Vayishlach - Making True Transformation

2:08 The answer is no. Things get lost in the move. That's part of the process of moving. Why does Yaakov Avinu go back for these pachim ketanim? What is the significance of these pachim ketanim? Next, vayarki lo yachalov eiga b'kafiyerecho, and this ish, this malach of Esav. Ya sees that he is not going to defeat Yaakov Avinu. It's not going to happen. So what does he do? He vayiga. He touches the socket of his hip. Vateka kaf yerech Yaakov beavkoimo, and he the socket of Yaakov's hip became dislocated. So Yaakov Avinu is injured. Even though the Malach of Esav is not going to win the fight, he says at least let me injure him. That's a very interesting thing. They've been wrestling all night long. Now I see that I'm not going to win, so it's like, at least let me do this move. If you could have done this move, if you're in a wrestling match, right? If you could hurt somebody, you hurt them.

3:06 It's a strange thing to say. Now that Yaakov Avinu can't be defeated, now I'm going to dislocate his hip from its socket. It's a strange thing. What's the Torah trying to convey here? And now, what does Yaakov Avinu do? Yaakov Avinu says to the Malach, "You got to bless me." This is a critical part of the story. The Malach says, "Let me go." The dawn is breaking. I will not let you go until you bless me. You cannot leave here until you bless me. And Rashi explains, "Beirach Tani, listen carefully to these words. What specifically is Yaakov Avinu looking for? I need you to acknowledge. That the brachos that my father gave me, she'as of ma'ar alei, and that she'as is contesting. I need you to acknowledge that I'm the rightful owner of these brachos. When did Yaakov Avinu get these brachos, girls? How long ago? How many years? How many years did Yaakov Avinu spend in the house of Lavan?

4:12 A long time, right? And now he's saying to the Malach, I need you to acknowledge that these brachos are mine. What does that mean? He already took the brachos. Rivka Yemenu told him to take the brachos. Right before he fights with the Malach of Esav, he comes and he says, 'You got to acknowledge that these brachas are mine.' And then, of course, they go through a name change. Vayomer Ma Shemecha, Vayomer Yaakov. The Malach says to him, "What's your name?" He goes, "My name is Yaakov." Vayomer Lo Yaakov, Vayomer, "You're not Yaakov anymore." Which is strange, by the way, because what do we continue to call Yaakov even after the story? Yaakov. Ray says, "You're not Yaakov anymore." Lo Yaakov, Vayomer Oid Shemcha Kiem Yisrael. Your name is now Yisrael. Why? Because you fought with a Malach of God. You fought with people. What people did he fight with? Anybody know? He fought with Lavan. He's going to fight with Esav, right? And you have been victorious. So now your name is Yisrael. Rashi explains. Listen carefully to the words of Rashi. Lo Yaakov, lo Yaamarot shabachus baolcha beakva uveremia.

5:17 Fascinating. What does the Malach say? From here on in, we're not calling you Yaakov anymore because Yaakov symbolizes what you took the brachos through trickery. That you took the brachos through trickery. You will get the brachos with nobility and in an open way. And the Malach goes on to talk about that Hashem is going to tell you this, and I'm going to be there. Yaakovinu says, No, it's not good enough. You need to bless me right now. I can't wait until later. You have to bless me right now. But what's the crux of his name change? The crux of his name change is you're not a trickster. You didn't take the brachos through trickery. Rather, how did you take the brachos with nobility and with openness? That's the fascinating part of this Rashi. Vayishal Yaakov. Now Yaakov, the whole thing is about naming. So Vayishal Yaakov. Vayomer he gidin asher mecha. What's your name?

6:25 You just told me I got a name change. What's your name? The Malach says Vayomer lama zatishal ashmi byevarchososham. Don't ask my name. And Rashi explains what does that mean? Mishdanim shmo seenu. Malachim don't have one name. They're always changing their names. Hakol ifi mitzvah s'vodus hashlichus shano mishdalchim. It depends on the nature of our service. If Hashem sends us on this mission, then we have this name. If Hashem sends us on another mission, then we have a different name. And then finally, the story ends. Vayizrach lo Hashemesh that the kasher aver as penual vutzole al yerecho. The sun rose when he passed this place penual, and he was limping on his thigh. And Rashi tells us that really why was it important that the sun was rising because the sun healed him. It's like Superman, right? You ever read Superman comics? When Superman gets injured, what heals Superman? The sun heals Superman. And what's the makar for the sun healing Superman? It's Rashi in this week's parsha that the sun heals Yaakov Avinu's wound. So we have a tremendous amount of explanation that is required here. All the different facets that we just discussed. Everything here, from the fact that Yaakov Avinu is alone, and a mysterious ist appears, and they wrestle until dawn

7:47 And Yaakov Avinu gets hurt, and Yaakov Avinu has a name change, and Yaakov Avinu says to the Malach, "What's your name?" And then ultimately, Yaakov Avinu is healed. All of this is meant to be a lesson for us. The question is, what are the lessons? So what we're going to do this year is as follows: a little bit of a different strategy than we ordinarily use. What I'm going to do is try to explain each one of these things, and then I'm going to ask you what I'm going to call a G O Q. A G O Q. Did anyone here take AP History? Did you have to do DBQs, document-based questions, and DBEs, document-based essays for those with post-traumatic stress disorder from APs? This will trigger your trauma. It is a GOQ. A GOQ stands for a growth-oriented question. A G O Q, a growth-oriented question. We're going to go through each one of these things, and I'm going to ask you a question. The question is meant to make this sheer very practical and very actionable for the young women of Tomer Devorah who are already in Kislev, deeply inspired, searching, yearning to level up in their Yiddishkeit. How do we make real changes? We ask ourselves difficult questions. We're going to go through each one. I'm going to ask you a difficult question. For those of you that are taking notes

9:11 You didn't need to have the pesukim. You do need to have the G O Qs if you want to be able to take this with you. So it goes as follows. First lesson: Vayivaser Yaakov levado. Rashi says he went back for pachim ketanim. Two things you need to know from this: number one True transformation takes place when you are alone. That's the real way transformation takes place. When nobody's looking. When nobody's looking, who are you then? There is a question at the core of this entire seminary experience, and it's a good question. How do I know that the dramatic changes I'm making in my life Benching and making brachos and davening When I was growing up, Rivaritz, I don't know if you had the same thing. My community washing was for Shabbos. And then you came to Eretz Yisrael and you said, No! If I have pizza during the week, I'm also going to wash during the week. The dramatic change of Shana Aleph.

10:16 Many years ago, there was an article that was written. This is like back in the 90s. It was anti-going to the air in Israel because of the flipping out. And then another principal of a high school wrote, "Benching during the week is not called flipping out." There are certain baseline things that Orthodox Jews do. We bless before and afterwards. It's a beautiful thing. How do I know that I'm not just doing these things because I'm part of the culture—short for cult—I'm part of the culture of people who are doing these things, so I'm doing them along. With the group, how do I know? The answer is, you'll know when you're alone. And the reality is that most of us don't like being alone. It's why we have these devices. There's a comedian—I don't want to quote his name. He's not a kosher comedian and not a respectable person. There's a comedian who asked the following question: Why do we text and drive when the chances of murdering another and killing ourselves increase exponentially as we're texting and driving? Which is a good question, right? Not just for a comedian to ask. It is a crazy thing that people do this while they're driving.

11:31 You're in a car that weighs several tons, traveling at 65 miles an hour. You do not need to send that heart emoji right now. Or the olden day iteration of this, which I know is still a thing for girls today. You should not be putting on makeup while you're driving down the New Jersey Turnpike. This is not important. That you know what I'm talking about? You know that move where you're You need both of your eyes in this moment as you are hurtling down the freeway at 80 miles an hour. Otherwise, you are jeopardizing your life and the life of others. Why can't we stay by ourselves? Why does something always need to be on in the car? Because being alone is a terrifying experience.

12:23 And it's not obvious that we're good at it at all. One of my favorite stories, one of the great mashkichim of the last generation, was Rav Elia Lapian, Zeicher Tzaddik Levracha, a tzaddik of a human being, a tremendous bal musar. Rav Elia Lapian was a sensitive soul. There's a beautiful picture. If you ever want to put up a beautiful picture in your home, there's a beautiful picture of Rav Elia Lapian in his yeshiva. He would put out milk for the cats, because as you know, there's a lot of cats in this country. The reason there's a lot of cats is because when we first started settling this country, there were a lot of rats. So they brought in cats to kill the rats. But then the cats didn't have anything to eat after all the rats were gone. So Ravelya felt bad for the cats. He would put out saucers of milk in the yeshiva for the cats to drink from. He was a very sensitive soul. Ravelya Lapian once got on the bus.

13:07 And one of his talmidim was sitting towards the back of the bus, and he saw Rav Eliezer Lapian getting on the bus, and it was an amazing opportunity to be tufrum. Like tufrum. He had a sefer with him, so he quickly opened up the sefer, and Rav Eliezer Lapian's going to see him learning from the sefer on the bus. V'lech dechavaderech. He never ever takes a break from learning. How stark is he? And Rav Eliezer Lapian is walking towards him, and he's totally immersed in the sefer, so engrossed in the sefer that Kiilu He doesn't see Raveli Ylapian coming towards him. And then Raveli Ylapian taps him on the shoulder, and he looks up startled, as if I didn't even see Rebbe was on the bus. Raveli Ylapian looks at him and he says What's the matter? You're afraid to be with your own thoughts? It's not always the furthest thing to do to open up a sefer.

13:57 There's something very beautiful about being alone. Probably the most dangerous thing about cell phones is not what we're looking at; it's how much time we're spending on them. When's the last time you went to the bathroom without it? It used to be back in the day. There's a couple of older people in the room. Now we have three, four today. Used to be we had Reader's Digests or some sort of magazine in the bathroom. It was very small. Even if you went through it, you have girls listen carefully. All the information in the known universe with you in the bathroom. That's a lot of Reader's Digests. You don't just have a library; you have the greatest library in the history of humanity. And there was something too. I'm alone because true transformation takes place when you're alone, and you have to ask yourself, who am I really?

14:52 But how many of us are afraid to be with our own thoughts? You always have to text somebody. Always have to be watching something. You have to be doom scrolling through TikTok. In this space of we're never alone, we end up becoming—I feel that I'm saying something very a little intense right now—but we just end up becoming copies of each other. That's why there are these trends on TikTok. It's like everybody's going to do that same dance to that same song. It's just because you're all part of the trend in that space of a lack of aloneness. When do we actually become ourselves? Does that make sense? And here's the important thing: we're not ourselves because we are all adopting the personalities of the people around us, and very often it feels inauthentic to us.

15:44 Don't raise your hand. I'm sure the answer here is everybody. I'll raise my hand as somebody who went through this on behalf of the entire tzibur. You ever wonder to yourself? Am I really an imposter? And maybe the only reason I am the way I am is because of the other people that I'm around. And maybe even like my personality is really just like a ripoff of the people around me. I remember when I was in high school, there were like comedians that came out with these bits in the 90s, and everyone would listen to them on CDs. I don't know if you've ever seen a CD. It was like we had records, and then we shrunk them, and then we had CDs. And then we had MP3 players. Now we don't have anything. But soon we're just gonna have a brain implant where Spotify is gonna download your Spotify Wrapped right into the cortex of your brain. By the way, I'm not even exaggerating. Neuralink is a real thing, but we're not even getting into that right now. I remember in the 90s when certain comedians would come out and all of a sudden I would find myself talking like those comedians.

16:37 I remember in the 90s there was a comedian whose name was Chris Rock, and he came out with like this. This was a very famous album, and I was walking around going, 'What you want a cookie?' And all of a sudden, I was doing the Chris Rock voice everywhere that I went. And at some point, it occurred to me, I don't know where Matt Berg ends and where Chris Rock begins. And there's a culture like this, right? In the name of individuality, everybody dresses exactly the same. You ever notice that? It was like every like, no. These people wear all the same. They're black and white. We are unique. Sure you are. Take a look at yourself, and then take a look at everything that's going on around you. It's hard to know who we really are, and here's the thing: there are small, forgotten pieces of the self. This is what pachim ketanim really means. Pachim ketanim means that you might have spent 20 years in the house of Lavan, really working on yourself, but you're not really fully authentic because there are still some small fragments of somebody else inside of you. If you really want to be authentic in your space of aloneness, you start to work out who's the real you and who's just like this, like stuff that got meddled in, like these small things. That's the story of Yaakov and Esav.

17:50 There was never supposed to be that Yaakov Avinu ended up in the house of Lavan. That was Esav's job. Esav was the one who was supposed to go out into the world. Yaakov Avinu was Ish Tam Yoshev Olam. He was a kolol guy. He was sitting in Bais Medrash. He was like a guy. He liked learning and then all of a sudden somehow find themselves running nursing homes. It feels a little too specific. You know what I'm saying, they're running Amazon businesses all of a sudden they're like hard money lenders. The guy like three years earlier was but whatever. I'm saying like and now all of a sudden he's like Yakov and Asov had two roles they were supposed to be distinct. The Ashkacha demanded that they be in one person. Esav dropped the ball. When Yaakov Avinu puts on the clothing of Esav, that means Yaakov Avinu has a mission now that doesn't belong to him.

18:40 And in a certain sense, again, I use these words very carefully. I hope you understand them in the way that I mean them. Obviously, I'm not being critical of Yaakov Avinu in any level. But Yaakov Avinu, in a certain sense, he felt uncomfortable in his own skin. He's Yaakov Avinu. He's a kol Yaakov, but the adayim are Yaday Esav. He's living a life that doesn't belong to him, and the fragments of Esav are still there. I can't confront Esav. Listen carefully now. I can't confront Esav until I'm Yaakov. I can't defeat Esav until I'm authentically me. As long as I'm trying to play somebody else's game, I will never be as good as them. In basketball, there is always those players that take the game to the next level. Michael Jordan in the 90s. There was Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, and then Michael Jordan played the game in a way that nobody had ever played the game before. It was completely innovative. It wasn't just Dr. J on steroids. It was a whole new thing.

19:38 And then everybody after that in the early 2000s was just trying to imitate Michael Jordan. The reason you're the best is because you are your unique self. As long as you're trying to be somebody else, you'll never be as good. You might be unbelievable, but you will never be as good as anyone else if you're trying to play somebody else's game. Yaakovinu is about to confront Esav. This is the battle. This is the ultimate showdown. Yaakovinu knows I cannot defeat Esav if I'm not Yaakov. I have to play my game. Girls, at the end of the year, there's going to be this obnoxious question. I'm getting out ahead of it now. I hate this question every year at the end of the year. How do we take it with us? I hate that question. If it's real, you take it with you wherever you go. If it's not real, it won't matter. When the pedal hits the metal, when you're back in a foreign situation and it's not Talmud Torah, it's not Yesh Laimir Hakodesh, and you're not in this environment that's challenging you to grow every single day, how will you maintain your state of "I'm pushing myself to grow" because what you did was real? And how do you make it real? Not by listening to Berg.

20:41 This will not make you real. If you just try to become a version of the thing that I think you should be, that's not real. Real is when you are the unique self that Hakadosh Baruch Hu created you to be. Yaakov Venu says there's pachim ketanim. There's things that are still there. As much as I've been Yaakov, im lavan garti v'tariyak mitzah shamarti. As much as I've been amazing over all the time that I spent in Lavon's house, a little bit I still have some of that asav inside of me. So who does he have to fight with? He has to fight with the Malach of Asav when he's looking for those small jugs. Yaakovinu was a wealthy man. He didn't need to go back for a plastic megilvasser. What did Yaakovinu need to go back for? He needed to go to be by himself to confront his own inner Asav, that small vestige of Asav that was left inside of him, to be able to say, if I'm going to beat Asav on the outside, then I have to beat Asav on the inside. Here's your first growth-oriented question.

21:37 What are your pachim ketanim? What are the unintegrated parts of yourself? The parts where you're not uniquely you Where you're just a product of the people that you are around. What are your pachim ketanim? And part number two of this question: What are you avoiding by being with everybody else and not being able to be alone? Try it. Put your phone down for a couple of hours. See how difficult it is. It's not easy when you're not being entertained. Why are you avoiding being alone? Because what might you confront in the darkness of night when you're alone? What are the parts of yourself that you're avoiding retrieving? It's what are the unintegrated parts of myself, and why am I avoiding doing that work? That's your growth-oriented question. That's worth-oriented question number one. Number two, we already spoke about the unintegrated Asav part of ourselves. But what about this injury?

22:42 What about your wound? It's a deep tiry here, and it goes like this. At some point The Eitzohar realizes he's not going to beat you. You've got this. You're in a growth-oriented place. So this is what stops you from growing. What's the negative impact of my change? There's a therapist in Jerusalem. His name is David Levine. David Levine is one of the top therapists in Yerushalayim. You can't get in to see him. He's like an eight-month waiting list. He charges a fortune to get in. He's an amazing therapist. When he begins working with a client, the first question he asks is If we accomplish what you want to accomplish in therapy What will be the negative impact? Inevitably, everybody has the same answer: "If we accomplish." The thing that I want to accomplish, everything will be perfect. But it's not true. It's not true. The reason it's not true is because remember that any time you shift something, you don't know what the other pieces of the puzzle that you're going to shift are. So it's like whack-a-ball. You hit something over here, something comes up over there. You smack it over there, it comes up in a different place.

24:01 It's not obvious that we can't make the changes because they're just too hard. In fact, it's usually easy to make the changes that we want to make. You know what the real challenge is? What happens when I make these changes, and then a lot of things start to go wrong? The unrealized potential is what Yaakovinu is fighting with the Malach of Esav. The Malach says, "I can't beat you. I know I can't beat you, but here's what I can do: I can wound you." I can wound you, and it's not obvious that the wound won't play itself out for a long period of time. I'll give you an example of this. A guy says, "If I had a better relationship with my parents, then everything would go great." Being in a relationship with your parents might mean having real vulnerability with them and having difficult conversations with them.

24:50 And if you do that, what might be the negative impact? So you say it's going to be sick. It's going to be hype. It's going to be like I don't know whatever brain rot word there is. It's going to be. We're going to have the best relationship ever. Are you ready to have the honest conversation? Are you ready for the wounds that happen from an honest conversation? Are you ready to hear from your parents that there were ways of being that you didn't realize? It's not so obvious. You might be able to accomplish your goal, but there will inevitably be a negative impact. The girl comes to Torah Devorah. She says, "For sure, I'm going to come to Torah Devorah. I'm going to put Hashem at the center of my life." It's going to be amazing. Why didn't you do it until now? What were you afraid of? Transformation always requires pain.

25:37 And while we'll see at the end that pain can be healed It's certainly not obvious that just because you transform means everything is going to go well. That's almost never the case. Never the case. So here's your second growth-oriented question for the day: What is your limp? What is the place where you've transformed your life, and when you did it, certain things went well, but other things really started not to go well? In other words, what's the negative impact that you're not processing? Because everyone's like, if I was only a better davener. So why aren't you a better davener? What are you afraid of? What's the negative impact that might come with being a better davener? Do you know how many guys say something like this? If I get into davening, I'm afraid that I'll be overwhelmed by the responsibility of becoming a davener. Because if you're a davener and you're a guy, do you realize how much time that takes you every single day?

26:41 You should say Amen like I gave you a bracha for getting a shirach. Amen. Keep saying it until we do it. If you become a davener, if a guy in yeshiva decides I'm going to be serious about Minyan, you know what that means? That means that for the rest of his life, and this is what he starts to think, what's going to happen? I'm going to have to wake up earlier. I'm going to drive to Minyan. I want to have my talis and tefillin on before they start davening. I'm going to go till I get home. By the way, that's an hour of your morning. That's an hour of your morning. If you're committed to shacharis, that's 50 minutes to an hour. If it's a Tuesday, because the shir shal yom is shorter, it's a couple minutes less. Other than that. It's an hour of your morning. You're going to stop in the middle of your day to go daven mincha with a minyan. If you're working in New York City, and you have a half an hour break for lunch, and there's a mincha minyan across the street.

27:31 So that half an hour lunch break just became your mincha minyan. You come home at night, you're exhausted. You want to spend time with your wife. You want to spend time with your kids. And now I have to go out to ma'ariv. Ma'ariv could be 15 minutes till you get back. That's 25 minutes. Plus, you want me to get into learning, Rabbi, right? So you want me to be like. Let's be real. Most people are going to end up doing the daf. So now, if I'm doing the Rabbi Eli Stefanski daf, even if I skip the beginning, it's a 45-minute daf yom yishir. Even if I do a quick daf yom yishir, it's a 35-minute daf yom yishir. Before we even start thinking about your day, you're talking about two hours. So a person might say, "I would love to get into davening. I would love to get into learning, but I don't know if I could handle that commitment." That's your limp. That's your limp. That's where the wound is. What's going to be if I actually make the change? A lot of times, this is unprocessed, unrealized stuff that's happening inside of ourselves.

28:24 So it's like you'd think, and that's why rabbis get frustrated, and they're wrong to get frustrated. A rabbi gives a shmuuz and he tells a girl, like we should be bikkurim on ourselves that we shouldn't speak lashon hara, and the girl says, I know you're right, but it's so hard. What do you mean by it's so hard? What precisely do you mean by that? What are you afraid of? You know how many girls will say something like, I don't know. I just feel like I want to be able to have a normal conversation with my friends without having to constantly think about maybe I'm being over on the esurim of Loshanara. It's great to get up and give a shmuuz and say rah everybody should do this, but if we're being honest with ourselves, there's a reason we don't change. That's your limp. That's the thing that you're going to be victorious, but that's the thing that's holding you back. Does that make sense? It just makes it a little bit harder to do the work. You're walking, but you have that limp. That's question number two.

29:17 Question number three. This is again a tough one. Why does Yaakov Avinu demand from the Malach that he validate his brachos? Girls, there was not one second of Yaakov Avinu's life where he said. Maybe I did the wrong thing by taking the brachos. Rivka came to him and said, "Alruach Hakodesh." She said to him, "You must take these brachos." Yaakov Avinu trusted his mother. There was never a doubt in his mind that this was the right thing to do. And if there was, he never would have done it. We should not think that Yaakov Avinu didn't take the brachos. He took the brachos and he thought he was a shyster. He thought he was a trickster. That's not the pshat. There's something much, much deeper at play here, and it goes like this. Is this legitimately me? I know. I know that what I did was right.

30:24 You ever have a situation where you know you're doing the right thing, but it feels so wrong anyway? Just trying to gauge the room. Like something if you ever had to go to a position in authority Go to a person and say. I don't want to be a rat. But I also know that this girl I really care about, who's my friend, is really way in over her head. So I have to tell you that even though she's going to think that I'm betraying her Because I care about her, she needs to get help. Have you ever had a situation like that? Something like that. It doesn't need to be that exact case. And even though you know it's right It's like it feels so wrong And you just need that. Validation, not necessarily from the outside. You need that external validation just to lend a little bit of legitimacy to yourself from the inside, just enough to tip the scales. It's like if you're dating a guy, you know he's the right guy, but you bring him home and then your older sister goes, "Good job," and then you're like, "Okay, now I can get engaged." Like you knew the entire time you were going to get engaged to him, but just having your sister go behind his back as you're leaving and your sister goes And then it's like, "I can get engaged."

31:41 Was it the thumbs up that made you get engaged? Of course not. You would never have gotten engaged if you didn't think it was already the right thing. So why do you need that external validation? It just creates a little bit more of a tipping point inside of yourself to say, "I'm doing the right thing." Yaakov Avinu has his whole life in front of him. He spent, and by the way, think about what he had to do. From the time that he took the brachos Where does he go? 14 years in yeshiva shem ve'ever. That's not his natural place. What's Yaakov Vino's natural place? His natural place is in the beis medrash of his father. To go to the beis medrash of Yeshiva Shame Ve'Ever is to learn the Torah of Galus, says Rav Huttner. You got to learn the Torah of the Mabul. That's the Torah of Shame. His Shame lives through the Mabul. He has to go learn an entirely new Torah. How am I going to live in this world when I'm not just in the beis medrash? And then on the way, Alifaz robs him of everything.

32:35 And in that state, he walks by the Makom Hamikdash, right? And he doesn't daven at the Beis Hamikdash; he has to double back. And then he goes to Lavan, and he's tricked by Lavan, and he runs away from Lavan. And now he's dividing up his entire family, and he's preparing to wage war against his own brother. The question that must have been inside of him: not that I do the right thing. Of course, I did the right thing. But is this... I know it's the right thing, but is this legitimately me? Is this my life? He's walking around wearing somebody else's mission. There's something about it that feels off. So he says to the Malach I need you to help me reclaim this blessing. Not because I don't have it. I know I have it, but I need to take full ownership of it. Because if I'm going to confront Esav, I'm going to be victorious.

33:23 If there's any doubt about my own legitimacy, if I feel like I'm not being authentic, I can't win this war. He's not asking for the Malach for a bracha so that he should have superpowers. He's asking for the Malach to give him that inner clarity, that this is in fact who I am. And that's the question that every one of you has been asking yourself so far this year. It's the single most powerful question you could ask yourself: Who am I? Who am I? If you ask yourself that question over and over again, that's how change really happens. A guy comes, he sits down in my office, and he goes, "Rabbi, maybe I don't believe in God. Where do you want to go with that?" Or maybe I don't want to dive in. Where do you want to go with that? It's like obviously I want to daven. Wait a second, you just came into my office. Tell me you don't want to daven. I know I'm saying that, but obviously I want to daven. So who are you Who are you? Just keep asking someone the question over and over again. Who are you? That's how change happens. Who do you want to be? Is this the version of yourself that you're proud of?

34:22 There's a lot of us sitting there with these And we're doing it. We know it's right. You came to Tomer Devor. You're obviously a good girl. You got into Tomer Devor. That wasn't an easy thing to do. Record number of applications year after year. Somehow you're the chosen, select few, the elite of the elite that made it into Tomer Devor. You're already a good girl. But how many girls are good girls, but they're not really inside, fully aligned with that life? They do all the right things. They can check all the right checks. They have the good shidduch resume. You know what I mean? On the outside, it looks really good. But on the inside, they're asking those questions like, I don't know, maybe like What would it be like if I had a Rumspringer? Rumspringer is this thing that the Amish people do where they take a year off from being Amish and they just get like They get. It's Mormons. I'm sorry, not Amish.

35:15 It's Amish. They have Rumspringa. They go out. Like Mormons have the Chabad thing. They go out for a year preaching. The Amish have a year off. And how many of us have ever had this thought? I don't know. What if I had a year off? Wouldn't that be sick? Do we have that now? No. What if I had a year off from Yiddishkeit? Because let's say a person. I'm not saying you should do that. I'm saying let's say a person. Let's say a person says to themselves, Yeah, like I'm a good girl. I do all the right things. But like I don't know, deep inside of me, maybe there's a part of me that wonders. Like you look out at the other side and you go I don't know. You ever thought like that where you look around at some of the girls that are That are like having a different type of experience and they're shanalef.

36:06 They maybe go to different places that sell fruits and vegetables, right? Maybe they go to that place and maybe you don't, and maybe you have a part of you that wonders. I wonder what it's like. People do that, right? They say maybe I'm just going to go once in my shanalef just to see it. I just want to try it. I just want to try it. So there's a blessing that you have in your life. You're leading a certain type of life, but are you truly aligned with that? Because if you're going to confront real life and be successful and be victorious, if you're going to be able to overcome those angels, you have to be real. So the third G O Q is what part of our lives where we feel perhaps illegitimate, maybe a little bit like fakers, like you're wearing somebody else's skin.

36:55 And that's ultimately what the Malach says. Then the Malach says, "I will change your name. You're going to go from Yaakov to being Yisrael." And isn't it interesting what Rashi says? Rashi tells us, if you remember the Rashi all the way back in the day, he said Openness. You receive the brachas with openness and nobility. What does that tell us? It tells us that all of these years that Yaakov Avinu had these brachos. He didn't know it was right. He just didn't feel like it was. He didn't feel like it was clear. He didn't feel it was a big word. He didn't feel noble because of what he did. He didn't feel elevated because of it. If anything, he was like, "Yeah, I could do this work, but it's not what I want to do." I can give you a little bit of an example of this. It's an example from my own life, but I hope that it'll resonate with you in a way that's for your life.

37:57 Sometimes in chinuch you have to do things that you don't want to do. Sometimes as a rebbe you have to be willing to do the hard thing. You know what I'm saying? I have bad news for you. Sometimes, and I'm sure everyone in this room is wonderful and amazing But sometimes it can be challenging to be your rebbeim. Or your teachers, or your akazot, or your mechanchot, or shefrina. I don't know whatever all the different people that you have in this seminary that care about you. Nobody wants to be the person that has to call you in and say the thing that you don't want to hear. Because nobody wants to be. It's not because we have a need to be popular. It's because nobody wants to say a not nice thing. We all want to see the beauty in people, but because we care, sometimes we have to hold you accountable.

38:44 What happens after you hold a girl accountable? Does she go back into the dorm, sit down on her bed, and all the girls crowd around her and go, "What did they call you in for?" Thank God I'm in Torah Devora where they hold me accountable to really become the best version of myself. And I hope that all of you appreciate that as we're here, when we make mistakes, thank God they're really behind us. Now you have an early curfew. No, you go back to the dorms and mutter through clenched teeth. Stupid, ridiculous, we babies and right. It's not pleasant being on the other end of that. It doesn't feel like a noble thing to do. Of course, years later, that talmuder, that talmidah will come back and they'll go "I know when I was 18, I got in trouble, but looking back on it, I really do appreciate that I was part of this environment. You're like, 'No, it's too late. 28 years old, it's too late.' It was like 10 years later. There's a statute of limitations on your apology, right? I had to suffer through those years of you speaking behind my back. You don't necessarily feel ennobled by it, even though you know it was the right thing."

39:52 You know what I mean? And it's part of the job, but we'll call it the unintegrated part of the job. I'm sure Ravarz likes being here. I know the Torah that we share here right now is so deeply inspiring to Ravarz that even after being in Chenech for how many years A long time, is he really? Does he really? I didn't say it like that. I got long. It's not like by Moshe Rabbeinu, you know what I'm saying? It's not like it's not thousands of years. But many people could have retired in Rav Aritz's position. He's already had a chenof career. You think he's here on a Thursday night at 9:20 at night because there's nowhere else he'd rather be? And what an amazing Eishes Chayil that she comes with him to support him. He's not here for the entertainment. He's heard all of these shmoozes before and many more.

40:52 But he stands in the back of the room and he takes your little green attendance card and he makes sure that nobody's on their phone because it's a phone-free zone. And if anybody's talking, he just gently gives them that ravaretz look, like this is not the best part of chenoch. It's not the part that when you're younger you're like nobody's. I promise you, nobody's like I have not yet met the guy that at 18 years old I'm like what do you want to do? He's like chenoch. I'm like what aspect of chenoch? He's like disciplinarian. That's what I really want to do. I really want to spend my life roaming the halls of high schools going back to class. It's not the part of you that you feel great about. But then as you get older. You start to appreciate that that's not just an important part of the job.

41:51 But the moment that you think is a contradiction is actually the part of you that reveals your essence. The hardest part is that it's the stuff that actually makes you who you are. The Rebbe when he's younger and he wants to be popular and he can't say the hard thing and he can't hold his students accountable. Because he's not yet there, and he grows up a little bit more. And it's not that he wants to become the disciplinarian, but he understands that that's an important part of his responsibility. He doesn't feel badly anymore. He doesn't want to hurt people, but he doesn't feel badly anymore about calling somebody out and saying the hard thing because he knows that ultimately that's what's good. The Malach says to Yaakov Avinu, he goes This is not a trick. You don't have to do this behind closed doors. That's not what this is about.

42:38 The thing that you've done for the last 20 years in the house of Lavan—that's the best version of yourself. It wasn't a contradiction. You were walking through the entire time saying, "It's not me, it's not me." But it is you. In fact, the only way that you could have ever become the fullest version of yourself is by doing exactly the thing that you don't want to do. And the thing that goes against the grain of who you are is how you grow. The person that's afraid of confrontation. There are girls in the room right now that are afraid of confrontation. And God willing, you're going to get married, and I give you a bracha that you learn how to have healthy conflict. But how many girls will basically just go, No, I don't want to say anything because I don't want to upset anybody because people pleasing is important to me, and because when people are upset at me, it feels like death.

43:31 And if you're a people pleaser, you know exactly what I mean. And you'll learn over time that those difficult conversations weren't antithetical to your being. That was you in the process of becoming. So Yaakov Avinu, in his fight with the Malach Avesav, alone at night in that space where he's contending with the Esav parts of himself. Comes to understand that had he never put on Aesav's clothing and taken Aesav's bracha, had he never had all of his stuff stolen by Eliphaz and ending up in the house of Lavan. Having to work in order to marry his brides because he couldn't afford a dowry. All of those years were not a contradiction to Yaakov; they were the part where Yaakov becomes Yisrael. Kisarisa emanoshim vetuachal—that you fought with Lavan and Esav, and you'll be victorious because you became the best version of yourself. In other words, Yaakov Avinu on his own can never defeat Esav.

44:23 But Yisrael can. But Yaakov Avinu can never become Yisrael until he learns. To engage with those difficult parts of himself and to recognize those are the parts of you that make you truly you. So the next growth-oriented question is: What's your name now, and what would it be if you leaned into the discomfort of the work? And you actually embraced your challenges? Not, I don't mean what's your name, Sarah Riffgarachalea. I mean what is your name right now? Who are you right now? And what would your name change be if you could change it? My name right now is shy and avoidant. But my name could be courageous. My name right now is confrontational and angry, but my name could become serenity. What is your name change? What do you want to say about yourself if you lean into the harder parts of your life? What would your name change be?

45:26 And finally, this is the last two, and I'll do them quickly because I know we're almost out of time. Remember that just because you won one fight doesn't mean the next fight isn't over. There's a lot of times we get this question. We get it from Shabbat girls, we get it from the alumni, we get it all over, and it goes like this. I don't know. I thought I already worked on this. Why does it keep coming up? You ever have a question like that? And the answer is because a malach has no name. You will have these battles constantly. If you came this year, and you're that girl who thought, "I'm going to come to Torah Devora and by the end of my Shana Aleph, my life is going to be perfect," I have really bad news for you. If you're the girl that came to Torah Devora and said, "I'm now here, ready to engage in the struggle of becoming" Because I know that struggle is going to be for the next 60 years.

46:23 See. The one thing I wish I would have known at your age is Change is not dramatic. That's what it feels like when you're shnallif. It's like that plane taking off and climbing to 30,000 feet. It's very dramatic. But if you look, real change is like 30, 40, 50 years. That's how real change takes place. You know how your parents parented your older siblings differently than you? There's that one kid in the family who's significantly younger than everybody else, and your parents are basically out to lunch. They're not out to lunch. You know what they just realized? Ninety-nine percent of the things that we did didn't make a difference. Let's just hold our battles for that one percent. They just got smarter as they got older. You ever see a dad mellow out? When they become a grandfather, and all of a sudden they're like Life is good.

47:22 The pers of the tree are having trees of their own. And all of a sudden, it's like that's why when grandchildren come into the house, the father is like this. I have three grandchildren now. I walk in the house and see grandkids. Nothing matters. There are these little kids. I have a three-year-old, this Peter Pan. He's like this, with wavy, wild hair, and he's got this crazy look in his eyes. He knows a lot of words, but he can't really string them together yet. So when I walk in, he goes, 'Papa, outside, Bibi.' That means he wants to go with me into the car and drive the car with me. I walk in, I'm like, 'I had the hardest day. Doesn't matter. Let's go. We're going out to the car.' People change dramatically over time. Real change happens slowly. And the Malach will always present itself in new ways. When you're Shana Alef, it's going to present itself as a challenge with a roommate.

48:17 And then you get married, and it's challenged with your husband. Then you have kids, and it's challenged with your kids. And then you have a job, and it's challenged with your boss. The challenge always changes because the Malach has no name. It depends on the time of life, depends on the mission. So the next question is: Are you ready for the struggle? Because you don't have to struggle. You could just not fight. There are people like this. There are people in life that just go like, "This is good." It's fine. It doesn't matter. Nothing. It's not. People say it's like it's not that serious. You ever hear that phrase, brain rot? Like it's not that deep. It's not that deep. It is that deep. I don't know how to tell you this. Life is very important. It's the single most important thing you ever do. But if you become, if you go on this process of like, no, I'm a serious person It's 30 years and 40 years of being growth oriented. It's never taking your eye off the prize.

49:17 But there is good news, and we'll finish with this. In the space of transformation Ultimately, it's the light that heals you. My wife has a line, and I think it's a very profound line. People say everything was going good, and then I got that diagnosis, that medical diagnosis, and now everything is dark. And my wife says it's really just the opposite. You were sick and you didn't know it. That's when you were living in the darkness. Now that you have the diagnosis, that's the light. Now you know what's going on. There was a time when you didn't know what was going on, and now you know what's going on. Lots of people live in the dark. As long as they're living in the dark, it appears that everything is fine, although it's clearly not. But then. If you go through this process of transformation, which requires all the pain that we spoke about, you might be injured in the process. There might be a negative impact.

50:20 But ultimately, that means you're living in the light, and it's the light that transforms you. And ultimately, girls That's what gives us the ability to have the staying power to make the real transformation. The real transformation comes because I know at the end of this, with all of the hard things, it's going to be worth it. I'm willing to have the hard conversations about myself. I'm willing to be the wife that takes feedback from her children and from her husband, because I want to be a better person and I want to be a fully realized, actualized person. So I can hold on to hope because, as much as it hurts me right now, I know that I'm changing dramatically. And ultimately, it is worth it. That's the only thing I can promise you. Are you down for the struggle? You might say, I don't know if I'm down for the struggle. It kind of feels sick just to be scrolling on TikTok all day, scrolling on YouTube Shorts. I don't have to think about anything.

51:17 We live in a generation. I don't even know if you realize how much this is being peddled into our society. We live in a generation that numbs out as a yoga move. It's like a yoga move, guys. Aren't you even thinking about it? You know what I'm talking about? It's a yoga move. It's just like I could be high all the time. I don't ever have to engage in reality. There was a rebbe in a different yeshiva that he interviewed to be a rebbe in Mevaseret, and I was asking him what it was like in this yeshiva. He said he's not down for vaping, and this yeshiva has a vape culture. And he was talking about how he said I won't talk to the guys because if a guy's vaping I'm not going to talk to you if you have a pacifier in your mouth. You need to be willing to put down the vape to actually engage in reality. And he said in this yeshiva, the shliach tzibur davening for the amud had a vape in his hand. And he said, "Rafainu Hashem bene'rafe" Haoshiyenu v'nivaseh.

52:13 We're living in a culture where people are so used to doing whatever they can to get that next hit of nik, that next hit, whatever it's going to be, that's going to take me out of reality, because I'm not down for the struggle. That's the last growth-oriented question: Am I down for the struggle? How can I be down for the struggle if I know how hard it's going to be? Because ultimately, this is the best, most healing thing that you can do. Living in the light is a lot better than living in the darkness. Girls, have a beautiful Shabbos.