Vayigash - Rising Above Our Humanity

2:39 And in that space, to push it not be seen, we can't imagine the pain of what Yosef HaTzaddik was experiencing. As we know, the Rishonim write that the reason Yosef HaTzaddik was doing this is to give the brothers the opportunity to do tshuva. And so now we're at this moment where Yosef HaTzaddik has nothing left in the tank. Lo yuchol Yosef lesapik lichol ani tzavam alav vayikra Chutziyu kol ish me'alai, remove everybody from here. Velo amad eshi tora, and nobody was there. And the Bale Musar, the Bale Chasidus, point out that there's a redundancy to this pasuk. Yosef HaTzaddik doesn't want to embarrass his brothers, and so he says, 'Clear out the room.' And a vada, if Yosef HaTzaddik says to clear out the room, so then the room is cleared out. If President Biden said everybody out of the room, then everybody leaves the room.

3:33 The Torah feels the need to tell us that Yosef HaTzaddik said everybody out of the room, and everybody left. What does that mean? What does that? What is? What's the Torah teaching us here? If the Viceroy of Mitzrayim says everybody out of the room, everybody's out of the room. And why does Yaakov Atadik want everybody out of the room so badly? Who does he want out of the room? What's he nervous about here? Because in a minute everybody finds out anyway. In a minute everybody in Metzrayim says, 'Guess what? Yaakov Atadik's brothers are here.' In a minute Paro is going to want to meet with the brothers because if he has one Yaakov, imagine what it looks like. It's like a secret. It's like one of those things where for just a minute we're going to hide your identity. There's obviously something deeper going on over here.

4:25 And then Yosef says the most powerful words in the entire Torah. Not that one word is any more powerful than any other word, but for us, the most powerful words in the entire Torah. The greatest mussar that was ever given. I'm Yosef Hatzadik. And what's the brother's response? Lo yuch lo echov la nois esaykin. If halom mipanov, the brothers weren't able to answer him because they were totally embarrassed in front of him. It's those moments. You ever have those moments? I imagine every one of us has had those moments where the thing that you thought was absolutely true turns out to be absolutely false. And you're like This is the thing, the bedrock of my life. I know this to be true, and then in one moment you have this olykin and Macy, oh my gosh, everything I knew to be true. Is the exact opposite of that.

5:17 So this is they knew in their hearts that Yosef HaTzaddik was Esav. They knew that Yosef was the Esav. They knew that Yosef was the Yishmael. They had that. That was the whole reason why we were going to kill him to begin with. They knew that Yosef HaTzaddik wasn't righteous, and now here he is. And in one moment he says, "I'm Yosef," and they all go. Every dream that he had was fulfilled. We all bowed down to him. He was the viceroy, and everything he said was correct, and everything we thought was wrong. This is the greatest mussar in the entire Torah. Vayoymer Yosef Alechov, and then Yosef says to his brothers, "Geshu na elai, come close to me." Vayigashu, and they come. What would we expect at this point? What would we expect from a tzaddik who's just given the greatest mussar ever to his siblings? What would we expect?

6:10 So we would expect that he would say it's. We would expect that he would say you didn't know what you were doing. People make mistakes. This is what a good rebbe does. It's a rebbe who I used to work with, who's now in a different yeshiva. And one of the boys in his shir told him that he was going to like visit an uncle, and he couldn't be there in the morning. He was missing morning seder. And the Rebbe came in. I don't know if you know how it works, but you know how. Maybe it's not the same in seminaries, but if a boy is talking and they don't realize that a Rebbe's in the room, and the Rebbe comes in and they're talking too loudly So this Rebbe walked into the room and there's a group of boys talking about the fact that this boy told the Rebbe that he was going to visit his uncle and he was really going to Tel Aviv.

7:02 So you know how it goes. The Rebbe pretends not to hear, but the boys now have to cover their tracks. So they send them a quick WhatsApp. I think Rebbe might know that you're not where you know. So the Rebbe didn't. Rebbe didn't know what to do. He was new in this yeshiva. So he went to the rashiiva and he said to the rashiiva, in this yeshiva, what does the rashiiva want me to do? So the rashiiva said, the boy already knows that you know that he lied to you And the boy already feels terrible. So you don't have to give him any mussar. Now your job, the rishikiva said to him, is to make sure that he knows that he's still lovable. So when the boy came back the next day, he has to do that walk of shame, like you know somebody caught you in a lie. But you have to see them the next day. The boy walks in.

7:50 And the rebbe sits down next to him and he said to him "It must have been really important for you to go where you were going, and I just want you to know, next time, just tell me, because if you tell me, then I could be in a relationship with you." They have a very close relationship. That's what we would expect. We would expect Yosef HaTzaddik to be this beautiful, warm Rebbe who says to his brothers, "Come close to me. I see that you already feel bad. Beseder." That's what we would expect, and that's not what Yosef HaTzaddik says at all. He says, "Vayayomer ani Yosef Achichem, asher machartemaisi Mitzrayim." I'm the brother that you sold down to Egypt. So it's like even worse. I draw you close, come close. They come close, and he smacks me. I'm the brother that you sold down to Egypt. What's Yosef Atadik adding? First of all, he just said a minute ago, 'Ani Yosef Aida Vichai.'

8:38 They don't know that it's Yosef who they sold down to Egypt. And then he continues, and now it's a little bit nicer. Va'ata al te'atsu, don't be depressed. Va'yichar be'nechem, and don't be afraid. Kimachart Moshihena that you sold me here. Kilim michtyas shloachani elokim lefnechem because Hakadosh Baruch Hu sent me down here in order to provide for the family's needs. I want to share with you. I want to share with you a very deep And sometimes a really painful idea. Letanya writes that we have not one but two souls. We have the nefesh alikis and we have the nefesh abahamis. The neshama kis has everything that it needs. I just want to explain what this means. There's a there's an idea. Anyone here know the poker chip marshal? Know the poker chip marshal? Not enough people know the poker chip marshal. I'll share the poker chip marshal with you.

9:49 There's a famous educator who says this. I forget his name. But he says the following. He says there are two kids. The first kid, his name is Joe Cool. Joe Cool is the captain of the high school football team. Joe Cool is dating the prettiest girl in school. I don't know if you know this, but in Texas, where Joe Cool is from, playing high school football on Friday night is like the biggest thing. And Joe Cool is playing in the championship game on Friday night, and he throws the winning touchdown pass with no time left on the clock. And his best friend, who's the wide receiver, catches it, and they carry him off the field, and everybody is chanting his name. If the game of life is played in poker chips, how many poker chips does Joe Cool win that night when he's being carried off the field by everybody? Say a million poker chips. That's a huge win.

10:43 The next day, he's in the back of a pickup truck. They have the parade. He's going down Main Street of his town. Everybody's chanting his name. Every little kid on the side wants to be him. How many poker chips does he get? Let's call another five hundred thousand poker chips. Sunday night is the prom. Sunday night, his girlfriend was announced as the prom queen and he was the prom king. Another five hundred thousand poker chips in a weekend. Joe Cool made two million poker chips. Now it's Monday morning. Teacher puts a problem on the board. Joe Cool thinks he might know the answer, but he might not, and everybody's going to laugh at him if he gets it wrong. Does Joe Cool raise his hand or not? So the general wisdom is that Joe Cool raises his hand because even if he loses ten thousand poker chips It's not a big deal. The guy just won two million poker chips; he can afford to lose ten thousand.

11:36 There's another kid, Davy, the learning disabled kid. Davy, the learning disabled kid, is from Minnesota. He's ten. And he hates school. He dreads going to school. Davy, the learning disabled kid, gets up in the morning. It's freezing cold outside. It's the middle of December in Minnesota. And he rolls over and sees that his mother has laid out his pants and shirt on the radiator. Is there any better feeling? I don't know why their Abundishelm created certain pleasures in the world. But is there any more pleasurable feeling than wearing something that came right out of the dryer? It's like the most gishmak. We have to have such unbelievable hakarasatovs that their banishim that he gave us this very small tainug. So he rolls over Davy, the learning disabled kid. He rolls over and he sees my mother loves me so much that she put up my clothes on the radiator because it's cold outside. How many poker chips did he just earn? Say a thousand poker chips. He goes downstairs and he smells that his mother is making pancakes. Davy, the learning disabled kid, loves pancakes.

12:39 Another five hundred poker chips. He goes even further downstairs. He sees that they're blueberry pancakes. He loves blueberry pancakes. Another 500 poker chips. He sees that his mother heated up the syrup on the stove because it's nothing worse than pouring cold syrup on hot pancakes. Another 500 poker chips. The bus comes. Davy gets on the bus. And a kid in the back of the bus calls out, "Losers on board." He's down 5,000 poker chips. Now the teacher puts a problem on the board. Davy, the learning disabled kid, says, "I don't know if I know the answer or not." I think I might, but if I get it wrong, everybody's going to laugh at me. So does Davy, the learning disabled kid, answer the question? So there's two ways of looking at it: either Davy, the learning disabled kid, doesn't answer the question because he can't afford to lose any more poker chips.

13:28 Or Davy, the learning disabled kid, doesn't care anymore about whether or not he gets it right or wrong. Because he knows that he can't win at the game of life. And there are kids like this. There are kids that are living life, and they just like it doesn't matter. I don't care. I can't win at this game, so why bother playing? Many years ago Fourteen years ago to be exact I was giving a shirt In Mevaseret In the beginning of the shir, I said over this marshal, then we started learning Gemara. There was a boy. Who wasn't the best at learning Gemara And I asked a question to the Sheir, and he raised his hand. And I hesitated if I should answer him or not because I was in the middle of the flow of the Sheir and I didn't know whether or not it was a good time to stop.

14:17 So I hesitated for about seven seconds. And he looks at me in front of the entire Sheir and he goes like this. Davy. My heart broke. Because what he was saying was, Rebbe, it took so much courage for me to raise my hand. And I'm sitting there thinking about the flow of the sheir. I didn't know that he was feeling so impoverished when it came to his Gemara skills that not calling on him would have been devastating. At least he had the courage to say Davy and to let me know that this was a big moment for him. I've never forgotten that heir. I don't remember the content of what I said, but I'll never forget the guy who looked at me and said Davy. The nefesh habahamis versus the nefesh l'okis is Joe Cool versus Davy, the learning disabled kid. The nefesh l'okis has every single poker chip that it could possibly need.

15:13 Every one of us contains a godly soul, and the godly soul has everything that we could possibly need. The godly soul is always enough for itself. The godly soul can never be diminished. If the godly soul goes out on a date And gets excited. And it doesn't work out. The godly soul is okay. The godly soul is not feeling like this will never happen. This is hopeless. Why do I keep getting rejected? This is my childhood trauma all over again. That's not what the godly soul goes through. The godly soul says this is okay. Life is happening exactly as it should. If I took a little bit of a loss, it's okay because I have an infinite amount of poker chips. You see, Joe Cool has to earn his poker chips by playing football. The godly soul is godly. It has an infinite amount of stuff.

16:03 It doesn't need to earn its worthiness. This is the big secret of Judaism. Everywhere else in the world, if you don't believe in religion, worthiness is something that needs to be earned. Nobody can ever be enough for themselves. That's why everyone in the world is running around trying to amass who has the best stuff. All of that is some crazy attempt to earn worthiness. I play it out. Look how insane it is. You could see for yourself. A person has a job. They're super ambitious about that job. They're super ambitious about that job because if they're super ambitious about that job, then they get to drive that car, and then they get to have that house, right? I'll tell you honestly. I personally, I'm still a kid. I love cars. I grew up here in the Five Towns. I like fancy cars. I don't know if I'm ever going to get rid of it from my system. Baruch Hashem, the Rebbeinu Shalom put me in a position where I cannot afford fancy cars, and I have, and I live in Eretz Yisrael, and there's no reason to have a fancy car in Israel. And Baruch Hashem, my wife schlepped me there so that I would have no tayva for fancy cars.

17:12 I am a member of Herz Gold because of the amount that I travel. And when you go into Herz Gold parking lots So the way it works is you can choose any car you want. And there are levels in Hertz Gold: Gold, Five Star, and President's Circle. I am not yet a member of the President's Circle, but I am a member of Five Star Hertz, one level up within Gold. So I show up to Los Angeles Erev Shabbos this past week, and I'm walking down the lot, and I'm seeing cars that are underwhelming. I didn't come to America to drive a Kia. I didn't come to drive a Chevy. Then I see it. One car. That's my car. Tudor red Ford Mustang. So. From Friday through Tuesday This and that did not match, but in my heart they still matched. And when you show up to Eula and the kids are like "Well, that rabbi is driving a Mustang," you know, there's like I'm thinking we're probably going to get a lot of Eula kids this year based on that.

18:23 Some there's something about it. There is But why do people do this? They get the car, they get the house. And then what do they do with it? So they have the big house, but what do they fill it with? Do you own your couches? This is my wife's big line from many years ago. We want to own our couches. What does it mean to own our couches? You ever walk into somebody's house and they have the that I don't even know what to call it, the plastic cover. Why? That's the worst. You know what a geschmack couch is A couch that you fall asleep on Friday night and wake up at three o'clock in the morning and then you have to schlepp yourself to bed because it's so comfortable. If you fall asleep chas v'shalom on one of these plastic couches You have to peel yourself. Have you ever peeled yourself off a couch?

19:18 It should not make a sound when you. It shouldn't be like a fruit roll up coming off. My grandmother, Allah Shalom, she had such a couch. I remember I would go to her house. I hated it. And I said, "Grandma, your couches are terrible." I was like five, but I knew that this was deeply true. And my grandmother would say, "Well, we don't want to ruin them." I remember thinking, "You've already ruined them. Who would want to sit on this?" She might have had other problems because she also had the fake prickly fruit, like from the eighties. She already said that there was a whole matzav in her house. You ever go to somebody's house who really doesn't have a lot of money and their couches are really beat up but they're super comfortable And they don't care if kids are jumping on the couches.

20:04 Who owns their couches? Some people have crazy fancy couches, but the couches own them. Some people have the broken comfortable couch, but they own their couches. My wife and I have a beautiful room that we built. And it's like a little room on the Mirpeset, and that's where the sun shines in from about one o'clock in the afternoon till about five o'clock at night. When it gets dark out, the sun beats into that room. So we have to get curtains. The problem is these curtains are very expensive. And so I don't want to get expensive curtains because I know for sure that my kids will ruin them. I know for sure and I know when they do I'm gonna be like. Can't believe you broke the curtains after I just spent ten thousand shekels on the curtains. Baruch Hashem, my daughter is expecting at the end of January.

20:57 Thank you for that, Lachaim. And I want my little grandchildren to be able to crawl around on the couches, and I'm sure they're going to pull on the curtains, and I'm sure they're going to pull the curtains down, and I don't want to be upset at that little three-year-old, beautiful little boy. I'm just being honest. I don't want to be sitting there like upset at the kid. So we build these beautiful houses, we have these beautiful cars, and then they own us. Why were we doing this to begin with? It's for this image of acquiring worthiness. I have to acquire worthiness. I'm not okay. I have to acquire worthiness. If I date that guy, then I'm worthy. If I don't, if I'm dating that guy, it's a little embarrassing. It's like, is it important to be married or who you walk down Central Avenue with? It's not a joke.

21:47 There's a certain there's a certain worthiness that people are trying to acquire in life. You can't acquire worthiness. You are worthy. Be'etzem, the godly soul says that you're worthy just because you exist. But how many people in life are running around trying to acquire worthiness? It's an insanity. It doesn't even make any sense. But we also have a nefesh abahamis, and the nefesh abahamis really is impoverished. And the really the reason that the nefesh abahamis impoverished is because the nefesh abahamis. Is going to die. This the soul inside of you that animates your body, and it's only designed to last for a very specific amount of time. The nature of the nefesh abahamis is that it's aware of its own mortality. That's what the nefesh abahamis is about. The nefesh abahamis says, "I'm going to die." So, what happens in the face of death? What do we do? What are the things that we'll do to avoid death?

22:39 This is why we spend our life running around. Saying things are not as they should be—that's the perspective of the nefesh abahamis. Things are not okay. Things are not as they should be. What's happening is unjust and unfair. And the reason we believe that is because it's terrifying to be alive. And I don't know that many people are paying attention to that. It's a terrifying thing to be alive. Just to give you an example of what this means There's something called. Well There's a psychological term for it, but it just jumped out of my head. It's avoiding joy. Do you know that joy is the most vulnerable of all emotions? Because the second you feel it If you feel real waves of joy, the second you feel it, you know what you're afraid of. I could lose this. So we live in fear. Every one of us, on some level, lives in fear of the possibility of loss. And there are people in life that will avoid doing things that will bring them joy because they know that once they experience that joy.

23:49 They have the possibility of losing that joy. It's like Just as like a silliness. I have this is not a good example, but it's a good example. I know this might sound like a funny thing to say, but my mother really loves me. It's like a funny thing to say, but I happen to be I have a mother who really loves me And my mother really doesn't want me to die, like she like it's important to her. You know what I'm saying? It's like a funny thing to say, but she really doesn't. So I'm baruch Hashem about to become a grandfather myself. My mother still makes me let her know if I'm driving somewhere, she's like, just send me a text when you get home. Just let me know that you're home. I'm like, at what point does this end? You know what I'm saying?

24:36 I hope my mother lives for a long time, but if I'm still in my sixties and my mom is like, I just need to know that you're okay. She checks the weather. She'll say it's gonna rain. I say it'll be okay. I'm saying it's gonna be fine. But there's a certain joy that my mother has in her family and a certain anxiety of what could happen if. Do you have a mother like this? Am I the only one here? So for about the twenty percent of you that came with me on this, I just want you to know I'm with you. For the rest of you, you're very blessed, and I'm sure your parents love you very much and they just don't have anxiety issues. But for my family, this is the nefesh Abahamis lives with the fear of I might not be enough. It's David, the learning disabled kid. I don't know if I can win at this game. In fact, the nefesh Abahamis knows I can't win at this game because if the point of the game is to stay alive, then the nefesh Abahamis knows that eventually it's going to die.

25:31 So this is what happens. We come to crossroads in our lives. Things have happened to every one of us. Every single person in this room, on some level, has experienced some disappointment. Something that happened to us that was unjust. Something that shouldn't have happened to us. It wasn't right that it happened to us. There is no justification. We're not here saying Gamzula Tova in the fake way of it's good. It's not good. It was really not good. It was exceptionally painful. Maybe you could find goodness in it, but it's not good. What happened is we lost someone that we loved. What are we saying to the people that have gone through and are going through tremendous loss over the last couple of months in Simchas Torah? These are real things. We're not here to say that it's good. It's terrible. We've all been hurt on some level.

26:25 Listen to what Yosef Hatzadik says. This according to the Sfas Emes. This is a wild shot. Yosef Hatzadik gives a flask to his brothers. I'm Yosef. That's it's the reality smacking them in the face. He draws them close. Listen to the svasemes. Teaches what Yosef Hatzadik says. I'm going to read it again inside. This is a wild thing. I am Yosef, your brother. What does Asher mean? What does that word mean, Asher? The simple explanation is that Sfas Emes says an unbelievable word. We see that by Meishar Abenu It says asher shibarta yasher kayaich shibarta. Asher means yasher kayaich. The sfas emes says. Yosef the tzaddik said, "ani Yosef achichem, I am Yosef, your brother. Why asher? Because yasher kayaich." Because you sold me down to Mitzrayim, now I'm Yosef, your brother. This is a wild pshat. It's a wild pshat. I want to give a level of depth to this. Sfas Emes doesn't say this, but I think it's a hundred percent true.

27:46 Yosef Atzadik's whole life was desperate to be their brother. Can you be in a relationship when you're desperate? Nobody in desperation is the least attractive thing. If you ever go on a date with a guy and he's desperate, is that it? Dude, just no, don't do it. And that's what we talk to the guys about. You should know we do. I know a lot of you think we don't talk to the boys about these things, but we do a tremendous amount. We tell the guys, I know you're in a place where you're fearful and you're hopeless, but if you show up that way on a date, you don't create space for a relationship. Yosef HaTzaddik, again, I'm talking on a human level, and obviously Yosef is a tzaddik. The Torah says these things for us to learn from. Yosef HaTzaddik was a kid who wanted to connect to his siblings, but his sibling You are an annoying little brother. Anyone here have an annoying little brother?

28:37 I should know. I know. I shouldn't say this, but I know a very big gadol b'tayra. And I know his cousin. And they were in yeshiva together. The cousin told me about this gadol b'tayra. He was so annoying in yeshiva. All he wanted to do was go out on t'yu limb with his older cousins. We used to ditch him all the time. That's one of the gadolei hadar. He was the little kid; he was 14 years old. They were all big yeshiva guys, 19, 20 years old. He was like, 'Please come with you guys,' and they're like, 'No.' Maybe he became a gadol hadar because he didn't go on those tziyulim. I don't know. But the idea that there's something there's desperation. You know what Yosef HaTzaddik is saying to his brothers? Because I was removed from you, because I was detached from you I learned to be in touch with myself.

29:30 That's how we become in touch with ourselves. All of the tragic things that have happened to us in our life, this is not like a kitschy thing. This is not a cute thing. What I'm about to say is not something that goes on a refrigerator magnet. There's no thank you Hashem tag under it. This is like a very real thing. Every single thing that happens to us in our life, it's building us whether we want it to or not. If you've ever been dropped by a friend. And you've had to go through that pain of being dropped by a friend, then you know that what happens is that you're standing at the crossroads of either I'm desperate now because I lost someone, or alternatively I'm forced to turn inwards and learn to be enough for myself. And what happens if you learn to be enough for yourself? The paradox is that if you are not careful, you might end up hurting others. The key is to ensure that your actions are thoughtful and considerate of those around you.

30:24 And then at the top of his power, he's humbled and thrown down. And he has to learn to be enough for himself again. Where does he have to be enough for himself? In a jail. It's not easy to be enough for yourself in a position of power. It's really not easy to be enough for yourself when you have everything taken away from you. I had a Talmud once, who unfortunately I've had a couple tell me them like this, but I had Talmud once whose father was in jail. And he told me that visiting his father was the most painful thing in the world, because you grow up worshiping your father. Every boy grows up worshiping his father. He said that seeing his father stripped of everything was so painful. He had to go visit his father, because that's obviously kibbutz, you have to go visit your father. His father made a mistake. There could be he was even totally unaware of what he was doing, but Lamaisy, he ended up in jail. He had to go visit his father.

31:18 But to see him stripped away of everything, you know what happens when you're stripped away of everything? Again, you have a choice: wallow in your own self-pity. I lost everything, or discover, as Viktor Frankl did, that when you take away everything from me, what's left is my essence, and you can't take away my essence. The famous story with Viktor Frankl was that he stuck his hand into the pajamas that were given to him after they took away his doctoral dissertation. He came to Auschwitz holding his doctoral dissertation. They took away his doctoral dissertation. They took away his clothing. They took away everything. Stripped of his dignity, they gave him a prisoner's pajamas of somebody that had just died, somebody who had just been burned. He reached into the pocket and he pulled out a piece of paper, and on the piece of paper it said, "Shema Yisrael, Adonai Elokei No'Adonai Echad." And Frankel said about that moment. He said it was the moment that I realized that they took away my doctoral dissertation, but a whole new path was being developed for me. You could take away everything. His life's work was in his doctoral dissertation, but his life's work up until that point wasn't logo therapy. Logo therapy was what he discovered in Auschwitz when you take away everything from somebody.

32:24 You discover who you are. Yosef HaTzaddik is saying, "I'm ready to be your brother now because you sold me down to Mitzrayim." Ani Yosef Achichem. I wasn't capable of being in a loving relationship with you at that point, but because you took away everything from me, I owe you such a debt of gratitude. Because I came into self in these moments It's not a small thing to say. As parents We watch our kids going through really hard times, and as parents, we want to protect our children from going through really hard times. But good parents know that when our kids go through really hard times, that's not a bad thing. That's the process of becoming. That's the process of unfolding into self. We develop the contours of self from within the pain that we experience. The classic example of this is in ninth grade, when girls are going through that whole Who am I thing in ninth grade, and I was friends with those girls from eighth grade, and we came in but we came into ninth grade together. But that girl decided that she wanted to be in that group, and I don't know who my friends are anymore. So I'm trying out a new group. You've seen this show before.

33:35 And then you finally develop a group, and then one girl. I don't know why girls do this. Guys don't do this. Guys punch each other. You have a girl who decides that girl's not part of the group. Have you seen the show? This is the most painful thing in the world to watch. One girl gets sliced off from the group, and she's literally alone. This happened to one of my daughters. And she was—it was the craziest thing. She was a cool kid. She was a well-liked kid. She never had a social issue before. And as a parent, I remember in ninth grade when she came and she sat down on the edge of my bed, or I rather I sat down on the edge of her bed because I saw that she wasn't in a good place. And she burst out crying and she said,"Abba, I don't even know what's going on. How much I wanted to call the father of that girl that peeled her off from the group. I'm not talking about in the very aggressive.

34:23 Like I'm gonna take him to whatever you know. I'm saying I'm not like I'm not I'm not that guy Although I know certain dads that are. And maybe I would have called them, but I wanted to like you know, I'm saying like I'm not the guy that's gonna call up another father or your daughter. You know, like I'm not, I'm just not. It's not my style. But I really wanted to call that father. You want to do as a father? You want to fix it? No social engineering. You want to say like maybe your daughter doesn't realize that what she's doing is hurting. You know you want to do like and then you justify it yourself. It'll help her with her chinuch, right? You go through that whole process. And in that moment, you know what you do? Nothing. Nothing. You just sit there and you rub your daughter's back, and you say it's okay to be feeling what you're feeling, and you allow them to develop the muscle to deal with things, because that moment is a gift, even though it's the most painful moment. That moment is a gift, because what does a child learn when they're being excluded from a group in ninth grade?

35:18 Forget the pain for a second. What do they learn? They learn that it's okay for me to be. Not with that group. I think I'm still a person. I'm still worthy of love and connection, even though those girls right now don't want me to be a part of that group. She's developing the muscles to be a part of a social group. That's not something you can just do overnight. The famous muscle is with the caterpillar in the cocoon. So they what grade do they do that? It's like third fourth grade. That's like the thing that everyone has them on the side. So they tell the story that one time a caterpillar was having trouble coming out of its cocoon. So the kid wanted to get his caterpillar out because it was already like you could see that it was a butterfly. So he tore open the cocoon. And what happens is that the butterfly comes out with no color on its wings because how a butterfly develops color on its wings is from pushing out of the cocoon.

36:08 Yosef HaTzaddik is saying to his brothers, "You gave me the opportunity. I know you didn't mean to do this, but you gave me the opportunity to become your brother. And I can't tell you how much I appreciate that." And Hakadosh Baruch Hu had a plan. Because I became this person, now I'm in a position to help others. Now I'm in a position to be your brother and to feed you and to take care of our family. In other words, Yosef Atadik wasn't the victim. And many, many people in life choose to be the victim. There's nothing wrong. I wanted to say this very clearly: there's nothing wrong with saying this is exceptionally painful. There's nothing wrong with saying that. The nefesh abahamis deserves to say this is exceptionally painful But what we want in the ideal is to access the nefesh l'okis that says I can get through this But it requires something.

37:03 What does it require? So listen to this vart from Rav Druck, unbelievable vart. Listen to this vart. We asked the question at the beginning of the she'er. Yosef HaTzaddik wasn't able to hold back and kicked everyone out of the room. Get rid of all of the people here. There was nobody else there with him. Sirvdruch says as follows. It doesn't mean alpidrush. It doesn't mean get rid of all the men from the room. It means remove. If you're going to go through this, you have to be on the level of a malach. Remove all of your ishius. Remove all of your nefesh abahamis. To get to the level we're talking about, the level of a malach, says Rav Chok. A human being who's going through pain And you go to them and you say, "This pain builds you." It's not the way it works. A human being feels that pain and they don't realize that this is an opportunity for growth. The nefesh abrahamis goes through something tragic, and the nefesh abrahamis doesn't have the space to be able to say, "Okay, b'seder, I'm going to grow from this." There's something I've seen over the years. I just want to say this once. I don't have to say it every day, but I just want to say this once. I'm so tired of hearing people say

38:22 "This thing was terrible, but it made me who I am." You don't get to say that. It's not easy to. That's not like a throwaway line. You're 16 years old. A 16 year old said it to me this summer. A six. I don't want to get into any of the details of what he said, but suffice it to say, a 16 year old boy said to me this summer, he went through Gehenna. He went through Gehenna, Mamish. And he goes, but it made me the person that I am. I'm like, and I wanted to say it gently, obviously. But I'm like, you can't say that at 16 because you're robbing yourself of the opportunity to say that this hurts and I'm in pain and I'm going to work through this. And if you just have that throwaway line of like, yeah, like, it made me the person that I am, that's a 30, 40, 50 year process. You don't get to say it made me who I am six months after it happened when you're 16 years old. That's your way of avoiding the vulnerability of the pain.

39:08 And at some point, you have to be able to say, "I'm ready to discover the godliness within this moment," but not right away. The first reaction has to be, "It's okay for me to experience this pain." " But Yosef HaTzaddik, after all of these years in Mitzrayim, after all of the years of suffering, now he's able to say,"Remove all the ish from the room. Remove all the humanity. I'm about to achieve the level of a Malach," and he did. R' Druck says that's what the repetition of the pasuk is. When the pasuk says When the pasuk says "velo amad ish ito," it means that Yosef Hatsadik had gotten to the level of a malach. The level of a malach that now he's able to say to his brothers, and this is not an easy thing to do. The nefesh Abahamis can't do this. You have to be on the level of a malach to do this. Now he's able to say to his brothers, "Asher shibarta, you broke me, but you built me." That's not a small thing to say.

40:05 Klal Yisrael is in a state right now Of breaking. And it's not Simchas Torah; it's not what it is. Simchas Torah was the straw that broke the camel's back. But we have been breaking for a very long time. If you look at the state of Achdus and Klal Yisrael We have been breaking for a very long time. We have fractured ourselves and splintered ourselves into smaller and smaller little communities. They say about my community on Ramat Pechemesh that every single block is a different community. If you live on this block, you're Charedi. If you live on this block, you're Charedi light. If you live on this block, you're Charedi. This block is Charedi, diet Charedi. That block is Dati Lumi. But they're close to the Charedi block. Everybody has their own little and everyone made their own little shul and everyone made their own little thing. We've been splintering for years.

41:06 And it got it. It reached its crescendo this summer with the democratic reform, where literally the country where they were talking about civil war. That was a real thing. They were talking about Nobody in my neighborhood locks their doors. First of all, nobody has stuff to steal. Who's gonna steal my stuff? Nobody locks our doors. Talk about civil war in Eretz Yisrael. It's a crazy thing, civil war that Yidden could fight other Yidden. That there could be such a thing. That's literally what they were talking about. And people stood proudly for years. I saw rabbanim chashevim standing proudly with their hashkafas, using their hashkafas like a weapon. To separate the communities. It's like the thing at a supermarket to divide. And there's always that woman that pushes her. There was one time in Garmiland. My stuff was too close to her stuff. She took the thing and pushed my stuff back. I was like.

42:04 I didn't mean for my chips to be too close to your diapers. They use their hashkafas like a weapon. Like a weapon. You go here. You're this, you're that. Everyone had their labels. You're right wing, why you? You're this. You're open. You're not open. Everyone had their little labels that they put together. And we were looking for each other. Yidden were looking for each other. Yidden were looking for brothers. But I can't be your brother. What do you mean? You're in a different community. My kids can't play with your kids. Only the out of town people. We're looking at the in town people. Going, you're crazy. What does that mean? Your kids can't play with your kids. There's not in the out of town. Can you go to Columbus, Ohio? What do you mean, my kids can't play with your kids? If you go to Columbus, there's not another kid to play with. I walked into a certain school today. I walked into a school today, and the door was locked. It shouldn't let in strangers. And this kid opened the door because he was on his way out.

42:58 I'm not a person who comes from his yeshiva. Obviously, I look a little different than the other guys. I wouldn't like that. And he just walked right by me Just opened the door and walked right by me as if I didn't exist. And I wanted to say to him Shalom Aleichem, just like he walked right by me as if I didn't exist. I remember what that's like. I remember walking down the street and Pasha not saying good shabbos to people. How could you not say good shabbos to each other? What do you mean we all live together? The only time people nod to each other, the only time people see each other, in an airport. I was just coming from San Diego and I got on the plane first. And this guy got on the plane after me with a yarmulke. And he sees me, and I see him, and we did this. You ready? It was a beautiful moment. We did this. It's like But if we were walking next to each other.

43:48 And in a neighborhood that was full of Jews, and it was Shabbos, we probably would have walked right by each other. No good Shabbos, no Shalom Aleichem. How are you? It's a tragedy. Yidden are looking for each other, but we've become so separated from each other. So we've been breaking for years And now what happened? We have to reach the level of malachim. And we have to say Asher Shibarta Yashakayach Shibarta Kadosh Baruch Hu. Thank you for sending those Rishayim Arurim across the border on some Chas Torah. Thank you for sending them to remind us that it doesn't matter if a Yid keeps Shabbos or not. Doesn't matter if a yid keeps Shabbos or not. That's your brother. That's your sister. It doesn't matter. This is the only way that we're going to find each other. The Rebbeinu Sholom is breaking us down, and he's taking away everything from us.

44:36 And he's saying, "Can you find each other now?" My brother likes to smoke meat. Certain men live on smoked meat. My brother is like a man who smokes meat. He sent me a picture today. He said, "My meats made it into Gaza." Don't share this video. You're not allowed to share this video. The soldiers took a video. He sent his smoked meat, and it got all the way into Gaza. They're sitting in some house in Gaza, eating his meat, taking a video, and saying thank you very much. I was thinking about that. My brother lives in Nirya. He'll probably never meet these soldiers. What do they have in common? You know what they have in common? Nothing. Just yidden. Just like my brother likes to make smoked meat, and they like to eat smoked meat, and he sent smoked meat. This like the whole like. This not a convoluted concept. Why can't we do this? Why have we been so da fuk that we can't do this?

45:32 The teretz is because of our impoverished mentality of the nefesh abraham. I think we're so afraid of anything that's going to be impacting us in any way, so we close ranks and we hold real tight and we say, 'Don't let anybody in,' and let's put everyone in boxes and everybody could live in their little coffins, eat with each other, and this way we don't have to worry about people coming in. This is a tragedy. This is not the way it's supposed to be. Okay, so if we're going to reach the level of achdus that's necessary to bring Mashiach, we have one choice and one choice only. We have to stop operating from the level of the nefesh of Bahametz. We have to understand that the opportunity right now to bring Mashi is in front of us. We're living in the final moments before Mashiach. The only question is what will be our level of participation in this process. And if we're living with the impoverished mentality of, I can't be a part of that. I don't want to be a part of that.

46:21 It means you don't understand what's happening. The process is unfolding. We have to reach the level of malachim in order to be able to say this is breaking us in order for us to find each other. And some people are doing an amazing job at this. Some people that I'm seeing are just figuring out how to embrace, how to love, and how to draw people in. And I'll finish with this story. This is my favorite story from the entire war. This is not a big story. It's not like one of these crazy wild stories. Just a regular story. It's a woman in my neighborhood, a family in my neighborhood. It's a Charedi family. It's a real Charedi family. And there was a young mother whose husband went out to war, and she had two kids and she didn't feel like she could hold it together, so somebody set her up to come live in this Charedi family's house.

47:10 And. So they were living in the basement, but it's not like one of these. It's Eretz Yisrael, so there's not like a back house. There's not like a kitchen down there. They're living in the house, mamish. They're eating their meals together. They're doing their laundry together. Everything together. After two weeks in the house, this woman whose husband is away comes to the Charedi mother of this house and says, 'I think I'd like to borrow a skirt.' " So the mother turns to this woman and she says,"Why do you want to borrow a skirt?" She says, "I feel badly. I'm wearing pants in a charedi neighborhood in your house. It doesn't feel right to me. You've done so much for me. I want to wear. I want to wear a skirt to be tsnius in your house. So this mother looked at this woman and she said, "No, not giving you a skirt." You're loved here just as you are.

47:58 And the woman broke down crying. She said, "Af pam b'chayim shelil lo shamati al charedim kazu. Not once in my entire life, this girl was raised in a home." Where they told her that she was wrong. She said, "Okay, I'm not sure if I should do this." And they lived there for weeks. And her husband came home from war. And this mother said, "You're going to shul on Shabbos with them, like you have to be." And the husband's like, "You don't have to come to shul." And he's like, "No." My wife says, "I'm coming to shul." He put a like a put a yarmulke on his head and he came to shul. I don't know if the guy had been in shul since his bar mitzvah, maybe not even then. But it's beautiful. Some people are mamish getting it. Some people are saying this happened. And it's breaking us, but it's breaking us open to each other so that we can find our brothers. And some people in Aleinu are still holding on, and they're still like, "No, we got to be careful. We don't want the influences to come into our community." What are we afraid of?

48:50 What are we afraid of? If your kid is friends with someone who's a little bit different than you, do you think your kid is going to go straight off the derech? If your kid is going to go straight off the derech because they're friends with someone that's not like you, that means that something was deficient already in the home, and they weren't anchored and attached in the home. I don't know when we became so afraid. In the eighties, I have to tell you, in the eighties, we weren't so afraid. I was thrown out of school in this neighborhood. I was thrown out of a coed modern orthodox school, and the only other school in the neighborhood that would take me was Darche. How come Rabbi Bender wasn't afraid? How come Rabbi Bender didn't say, 'Well, we're going to take Berg, Matt Berg. His father's in advertising. His father's, his father's literally in television.' And Rabbi Bender was giving anti-television shmuhs on every single Friday. How come they weren't afraid? The answer is that there used to be a time where we said we just love each other. There weren't enough of us to sit there and make these little distinctions.

49:40 But Baruch Hashem, wow! The Jewish community got so big, so now we figured out how to separate off from each other. This is a tragedy. It's a tragedy that we've separated from each other. But now the Rebbeinu Shlom gave us a tremendous opportunity. The only question is, will we take it? And it's happening, right? How many Chesed organizations? How many Chesed organizations? I just heard tonight How many people? Thousands Thousands. She's being modest, but thousands Thousands Thousands of people are being helped. Do you know what community they're from? These people that you're helping. Do you know if they're Charedi or Chiloni or Dati Lumi or Mizrahi? Because there's no more Charedim, I think we need to make sure that we're not playing those games anymore. This breaking is happening in order for us to find each other. He wrote some of the avinu shabbat shamayim that we should find each other b'karov, and in the s'chus of the achdus that we've created, the Rebbeinu Sholom should send Mashiach Zakenu fast. They have a wonderful Shabbos.