Vayikra - Bringing Out the Essence of the Animal Soul

2:27 That's our first question for tonight. Pesukim two pesukim later, tells us something that we all know because we do it every Shabbos. The chol carbon minchascha ba melech timlach. Every single carbon in the Bei'sham Mikdash had salt. Loitash bis melech brisa lekecha me'alm minchasecha al kar kam b'acha takrav melech. Every single carbon mincha. Every single carbon that you bring. The pasuk here refers to some melech bris Hashem alokacha. There's some sort of covenant of salt with Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Every single carbon has to have salt. Why? So listen to the words of Rashi. Very esoteric Rashi. Rashi says shabris krusal a melech. There was a covenant. There was a bris that was made with salt. Mishes shemay bereshis. This covenant was made all the way back in the beginning of time. The lower waters were promised by Hakadosh Baruch Hu that they too would be drawn close to Hashem when Hashem split the waters between the Mayim Al Yonim and the Mayim Tachtonim. So the Mayim Tachtonim had a tainah from Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Why are the Mayim Al Yonim close to you? Why are the upper waters close to you, and we're down here?

3:56 So Hakadosh Baruch Hu says, "Don't worry, you will be drawn close to Me. I make you a covenant, a bris, that you two will be drawn close, and it will it will occur through the karbanos that we bring by extracting the salt from the water and using them on all of our karbanos. So in some way, the mayim tachtonim are now elevated and brought close to Hakadosh Baruch Hu." This is the source for the halacha that we're supposed to dip our salt in bread. Dip our bread in salt is the appropriate way of saying that. I landed yesterday and I'm leaving in an hour. Back to Eretz Yisrael. All things are forgiven. It's a funny thing because the minhag developed for us to dip our bread in salt.

4:53 On Shabbos, but really the halacha is that you're supposed to do that any time you have bread. Most of us are not knowing that way. I'm just imagining tomorrow in Stern, all the girls like dipping their bread. We all became very frum. You see girls on dates with these guys, and he gets bread and he doesn't dip it in salt, and the girls are like, he's clearly not a tamchach. It just ended like ninety percent. We created a whole new shetach crisis. It's really not a halacha on Shabbos. It's really a halacha. It's in Hilchas Btzias HaPas. It's a halacha that you're supposed to dip your bread in salt all the time. The minhag developed to do it on Shabbos. It's brought down in Shochan Aruch. Ideally, you're supposed to dip it in salt. Sometimes you see, if there's no salt on the table, you ever see Yeshivish people dipping it in like dips.

5:51 Baruch Hashem, that minig hasn't developed yet in Klal Yisrael. We have like the fanciest salt dips that ever existed. People will spend tens of thousands of dollars on charcuterie board dips, the newest thing that you'll see coming out of the Five Towns. I'm in a bad mood because I saw there was a $2,500 King Achashverosh charcuterie board shalach manos that was for sale. $2,500. Esther Amalke got one, but it was only $1,800. Which was deeply sexist, then also very inappropriate. Why does Esther Hamalka get the smaller one? She's the heroine of the story. Yehoshua is the rosh. Maybe they had some sort of cheshbon that Melech and the Megillah refers to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, so that's why he got the twenty-five hundred dollar bezayin. Shulchan Aruch says that we're supposed to dip our challah ideally in salt. And let's say your challah recipe—I don't know much about challah recipes.

6:49 One time, a girl told me that she was making challah for a boy that she was dating, and she made it by hand because that's better than in the machine. Is that true? I don't know any of these things. But does your challah recipe have salt in it? Ninety percent. So what's the halacha if your recipe has salt in it? Do you need to dip it in the salt? Shulchan Aruch says no. Shulchan Aruch says that if the salt is already in the recipe, then you don't need to dip it in the salt, but the Rama disagrees. The Rama says it's a mitzvah. He doesn't say a minhag. The Rama calls it a mitzvah. It's a mitzvah at the very least. Have salt on your table. Ideally, by the way, the salt should be out the entire time, even before kiddush. The Rama says that even if there's salt in the recipe, still the ideal thing is to dip our challah in salt because our tables are like a mizbeach, and this is like the carbonos. We do this every single Shabbos.

7:49 Somebody who is makhbid to dip their bread in salt, it's a magen, it's a shmirah, it protects them from any misfortunes that will come their way. And so again, we have the obvious question: What is this emphasis on salt? Every single carbon needs to have salt. That it's some sort of magen, some sort of protection for Klal Yisrael. We're supposed to do it all the time. What does it mean that the mayim hatachteinim felt closer to our Kadosh Baruch Hu? Because they had salt, what do any of these things mean? I want to share with you an idea tonight. It's an idea that's very close to my heart because it's something that I think the entire world is suffering from today, including myself, which is a mayim tachtonim type of existence. So many of us feel.

8:46 Baruch Hashem, we're getting better at expressing it, and there's a greater level of vulnerability that exists today that people can talk about these things. Thirty, forty years ago, a person wasn't allowed to talk about these things. But many of us feel like the mayim tachtanim. Many of us feel distant from Hakadosh Baruch Hu in our lives. Maybe when we were in Eretz Yisrael, maybe when we were in seminary, maybe when we had nothing else in our life and were able just to focus on Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Maybe the moves that we were making at that time in our lives brought a sense of satisfaction, a sense of meaning, a sense of connection. But after a person leaves the bubble of seminary, after a person comes back from Eretz Yisrael, from Yeshayim Mir Hakodesh, and they come back, there's a sense of distance, there's a sense of loss, there's a void, a sense of there was a time in my life when I was a Mayim Al Yonim Jew.

9:44 And now I feel like a ma'ayim tachtonim. I feel split. There's a part of me that yearns for a deep connection with Hakadosh Baruch Hu. And there's a part of me that doesn't even yearn. Maybe I've lost a sense of a feeling that I once had. I'm speaking in a general sense. It could be that there are times in your life where you do feel that way, and maybe even many times where you feel deeply connected. I imagine that there are sometimes that people in this room feel ma'ayim tachtona, feel perhaps that the words of davening no longer speak to you, and it's hard to speak to Hakadosh Baruch Hu when there's so many other things going on in your life and there's so much pain.

10:40 In the last 48 hours, I had the opportunity to speak to many people, but two in specific are relevant for this part. One young man who's a good Jew and he's a good person. We were talking about his journey in Yiddishkeit and what he's up to, and he can't bring himself to daven anymore. He's still a good person. He's a good Jew. He'll do good things in his life. He'll be a part of the community. He'll raise his children to be passionate Jews, but for him, the sitter no longer speaks to him. It never really did. He never really connected to it, and it feels fake and disingenuous for him to open up the words of the sitter and to say the same things over and over again. And honestly, I don't blame him. How many of us feel the same way? How many of us feel like sitting there and repeating the same words every day is a very difficult thing to do?

11:39 Another person that I spoke with is in terrible pain, and rightfully so. He's a person who has encountered, in the last couple of months, unparalleled levels of misfortune. He's a person who has encountered the chaos of life in its most intense form, and he's angry. He's angry at the Rebbeinu Sholom, and rightfully so. There's nothing wrong with being angry. That's also a form of prayer. And he feels very distant from Hashem. I spent about 45 minutes with him yesterday, just listening to him. And not one thing he said there was no answer, there was no response that anybody could give when faced with the tragedies that he's had to confront in his life. He feels so distant from Anochash Baruch Hu right now. And who could blame him? Certainly not I. This mayim tachtonim experience is something I think that's ubiquitous. I think it's something that everybody is experiencing at various points in their life, some more, some less. A girl who's been in shidduchim for years, who's barely getting a date, or who's had her heart broken.

13:05 At some point, there's a feeling of frustration with the system. There's a feeling of frustration with Klal Yisrael. There's a feeling of frustration with Hakadosh Baruch Hu. There's mayim tachtaynim experience. There were mayim alyonim times in our life when I felt close, and there's mayim tachtaynim, a yearning to be close, a yearning to recapture, to regain what we once had, but a feeling also of profound distance. It's important for us to understand what the depth of mayim tachtaynim is. The Balatanya explains, and I hope every one of you has had the opportunity to learn at least some of Tanya in your lives. The Balatanya gives the fundamental insight into the nature of how a human being works. I imagine many of you are familiar with this terminology, but I'll spell it out for those of you that are not. We have not one but two souls. In our lives, growing up, we heard this thing: Yitzchakara, Yitzchak Tov. The Balatanya has a revolution where he says, 'Forget Yitzhahar, forget Yitzhatov. Let's go more primary. Let's go more essential.' There's something called the Nefesh Elokes and something called the Nefesh Bahamis. A Nefesh Elokes is a godly soul. Every one of us is endowed with a unique godly soul. The Alter Rebbe describes it as it can be compared to a ray of the sun. The godly soul is a ray of the sun from Hakadosh Baruch Hu Himself.

14:35 The relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu is unbreakable. The godly soul has a mayim elyanim experience. The godly soul never feels distant from Hakadosh Baruch Hu. It's godly in its nature. But then there's something else. There's something called a nefesh bahamis, an animal soul. The animal soul is not bad. The animal soul is not evil. But the animal soul feels distant from Hakadosh Baruch Hu, and I'll explain to you why. The animal soul is what gives our body life; it's what animates us. And the animal soul is very aware of its own mortality. The animal soul is on a path towards death. The moment you are born, you start to die. And because the animal soul is aware of its own mortality, the animal soul lives in a perpetual state of fear.

15:34 The animal soul needs to do things to sustain itself, and so the animal soul will participate not because it's bad, but like a puppy, like a little dog, just trying to do whatever it can to survive. The animal soul will do deeply inappropriate things in order to have a sense of life. Perhaps the animal soul, as a teenager, today even as an adult, will engage with substances designed to blunt our emotions, drugs, alcohol, food, inappropriate relationships. The animal soul will do whatever it can to feel alive, because it's deeply aware of its own mortality. It's deeply aware, and these are the key words, of the void that exists between it and the Rebbeinu Shalom. When the Rebbeinu Shalom creates the world, he created the first Chilul Hashem.

16:34 What does the word Chil Hashem mean? When I was growing up, I grew up in the Five Towns. There was a camp in the Five Towns called Simcha Day Camp. Anyone here ever heard of Simcha Day Camp? I grew up my whole life in Simcha Day Camp. When you're a little boy growing up in the 80s in Simcha Day Camp, they always give you the same speech every single summer, right before you go to Shea Stadium. They have like that one o'clock in the afternoon game that only the Jewish camps go to. Nobody else is in the entire stadium, but the entire upper deck is filled with Jewish kids because the tickets are like five dollars a piece. So they give all the kids in camp the same speech: "Don't make a chil Hashem." And I remember being like eight years old, and I had no idea what a chil Hashem was, but I knew it's what happens in Shea Stadium. So as a little boy growing up, whenever I saw Shea Stadium, I was like, "That's where chil hashems happen." You have to be very careful in Shea Stadium. Now it's City Field.

17:35 The greatest chilul Hashem that ever occurred was creation itself. Chilul Hashem means a chalal, a space where Hashem is not. That's what creation is—a space where Hashem's presence is not felt. The godly soul is always attuned to Hakadosh Baruch Hu's presence, but the nefesh abahamis a creation, and because the nefesh abahamis a creation, the nefesh abahamis profoundly aware of the void that exists, the lack of godliness in its life. And the nefesh abahamis will do whatever it can to fill that void. I once heard a great line: People have trouble with addiction because they think that addiction is a problem. Addiction is a solution, and that's why it's so hard to get rid of. Addiction is a solution to the spiritual void that every one of us feels in our lives.

18:36 Naturally, a human being is somewhere on the spectrum of abuse to addiction. We all do things in our lives to cover up the lack of godliness that we feel. Lashon hara is an amazing example. I've never been able to understand why it feels so good to speak disparagingly about another. I just want to be clear. When I say I've never been able to understand, I don't mean like I don't do it. I do it and I get it. You know what I'm saying? I understand it. I just can't articulate why it feels so good. Why is it so good when we sit around and talk about somebody else in a negative way? Why does that make us feel powerful? Why does that make us feel better? I've never been able to articulate what it is. It goes against every one of my values, but have I spoken lashon hara? Absolutely I have. I'm not proud of it, but it's a mitzvah. It's a reality. Why does it make us feel so good? I have no idea, but I know that when I'm doing it, it's coming from that void.

19:28 I don't know why it feels good to push somebody else down and stand on their shoulders and call myself tall. I have no idea why it feels good, but I know that it's filling that void. And we all do things to fill that void. How many relationships are born from this desperation that people have to fill the void in our lives? That if only I'll be able to get married, then everything will be okay. And how much fear is in the system that tells us that? It's a whole different story. The answer is a tremendous amount of fear. That fear leads to crazy things. A girl shows up to a shidduch because for so many years she's grown up hearing that if she's not absolutely perfect, then she's never going to get a shidduch. And of Chassidus Sholom, she turns 20 and she's not already married with three kids. So then, what's going to be with her entire life? And so by the time she's 21, she's absolutely desperate.

20:25 And even if she's in a relationship where she knows that it's filling that void, that it's coming from a place of fear. Maybe I'm just talking myself out of it, and I don't know if I should settle. I get these phone calls all the time. Rechamad leitzlon. These poor girls. Where's the sense of self? There's this void. People are, for the sake of selling newspapers and clicks on websites and ala mishagasan, doing research and studying. All of these things are killing the community. We're exacerbating the void, rather than teaching people to stand on their own two feet and having a sense of self. Rather than telling girls that their Abanu Shalom is Meshad Echshaduchim and nobody else, and there's no Shaduchim in the world that's in charge of you. You don't have to listen to them. But if I don't listen to them, then they're never going to set me up again. They understand crazy people, but they're speaking to the fear.

21:23 And there's a ton of fear in the system because that void is real. We do feel a void of godliness in our life because we do have a lack of emuna. Not because we're bad, chas v'shalom, but because we're human. This is what the nefesh abahamis experience is like. All the things that we do that are solutions are so hard to let go of because they're solutions. It's so hard for a teenager. Let's take a teenager who's messing around with weed. Why is he messing around with weed? Why is she messing around with weed? It's not recreational, and it's not just because she wants to fit in, and it's not just because of a social circle thing. It's because there's a void, there's a lack of something that's happening in her life, in his life, and it's really hard for them to stop because it's a great solution. It's a numbing of my feelings. Why would I ever want to feel these terrible feelings? And so people yell and they scream and they threaten. What do you want from this kid? He's 16 years old. What do you want? He's 16 years old.

22:20 I know a young man. Today, Baruch Hashem, he's married with children. He's put his life back together. I know a young man who owed deeds several times. Baruch Hashem, he's alive to tell the story. It's a crazy maysa. Without getting into too much detail, it's a person who, in a very quick way, fell into the world of drugs and alcohol. He was in a tremendous amount of pain. Years later, I spoke to him, and he said to me something very profound. He said, "You know who I have a taina on? I have a taina on the guy that gave me my first sip of alcohol by a Shabbos kiddush when I was 15 years old, because he thought it was cool to give the 15-year-old a little bit of scotch and make a lechayim on Shabbos. He thought it was cool, but he didn't know how much pain I was in. I don't blame him for not knowing."

23:16 But he gave me that solution, and the first time I took that drink, I was like, 'Oh, so that's what it feels like—not to feel the insane pain that I feel all the time.' So, in a very short amount of time, one shot became two, two became four, four became twenty. Breaking into a shul early in the morning, three, four o'clock in the morning, breaking into the shul, breaking open the liquor cabinet. People coming to Shulvasik and seeing him pass out on the floor, having to call Atzala and rushing him to the hospital to have his stomach pumped because he was in a tremendous amount of pain, and somebody handed him a terrible solution. It's not the time or place to have this conversation, but there's a conversation that needs to happen in the Jewish community. It has to happen soon. It has to happen fast. It has to happen loudly. How many children, children, children are being introduced?

24:12 To things that will destroy their lives on Purim. For most people, it's okay. For most people, they're not experiencing that level of pain, and so they'll have it, and it'll be a phase, and it'll be cute, even though there's nothing cute about it, and there's nothing Purimdic about it. But for some people, we're handing these children weapons to destroy themselves. The nefesh of Ahamas inside of them feels that void tremendously. For some people in this room, the void of spirituality in their life is crippling. It's crippling, and for others, it's like okay, but say that I do these things, I have a shetikal abuse of these things in my life. But for other people, there's real addiction going on. I see it in the yeshivas for sure. When does a person get help? When does a person change their lives? When you speak to an addict, and they finally enter into a 12-step program, and they go to rehab, and they start to change their lives, it's not the godly soul that changes their lives. The godly soul always knew that the right thing to do was to leave this behavior. If you ask the godly soul while they're in the midst of doing this inappropriate thing, "Do you want this?" The godly soul would say, "I'm not here. I'm not present in this moment. It has nothing to do with my life."

25:40 A person doesn't change until the animal soul gets tired of the spiritual void. A person changes only when the animal soul says, 'I can't take it anymore. This is not a life. I'm not interested in such a life.' That's the only time when an animal soul will change, when it hits rock bottom. Rock bottom is a beautiful place to build the foundation, but Lamaisa, a person needs to hit rock bottom. And we get to choose where our rock bottom is, but a person has to choose. This is my rock bottom. I'm finished. I was talking to a person several hours ago, and they're not doing as well as they can be in life, and things are not going well. And I said, Are you ready to put your life together? And I saw they're still hemming and hoing. They're not ready to put their life together, and so it's not going to happen. Rabbi, tell me what I need to do. I said I can't tell you what you need to do. It's not for me to tell you what you need to do. You need to make a decision that you're done with this type of life. When you make that decision, you'll be done.

26:36 The animal soul craves godliness even more than the godly soul craves godliness. That's why Mashiach is described as ani ve'roichev alah hamar. Mashiach is impoverished, but he's riding, he's growing from the physicality of the world. The animal soul has more godliness than the godly soul, because the godly soul's godliness is transparent. The animal soul also has godliness, but the godliness is hidden within the physical. I'm going to share with you something, and this is a very strong thing to say. Please, please take it in the spirit in which it's meant to be said. Life requires sacrifice. Every single thing you do requires massive amounts of sacrifice. To be a mother, to be a father, to be a sibling, to be a child, to be a member of your community, to hold down a job. Every single thing you do requires sacrifice. Sacrifice. In Yiddish, it's called a korban. It means to draw close. And there are different levels of sacrifices. There are people that sacrifice to things beneath themselves, and there are people that sacrifice to things above themselves. I'll explain the difference. Say a woman that I know. The word that comes to mind when I think of her is.

28:06 She's not strong. She's fierce. Do you know what I'm talking about? You've met these people before, yeah? I don't like getting into debates with her. She's not just opinionated. She's got claws. You know what I'm saying? It's not pleasant. Somebody made a comment, and it's a hundred percent true. She'd kill for her children. It's true. Baruch Hashem, I've never had her children in any of my shiurim, and I don't imagine that the conversation would be pleasant if I had to call her and say things didn't go so well. It's a beautiful thing to be a mother who's willing to do anything for her children. It requires a massive amount of sacrifice. But is that a sacrifice to something beneath you above you? To be a mother is to sacrifice yourself at the altar of your children. That's a tremendous thing to be a part of. To be a part of a family.

29:08 What we ask Jewish women today to do is insane—to hold down a job, to bring in parnasa, to be able to make our homes a place of warmth and light and love, to do it all with a smile on our face, as we're also taking care of all the physical things. And then when our husband walks in the door, to be able to go and ask how was your day, and to lift them up—it's a very difficult thing to do. It requires a massive amount of sacrifice.

29:38 And of course, it goes without saying that self-care is huge and important and fundamental and essential. And it's not possible to do any of the myriad of things that we ask you to do without a tremendous amount of self-care. And at the end of the day, no matter how much self-care you give yourself, the reality is that you're going to want to do something, and you're not going to be able to because your child is sick, or because at the end of the day, somebody has to put dinner on the table. At the end of the day, you want to spend that time with your family. I married off a daughter five weeks ago. And when I say I married her off, I mean my wife made a wedding and I showed up. I don't mean like. And I was very jealous. I was very jealous of my wife because I'm running around giving shiurim, and I don't have the same time that my wife had at home.

30:35 And when I do come home at the end of the day, usually it's very often that I have fourteen, fifteen hour days. I'm coming home. I'm tired. I'm exhausted. My oldest daughter had a spot on my wife's bed. She had a spot for many, many years. A spot where she would sit and she would pontificate about the world and she would try to figure everything out and she would talk to my wife. And my wife is a very patient woman and she would sit and listen. And my wife is also a trained psychologist, and so even though she's not practicing, she would employ psychological techniques. That I would see that my daughter would say something, and my wife would go, "It seems like this is what you're feeling," and she would go, "Yeah," and then you know she'd go off, and it's like, and I'd be sitting in bed trying to fall asleep and rolling my eyes. It's like one o'clock in the morning. Can we figure out all of life's mysteries maybe tomorrow? But then it came time for the chasna.

31:33 And I said to my wife, 'I'm jealous. I'm jealous of the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of hours of conversations that you had with Bracha that I didn't get to have. It required a tremendous amount of sacrifice, a sacrifice that I didn't make. I went to sleep because I had a busy day the next day. Different sacrifices for me, but my wife sacrificed to our daughter, and as a result, their relationship is beautiful and exquisite and gorgeous.' Because she sacrificed herself on the altar of something larger than herself, she gave herself over to her children. It's a tremendous thing to do. Of course, many of us will sacrifice ourselves to things that are lower than ourselves. We'll sacrifice ourselves to materialism. That's a common thing that happens in the Jewish community today. Who can keep up with the Schwartzes, and who can have the nicer car, and who can have the nicest house?

32:28 And even our yeshivas and beis yakovs are suffering from this. Which yeshiva will be able to knock down their building and build the newest, most gigantic yeshiva that ever existed in the history of the world? And of course, it's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing that mekaimus of Torah should be beautiful. But at some point, we have to ask ourselves: Is this for Hashem or is this for our own gaiv? The Talmud, who comes from a family where they're zaych to be big balaitz daka, and there was a beautiful shul in the neighborhood, and the rab of the shul came to the father. And he said to the father, "We have to tear down the shul and build a new one." It was like a 17 million dollar project. And this Talmud, who's a, he has an azuz to kedusha, he has a holy chutzpah to him. So he looked at this rabbi and he goes, "Is this the best way for the community to spend their funds? 17 million dollars so we can have another huge building? Would it not be more prudent to give that money to rebbeim in the neighborhood that can barely afford to put food on their table?"

33:27 And he told me this with a great sense of pride, and I must admit, I was proud of him. I told him maybe it wasn't the nicest thing to say to the rabbi in that moment, and maybe there was a nicer way to say it. But really, really, in my heart of hearts, good for you. Allocation of resources is no small thing. How many people will spend 15, 16, 17-hour days trying to make just gross amounts of money at the expense of incredibly important things. And for me, growing up, I was zayich to a father who was baruch Hashem successful, but who was also my little league coach. And every Sunday, he would coach little league and baseball season. And every Shabbos morning, when we would daven hashkama minyan in the Young Israel Farakway, we would come home afterwards, and my father taught us how to play chess, and he taught us how to play stratego.

34:24 And he taught us how to play different card games. The time I spent with my father, I know my father was exhausted. He had a long week. My father would travel. He was makbūt to come home every night. If he went somewhere in the morning, he got up alaboker, he caught the early morning flight, and he came home at ten o'clock at night. I knew that he was makbūt to do that. I knew that he didn't sleep over because he wanted us to see him. But how many people unfortunately lose themselves and forget that the reason they're making all this money to begin with is to support their family. They're serving something lower than themselves, and here's the catch. Whatever you sacrifice to is what you become. A woman who sacrifices herself to be a mother becomes a mother. A woman who sacrifices herself to become a wife becomes a wife. You get that distinction. You get that privilege. You get to say after 30, 40 years, this is what I did. This is what I did. I built a beautiful family. I supported someone, emotionally, physically, financially.

35:26 There are people that worship things lower than themselves. They worship vacations. They worship cars. They worship houses. These are not things to worship. These are not things to be dedicated to. These are things to have, of course, but these are not things to lose yourself to. Today it's so complicated because it used to be that a rav would get up and he would give a shmuuz and he would say, "Don't follow the kings. Follow the real king. Follow the Melech Malchay Am Lachim." Today we don't have kings. Today, the distinction between serving yourself and self-care is very, very small. It's very difficult for many people to define. Who am I really serving? If I take a break and I engage, I know for my wife, it's getting a salad. I'm talking about instead of having no food and just grabbing whatever's there, it's an act of self-care. I'm familiar with this. I don't personally find any satisfaction.

36:21 In this type of food, but it's not a nice joke to laugh at. The but it's okay. I'm with you. I understand. I don't eat the food that my food eats. But the thank you. I get. I just got it also. But I know for my wife, there's such a thing as I got a salad and I had a nice meal and I feel good about it. You know. You know what I'm talking about? Like, and it's a specific salad. It's like. I know exactly what she likes in it. I can tell you the whole thing: what she likes, what she doesn't like. She's not into tomatoes. If I get a salad with tomatoes, that's not self-care. That's like you're not paying attention. I'm holding. I know that there's moods. I know women have moods that men don't have. I know there's a mood of tuna and there's a mood of Bulgarian cheese. I'm familiar with the various moods of salad moods. Women have moods that men don't have. I think today is a yogurt day. I've never felt like.

37:20 A day has yogurt. No idea how I got here. But oh, I remember. It's something called self-care. But at what point is it self-care, and at what point is it indulgent? It's very hard to know. There are people that are walking around saying, "Yes, I'm involved in self-care." No, you're not. You're not involved in self-care. You're just no longer sacrificing to something that's larger than yourself. You've put yourself on the pedestal. It's a very, very subtle difference. It's complicated today because there are sick things that people have dedicated themselves to. There was a family growing up that lived a couple blocks away from me. The family's name was Stern. Lived in Farakwe on the corner, two blocks away from the Young Israel Farakwe. I grew up with the Stern family.

38:18 I played little league with these boys. Their youngest son became a marine. He moved to Israel. You probably heard he was just shot. Baruch Hashem, he survived. There are people out there that they're sacrificing their lives to this Palestinian mishagas of how many Yidden can we kill in the streets? We give out candy. There's a notion of sacrifice there. There is a level of sacrifice. But they've sacrificed themselves to something so low. They sacrificed themselves to the destruction of other people, not to their protection. They've sacrificed themselves on something that's a much lower level than themselves, and they're losing their humanity because of it. It's a terrible tragedy that somebody could celebrate the death. If there were Yidden that would do this, and there are, by the way, and they need to be called out also. Baruch Hashem, a very, very, very few minority.

39:12 But we would never, ever, ever celebrate the death of an innocent person. Every death is a tragedy. Every person is created b'tzolam Elokim. And if we have to, to protect ourselves, of course, Baruch Hashem, we're zaycha to have a moral army. But if chas v'shalom, there's a tragedy that occurs and an innocent person is killed, of course we mourn the death of that person. We would never give out candy in the streets because to do so is to sacrifice yourself to something that is much lower than you. Moshe Rabbeinu tells Paro, "We need to leave because there's a chag l'Hashem. There's a yontif coming up. We need to all go to the midbar." If you're Moshe Rabbeinu and you have the opportunity to tell Paro, "Let my people go."

40:05 What would you have expected the Torah to say? We would have expected the Torah to say something like, 'Moshe Rabbeinu comes to Paro and he says, 'People have dignity. Stop murdering Jewish children.' That's what we would have expected, some sort of Chazak speech from Moshe Rabbeinu. Instead, he lies and he says, 'Chag L'Hashem, we have a Yom Tov coming up. We need to go to the Midbar.' What in the world is Moshe Rabbeinu talking about? The answer is obvious. Moshe Rabbeinu is telling Paro, 'We cannot be your slaves.' Because we already have a prior commitment, a prior slavery. There's something that we're already drawing close to, something that we've already decided, and that we're dedicating our lives to. This is called the Rabbani Shlo. Meshavina wasn't lying; he was teaching Paro the reason why people can't be enslaved. How can I take ownership over another human being when that human being is already dedicated to something that's much larger than themselves?

41:00 So with this in mind, we can start to understand a little bit about these halachas of karbanos. The Rambam says that the idolaters of the world—how did they bring a karban mincha? They put on honey, and they put on yeast, and they made it explode. Honey and yeast are external flavors. Yeast is something that makes bread look like more than it is. Without yeast, our bread is flat. It's like matzah, even if it's the tamei matzah. That can still be rolled up, like the pitas that they have. Look delicious. I don't know why any of us are Ashkenazim. I understand, probably because of slichos and ello. But outside of that, it's 100% worth it. Sushi on Pesach. Sushi is a Jewish food. Come out at this point. A laffa. Looks delicious. But there's a little bit of an inflated sense of self there. It's not authentic.

41:56 It's not raw. It's not unadulterated. It has this external delicious flavor. That's an idolatrous mentality. It's not something that can enter into the Beis Hamikdash. Outside of Shavuos, when we've reached such a level, the level of Matan Torah, the fiftieth level, where at that point a person can introduce something that's quote unquote foreign and integrate it into our Yiddishkeit. Outside of that, the Beis Hamikdash never has leavened bread. The carbonos have no honey on them, because we don't need external things to serve Hakadosh Baruch Hu. What we need is the salt that brings out the flavor of the internal. It's the salt, not in the godly soul. It's the salt on the animal carbon. It's the salt on the animal carbon that brings out the truth of the animal. What's the truth of the animal soul? The truth of the animal soul is that it desires to come close to Hakadosh Baruch Hu more than the godly soul.

42:52 That an animal soul is miserable as long as it's disconnected from Hakadosh Baruch Hu. That void that we were speaking about. That void is also not only the source of the problem. That void is also ultimately the point where connection with Hakadosh Baruch Hu occurs. Because right now, as many of us are feeling that Mayim Tachtayim experience, that yearning to be elevated like the Mayim Alayim. It's that yearning, that feeling of distance, that will ultimately lead to the drawing of close. It requires salt, not honey. You don't need anything else other than that yearning. Feed that yearning. That's where the connection comes from. Don't be afraid of the feelings of distance that you have from the Abishther. Don't be afraid of those feelings. That feeling of distance. Hold on to that, because what is that feeling of distance? If you unpack it deeply, if you would pour salt.

43:49 If you would get the inner essence out, that feeling of distance ultimately is what I want to draw close. Our relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu is not asking us to be something that we're not; it's asking us to be something that we already are. So I'll finish with this: A young man came to my house on Purim, a married man, married with children.

44:20 Learning, Baruch Hashem, a tremendous servant of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, and he she shared with me, and I wouldn't call it a drunken state, but certainly an inebriated state. He shared with me the feelings of distance that he was having from Hakadosh Baruch Hu, and I gave him some sort of answer, which was also an inebriated answer. And I said, "Are you serving yourself, or are you serving Hakadosh Baruch Hu? Is this?" About your own enjoyment, or you actually giving yourself up to Hashem, and he responded in his inebriated state. He said, "Yes, but at the end of the day, there is an I, and that I right now is feeling no satisfaction. And you're right, modeh needs to come before ani, but there has to be an ani there. There has to be an I. An I, the I part of me, is feeling very distant from Hakadosh Baruch Hu, and I didn't give him a good answer. So I'd like now to give him his answer. If he is ever going to listen to this recording, I have no idea."

45:17 But this is the answer that I want to give. That yearning that he has to draw close to our Kadosh Baruch Hu, the lack of satisfaction that he has—that's not the problem. That's the solution. That's the cure. We need to give him permission to feel those feelings of dissatisfaction in his Yiddishkeit. He needs to have permission to feel distant from his learning, to feel distant from his davening. He needs to have permission to be able to say to himself, 'It's not going the way I want it to go.' Bez Hashem, that'll be the birthplace of a sort of path to rediscovering that relationship that he has with Hashem. As we enter into the Yom Tov of Pesach, we're getting rid of all of the yeast in our homes, all the soarshe beis, no more chametz. Pesach is the Yom Tov of authenticity.

46:16 To be able to show up raw and unadulterated to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, and to know that we are okay. We don't need any external flavors. We don't need chas v'shalom, anything to inflate ourselves beyond what we are. We are okay. We are beautiful just as we are. And blessed Hashem, this Pesach, we can experience the redemption of coming to Hakadosh Baruch Hu and saying, 'Hineini. This is me. In all my glory and all my imperfection.' We should take a bit zayche to accept ourselves and to come to Hakadosh Baruch Hu in an honest way and to say, 'This is my matzah. There's nothing wrong with being matzah.' That's what we serve in the Beis Hamikdash.