Yud Tes Kislev Fabrengen - (Parshas Vayeshev) Finding Hashem in Our Loneliness

2:27 There was an innkeeper whose name was Rachav. Rachav was a zina. The simple explanation of the word zina is from a lashon of mazonos. She was an innkeeper; everyone came through her place. But of course, we know that Chazal say that Rachav was not only a zona in the sense of the fact that she was an innkeeper But she was a woman of the night. She was a harlot. Why go to her? Because if anybody's going to know the inner thoughts of what's happening in people's heads, it's going to be Rachok. Not only does everyone come into her inn, but she has an intimate understanding of everybody who is there. So the spies come, Kalev and Pinchas. They come to Rachok's house. And we know that the Melech hears that they're there. And so the Melech comes and he says, 'Hand over these two spies.' She says, 'What spies? I don't know what you're talking about. Where were they hiding?'

3:29 So in Rachov's business Sometimes men don't want to be seen. So what do they do? So Rachov had flax plants upstairs on the roof of her building. And the men would go hide under these flax plants. And then when they were ready to escape, they would go out the window and go down the rope. The rope outside of Rachov's window went outside of Yericho. It was like a rope outside of the city itself. And so. People would leave the city and then come in through the city gates. If you were entering through the city gates, obviously you weren't with Rachov. So it was a perfect way for her to hide these men. So when the king came for Kalev and Pinchas, she said, "I don't know what you're talking about." She hid them underneath these flax plants. And she let them out through the window, and they went down the rope.

4:21 And in this way, they were spared. Rachov made one deal with them. She said. You know that the whole country is terrified that you're coming. Spare me. When you come, spare my family. We all know the story that she tied the red string around her building so they would know to spare Rachov. And in this way, Rachov survived. The Gemara in Zevachim tells us that Rachov was a zaynah from the time she was ten years old. Sometimes I think we think to ourselves like, yeah, in olden times people were older when they were younger. But I think even in those days, ten years old was very young to be a zina. Rachel was a zina for forty years, Chazal say, from the time she was ten years old to the time she was fifty years old. Rachel was a zina. She was a beautiful woman.

5:10 The Gemara in Megillah tells us that she was among the four most beautiful women in the entire world. Esther, Amalca, Avigayil, who was the wife of David Melech Rachel and Sarah Imenu were the four most beautiful women in the entire world. So she was quite beautiful, but still she had an illustrious career of being a zina. Forty years is a long time to be a zina. Gemara and Zavachim tells us that Rachav did tshuva. Ultimately, we know who Rachav married. She married Yosher. Rachav married Yosher. She married the Moshe Rabbeinu of her time. So Rachav said the Gemara says that she sinned through three items. Through the flax, through the window, and through the rope. And in the same way that she sinned through those three items, she also is going to do tshuva through those three items: through the flax, the window, and the rope.

6:11 Who ultimately comes out of Rachav? First of all, we know already that Rachav and Yehoshua's children married Kohanim, so they were clearly accepted within Klal Yisrael. But we know the Gemara tells us that eight different prophets. Including Chol Dahanavia Came from Rachov. Rachov was so beautiful. The Gemara says that if you said her name twice, it would cause a man to sin if he saw her. She was so beautiful that even saying her name would bring a person to a state of awe. And from this unbelievable zina, who was so exceptionally beautiful Who had done all these terrible acts for forty years? Comes eight different prophets, including Chol Dahanavia. In fact, the Medrash in Tanah Devei Eliyahu says that you see from Rachav that tshuva is greater than tefila. How do you know? Because Moshe Rabbeinu davened to be allowed into Eretz Yisrael, and he wasn't allowed in.

7:04 And Rachav did tshuva, and her tshuva wasn't a scabal. So what's the pshat in Rachav? How did she end up marrying Yeshua? Could you imagine the scandal today on Yeshiva World News if the Godol Hador would marry? Someone like Rachov One could not possibly imagine the comments section of all the chevrakedisha with all of their brilliant knowledge having to pontificate and opine on what the gedolei hador are doing. One imagines that even back then, as they're entering into Eretz Yisrael Pashtus. I'm sure they didn't do this, but maybe Jews Friday night after the men go to shul and the women are sitting there in the park with all the little kids. I'm sure that's the way it was, even back in the day in Eretz Yisrael. I'm sure they were all whispering, going, "Did you hear that Yosheruah married Rachav?" How could it be punished?

7:58 And yet Yosheruah marries Rachav. And then the second question is, what's the pshat in the flax The window and the rope? Seem to be tangential. The ikar avir that she did was in the bedroom. The getting the guys out. That doesn't seem to be the big average. So somehow this part becomes central to the story. I'll share with you a maral. The maral, when you hear this maral, you have to hear it not just as the maral says it, but the psychological underpinnings that the maral is teaching us. So I'll say it outside first, and then I'll say what he says. At the core. Of every one of our layers At the core of every aspect of our being That's not aligned with Hakadosh Baruch Hu, that's not oriented for success Is deep feelings of loneliness that we don't want to process. For a person to come to a place to acknowledge the existential loneliness that every single person in the world feels, whether they're paying attention to that feeling or not. At the core of all of our lack of alignment is a deep feeling of loneliness.

9:17 On a very extreme level, we see this with teenagers. We see it as adults also, but it's easier for us to talk about teenagers as if they're a different species. It makes it more comfortable and safe for us to acknowledge our own misdeeds. So we'll just talk about teenagers. They love to be spoken to. As long as you don't judge them. Why does a teenager behave the way they do? In ninth grade, a little girl, and I've had four of them so far. They come to school. And they go through this. In Eretz Yisrael, they call them chetnikim. We were big eighth graders. Remember when you were in seventh grade and you were saying, "When I'm in eighth grade, I'm going to rule the school." I remember that was the shbrach when I was in eighth grade. We're going to rule the school. We run the school.

10:07 So you go from being Running to school To a freshie Fresh meat. I know there's no bullying today, but back in the nineties there was bullying. It wasn't okay, but it was okay. You're fresh meat, you're freshman. And all of a sudden you're trying to find yourself in a world where you've lost yourself just like a moment ago. For example, all these new girls from all these new schools, and how do I fit? Do you remember this? Unless you went straight to the same place and everybody was there, but I doubt anybody did that. And all of a sudden, you have the girls from this school and that school, and you're trying to figure out exactly where you are. I can't tell you how many hours of conversations I've had with my daughters. It's dozens for sure. Who are my friends? This is a big deal. Who you sit with In who you sit with outside during hafsaqa is a very big deal.

10:57 Because it defines your entire trajectory. Are you with these girls? Are you with those girls? I was with those girls in eighth grade. Now I left them, but they're talking about me, and I don't feel comfortable. It's an amazing crisis of loneliness, and you see it. And there's a struggle for this: who am I? So we work it out at some point along the way. But more or less, what high school kids do is they trade authenticity for connectivity because of their loneliness. They put on an act to be somebody that they're not in order to be accepted by others. Which is, of course, the paradox of if I'm not who I actually am, I can't be accepted by anybody else because who am I? Where does it come from that people do that? It comes from a deep sense of loneliness. If we're being honest with ourselves, we probably do it as adults also.

11:50 We come to a community. Maybe we know people. Maybe we don't know people. Who can I talk to? Who speaks my language? Who understands me? Who'll give me space? I need to act, especially when we're young. I need to act as if everything is okay. I need to be the person that says my marriage is fine. I can't tell anyone that my marriage is challenging. I can't talk about the difficulties that I have with my children. I have one friend that I'm able to be myself with. So there's a deep sense of loneliness that almost everybody is experiencing because nobody wants to say this is who I actually am. That's the challenge of all of our lives. It's the challenge of people. If we're being honest, it's the challenge of people that are in challenging marriages, and all marriages have their challenges. And to be living with a person and to feel deeply alone, and to feel that real loneliness of I was hoping that in marriage I would find somebody with whom I could be myself, and with whom somebody could be themselves with me.

12:46 And there's a deep sense of loneliness that exists And that loneliness becomes the prism through which we see the entire world. And now everywhere you go, if you're feeling those feelings or not feeling those feelings of loneliness, even though they're deeply embedded inside of us It becomes and it informs the way in which we behave in every aspect of our lives. And so people do a million different things to deal with that loneliness because that's how they see the world. Everything, if you're lonely, becomes about connectivity. Everything becomes about how can I create connectivity where there isn't. In today's generation, even amongst adults, it's a crazy thing that this is happening. The nature of substance abuse used to be a teenage kid was smoking up. Today, even amongst the adults, you find this things. What's the pshat? It's that worldview. It's that way of seeing the world. I just need something to connect.

13:40 That's what addiction is in its core. Addiction is this desire to connect to something. And if I can't have the real thing, I'll settle for anything. Anything that will give me at least some feeling of connection. We can do that with drugs and alcohol. We can do it with food. We can do it with inappropriate relationships. We can do it with codependency. We can really become addicted to anything. We could trade true, authentic connection for any fake, pornographic connection that exists in order to have that feeling of connectivity. So the maral says, this is the story of Rachov. Rachov, how do you become a zina at ten years old? Only a very hurt person could be a zina at ten years old. I had a client last night. This client is amazing. Did many, many avers when they were in high school And they're working through it in the sense that now they're in a stage in their life where they need to share that with another And the way that they're going to share that.

14:47 Is by giving the real story of what happened. The real story was not I did X and Y averes. For a halachic reason, this person has to share that they did this averes. But in conversation This person said I'm going to say the truth. I had a traumatic childhood. I was abused by my siblings, physically and sexually. And the things that I did were a misguided attempt to numb my pain and connect to anything. And I'm going to give context to this. These averas that I did They were not things that brought me any sense of pleasure. They were things that were an attempt lechalutin in every sense of the word. They were an attempt to connect to something. And I'm hopeful. This person said, I'm so hopeful. That this person, not that they'll say, it doesn't bother me. I'm hopeful that they'll see my story and say It's okay to have been you. That this could be a part of your story, and you could be lovable and acceptable despite what you did, because what you did, you didn't do because you were bad.

16:04 You did what you did because you were in a tremendous amount of pain. And I was. As this person was telling me this, I was on the verge of tears. Because when you hear somebody speak like that, somebody who's clearly gone—you can only speak like that if you've gone to therapy. There's no way, no person has that language without going to therapy. And here's a person who's no longer treating themselves with that hatred and that anger, that inner critic that so many of us speak to ourselves with. I'm a bad person because I did X. It's not true. Every single avera that we did is no different than the averas that this client did. It's just that this client did it over here because of the extreme pain that they were in. They did extreme averas of connection, and we also do averas, also because of a lack of connection, also because of that need for connection, that need for belonging that exists in every one of us.

16:59 Rachov didn't become a zayna because she was a bad person. Rachov became a zayna because she was a hurt child. And from a very young age As a ten year old. She sought the company of others. She sought the company of others on a chitzonius level by opening up an inn. There are people that provide for other people not because they authentically want to give from a deep place of self, because if I give, it's an expression of me. But the opposite: they give because if I can feed you, then maybe I'll be enough. I think some people in the room know what I'm talking about. It's not a simple thing to be able to give, especially Especially the wives of our community that are giving so exceptionally And we are Baruch Hashem a community of unbelievable chesed. But sometimes in our chesed, there's a deep sense of resentment. Sometimes we do for another, and we're like, I have nothing left to give, and it no longer becomes this act that fulfills us. It's something that's draining to us, and the reason it's coming from that place is because it's not.

18:08 It's a need that I have to give to another because if I give to another, then I'm enough. As opposed to I am enough, so I can give to another. This was Rachel on a chitzonius level. She opened up an inn. If everybody will come and I can feed everybody and make them feel good about themselves, then I can be enough. That's a hurt child speaking. And on a pneumius level, what she was doing in the bedroom That was also an inappropriate connection that existed. That was her attempt. To try to satisfy her own loneliness by connecting to something that wasn't really hers And she was in such extreme pain that she did it for 40 years. And yes, she had the beauty to pull it off. But that beauty wasn't something that she was proud of. It wasn't something that she said, 'I'm beautiful,' and I embrace that beauty because it's godly.

18:59 For her, her beauty was a tool that she could potentially use to ameliorate some of that loneliness. Maral says this is what it means, flax. Flax, like the coin Gado wears, big day bad. Bad means garments of flax. Bad also means loneliness. Like bidud, we were all in bidud a couple of years ago. Like Yerushalayim is echay Yashva badad. How could Yerushalayim be in this state of loneliness? Yerushalayim, which is the ultimate place of connection. How eicho yashva b'adat? How could it be in the state of loneliness? But that was the loneliness that Rachav felt—the flax. And therefore, she also had the flax. She also had a window. A window is how you see out into the world. It's the lenses through which you see when you look out into the world. So Rachav, in her whole life, whenever she was looking out the window, all she saw was maybe this will be a place of connection. Maybe then I could be enough. Maybe then I could satisfy myself.

20:00 But of course, it doesn't work like that. And then the rope, as we know, is what we use to connect. That's what a rope always does. You tie a rope around something; it connects you to it. I was walking with my talmidim to the Yud Tes Kislev sale yesterday. Baruch Hashem, there's about 20 boys in the shir. And we were walking from the Tachanah Merkazit to Pinyanei Haoma. And we were all walking together. And the boy said, "Rebbe, we should have a rope." When you're walking as a kid through the halls of your school They said we should have brought a rope so that we could walk. Such a mevaser thing to say. We should have had a rope so we could all hold on to the rope walking together. And then I started. I didn't have this when I was growing. We had finger on the wall. I guess they had. They got younger. They got ropes. So the boy said, "I call the triangle. The triangle up was apparently the best thing to hold on to because it was the easiest to hold on to." So they were all like joking. I hold the rope. I was thinking to myself: There's something very beautiful about this idea that we all hold the rope. The rope is a place of asgachos.

21:02 The rope is a place of connection. That's what we do. What does Rachov mean when she says It's dafka through the flax, through the window, through the rope that I'm going to do tshuva. Rachov didn't need to talk about her bedroom because that wasn't the average. When Kalev and Pinchas came, the impact of those tzaddikim The impact of Klal Yisrael standing on the verge of Yericho And that she knew Ms. is coming It had such a purifying impact that Rachov, now after forty years of pain, after forty years of torture of being a zina She finally realized It's not about the average It's about all that drove me to the avera for Rachov to pay attention. To the Avera for Rachov to say, "I'm going to do tshuva with the things that happened in my bedroom." Be a mistake. That wasn't Rachov. Rachov was about the flax. She was about the window. She was about the rope. What happened in the bedroom was tangential.

22:06 It wasn't her. Memale, we understand what the Gemara means when it says that Rachov will do tshuva exactly through these things. As we look back on our own loneliness. It becomes apparent to us that our loneliness is not only the portal to all of the disconnect that we have in our life. But it's actually the portal to all the authentic connection that we have in our life. L'mashel. I don't know if you've ever had the opportunity to meet an alcoholic or drug addict who's walked through the twelve steps. The single most spiritual, deeply connected people I've ever met in my entire life went through Gehenna together. And it turns out, and they'll tell you That the reason they drink And the reason they smoked or did whatever drugs they were doing Is because of their spiritual sensitivity. Carl Jung, the famous psychologist, once said about addicts. Addicts are human beings writ large.

23:21 That most of us are not sensitive enough to the spiritual void that exists in this world. An addict is somebody who is so deeply aware of spirituality in this world that a failure to be spiritual, that void of spirituality, they call it a god-sized hole. They're trying to fill a god-sized hole with all of these substances. That god-sized hole must be filled. So most of us are on the spectrum of abuse. Most of us abuse one thing or another. But the difference between the addict and the abuser is the addict literally can't live without that drink. They can't live without it because of the spiritual void. They're so exceptionally spiritual that if they don't have that spirituality in their life It's a horrific feeling for them. Something that probably none of us can truly understand. Which is why. Young also said, "Spiritus unspiritum" A spiritual problem requires a spiritual solution.

24:24 That it wasn't going to be enough to go to detox. It wasn't going to be enough to go to rehab. But the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, which are designed to give a person spirituality, are not religious steps, but they are spiritual. If you're looking for a phenomenal book to read There's a book written by Rabbi Shes Tawb. It's a brilliant blend of the twelve steps and Chasidus. It is a phenomenal book, even for those who do not consider themselves addicts. And he speaks about the fact that the spiritual void these addicts feel is because they're such deeply spiritual people. When they walk those steps, it's the only way for them to stay sober. And if they stop walking the steps, if they move off of making amends and checking in with their resentments and checking in with their fears and being honest and taking responsibility. If they move away from those deeply spiritual principles, if they can't constantly give over their addiction to a higher power.

25:23 They very quickly fall back into their addictive state. This is exactly what Rachov said. Rachov said, "I always thought about myself, and many of us feel the same way. I always thought about myself that I'm such a broken person. It's not true." The truth is, I'm such a spiritual person. That's why Rachav, at the end of the day, she has such spiritual progeny. It wasn't only from Yoseph; it was from Rachav. And it was the reason why Yoseph could marry Rachav, because Rachav really, really was such a spiritual person. The pain that she felt as a six, seven, eight, nine-year-old girl drove her to those behaviors. Other people probably could have handled that trauma. She couldn't, not because she was a bad person, but because she was such a deeply spiritual person. The lack of that spirituality in her life was debilitating. She needed to be able to look at that spirituality not as something that was harming her, but as something that would ultimately bring her to deep, authentic connection.

26:22 So she says, "It's exactly that state of loneliness that's ultimately going to cure me." And all of a sudden, she saw the world differently. The window changed, and the rope changed. And now, when Klal Yisrael comes into Canaan and they're conquering it and turning it into Eretz Yisrael, it's Yehoshua that she connects to, and she shuts down her whole thing. Forty years she shuts it down. And it probably wasn't the pshat that women were sitting around and talking about Rachav and saying, "How could Yehoshua have married Rachav?" It was Yehoshua who married Rachav. She was a dugmaishit. She was a Roman. For every single Jew, not just the women, she was a role model for every single Jew. That as you're coming into Eretz Yisrael and you're engaging the most spiritual place, the falls that you have, the averas that you do, it comes from that place of loneliness. It comes from that place of spirituality. Because the truth is, the more spiritual we are, the more lonely we feel.

27:22 My mother-in-law once said to me many, many years ago. My mother-in-law is a very wise person. She said to me. That when she read "Lonely Man of Faith" from Rusalovetschik for the first time, and she read those first words, "I am lonely She said they were so powerful to her. The words 'I am lonely.' When you hear that, you could almost Anyone could say those words, but when Rusalovetschik wrote them, and you just read them for the first time, it's like it's earth-shattering. It's like you almost could feel his loneliness. You could feel like he was. Whatever he was going through when he wrote that, he was going through it for real. I am lonely is a deeply spiritual thing to feel But that spiritual void is the opportunity for spiritual greatness. And we know that the Arizal says that Yoshua was a Gilgal of Yosef HaTzaddik And Rochav was a Gilgal of Eshas Potipher Which brings it all the way back to this week's parsha.

28:23 What was the reason that Eshas Potipher? Wanted so badly to be with Yosef Hazal. If she was married to Potifar, who was this great leader in all of Mitzrayim, why in the world would she want to be with Yosef, who was a slave? Enichanami, he was the head slave. He was a cute boy. We know Chazal tells he was very good looking. He was Masakan Basar who was playing with his hair. But you don't give that up. Married to this unbelievable Mitzri, why in the world would you sleep with a slave boy? Why'd she desire him? When you look at Chazal, she didn't just desire him. She constantly chephered him, changing her clothing, offering him money, doing whatever she could to entice him. What was this deep need that Aisha Potifar had to be with Yosef HaTzaddik? The answer is that Aisha Potifar also experienced this exceptional loneliness.

29:13 Sometimes when you're married to the person who has it all You are not connected at all. It's like you see sometimes. By very big leaders That there's no room for their family. They have room for everybody else in Klal Yisrael, but no room for the people they love the most. Because that leadership is a leadership I'm giving to everybody else because there's really nobody deeply connected. There is such a place like that And the wives of those leaders, the children of those leaders, they feel very much that they can't get what they need. I'll tell you a ma'isa. I won't tell you who But there was a gadol hador of the last generation. When I say gadol hador, I mean like one of the gadol hador, like a person that if I said their name, you would all be like yeah. His daughter is a rabbi. A chaver of mine went to this rabbi. She's the rabbi in his community.

30:17 And he was schmoozing with her many years ago. He was much younger. The story goes back 25 years. And he asked her, "What was it like to be the daughter of the Godolhador?" It's a cool question. What's it like to grow up in the Kanyevsky home, in the Feinstein home, in the Cutler home? So she said We always came second. So my friend was shocked to hear that. That's not usually what you hear. You always hear No, my father always prioritized his family. She said, "We always came second" But we never came third. What does that mean? She said, "You have to understand. My father was more important than the president of the United States. The president of the United States, he was running the country. Big deal." My father was running Klal Yisrael. My father was building Klal Yisrael. This is the nation that's bringing the luchos into the entire world. My father was much more important than the president of the United States.

31:14 And Oded Yudayi LeHadar would call my father. To be Shol Aitzv. What should we do about this? What should we do about that? When my father said jump, the whole Jewish community would move in a particular direction. What he was doing was the most important thing in the world. We knew we came second. But we never came third. My father never put anything else before us. The needs of the Klau came first, but we felt his love so much because whenever he could, despite the huge position that he had, we always came second. And it's a beautiful story. And I guess for this girl it worked. For some kids it might not. But for this girl it worked. But there are some families where the leadership is not because I'm doing for Klal Yisrael from that deep place of self. It's this need that if I can only be seen like this, so then I'll be enough. The people that won't give you that sense of satisfaction are your families.

32:04 And so these leaders lead in such a way that everybody at home is terribly lonely, and there is no father at home. And the children are maniacs. Why are the children maniacs? Because they want so badly to that classic rabbi who's changing every girl's life, who's changing every guy's life, and the kids are crying out and they're saying, "How come you won't do the same thing for me?" How come you sit with everybody else, but I don't get the same time? I don't get the same feeling. You don't make me feel like a million bucks. How come I don't get that? This is the way Eshas Potifar felt And all of a sudden comes in as charismatic and good looking and talented. A connective type of person. That's what Yosef Chazzadik was. He was a connective person. They totally misunderstood his dreams. His dreams were that we were all doing this together, not that you're bowing down to me, that I'm separate. But we're all in the field together. We're all in the sky together. That's what Yosef Chazzadik meant.

32:57 Yosef from a lashon of asifah to gather together. Here was this unbelievable person of connectivity, and she craved it so badly. But Yosef Chazzadik. Even though he was also very alone, sold by his brothers Totally alone in the world with no other Yidden in the world to speak to Even though he's about to fall prey to her, what does Yosef HaTzaddik do? He looks out the window. The same window of Rachav Azayna. He also looks out the window, and who does he see in the reflection? He sees his father in the reflection of the window, which means that Yosef HaTzaddik, even in that place of loneliness, felt deeply connected. And as we know. Yaakov Avinu vayimai. He refused to be consoled. The father that refused to be consoled creates the connection for the son that's in Dallas. Al pi chasidus, that's why you find by chasidim that they light the menorah in the window.

33:52 That as we look out into the world needs to be illuminated by the lights of the menorah. Yosef HaTzaddik, who said, "It's achai anim avakish." He was lonely, looking for his brothers. Yosef HaTzaddik was still connected, even in the lowest places. There's Gemara Menachos. The Gemara Menachos tells us about a Talmud of Rav Chia. This Talmud was very careful about the mitzvah of tzis. Maybe you've heard this Gemara before. It's a little bit of a rated R Gemara, so I'll say it as nicely as I can. It was very zahir in the mitzvah of tzis And he heard about a zayinah who was overseas. And she charged four hundred gold coins for her services. It's a very expensive sum of money. So he paid in advance. He booked an appointment. This was not a zayinah that you just showed up to. You had to mamish, mail a letter, make an appointment, and show up at a particular date.

34:46 He comes to her house. The Gemara says there was a secretary that came out to greet him. She shows him into the bedroom. The Gemara tells us what the bedroom looked like. The Gemara tells us that the bedroom. Had seven beds stacked one on top of another. The first six beds were made of silver. The top bed was made of gold. And between each bed there was a silver ladder, and the top ladder was made of gold. So this man He came to the top of the bed. The Gemara says And he began to undress. The Zayinah was sitting on top of the bed. The Gemara tells us that As he was undressing, his tzitzis hit him in the face. Even though he was this Talmud of Ravchiah, I imagine that to be called a Talmud of Ravchiah means you're no slouch. It's like my Rebbe told me: lots of people sat in Rav Salavitchik's shear. Not everybody was a Talmud of Rav Salavitchik.

35:44 Everyone walks around. I was a Talmud of Rav Salavitchik. Just because you sat in the shiur doesn't mean you're a Talmud. If the Gemara says he was a Talmud of Ravchiah, it means he was a Talmud of Ravchiah. It doesn't just mean that he sat in the shiur. He got hit in the face with the tzitzis. And he said, "That's it." He went down And he sits on the floor. And the zayna comes to sit with him, and she says, "I'm not letting you leave until you tell me what you found wrong with me" Because this was her livelihood, this was her business, this was her everything. So he said to her, "You're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen" But in the parsha of Sitzes it says, 'Ani Hashem lekechem twice' Which means I'm the God who will give you schar, and I'm also the God who will give you einish. Ani Hashem lekechem. I'm also going to give you an einish, and now the four tzitzis of my garment are going to testify against me that I did the avera, so I can't do the avera.

36:39 The zayinah says to him a very strange thing. She says to him, "I won't let you go until you tell me your name, your city, the name of your rebbe, and the name of your yeshiva." So he does, and she leaves. He gives her the information and a piece of paper. She takes it in her hand and leaves. What does the zayin do? She sells all of her property. She gives the gemara says a third to the government as a bribe to let her leave. A third of the money she gives to Stakha. She keeps a third of the money for herself. And she takes that third of the money and the golden and silver beds with the golden and silver ladders. And she travels to Rivchia. And she comes to Rivchia. And she says, "I'd like for you to be my lawyer. I'd like to be converted."

37:34 So Rivchia looks at her, and the ruach kadosh, or perhaps just with his psychological intuition, Rivchia says, 'Perhaps you're being megayr because you want to marry one of my students.' Obviously, Rivchia understood something very deep here. So she doesn't say a word. She hands Rivchia the note. And on the note is the name of the Talmud, the name of the city. Rivchia's name, the name of the yeshiva. Rivchia says Go and take your possessions. Go take your purchase. Very strange thing to say. The Gemara says that she found this boy. They married each other. And the Gemara says that the beds that she had used for all of those years, where she was the most expensive zayna in the entire world, now became the beds in her bedroom. It's a very strange story. First of all, if he's such a good person, if he's such a big talmuder of chiyah, and he's so zahir in the midst of tzitzis, how in the world did he end up at that zayna's house? How did that happen?

38:35 And second of all What happens when the tzitzis hit him as he's getting undressed? I don't understand. That morning he got there. He was at his hotel. He got dressed. He put on his tzitzis. That morning when he looked at his tzitzis, he didn't have her hurei tshuva. Only later, b'shas meisa, as is about to do the avera. Only then does he have herurei tshuva. Then he says, "No, I can't do this anymore." What happened that morning? Why dafka now? And why is she so taken with him? As you get older You're able to develop a little bit of a thicker skin, and what people say doesn't matter as much. I would imagine if this woman was a top zina in the entire world, that it was worth traveling overseas to be with her. A guy doesn't want to be with you. Take your four hundred gold dinar. You made your money right there. What do you? It's okay. Leave him alone. Lose some gains. You missed one. She's so deeply connected to him that she needs to travel all the way to Rivchia, all the way overseas, to marry this person.

39:35 And then, of course, there's the famous question, Get new beds. I remember when I was newly married We were in Kailul and we couldn't afford very much. So I went on Craigslist in America. And they were. I found beds for sale. Looking back on it, I was like I'm older now, so I didn't realize what. And back then, I didn't know what money was. I felt like a hundred dollars was a lot of money. I thought five hundred dollars was a lot of money. You get older, you realize five hundred dollars is like a nickel. Money flies out of this place so fast. And now my daughter is engaged. I think my bank account sprung a leak. I see that the numbers just dwindle so fast. It's Hashem beyou. It's it's a good it's a good reason to have your bank account dwindle. But Get new beds.

40:23 The schlep. First of all, it must have been a schlep to take golden and silver beds on a boat across the ocean. Very heavy. She had to pay a lot of money. Wasn't it mustama uncomfortable for this khamer ruchiyah that she married? You come into your bedroom every day and you see your wife who was a former zayna and her wares. Get new beds, get new sheets. What are you bringing that into the marital bedroom for? So the Arizal says that just like Yoshua was a Gilgal of Yosef HaTzaddik, this Talmud of Ruchiyah was also the Netzach of Yosef HaTzaddik. And if you look at the story, it's exactly the same. Yosef HaTzaddik ended up in the house of Eshes Potifar because that was where the Haskacha put him. Just like Ruchiyah's Talmud, he found himself drawn to this zayinah. He had no idea why. And in the morning, when he woke up and he put on tzitzis, he was in such a trance. He had no idea how he ended up there. He was in such a trance that he just made his way there.

41:18 Until he got there And all of a sudden he's up on the beds, and all of a sudden he's like, "Wait a second" Am I doing here? How did I come to be in this place? What was I hoping for? What was I searching for? And now the tzitzis hit him in the face. Just like Yaakov, just like Yosef HaTzaddik We know the Gemara tells us we don't teach this Gemara to children very often. We always say Yosef HaTzaddik was about to do the avera and then he stopped himself. But it's not true. If you look at the Gemara and Sota, it makes it very clear that Yosef HaTzaddik didn't stop himself from doing the avera. He stopped himself at the very last moment before a person completes the avera. That is when he mamish stopped himself. But up until then he was mamish. He was in the throes of the avera before he saw Yaakov Vinnu's face in the window. Just like Yaakov Vinnu's face, all of a sudden shocked Yosef out of his doldrums. It shocked this Netzotz of Yosef HaTzaddik also.

42:17 And that same loneliness that Aishas Potifar felt was the loneliness of Zaina. And when she felt the connectivity to this Yosef HaTzaddik When you find that authentic connectivity, you'll travel anywhere for it. When you taste what it means belonging It's the greatest feeling in the world. And to be accepted. Is there any greater feeling than to be yourself and for somebody to say, "I see you with kindness and compassion, and I see your story for what it truly is." " If you have a, if you have an hour Nobody in this room has an hour. I know our lives are very busy. But people have an hour. Mi pahm le pahm. You find yourself in the car. Go on, meaningful minute On the podcast And listen to the podcast with Dr. Kivi Prom Dr. Kivi Prom, one of my old friends. Today he's a therapist.

43:14 He is one of the most heartwarming people you will ever meet in your entire life. He talks about how he just sits with his clients and accepts them as they are. To listen to him is to understand what belonging means. I called him up after the podcast and I said to him, "Kivi, I want you to know." What you described That feeling of belonging. I feel so happy for your clients in that room. Because your clients in that room are not just talking to a therapist. They're able to discover themselves in a completely non-judgmental environment where they're able to be whoever they are, with all of their pain, with all of their trauma, with all of their story, and feel deeply connected. And he said that's who that's what he does. That's the gift that he's able to give people because that's the gift that people gave to him.

44:05 So once this nitzot of avishes potifar, this nitzot of rachav, the same zayinah, she keeps coming back in the same way. Once that nitzot discovers what true belonging means, she's never going to let it go. But she says, just like Rachav I'm not embarrassed of these beds. I'm not embarrassed of the flax. I'm not embarrassed of the window. I'm not embarrassed of the rope. I'm not embarrassed of any of it. I bring it with me because it's the person that I am. That same desire for connection and that same desire for loneliness—they're all one. It's not two separate desires. The desire—the loneliness that I had my entire life—it drove me to this place. But it's the same place that brings me to that place of connection. That's why when she shows up to Rivchia, Rivchia says, "Go and take your purchase." What purchase? The purchase that Potifar made all those years ago of Yosef HaTzaddik The money that you spent back then now belongs to you. You were waiting all these thousands of years for Yosef HaTzaddik to come back. Now is the time for that connection to be created.

45:08 This This loneliness This loneliness that we all feel in our lives is the loneliness of Chanukah. That's why it says that the Yevanim. Said, "Kisfu lachem alkeren Ashur she'in lachem chelek el be'lokei Yisrael." Right on the horn of an ox, that you have no connection to the God of Israel. And we know who's the Shor. The Shor is Yosef HaTzaddik. The Chor Shireh Hadarloi. The Karnei Reim Karat. This is Yosef HaTzaddik. The shor is Yosef. In the times of the Chashmonaim We don't. I think sometimes we think about the Maccabim in such a silly way. We think about the Maccabim. I don't know how it became. The Machabim became an a cappella group. The Machabim became the YU basketball team. They've coopted and corrupted the notion of what it means to be a Machabim. What it meant to be a Machabim was when every Yidden Klal Yisrael felt so disconnected from Hashem. They weren't becoming misyavnim. They weren't becoming Greek because they thought that Greek culture had what to offer. It was because the culture told them you no longer have a chelak belokei Yisrael. You're lonely people. That's what you are. You have zero connection to anything.

46:18 That's the crisis that's happening today. That so many people are going off because they're like, I don't know, I can't go through the motions anymore. I sat with a kid today, and he said to me, 'What do you want from me?' You want me to daven? I don't want to daven. You want me to learn? I don't want to learn. What's he really saying? He's saying, 'I don't find that holiness. I don't find Hashem in this. There's no reason for me to do this.' He wasn't saying intellectual. He said all the arguments that anyone gives me, I don't find any value in them. It's not because he's a genius. It's not because he's learned all of Plato and all of Socrates and he's listening to all the atheists today and he's come up with better reasons. He's saying I don't. It's not. It's not Moshech me. It's not moving me. I don't feel any sense of connection because I can't find the Rebbeinu Shalom in these things. That's what's missing today. This is the story of Hanukkah. The story of Hanukkah is the Rebbeinu Shalom saying to us.

47:09 You didn't lose me Just because it's dark outside, and just because you don't feel my presence doesn't mean I'm not here. That's the gift that we need to give to people. And that's why the Gemara in Shabbos says. Most people know the one version of the Gemara in Shabbos. The Gemara in Shabbos says that you light Hanukkah Neros. Where do you light Hanukkah Neros? You light the Hanukkah Neros on the left, because on the right side of your home is the mezuzah. So this way, you're surrounded by mitzvos. There's another text of the Gemara. The Gemara says that people would wear talisim. It would wear talismans while they were lighting the menorah. Why? Because you need to have the person who's wearing the talis in the middle. Surrounded by mitzvos. It doesn't just mean on your right hand side and on your left hand side. It means the deep feeling of connection that a person has in the middle. The beds that Zaina had.

47:55 Remember, she had seven ladders, seven beds and six ladders. That's literally what tzitzis look like. It's the seven knots and the six wrapped around between. It was literally tzitzis that he was climbing up. A person has to have that sense of connectivity that comes with tzitzis, that sense of awareness of alokos when they're lighting the menorah. Ben Ish Chai says that tzitzis, mezuzah, and Chanukah is tzemach. Tzitzis, mezuzah, menorah, meaning tzitzis, mezuzah, and Chanukiah. It's tzemach, as in smicha saguula. When does the Rebbeinu Shlom send Mashiach? When we will have that awareness. That the loneliness that went into, the gullus that went into Was only to discover in the loneliness that we were never really lonely. That's what a person finds when they're all alone, when they find Hashem. People think I'll find Hashem when I'm connected. It's the opposite. The reason that we all have to be lonely, the reason that all of us go through this pain with our spouses, with our children, with our communities, with ourselves is because a person has to find the Rebbeinu Shalom within that.

49:05 And life certainly brings us to a place of loneliness. Everybody here, at some point in their life, has cried tears of loneliness. With the guys, it's the tears that they hold back. There's a boy who was in my office today. He's in a tremendous amount of pain. And we had to have a hard conversation because he violated a rule in the yeshiva. And I wasn't talking about getting him in trouble. There was no need to discipline him. We just needed to talk about what's going on. And I said to him, this thing that you're doing It's working for you. And all of a sudden, his eyes welled up with tears. And if you know eighteen-year-old boys, what do eighteen-year-old boys do when their eyes welled up with tears? They do everything they can not to let those tears fall. So he's talking through the tears, choking them back. He's talking through the tears.

49:59 So I learned this from my wife. If the tears that you're not crying right now could speak, what would they say? After that, it was a waterfall. I know that this boy has been holding back those tears for so long. I know he has And he needs to cry them out because he went through tremendous pain. The things that he saw in his childhood, the things that he went through. He's not doing these things because. Because things are working for him, he's doing these things. Because things are not working for him. But I told him today that the tzmicha The geula for him, the flowering of the redemption, will come from these tears. That if he chooses not to run away from this pain, but to lean into the pain, to work through the pain, and to move through the pain, that's how he's going to find the eved she'ar.

50:54 And I think it's going to happen. It's that time of year. It's Chanukah. It's that time of year when the boys are starting to make these moves. I have a tremendous amount of hope for this particular young man. And I hope And I'm confident that in four, five, six months from now, and in five, ten years from now I think you're going to see something very special from this person. He has the capacity to be incredible and unbelievable. I could see him being a rebbe in our yeshiva one day. He's talented on so many levels. And the choice, the crossroads that he's at right now—to lean into the pain or to run away from it—and he is leaning into it. But that crossroads, in so many ways, is going to define his life. As it did for everybody in this room. And if we have not yet found the geula in that state of gullus, then blessed Hashem, we should be zeicha this yud teskeleif This yomtiv of chasidus that tells us that there's light in the darkness and this yomtiv of Chanukah that's coming up. We should be zeicher to engage all of the loneliness of our lives, all of the loneliness of the people in our families. And to share with them that in that place of loneliness, there's an exceptional connection.