don't feel like there's a real space for you. I have a question. My question for you is like this, and it's really more of a challenge than a question. Now that I think about it, I'll finish with this.

31:09 What are we doing here tonight? Is this cute? It's like a cute thing because if this is a cute thing, we're wasting our time. It's like a cute thing. It was nice. Tzomar, Devora, and Sharfman's got together. It's nice. There could be an achdis event. Six and sixty. I'm still not 100% sure what that means. There'll be some sort of kumsis at the end. It'll be nice. It'll be cute. If you walk away from tonight and you say it was nice and it was cute You missed it. The goal of tonight is to teach you girls something. There's this whole like oh but what seminary are you in? You're in this seminary. That means you're this type of girl. You're in this seminary. It means you're this type of girl. All of that talk is toxic. All of that talk is toxic. All of that oh she went to that seminary.

31:58 All of that talk comes from an impoverished place within ourselves. The reason why things are going so well in Kallah Yisrael right now, the reason why there's so much achdus and real achdus Is because when our enemies come from the outside We have the privilege of letting go of all our petty nonsense and remembering. It's not new; we're remembering. We're like oh yeah The only people that we can rely on are each other. The only thing that we can rely on is Hashem. We can't rely on any walls. You learned that. You can't rely on any walls. And if you think you're going to put your place in another gov, you're going to put your trust in another government. I don't know that government's going to help us. Remember, we're going on four weeks now. The first week, everybody was behind us. The second week, it started to teeter. The third week, it was. You have to understand. There's a difference between Palestinians and Hamas, and now it's. You have to understand Hamas. Don't for one second think that this is going to work the way that you think it's going to work.

32:58 Moshiach will only come when all of us realize we're in this together. Every one of us. It's an amazing thing. Watch the video. Don't watch the bad videos. Watch the good videos. My mother-in-law and what's on the family WhatsApp group. She only posts the good videos. The good videos are the soldiers going out to war. Soldiers that don't wear yarmulkes. Soldiers that never wear tzitzis. And they're screaming before they go out to war. Shema Yisrael, Hashem Elokeinu, Hashem Echad, Hashem Melech, Hashem Malach, Hashem Yimloch liolam vodei, Ain od molvado. We are the most unbelievable nation. And we get to do this together. Only if we find space within ourselves to be enough for ourselves, or we can choose pettiness, like we've chosen for the last three thousand years. We could choose to figure out how to continue to divide ourselves. We could choose how to pull people in, but really, we're taking from them. You're my Kiruv project. That's the only reason we go into their communities to begin with. Is just to make them from.

33:53 Now we're going into their communities and we're just saying. Don't care if you're from or not. You're my brother. You're my sister. I just want to be with you in this. I'm going to lose my mind. I'm going to lose my mind if I find out that in a couple of months from now, the war is still going on, Mashiach hasn't come and we haven't yet taken care of business. If people start going on Yeshiva week on vacations in the middle of January, I'm going to lose my mind because it's so tone deaf. Klal Yisrael is in an ace lasso. It's an ace tzara, and we're together. It's not the time to go to Mexico. It's not the time to go to Kathmandu. You need a break. Take a break. That's not the way to take a break. You're here. You're seeing what it's like to be part of this. We're doing this tonight to send you a chinuch message. The chinuch message is we're together. Find space within yourself to be together, or just play it off like it's a game. It's your choice. You could, if you want to, stay on your phones and ignore what's going on. You could just feed into the anxiety.

34:52 You could do that whole thing if you want to. But you'll be losing out on a huge opportunity. This is not a cute night. Nobody needed to make an event to keep you girls busy. Could have had regularly scheduled programs. This is a chinuch move, and it's a big move from big people who don't care that they came into the same schools and said, 'Come to our seminary.' The people running Talmud Torah and the people running Sharfman's are much more aware than you are. The Talmidot are much more aware that we all work for the same boss. Big people started tonight. And now it's your turn to do it again. Because the truth of the matter is We're getting older. We're not going to be leaders in 20 years from now. But only if you walk away from these weeks that you're here in seminary and you say, "Zalai, it's on me. It's on me to lead this nation," which means I have to be big enough to draw people in Not to take from them, but to really give to them, to make our homes a place where everybody is welcome.

35:54 Bez Hashem, this is going to be the start of something great. Amen. I say that if we do this again next year, and there's no war, it'll be araya that this real. But if this is a one-time event, it's not araya that this real. We have a tremendous opportunity to do this every year. I hope we take the opportunity. Girls have a wonderful Shabbos. Amen.