Vayishlach - Recovering From Lavan, Struggling With Eisav

2:00 Parsha begins, "Vayishlach Yaakov malachim lefanav el Esav achiv arze seyer stay adam. Yaakov sends malachim to Esav. B'itzavu some leymar. Listen what he says. And he commands these malachim. Rashi says malacha mamish. He commands them to say. Ko somrun la adoni la Esav ko yamar avducha Yaakov im lavan gartiv ve'echar adata. So he commanded them to say, "Ko somrun." So said Yaakov, la adoni Esav To the master, to Esav Ko yamar avducha Yaakov. This is what you're serving. Yaakov says, 'Im lavan gartiv ve'echar adata.' I was living with Lavon, and I was delayed until now. So a couple of A couple of just small ha'aras here before we get to some of the famous things. The first thing to notice is that there seems to be almost a certain awkward type of speech that Yaakov is engaged in here. It's almost like Yaakov himself is having trouble expressing himself.

3:07 He keeps saying the word to say over and over again. If you look at the puzzle, kai soymrul la'adaini le'Esav kai amar avdech Yaakov, the word amar keeps coming up over and over again. It's almost like there's something that Yaakov Avinu wants to be able to say, and he's having trouble eloquently expressing himself. He's having trouble articulating what's going on inside of him, and it's unusual. We don't really generally find that in the Torah. Of particular importance to note in the pasuk is that it says, 'Ve'echar alata.' What does it mean, 'Ve'echar alata'? What's Yaakov Avinu saying? I was delayed until now. It obviously means something deep. We know that's not the story. What does it mean? I was delayed until now. Yaakov Vinnu ran away from Esav because Esav was going to murder him. So it's almost like you should know. I wanted to be here. I was delayed.

3:58 Esav knows what happened. Esav's not a fool. He sent Alifas to go kill him. Alifas came back and reported. He stole all of his stuff, but he's alive. He knew that he was alive. So it wasn't like Esav didn't know the story. So what in the world is Yaakov Vinnu saying to him? The Echar Arata. Really, you should know. I was trying to say that I was trying to come to you this entire time. I just got stuck in traffic. It's stuck in traffic for all those years by lovin. What does that mean? It's a very strange thing to say. And then, of course, Rashi, the famous Rashi, says in lovin garati ve'tariyag mitzvah shamarti. That's also a very difficult thing. What does it mean? Is Yaakovinu mekayim tariyag mitzvos? First of all To be mekayim tariyag mitzvos, even if you want to say that the avos were mukayim all of the Torah before the Torah was given, which is certainly true.

4:48 The Arizal speaks about the fact, l'masheil, that the whole story of Yaakov v'ina with the sheep was the idea of tefillin. He was mukayim the mitzvah of tefillin through those sheep. There's no bais hamikdash. It's very hard to understand what the word taryag mitzvah shamarati means here That Yaakov is somehow conveying to Esav him love and garti. You should know, but I was keeping six hundred thirteen mitzvot. And finally, the most perplexing thing, Rashi brings here. I'll read it inside to you. He says, "Eincha gedaylis nosi al berchas avicha." You should know, Esav, don't hate me. Don't hate me about the over these brachos. Sheberchani hu gvir laachecha. Shailonu bii skaimu bi. You should know the brachos never came true. That's a very strange thing to me. First of all. Yaakovinu is clearly a wealthy man. He says Yeshli Kol. He clearly has a tremendous amount to give.

5:47 According to some, the Medrash says that Yaakovinu somehow cultivated six hundred thousand sheep in the time that he was living by lava. Percentage of six hundred thousand sheep is still an enormous fortune that Yaakovinu must have amassed. So what does it mean? The brachas were not Neska'im Ubi. But to say that it's like. Could Yaakov Avinu really have diminished the brachos of Yitzchak? Obviously, there is something much deeper going on over here. So those are the questions. So I want to share with you something that when Rabbi Block said it to me, it struck me so deeply, and it became like a part of an idea that I had. I'll start with Rabbi Block's idea because he said it so eloquently and so beautifully. Said like this: Imagine a person is in jail. And we're talking about a real jail, not one of these country club jails. A real jail with hardened criminals.

6:45 A person has to toughen themselves up. Imagine they have a twenty-year sentence. Twenty years They have to be something they're not for twenty years. They have to fortify themselves against the forces that are in that jail. Twenty years, they have to like every single day they have to grind. It's almost like they're in an out-of-body experience. You know what I mean? Like it's happening. To them, but somehow they're not there, because if they would be there, if they would allow themselves, even for a day, if they would allow themselves to mentalize and to process what's actually happening, they would pashat fall apart. If you think deeply, every one of us has had things like this in our lives. Every one of us has gone through things that, at the end of it, you just return to yourself and almost look back at the thing you just did.

7:36 And it's like disembodied. It's like it's not happening. It's not real. It's not a real thing. L'mashal if Chas v'shalom that somebody that you love gets sick And it takes a toll on the family, and everybody has to rise to the occasion. You see, you have little children, little mothers. They're walking around taking care. Eight-year-old kids are all of a sudden becoming mothers to six-year-olds and four-year-olds and two-year-olds. I was in the airport. It happens to be. I was in the airport on the way here, and. Guy that I know for a while already. He has four kids under the age of eight, and the eight-year-old was taking care of all the kids, walking them into the plane. It was very sweet. I said to him, "She's already a mother. She's a kind of mother. She's already like a small mother." He said, "Yeah, that's the godless of having daughters first. If you have sons first, you guys know you don't take care of anything. If you have daughters first, they're like little mothers."

8:32 A chaver of mine right now. Some of you probably know him. Rabbi Jonathan Cohen. It's an out of body experience. You should be zayichar rufo shalem. There are times in life where we have to be For survival purposes, we need to understand that we can't live in the regular way that we live. We can't just We can't be present. We can't allow ourselves to feel those emotions. I think that's why sometimes when people come out on the other ends of these things They're not human beings anymore. Because if they would allow themselves to be human They would have to open the floodgates of everything that was. You saw this. You guys are too young for this. My generation, we still had Holocaust survivors. It's one of the things that you guys Not your fault, but it's one of the things that you just didn't grow up with in the same way that we did.

9:24 By us, like on Yom HaShoah, they didn't just bring one Holocaust survivor. Like by us in my class, they would bring The grandparents. That was like a thing, two or three or four, and then it diminished over the years. But you had Holocaust survivors, and everyone told their stories in different ways. Moshe Weinberger speaks about all the time how there were nightmares that he would wake up to hearing screams from his father. To allow yourself to be a human being after going through such a traumatic experience involves the development of language to be able to articulate not only where I was but where I am now. And that's no small thing. One of my closest friends in the world is a guy whose name is Yitzi Haber. Has no Yitzi Haber? Maybe he danced at some of your bar mitzvahs. One of the schnitzel guys. So I see a bunch of you nodding.

10:17 Yitzi is a very special person. Epstein, do you know Yitzi? Very special person. Yitzi lost his leg to cancer when he was a child. I think he lost it. He had cancer when he was twelve. I think he lost his leg at thirteen. He lost his mother. He had a machlo. He lost his father to Lou Gehrig's disease. He's been through a tremendous amount. He told me once that within sixty seconds of meeting somebody, he could tell if they've suffered. Because if you've been through something, if you have any idea what I'm talking about right now So then you know that to actually say the words of "This where I was and this what I went through And to develop the language to articulate where you're going, it changes you as a person. You can't go through these things and not be changed. We're seeing it. You should know today in Eretz Yisrael.

11:08 The last year and change of living in Eretz Yisrael has been. It's been such an out-of-body experience that I really, I'll be honest with you, don't have the language to articulate what it's been like. And I think about this all the time. I think about what I'm doing to my children. Was it the right decision? Was it the smart decision to raise my kids in Israel? If I would have raised them in the Five Towns. Probably we wouldn't have a thing, that again, who knows what could happen. Just a couple Sundays ago, everyone in the family woke up at six o'clock in the morning because they decided to send rockets from Yemen. And my daughter said she's like And again she means it in the sweetest way, but she's like Abba The Yemenis, they're such a joke. Don't send us katusha rockets to wake us up at six o'clock in the morning. I understand if Iran sends cruise missiles, that's a big deal. But I have to run into the mamad for a katusha rocket from Yemen.

12:06 And I'm like, why are any of my children talking like this? Have any of you ever said a sentence like that in your life? No. I can't imagine in Nura Shel that there's Do we have a mamad in this? I don't think so. The shul probably has. The shul probably has one. I was in Ida Crown a couple years ago, and they were doing school shooting drills. And I was like, "That's the difference between Israel and America? You guys have snow days. My kids get off from school because their missiles are being fired. It's not a good day to come to school." The ability to articulate what we've been through What was it like? I imagine some of you on NCSY called Rabbi Targan. What was it like to hear that Rabbi Taragin's son was injured? For me My mother had a student who lived not that far away from her, and he would come to her house three hours a week from the time that he was in first grade through the time that he was in twelfth grade.

13:14 However, that's a lot of time. He was killed in Gaza. And my dad called me on Matzei Shabbos. To tell me that Eli Moshe was killed in battle And it's like You get the phone call that you don't want to get. And I asked my father. It was such a stupid question, but I asked him. I was like, 'How's mom doing?' You know, like what are you supposed to say when you get that phone call, right? I didn't know what to say. So I said, "How's mom doing?" So my dad said as well as it could be expected under the circumstances. How many Shiva homes have we been to over the last year and a half? How many times have I walked into a shiva home and had nothing to say? We have no language to articulate what's happened. We have no capacity. The world is such a crazy place, and it's been this way.

14:08 If you really think about it, it's been this way for the last five years. Since Corona, things just never really got back. It's like never really settled in. I remember when. When Corona hit I said to my wife, "I miss the illusion of control." Remember when you thought, I know what's going to happen in my day-to-day life, and now we have no idea what's going to happen. In Eretz Yisrael, for sure, we have no idea what we're going to wake up to. We didn't two weeks ago; Assad still was running Syria. Two weeks later, Syria's gone. Hezbollah's gone. Hamas is gone. We're living in such insane times that it's impossible to really give language and articulate what's going on. We're in survival mode. If we're being honest, we're in survival mode. We don't really know. We don't really know the long-term impact of what's happening.

14:57 When my children were little In a previous war, they were in camp in the summer. And there was a rocket attack But they were in the park. So you guys know what the protocol is. If you're in a park You find a park bench and go under it, like a picnic table. You go under the picnic table. So my kids came home from camp that day, and I said to my daughters, "How was camp today?" They said, "Good." When the rockets came, we all just ran under the picnic tables. We just ran under the picnic tables. How many? I've been living in Eretz Yisrael now for 17 years. How many times have my daughters called me and said, 'Abba, is it safe for us to go to the hotel tonight?' Is it safe for us? Is it safe for us to go out?" There was just a stabbing. We're living in what Yaakov Avinu experienced. We're living that type of life these days. Yaakov Venu had to go into a place. Lavan wasn't just an immoral person; he was conniving, sneaky, and dangerous.

15:54 The Hagada says that Lavan was b'keshlaker es a kol. He wanted Paro was only going to destroy the males. Lavan was trying to uproot the very essence of Klal Yisroel. This is a dangerous man. So it makes sense that by the time Yaakov came out, he finally just got and he's going to confront his brother. He doesn't have language. He doesn't have the ability to articulate himself. He doesn't have the ability to say Hey, bro, let me just catch you up on where we've been Like just the last twenty years. He wasn't in Florida, chaver. He wasn't on. He wasn't on January break. So it makes sense that the words are coming out awkwardly and that he's not exactly clear what he's trying to say. But one thing comes through very loud and clear. Sishonov Echhararata. My life has been delayed. That's something I think a lot of us can relate to—the feeling that I'm in a place And that place is not a good place And I'm not living the life that I want to be leading.

16:56 The emphasis that Yaakov Avinu is Ish Tom Yosef V'Halim—that's what he is. He's a simple man. He wants to be in beis medrash. That's the most beautiful. Who amongst us doesn't want that Yaakov Avinu life? Who doesn't want to sit in beis medrash and just learn? It's the most beautiful thing in the world to open up a sefer. To learn new ideas, to get close to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, it's an idyllic lifestyle. It's a wonderful thing to be an ishtam yoshevah. Just to be a simple person, and when I say simple, I don't mean simplistic. I'm just lacking the complexities of life. You know your parents. I'm sure I say this to you guys all the time, but I want you to know it's true. You're in the most amazing years of your life. Whatever pressure you think you have, I promise you that pressure pales in comparison to the pressure that's coming. Enjoy these years. The youth is wasted on the young. You guys don't have to worry about making chasnas. Baruch Hashem, on the first night of Chanukah, making a second wedding, and my daughter is eight and a half months pregnant. And Baruch Hashem, beautiful things. But life comes with a lot of complexities. Yaakov Venu was a simple Jew who just wanted to sit and open up a Gemara.

18:02 Sit and learn a difficult Rambam. It's the most pleasant feeling in the entire world. And Yaakov Venu, all of a sudden, finds himself. And he's in Lavan's house. How many of us can relate to that? The life I want to be leading, I'm just not there. It's like I'm leading somebody else's life. A chaver of mine Very dear chaver of mine, somebody I respect tremendously. When we were in Mivaserah together, we were roommates. We had plans. When you're 18 years old and you have big plans for your life, like yeah Where'd you go to high school? You're a Mas boy, right? I was a Rambam boy back in the day. Wasn't my plan to be overweight with a beard. It's just like the natural thing that happened. Imagine my plans. But I want you to know, don't take this the wrong way. But as a Rambam guy, we didn't like Rama's.

19:00 You knew when we beat you in the playoffs. I didn't like the crest. I'm saying, I didn't like. Did you wear the crest? You had a jacket to school. Don't deny it. You did. The davening jacket. Were you davening jacket? Hey, we're being recorded. We have to behave a little bit. But I have no idea where I was now. Yeah. You don't. You don't. You don't think about like. You don't think about the complexities of life. You're just a high school guy, and that's good. That's normal. That's what you should be doing. Then you find yourself in a place, and you're like, "It's not the life that I want to be leading."This guy that was my roommate He, we had these big dreams And I remember he said to me very clearly, "I'm going to live in Israel." And I said, "Yeah, me too." A couple years ago, he came to Israel.

20:04 So he came over. Shmuz, we've been friends since we were six. So he said we had a very honest conversation. He's a very honest person. We had a very honest conversation. I don't know what happened to my life. At the time, he was living in Florida. He was a Five Towns boy. He had moved to Florida. He's like, "I don't know what happened to my life. How did I end up here?" The plan just went awry. All of a sudden, I'm in a place and I just don't know how I got here. And to his credit He picked up and moved. He's like, "I'm restarting." I'm restarting." Now he's living in Israel. And on the day of October seventh, he quit his job. He quit his job. He said, "I'm not working anymore. I quit my job." I said, 'What are you going to do?' He said, 'I'm going to do whatever this country needs me to do.' He started an organization called Smiles for the Kids. For the last year and a half, he's just been going around raising money and putting on different things, helping out families that have fathers away in battle or families that lost.

21:04 Loved ones. He's just been doing whatever he can to support the community. It's such an unbelievable thing. Chaver, do you realize what it takes to hit pause on your life and to just go, No, I was headed in the wrong direction. I'm doing a 180. Do you realize the courage that takes? It's not the courage of doing it when you're 18 years old and I'm in Israel for the year and I'm thinking about what choices I want to make and maybe I'm thinking about a new direction that I was going to become a lawyer and now Chas v'shalom, I'm going to go into Chinuch. I'm not talking about like one of those types of decisions. I'm talking about a guy who had teenage kids already, and he's like, "No, this is not my life anymore." It's not what I want. In so many ways, he's my rebbe. Because he taught me that a person could start again. This is like what Yaakov Vina was trying to say to Esav. He's saying to his brother You should know. I took those brachos, and I don't think he's saying it was the wrong thing for me to take those brachos. I don't think Yaakov Vina was saying I regret what I did, but he's saying you should know. This wasn't the life that I wanted.

22:00 Yaakovinu had to take on the role of Esav. Esav was supposed to be the one that went out into the world. He was supposed to be the one that found that Kadosh Baruch Hu in Diru Betachtainim and that discovered Hashem in the lowest places. Yaakovinu was supposed to learn in beis medrash. Esav went off, so Yaakov had no choice but to take over that role. But it wasn't his natural disposition. It wasn't who he wanted to be. And this is what he's really saying. He's not Chassar Shalom. He's not diminishing the brachos in any way. He's not diminishing the brachos. Yaakovinu would never diminish the brachos of Yitzchak, but he's saying, "Lo, neskaimu be." Don't hate me for this. This has been a burden for me. This is not what I wanted. This is not my life. I'm living a life that doesn't belong to me. I'm doing it because it's my responsibility. I'm doing it because it's the right thing. But this is not what I want. And we see that Yaakovinu doesn't really get what he wants until the end of his life, until those final years in Mitzrayim, where he's able to focus again. He's able to be a mensh. He doesn't really have that life anymore.

22:55 We know that Chazal tell us that Yaakovinu was b'ke shleishev b'shalva. However, you know what shalva means? Shalva is like even deeper than menucha. Menucha is rest. Shalva is like serenity. Yaakovinu just wants like after loving and after Asav. Can I have a break? And then what happens? And then Yosef is sold down to Mitzrayim and he loses nevuah for all those years that Yosef HaTzaddik was in Mitzrayim and he didn't know where Yosef was and he thought maybe he's dead and maybe he's not dead and he didn't know what was going on in his life. And again, he's thrown into this topsy turvy, totally insane life where he doesn't really know. What's going on? This is Yaakovinu's life. In many ways, it was a very painful life. And this is what he's telling Esav. He's saying, 'You hate me for what I did.' You should know this. This is not an easy journey. Taking these brachas set me on a path.

23:42 I'm struggling enough with this. You don't need to kill me over this. But there's one thing here that's very important to say. You should know that Yaakov Avinu would not have become Yisrael without this. The journey from being Yaakov Avinu to Yisrael is a long journey. And it's not just an external battle. It's not just fighting with Lavan. It's not just saying in the most immoral places I'm going to keep tarrying mitzvahs. Doesn't mean to keep tarryag mitzvahs. He didn't keep six hundred thirteen mitzvahs. Even if you want to say he kept six hundred thirteen mitzvahs, what's he telling Esav? He's telling Esav you should know when I went to that place in order to survive, in order to keep my sanity. I could never for one moment be present in the house of love, and I wasn't present there. I was in a different world. When I was there the entire time, I was in the world of tayeg mitzvos.

24:35 Like they say Victor Frankel said in the Holocaust. Victor Frankel said that the people who survived did so because they had a purpose. They survived because they had a mission. However, you know what that means? It means that they weren't in the Holocaust. There were people that were in the Holocaust, and there were people that weren't in the Holocaust. If you ask them where are you, they said, "I'm back home." I'm just waiting to be reunited with my wife. I'm waiting to be reunited with my children. They're not there. They're not present. They're living a different life. We should know from that, from Yaakov Avinu saying, "Em lovan garti." I did those years. I did those years, and my life was on hold, and it's not where I wanted to be. And then I confronted Esav. Even that's not enough. That doesn't get you to where you want to go. Even losing Yosef HaTzaddik The journey of becoming Yisrael is all of those things and one final step.

25:32 It's confronting the inner Asav inside of yourself. A person could live with Lavan for twenty years, and they could survive, and they could be fine, and they could not have been present. And they're not institutionalized in that way. They don't become Lavendik, they don't lose themselves to that world. But even that won't make you who you are. That's survival. If you really want to be able to strike from these things To discover who you really are when you're in a place that you don't want to be The avoda is not just surviving the external, but it's discovering and turning inwards. It's becoming a mensh And that's why Yaakov Avinu goes by himself. He goes by himself. And he finds himself totally alone. That's when he confronts the Malach of Esav. He's able to survive when he finally confronts Esav, because before he confronts Esav, he confronts himself.

26:30 And he struggles Because he did have to take on the role of Esav, even though it's not what he wanted to do with his life. Lameisa, he had to take on the role of Esav. Okay, so Rivka dressed him in Esav's clothing. It wasn't just Stam that he was wearing Esav's clothing. He became Esavvik. He brought that Asav part into his own person. He brought that Asav reality into his own person. But when a person spends their life saying I'm not supposed to be here They're losing out on a tremendous opportunity. If you find somewhere where you think you're not supposed to be, you should know that's exactly where you're supposed to be. One of my favorite stories ever is the story of Rabbi Jonathan Sachs. The first time that he met the Lubavitcher Rebbe. It's an amazing story. Rabbi Jonathan Sachs. Before he was rabbi, chief, lord, doctor, Before he was all those things, he was just Jonathan Sachs.

27:23 He was studying at Cambridge University. And he had philosophical questions. He was brilliant. He was studying economics. He had philosophical questions. He came to America to ask several rabbis their opinion on some of the philosophical questions that he had. It's a whole mase. He showed up to 770 thinking that he would just be granted an audience with the Lubavitcher Rebbe, and he could just ask his questions. Of course, that's not the way it works. He ended up going to California. He got a phone call when he got to California that the Rebbe would see him in 48 hours. He went on a Greyhound bus and traveled all the way back across the country, and he met with the Lubavitcher Rebbe. The Rebbe answered his questions one by one. He knocked off all of his questions. And then thinking the meeting was over He got up to leave. So the Rebbe said to him, "Where are you going?" He said, "I thought we were done." He goes, "You get to ask me questions, and I don't get to ask you questions."

28:12 So he sat back down. And the Rebbe said, "What are you doing for Jewish life in Cambridge?" So Rabbi Sachs, when he tells over the story He said, "I answered like a typical Englishman." That is to say, I avoided the question. So he said, "Rebbe" You must understand, in the position in which I currently find myself. The Rebbe cut him off and said, 'There's no such thing.' There's no such thing as in the position in which I currently find myself. If you're there, it's exactly where you're supposed to be. You are exactly where you're supposed to be. The only question is, what are you going to do with the opportunity that's being put in front of you? And from that, Rabbi Sack said it was the first time that anyone ever oriented him towards communal Jewish life. Imagine if he had not gone back to New York.

29:02 Imagine what we wouldn't have. It's like the Netziv story. It's like the Netziv story that his father that. That heard his parents arguing that maybe they should pull him out of school, and he said, "No, give me another opportunity. Don't worry, I'll be better in school." And he said years later, "Can you imagine if I wouldn't have stayed in school, and I would never have become Rosh Yeshiva in Vilasen, and I never would have published the Sfarim?" And after 120, they would have said to me, "Noo, where's your Sfarim? What are you talking about? A mahambo shoemaker?" There was a Jonathan Sachs who had the opportunity to become Rabbi Doctor Chief Lord Jonathan Sachs. And what changed him? He said, 'What changed him was that somebody told him, "Wherever you are is exactly where you're supposed to be." What are you doing to be mekad sheim shamayim in those moments? So even though Yaakov Avinu survived for all of those years by Lavan And even though he was roi and he was telling his brother, "You should know these brachas were this is not what I wanted."

30:00 You can't confront Esav. And you can't go down to Mitzrayim and you can't become Yisroel unless you turn inwards. The fact that Yaakov Avinu said on some level I was good. It was a survival tactic. That's what you had to do. You couldn't be present. You were delayed. You couldn't be present for those years by Laban. It's understandable. You had to survive. But you don't become great from surviving. You become great from confronting the inner darkness that you have. From all that pain and from all that suffering, that's how you really become great—not just surviving it, but actually engaging it. I want to tell a story, but I have to change some of the details because it wouldn't be appropriate for me to say all the details. So I'll change some of the details, but I want you to know Somebody in my life who I love very, very much went through something. They went through something very terrible. The details don't matter. I don't have to say any details.

31:03 And for a long time, I watched this person suffer. There's a difference between pain and suffering. Pain is You're in the gym. That's pain. Pain is understandable. Suffering is when you have pain. But you have no idea why you're experiencing this pain. This person was sick. They developed an illness. For a very long time I saw them. It was horrible to watch. The anger that consumed them was like nothing I had ever seen. And they were destroying relationships in every aspect of their life. The anger was ferocious. But ferocious chaver doesn't always mean loud. Some people are angry and they're very loud, and people go, "You have anger issues." You ever meet people that have anger issues but they never express their anger? When it's like simmering underneath. And all you have to do is cross them once, and then you're out. There's no more being a part of their life. They'll just cut you off like this. It's nothing.

32:05 This person, whatever they got sick, and the anger was consuming them. They were burning with anger, destroying everything in their path. Until they hit rock bottom. And this person went to therapy. And the transformation over the course of I would say. For sure, within the first year, the transformation was incredible. Over the course of the last ten years The transformation—the person that I knew—does not exist. The Rambam says that there was a minig back in the day. After you did shuvah, there was a minig to change your name. Chaver, you know that? Imagine what it was like to walk into school and somebody would go, "Hey, Matthew, how you doing?" You go, "It's Mordechai now." You think that's a lot of work? Yeah, you change your name. You change your name. I did tshuva for the avera that I did. I said lashon hara. Call me Ruvain now. They changed their names. This guy, he should change his name.

32:59 He's not the same person that he was. He's mamish, not the same person. The person that I knew that was so angry at the entire world, he's probably one of the most loving, gentle, kind people that you'll ever meet. If I would show you now this guy, and I would say to you, this guy had more anger than you could possibly imagine, more resentment, more fear, more frustration. He was a wrecking ball. He was a wrecking ball. And he—and you should know the damage that he did in that time was not insignificant. It was really not insignificant. The amount of pain that he caused was really not insignificant. But when he turned inwards He changed And I had the opportunity to speak with him many times over the course of the last ten years. And I asked him like. Like what was it? So he said the hardest thing he ever had to do was face all of the anger that he had.

33:58 And he said for the first six months, he told me again, maybe I shouldn't say this in a base message. I shouldn't say this in a shul for sure. He said he would daven to Hashem. He wouldn't open a besider. He would put on his tallis and tefillin. And he would in his head He would literally curse out Hashem for forty-five minutes of davening. He said, "You would think I was in the middle of Shmona Esrei. I was shuffling. I was screaming my brains off at Hashem. How could you do this to me?" He said, "For six months For six months, I had to let out all of the rage. He put a spigot on his rage and just let it out slowly. Then finally, one day, I was done with it. Finally, one day, I said,'Okay.'" He said,"Now He said in Modim every day, I thank Hashem that He gave my sickness. I thank Hashem that He gave my disease.

34:44 If it wasn't for that, I wouldn't be the person that I am today. I'm so grateful for all of the suffering that I went through. It made me who I am. For Yaakov Avinu to become Yisrael, he needs to confront Esav. He needs to confront Esav. How many of us are willing to do that? How many of us are willing to really turn inside and say the things we don't want to say? To articulate all the pain. That's a Yaakov Avinu. He can't speak here. He can't speak. He keeps saying, "Say this and say." He can't speak because he's not there yet. He hasn't processed that pain. But in order to confront Esav, he needs to process that pain. In order to be able to survive what's coming next with the Osef HaTzaddik He needs to process that pain. In order to be able to go down to Mitzrayim and to know that it's going to be okay, even though you know that Gollis is coming, and not just any Gollis, but the Gollis that all subsequent Gollisim would come from.

35:41 You need to be able to turn inside. This is the secret. This is the secret of Jewish survival—that Jews, for thousands of years, have been able to go through Gehenna, and it didn't define us because we were able to use that pain. We were able to confront that pain. We sit here in this beautiful building in Neurushel. You guys are too young to appreciate what this means But you should know that there was a generation of people well before you and I were born. There was a generation of people that came here with nothing on their backs. Nothing. They had nothing. And everyone in the world said, "It's over" It's over." After the Holocaust, there is no coming back. In the history of the world, there was nothing ever like it. There's no coming back. And where do we go to school? We go to school in palaces, and our schools are palaces, and our community is thriving, and our chesed organizations are off the charts.

36:33 The Jewish community is such an exceptional community. We just spend time looking at the negatives of the community because that's what we do. We want to build the community to make it even better. But Emma says, "Guys, you don't understand." This is the most incredible community. It's hard to go off the derech just because of how amazing the community is. Think about it. If you have a special needs child You know who to call. You're going to call Camp Pass. You're going to call Ohel. If Chassid Shalom, you get sick with cancer, you're going to call High Lifeline. We could call anybody. If your car breaks down, you're going to call chaverim. Some chassidish guy is going to show up on the side of the road. You're in New Rochelle, and he's going to jack up your car in two seconds. It's an unbelievable thing. On the train on the way to Herzlentecar this morning A Jewish guy gets into the train and sits down next to me. And he sits down and he starts talking to me. There's other guys in the car. They clearly saw I was there by myself a moment ago. And then he comes, he sits down, he shmuzes. Happens to be we're friends with a whole bunch of similar people. You know Jewish geography. We're an exceptional community.

37:35 Do you realize this came from somewhere? How did they build a palace like this? How did they build the shul? How did they have the courage to have more children? How did they have the courage to open kosher restaurants and kosher and svarim stores and all the things that we have? Where did they get the courage from? The Torah says because we confronted our inner Asav, we were never afraid. We were never afraid to turn inwards. There were periods of survival, but after the survival, we did the work and we rebuilt. And we're doing it again. This is what's happening in Eretz Yisrael today. You should know We're doing it again. Everyone, how we going to? How could we possibly rebuild? Because it's what we do. Because even though we don't have the language to articulate what's happening right now, because we're in survival mode Bez Hashem, maybe it looks now like we're at the end of things.

38:27 Could be. But you should know, we're going to be okay. We're going to be okay because we know how to talk these things through. We know how to confront who we really are. And with Hashem's help, and obviously together, bez Hashem we'll be zeicha to be as G-d tzaddik. We'll be zeicha to Mashiach. Very speedily, we need Him to come very, very quickly. Now we're in these final moments, but we need to finish up these final moments in a hurry because it's hard to imagine how much longer we could continue to do this. But blessed Hashem will strike from this also, and Yaakov Vina will blessed Hashem become Yisrael, and we'll see tremendous growth. Rabbi, I have a beautiful Shabbat. Shalom.