Vayishlach - Raising Children in Hatred

2:38 "Hatsilainina" means "Please save me." What does "Miad achi" mean? From the hand of my brother. "Miad Esav" from the hand of Esav. Girls, what's the redundancy? He only has one brother. So what does it mean? Save me from my brother from Asav. There's a lot of different interpretations. Today I want to share with you an unbelievable medrash that the Rokeach brings. This medrash, and the Rokeach says, 'Thing, I never heard this before in my life. It's an unbelievable explanation.' Asav had a child after. Yaakov got the brachos from Yitzchak. Esav had a boy, a baby boy. Not a leifas. The baby boy, his name was Achi My brother. This is the medrash. He had a son, and he named it my brother. Why is that an interesting name? After Yaakov got the brachos from Yitzchak Esav had a child. And fascinatingly He named that child my brother. Why?

3:53 Because his brother. That's a beautiful pshat. It's not what the medrash says, but that is a very beautiful pshat. Medrash says the pshat is as follows. You know what happens when somebody really upsets us. Somebody really gets us angry. They do something really terrible. But what happens over time, naturally We start to let go. We start maybe even to forgive them. It wasn't such a big deal. It's not worth getting upset about, and eventually you just let it go and there's peace. Esav said I hate Yaakov so much for stealing the brachos from me that I'm going to name my son Achy, my brother So every single time I see this kid, I say, it's like the Israelis. They say, 'Hey, Achy, my brother.' Every time Esav comes along, he's going to go, 'Hey, Achy, come here.' And what's he going to remember when he says, 'Achy, my brother stole the brachos. I hate my brother. I'm never going to let go of the anger.'

4:55 Let me just get through this in a couple of minutes. Get us started with the idea. It says as follows: "Hatzi Leini Na Miad Achy Miad Esav" means "Not save me from my brother from Esav." What does it mean? Save me from two people One whose name was Achi Who was the child of Esav And also save me from Esav. If you understand this, now something wild just happened. That means Esav didn't only have one kid. Esav had many kids. But who is the one that Yaakov Avinu is really afraid of? Achi. He's afraid not just of Esav. Not just the vayesav's 400 men, but according to this medrash, he's really afraid of who? He's really afraid of this kidachi. Why is he so afraid of this kidachi? No answers yet. Second question. Is he also afraid of Esav because Esav didn't leave a land of birth to Shaul?

6:03 Exactly what Schuyos Esav had, like kibbutz Avim and things like that, certainly made him a formidable opponent. But for right now, we're just focusing more on the achy part. It's a good question. How does it mean that Esav hates Yaakov so much that he would name his son my brother? In order to make sure that his hatred didn't wane over time, he named his son Achy so that he would remember the importance of the task. He would love his son. Maybe a guy like Esav has a bit more layered complexity in his emotional relationship with his son. Every time he would look at his son, he would remember the hatred that he had for his brother, and we're going to see in a moment what the impact was on that kid. Achy. That was my question. That wouldn't that lead Asab to kind of hate this kid? But I guess we're about to see.

6:50 Why is Yaakov Avinu so afraid of Achy? So I'm going to tell you a secret. Imagine your name was Achy. Imagine every time your father looked at you He looked at you with hatred in his eyes—not the hatred that he has for you. But the hatred that he has for your brother For your uncle. What gets transmitted? You hate the person that your father hates. But you know that's natural for children. It's natural. Can I ask you a favor? Would you mind taking care of them? It's natural for children to hate the enemies of their parents. It's natural for children to love their parents' friends. When you were growing up, didn't your father have like a best friend who was like your uncle? Your mother had like a best friend who was your aunt, and they're your fake cousins. You love the people that your parents love. You hate the people that your parents hate.

7:55 Girls All of Esav's children must have hated Yaakov But of all the children. To be afraid of who was Yaakov afraid of? Achy. What's the pshat? Because when was afraid of Esav's son? That's what we're saying. That Yaakov was afraid of Esav's son, whose name was Achy. Why was he so afraid of this kid? Because this kid wasn't just born into the family feud. He wasn't just raised in the family feud. This kid. Saw it in his father's eyes every time he looked at him. You know what that means? It means that let's say your father says,"Oh, I never liked that guy." So you know what you say in your head? I don't like him either. But that's not the same hatred. If every time your father says your name, he bristles. Yaakov stole the right. Yaakov stole my person. He stole my. He stole who I was supposed to be. He stole my destiny.

8:56 And you see it in your dad's eyes. When parents are passionate about something, they transmit it to their children. That which we say, our children hear, and they may even adopt. But you want to know how you establish core values in a person? You establish the core values by transmitting it with passion. Esav hated Yaakov with every fiber of his being. But there's an even deeper lesson here. Deeper lesson is as follows. It means girls that Esav knew. That ultimately he would have let go of this pain And everybody in this room has gone through something like this. Everybody in this room knows people like this. That there are times in our lives where we would naturally let go of our pain, but we don't allow ourselves to. You ever do something like that, where you rev yourself up, or you get yourself angry about something, even though you can naturally let it go?

9:53 Esav would have let go of his own pain if he didn't name his son Achi, my brother. That's why he named him, just so you know. Just so that he wouldn't let go. What a powerful thing! A person knows I could let it go, I won't let it go. They know I could let it go, but they won't let it go. You ever do that? You know, you ever like, you ever had a situation where you're like, you know, you know, like, yeah, you ever talk to yourself? By the way, for those of you that just went like this, for those of you that looked up and went, just so you know, I'm with you. I've done that too. I'm not embarrassed. You ever like work yourself up into a frenzy and have like an imaginary conversation in your head about what it's going to be like when you confront them? And what you should have said afterwards, right? And then like you find yourself letting it go, and then you're like, no, I'm not going to let it go, right? And you hold on to that grudge, and then you get like a certain power from it.

10:42 You know why we do that? Because we feel powerless. A person needs to make themselves have an inflated sense of power when they know fundamentally that they're powerless. This is one of the biggest yeshodos in life. Okay, so I think the main point here is that people have to feel this like inflated sense of power because they're overcompensating for their own powerlessness. Like a parent who goes crazy screaming at their teenage child because they know they can't just punish the kid anymore. The kid's not eight. So they go crazy to inflate their power because they know really they're powerless, and there's nothing I could do because that kid is already a teenager. Like a husband and a wife who don't know how to lose the fight and they don't know how to let go of the grudge because then they're going to feel like a loser afterwards, and they need to feel that sense of power.

11:39 Asav says, "Hine anochi holech lamus." I'm going to die. You know what death means? Death means that you are aware of how powerless you are. That's what death is. When a person lives with the consciousness of death, you know what they say? I'm going to die And they realize they're powerless. So you need to do if you realize you're powerless? You need to become powerful. You need to become a conqueror. You need to hold on to your anger. You need to hold on to your grudges. And people who live this way, they can't be losers. They don't know how to lose. My wife had a great line when we were dating. She told me this. She said, "If we have a fight and you win, it means you're married to a loser." Exactly. Nobody should be winning. If we have a fight and you win, it means you're married to a loser. There are people who need to win in life.

12:32 There are people that come to a business deal. It's not enough that they get what they want. They have to eviscerate the other party. I have to take them for all that they're worth. Healthy business people don't do that. Healthy business people want both sides to win. In a healthy marriage, nobody wants to make the other person into a loser. Because I don't need to be powerful. I want to be married to you. Healthy parents aren't fighting with their children. They don't need to be powerful over their children because they love their children. They want to guide their children. They want their children to appreciate what they're saying because they have wisdom to offer. But the moment it becomes a power struggle, you should know it's not only because your teenager is a stubborn teenager. It's also because of the other factors we discussed earlier. And you don't know how to let go of power. I want to share with you an amazing thing. Amazing, terrible.

13:19 Many years ago, I had a Talmud. And he and his father had a very bad relationship, really bad relationship. And they got into a fight. And his father did the wrong thing. And I was trying to help them find some peace between them. And the son said to me, "If my father apologizes to me, I'll forgive him." He was a married man at this point. He said, "If my father apologizes, I'll forgive him, but he won't apologize." So I said to the father, "I said, would you apologize to him?" He said, "Absolutely not." I said, "But you told me, you know that you were wrong." He said, "I don't apologize to my children." I said, "Your son is expecting. I said, "Your son is expecting." If it's a boy, and you guys aren't on speaking terms, are you really not going to be there? Because you're going to be in the room with all the other people. I think we can do this. So, I'm going to go ahead and say that I will be there. I don't apologize to my children. I'd rather miss the bris of my grandson than apologize to my children.

14:17 It's the saddest thing in the world because all it is the inflation of power when you feel powerless. And people do that. People will only make up on their deathbed. It's the craziest thing in the world. Okay, so people live that way. They can't let go. They don't know how to let go of that grudge because that grudge makes them feel powerful. Girls, have you ever held on to resentment and felt like a million dollars? You feel like the most powerful person in the world because you get to hold that resentment like a baseball bat and beat another person over the head with it. It's not about the other person. That's about our own sense of self. That's about our own diminished sense of self. It's about our own feelings of powerlessness. I can't lose because I don't know how. I only have a couple hundred dollars. I can't risk losing it.

15:09 This is a very powerful yosod. But girls, remember, in the beginning of the year, I told you who's the foil. Who's the foil for Esav? The foil for Esav is Yosef. Let's look at what Yosef names his children. In contrast to Esav, who holds onto the grudge, and that makes Achis so powerful. Because he's been living with the resentment, he was raised, he was birthed in the anger and the resentment and the powerlessness of Esav. Listen to what Yosef names his children. Remember, girls Was Yosef powerless? He was powerful. He was very powerful, but he had it rough. He was sold by his brothers who hated him and couldn't speak peaceably with him. He rose to power in the house of Potiphar, and then what? And then was sent to jail. In jail, Egyptian jail is not like American jail. American jail is like a country club.

16:04 Talking about Egyptian jail, the lowest of the low, rotting in a prison for years. And then what happens? He rises to power again. So even though you might think that Yosef is not in control of his own destiny Nevertheless He's powerful. Where? Not outside. Where is he powerful? Inside. He says, "Wherever I go, I am enough." Wherever I am enough. I have enough. I don't need to hold on to grudges. I don't need to hold on to resentments. So now look at what the way Yosef names his children, and look at the difference between Menashe and Ephraim and this child Achri. Vayikra Yosef Hashem Abchar Menashe. He names his oldest son Menashe. Why? For God has made me forget all my hardship and the house of my father. Does that sound like Yosef to you? Here's Yosef in Mitsrayim, and he wants to forget the house of his father. Isn't that the exact opposite of everything we've just been saying about Yosef? Yosef is the ultimate in power. Why does he want to forget his father's house? Why does he want to forget all the hardship that he went through? You know what the answer is. It doesn't mean chas v'shalom that Yosef wants to forget his brothers or that Yosef wants to forget his father. You know what it means?

17:27 I don't want to hold on to it anymore. I've been carrying this burden for so long And it's so heavy. How many girls in this room don't raise your hand for this? Just think. How many girls are in this room, and I'll include myself in this equation, not in the girls' part. I'll include myself in the equation. How many of us are carrying around a 10,000-pound knapsack of all of this heavy stuff that doesn't belong to us? It's other people's stuff that we scooped up. That we scooped up maybe the way that our parents treated us, maybe the way our siblings treated us, maybe the way friends or teachers or rabbis treated us. How many of us scooped up that stuff, put it on our own knapsack, and now we're walking around like hunchbacks? With 10,000 pound knapsack, all on our back. This was Yosef. Yosef said he had the same midos as Esav. Remember, if you're going to be the parallel to Esav, you have to literally be on the same plane, but you have to go in the opposite direction. Esav also has the feeling of powerlessness. So does Yosef. But he knows that he's powerless, but he also knows that he has an infinite power source inside of him. He feels the vicissitudes of life, and he says, 'You know what, Hashem?'

18:43 I want to let it go. I want to raise my children, not telling them the story of how terrible things were. Menasha means let me forget all of the hardships that I've gone through in my life and the house of my father. Menasha kinashani I want to forget, but it doesn't mean forget my father. Chas v'shalom, Yosef loves his father. How he can't wait to be reunited with his father. Look how Yosef is so emotional when he finally meets his brothers again. He says, "I don't want to raise my children in hatred." I don't want to raise my children in anger. How many children, girls? How many children are born in the anger of their parents? In the resentment of their parents? You ever have kids who grew up and you hear the fathers complaining all the time how life wasn't unfair and my boss, he messed me over like this and I got fired from this job? Children can literally be born in homes of resentment and anger. And you know what happens? That's how you raise achi. That's how you raise a murderer. That's how you raise somebody who wants to kill Yaakov.

19:46 Yosef says, 'My kids are being raised in Mitzrayim. They're going to look around. They're going to go, "Abba, where are the other Jews? You told us where the. You told us we're Jews. You told us our grandfather's Yaakov. Where's Yaakov?' Yaakov is in Eretz Canaan. Abba, how did we get to Mitzrayim if Yaakov's in Canaan? My brothers sold me. Your brothers sold you? My brothers sold me in a caravan of Yisraelim. And I was working in the house of Potiphar as a slave. But then I rose to be the head of the house of Potiphar. Dad, that's awesome. And then what happened? And then Potiphar accused me of terrible things, and I got thrown in jail. You got thrown in jail? But now I'm viceroy. You cannot raise a generation of healthy children like that. Yaakov, who doesn't want to, Yosef doesn't want to forget Yaakov. He wants to tell them the stories of Yaakov, but he wants to tell them the beauty.

20:39 My brothers did something, but you should know it was all coming from Hashem. This whole thing is Hashem's plan. So he raised them with beauty. Let's look at the name of Ephraim. What is Ephraim? Veshem asheni and the second child, Kara Ephraim. Why? God made me fruitful in the land of my suffering. Do you realize how Yosef names his children? I've been through hard times. Things haven't always been the way I wanted them to be, and dafka in the places where things were difficult, that's when I found my greatness. Hear the difference in the way that Yosef raises his children and Asav. Asav says, 'Look at the terrible thing! Look at the terrible thing that happened! My brother, he stole my birthright.' Yosef was also sold as a slave. You know what he says? Thank God they did it. It was the difficult parts that made me who I am today. That's how I rose to greatness. And so the children didn't look around saying "Chaval, how come we're not living in Eretz Yisrael? How come we're not living with our grandfather? How come I'm not living with my uncles?" They said, "Isn't it amazing that Hashem guided us to this place at this time to be raised in a way that we could discover our own greatness?"

21:48 You cannot raise children from a space of negativity. Menashe means to forget. Efrayim means to multiply, to become great. Not exactly, but that's a separate question. That's a good question. Not exactly, but that's a separate question. So he wanted. You're next. He wanted his sons to forget. He wanted to go to the market. He told them. I bet he told them stories about Yaakov every night before he went to sleep. But he wanted them to not live with the trauma of being expelled from my father's house and sold as a slave. It was part of Hashem's plan. Don't pay attention to the negative parts. The negative parts—that's what made us great. So you see the difference in the story that He told them. He didn't tell them the angry story that Esav told Achi. He told them the beautiful story. You know who your uncles are? They're the Shvatim. Tati, where's where's the Shvatim? I want to meet my uncles. They're still in Eretz Yisrael. Don't worry, they're coming down here soon. Abba, how did you get down here? Doesn't really matter. Hashem had a plan, and right now we're in Mitzrayim, separate from the family, but that's our opportunity to become great. Because sometimes when you're isolated, that's how you become great.

23:01 What was your question? Efray means to multiply, from the lashon of Peria. Of he said the lashon of the pasuk is ki efrani elokim be'eretz ani. I became fruitful in the land of my struggle, of my suffering. So basically Just don't get any struggle if you're going. Chas v'shalom. He told them the struggles, but he didn't tell them the struggles in the negative sense of holding on to resentment. He said the struggles make us great, and Hashem sent us down here. He never blamed his brothers. Hashem? Sometimes One second. It depends how you teach a child. There's a difference between telling a child. The difference between pain and suffering is suffering is pain without reason. So you're not like if a person goes to the gym, they're not suffering. It's painful to be in the gym. That's not suffering. That's pain. Suffering is when you say there is no plan.

23:59 Right? So if Yosef raised them and he said we were sent to this place of struggle because we're becoming great Kifrani. This is how we're becoming great. That's a beautiful message to raise your children with. Why do people name their kids Menasheh and mean to forget? So it does. That's what we're just saying. It doesn't mean to forget. It means to leave behind the trauma, that I don't have to be defined by my trauma anymore. I could put down that knapsack. So it's not like he glossed it over and said, "It doesn't really matter how we got here, but we got here." He didn't say that. It could be that Yosef told them all the details of the story, but when he did, he didn't say it with blame. He didn't say it with resentment. He didn't say it with anger. Sometimes people do the wrong thing. It doesn't mean that they weren't well intentioned. The brothers were very well intentioned when they sold him. The point is not to get into whether they were right or wrong.

24:59 Obviously, if it happened, it was part of Hashem's plan. The point is, let's leave behind the trauma and focus not on why this happened, but on what we're going to do with what happened. In my opinion, how do you think that if you want to tell your child something that you've been through How do you say it in a non-blaming, negative way? If something bad happened to you. I don't agree with that. With you, I think the way you're saying it is a very extreme way of saying it. I think when something happens to us in our lives, we have to process it and understand. That this didn't happen to us, it happened for us. The only question is why and what now. Why did this happen for me to grow? What now? Not why, like the cosmic why. Why did this happen? Like what is my takeaway from it? And what now? What am I going to make actionable? I think the answer to your question, which is a very profound question I think the answer to your question is that Yosef was able to raise his children this way because he processed it.

25:57 Because not just got over it, he worked through it. So by the time the brothers came, he said to them, 'guys, you don't have to be nervous from me. This all came from Yad Hashem. This all came because this was part of Hashem's plan. You guys may have had whatever cheshbonos you had, but this ultimately came from Hashem. Since Yosef worked it through, he could raise his children in a healthy way, and he didn't have the intergenerational trauma. Achy had the intergenerational trauma. He saw Esav's anger every time he said his name, and now he's raised in anger, and now he becomes a murderer. Yosef's children were raised healthy, even in a land like Mitzrayim.' So Achi's strength came from the hatred that was ingrained into him. And Menashe and Ephraim's strength came from the beauty and the love that comes from painful places. Does this say anywhere how Yosef worked through it?

26:46 I don't know of any specific Mamari Chazal, but it's clear that he worked through it because he recognized that there is a Yad Hashem here. And he really didn't hold resentment or grudges against his brothers, even though his brothers, their entire life, even after they came back to Mitzrayim, and now they lived there. At the end of Ya, after Yaakov passed away, the brothers came to Yoseph and said You can't take revenge on us. And Yoseph was so hurt by that because he said, I was never going to take revenge on you. I worked it through. The brothers never trusted that he worked it through because they were so scared. But really, Yoseph had worked it through. What about the kids from the rest of the trusted? Did they raise them? Don't know. Doesn't say. But didn't they all make up after? On some level, they all made up. On some level, you could see that there was still some tension. I only know about this particular idea.

27:34 Why did he multiply? Because he forgot and left the trauma behind. He was able to multiply. Exactly. Menashe means I'm able to leave the trauma behind. It doesn't define my life. I'm not thinking about my brothers. I'm not thinking about everything that they put me through. I'm focused on. I'm here right now. I'm here for a reason. What's my purpose? And now, from that place, period, now comes the growth that comes from being in a difficult place. Girls, now we can answer our final question. How does Yosef ultimately defeat Esav? He doesn't defeat him on the battlefield. Where does he defeat him? In the way that we raise our children. Girls, you know how we're gonna beat Hamas. You know how we're gonna beat Hezbollah. They raise their children in hate, and we raise our children in love. They raise their children in hate. They put up signs all over the neighborhood: these Shahids, these martyrs. Look how awesome it is that they kill and that they maim innocent people. They make them into heroes. That's why they keep raising people that are willing to die.

28:37 We're the exact opposite. We learn from Yosef HaTzaddik. The way that we win is we say, let's raise our children in love. Every kid born in this country knows if we could make peace, we'd make peace in a heartbeat. We don't want any war. We don't want Chas v'Shalom to hurt anybody. We'll do what we have to do because as a halacha, Habala Hargacha, Kol Hamargal. If you come to kill us, we're going to defend ourselves. That's why we call the IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces. We don't have an army; we have a defense force. We're not interested in attacking anybody. We just want to live in our homeland in peace. But the way that we raise our children is in love. We raise our children to know that even though we might feel powerless. We are always powerful. We always have enough left in the tank. We could leave our pain behind. We could leave our hurt behind, and we could focus on how we become great from the struggle. Girls, have a wonderful Shabbos.