Is This Ok? Alex Honnold's Taipei 101 No-Ropes Climbing (Nerve-Racking Footage)

The majority of the world has seen the ropeless crime climber Alex Hunn who scaled a 101tory building including a fourstory antenna on top of it without any ropes in an incredible and unusual feat which was probably never ever done before. [music] Pictures as we see over here that are almost scary to watch in a video that's even scarier. But I'm going to take the more comfortable route and sit in this comfortable couch over here and speak about it instead. I feel a little bit more safer doing that. [cheering] >> Bit of a showman in him, huh? Bit of a showman in him. I think he's been hanging out with me too much. I I must admit it it does ease ease my nerves a bit to see that smile. So he's having a good time from the corner and he has to get on top of it and so he has to lean out. Rely on his arms, >> dude. >> Throw his leg up. >> Just put your other hand on the thing. Put your other Put Why is He It's just one arm and it >> he's shaking his hands. He's resting a little bit. He's putting chalk on his hands. That's going to absorb the sweat. >> He's He's just going climbing. Woo! Yeah, just just going climbing. >> Oh my goodness. [cheering] Wow. [screaming] >> Climb. >> Yeah. I mean, I know Mark is excited being up there. Oh, no. No. No. No. [cheering] >> EMILY, NO. WHY? >> [screaming] [cheering] >> He's done it. >> Wow. >> Look at that. >> Oh, I can hear you guys. Hold on a minute. The city >> now let me tell you something first of all quickly about if this is permitted Jewish law and that is I'm sure we are quite familiar that there's a that says a person is obligated to watch out and protect his body. Our body is a physical body that we don't think is something that is external but part of us. It is a very precious facility. Just like when we see a safer a parchment a parchment from the scroll of the Torah that is burnt, we have to tear Korea. We rip our clothes on it at that time because it is a terrible thing to see that happens. The physical body is seen like a safer. It's the same as a scroll of a Torah in the same way. And therefore, if you see len someone passing away, you have to go ahead and tear Korea. One is obligated to rip his begged for that reason. The reason we are obligated to bury the dead is for the same reason that we bury a Torah scroll when it is finished. Just like we bury anything known as gniza, we uh put anything in the ground that is holy and has holy words of Hashem on top of it. A body of a person is just as holy, obviously even more. And therefore, we go out of our way to bury it. And therefore, we have an obligation of to protect our bodies to make sure that we don't put it in a place that is of danger. Now the truth is it is brought down that for the sake of for the sake if it's brought in Jewish law that for the sake of parasa what is known for our need to make money if a person has to as they say make a living. So then many times he has to put himself in danger. I mean in the times of the rabbis they were talking about climbing a tree. It's a little bit easier than climbing 101story building on the outside window to window. But in the end of the day it seems to be permitted as the nabi Yehuda writes of a hunter who was going ahead and hunting for animals. He said if you're doing it for the sake of the fact that you need to make a living I'm good. Then you're okay to do it even though you're putting your life in jeopardy. However, if you're doing it for sport and for fun, he has other things to say about that, comparing him to Asov and Nimrod and other other people. But at least we see from here that it is permitted in certain situations. Now, like I said, to put yourself in serious peril or serious success, then it is not as simple. So, one might ask, okay, but is a anyways obligated? Is one who is non-Jewish also have this obligation of protecting his body? So the truth is this idea of protecting yourself and your body is a Jewish thing. It's written by actually right in our time what we're discussing right now that a person has to be careful to make sure not to forget the Torah and also to protect his body. So it is written in the Jewish realm. However, there is a discussion about a guy of a person who's non-Jewish about committing suicide. Again, our body is not our own. It is held to us as what we call a picadan on collateral. Hashem lends it to us. God lends us our body to borrow and we can't do whatever we want to it. So is uh and as we know suicide is one of the most serious offenses in Jewish law that is possible. Now what about a guy who does it? So the answer is if he would have not succeeded and dropped from the building and died which would have somewhat been a unprecedented type of suicide then it would have been somewhat of a problem who committed suicide but now that he succeeded so so it's true in the end of the day he was not over an issur he was not over a prohibition not that he's calling me and asking me but it's always good to learn these concepts when it's happening because at the end of the day for a Jew to do it would be prohibited because we have an obligation of protecting our bodies but for going to do it is an he is the whole prohibition is not to kill himself as long as he succeeded. So he ended up not killing himself as we seem is still around and therefore it is permitted. What I really wanted to get to besides this first half was what we can take from this and what is the reason why people do things such as this. The answer is a clear answer. So most people will tell me it's for kavod, it's for honor, which is also true. It definitely wasn't for parnasa for to make a buck because at the end of the day, he did get paid a half a million dollars, which I don't anything anybody's saying would do it for $5 million, let alone $500,000. And he himself spoke out, I would have done it for free. It doesn't make a difference to him. The answer is a person does it because a person wants to find his unique place in life. He wants to be special. He wants to see that I'm just not like one of the sheep. I'm not like everybody else. There's something individualistic about me. And everybody should know that I am different. People have this desire, this lust, this tava, this interest, this pulling sensation within us to always want to be special, to be on a pedestal, to find ourselves different from everywhere else. And the reason where that comes from is because we have in the multilings a verse that says the soul of a person is always thirsty. It's always yearning for more. As the parable is brought over there in the midash, the rabbis bring this parable to a simpleton, a farmer who marries a princess. And he's such a good guy. He brings her into a simple shack, his rickety shack. Slams the door and bring the handle falls off. Okay, we tried our best. He puts in front of her, as they say, a few dips with some bread. He tries to give her his best cup of Coca-Cola that he has from about 2 weeks ago, and there's no more bubbles inside of it. He's doing his best. He bought her a brand new Cracker Jackack ring. He opened up the box, and he gave her it sparkling. He got some cubic zone in order to just advance over there. some pearls that are fake. He's trying and he's yearning and he's he's sitting and balling [clears throat] away crying and crying and crying and he's going, "What's wrong? I'm doing my best. What am I doing?" But the answer is you're dealing with aristocracy. You're dealing with someone who is on a different plane than you are. We She is one who's used to opulence. She's used to castles and and gourmet food and all the fine fineries that we are familiar with. And therefore, she doesn't speak your language. As much as you're trying your best, in the end of the day, you're not satisfying her desires. That's what it means. We are we are equipped. We are gifted with something that is a soul, a spirit known as the dish that is begging and yearning for something more, for wholesomeness, for something, if I could use the word spirituality, from connecting to something above what meets the eye. When a person finds his meaning in something spiritual, something above and it could be about doing a proper act, working on a good trait or restraining from doing something wrong or learning a piece of Torah, learning a piece of that that comes from when a person you suddenly feel a certain wholesomeness. You feel a satisfaction by the fact that I now completed a track date of Talmud. You feel a satisfaction from the fact that I've now changed a part of myself. I've done something incredible. That satisfaction is our uniqueness. And you're not like anyone else's uniqueness. In 6,000 years in all of history, there will be no one that will ever imitate that incredible uniqueness because the nephish, the soul yearns for that type of individuality. Why? Because it wants to go beyond. It wants to go over and it's always looking and yearning and wanting to do more. You look at all the animal kingdom and they're more or less as they say in Yiddish to freedom. They're okay with where they are. They're looking for food all day. That's basically what they're doing. But as long as they got their fill, they go to sleep. They don't need to do more than that. They're not depressed. They're not all have anxiety. Why does this guy get to get to have the whole herm over there and he owns that piece of land and I'm all by myself? Then the animals don't go there. Only people are depressed. Only people have to take Prozac and go to therapists and have feelings of being the underdog. And the reason is this because we are yearning for more. And that feeling is sometimes good because it gets us to the places we need to be and sometimes destructive. It has caused the greatest wars in the world that we have seen. It has caused most of the divorces that stands in front of your eyes. This yearning for I'm not satisfied. I need something else. This is not good enough for me. It has destroyed children in a house. It can cause tremendous damage. And that's why in the trackate of Baba in one of the makas it says that there are four things that are nikim that cause damage. For instance, fire it discusses or it discusses an ox, a bull. And one of those things is a person. A mu m the word m which is brought in the mid in the Mishna literally means a person who is yearning, always searching and always trying more and more and more. Why is that a mazik? Why is that someone who causes damage? Because that searching is fantastic. It's a good place. It's the nama. I need more. I can't handle this and I need something else. But in the end of the day, if it's not channeled correctly, if it's not harnessed to the place that it should be, it will destroy the whole entire world. It will create atomic bombs. It will make Russia attack Ukraine. It will make Hitler try to destroy the whole entire world. And I took extreme examples and even the smaller ones. It comes from a place of needing satisfaction and finding it in the wrong places. It could mean getting high. And it can mean destroying a person's life by gambling and drugs and every other addiction that we're familiar with. It comes from there. A person has to be cognitive and think about what's going on in my life. Who am I? And you'll get there. Because when you put it in a spiritual realm, you have a yad. You have a goal. You're putting yourself somewhere where I'm aiming towards something real. I'm aiming towards changing self. I'm aiming towards my relationship with my creator. And that's so so wholesome. It's so full. And from there, a person is actually able to succeed. This interesting book that was created 71 years ago known as the Guinness Book of World's Records [clears throat] who was created in a pub of a bunch of drunkards who are busy discussing facts and arguing about what the truth is about this fact and that fact. So they created a book with many different facts. In the beginning, it was a book of facts and then it kind of rolled over, snowballed into a lot of people doing a bunch of crazy things and being able to be the number one in order to do that and to find my special place in life, to find why I am different. But in the end of the day, if you really think about it, let's be honest. The fact that the guy was able to eat the most hot dogs in five minutes, I don't know if that's a reason to stand up for him when he walks into the room. And the person has such a talent of being able to grow the longest mustache that has ever existed on the planet. That's a big wow. Why is he doing this? Because it puts him in a special place. the most tattoos from top to bottom in one person's body that you can't even see a piece of skin. Beautiful. Fantastic. My wife was recently in LA and she saw and it wasn't by one person. A number of people the pin of their ear, the lobe on the bottom of their ear. Some people have extended it to the extent you could put a bowling ball through it. Now, what's the point of putting yourself through such pain and anguish and going through this in order to show how special I am? He needs to be different. I need to grow and if it means scaling a 101 story building in order to prove it then I'm going to do that also. I'm willing to go ahead and do it. I'm not necessarily telling if I'm putting him down or not. That wasn't my intention at all. But from here I learn the the capability of looking to the wayside, not worrying about anybody else, focusing on what you need to do and get there. He did something that nobody has ever done in the history of mankind to go without a rope on top of a skyscraper like that. And still he did it and not when when no one else is doing because he had a drive to do it. It was correct. He himself right said he's a very mediocre climber. He's not one of the top climbers but he got himself and worked years in order to be able to accomplish it. We are also able to not deal with mediocrity. Don't worry about all the static and all the noise around you in society that's telling you to be like this or do this or you can't do this or you're never going to be there and don't try. Just do it. Don't mind the expression. Just do it. Right? And I don't mean you have to buy a pair of Nike shoes in order to get there. All I'm trying to say is that if a person focuses on the goal, he focuses on the truth and he pushes him to get there himself to get there, you're going to get there. You're going to be able to do it and you'll be able to find your niche in life but your niche in life in a place of true self of satisfaction not from outside in. Not because of what you hear from outside and they tell you what to do but from inside out. [snorts] Find that nucle of truth and everybody from their place will do it. A person who's a learner, a person who's a worker, a person who has tre tremendous orative skills, a person who's very good with people, everybody's got their niche. take it from itself and use it for the right reason.