Israel At War, Passover, Jewish Identity, Parenting & Anxiety: Interview with Rabbi YY Jacboson

[Music] hi and welcome to Jewish insights this past year on the Saturday night before rashash Shana my brother-in-law ABI liberman called me he said we're going to M I said why are we going to M he said come with me to M we're going to go here yway I said who's y y that night I had the amazing Merit to go here for the first time in my life Rabbi ysep Yak Jacobson known to most as Rabbi YY Jacobson I had never heard of him before but once I got there I felt like i' had been living under a rock he has this massive following all these people who were learning from him across the globe I Googled him I learned more about him I started following him on WhatsApp I went to his website the a.net and I came to learn and to appreciate the amazing Torah he's putting into the world as you'll hear from him he's someone who grew up in the kabad world at age 17 he was asked to be the one of the transcribers for the LA rebbi um and he is literally one of the premere Jewish scholars in both Torah and Jewish mysticism in America today he has thousands of students classes and lectures globally he's all over the place constantly traveling to try to teach people he served as the editor-in-chief of the Alam Miner newspaper the largest yish newspaper and he is the founder and Dean of the yeshiva.net if you want to learn more I'm so grateful because I know that he is very sought after that he squeezed in he just got in from Israel I think this morning or last night that he's coming in to sit with us today to share some of his Torah share some of his insights as we prepare both for pesak Passover and also think about what's going on in Israel today um and he's really someone who provides advice to navigate both I would say personal and Global challenges which is a really hard thing to do so uh Rabbi y why Jacobson thank you so much for being here today really aweet thank you it's my honor and privilege so let's let's just start a little bit from the beginning you know where does the journey begin you know you're you're YY now people know you well but where does it start I guess when I was born they said why why and I'm still trying to answer the question I mean it's like the question you know the first question God asks in the Bible in the Torah is to Adam is where are you AA where are you it wasn't just a geographical question it was an existential question do you know who you are you where you are yeah so how did you how did you start to sort out I was born in uh I didn't sort out who I am couple a couple nuggets towards working every day on it you I found that the the greatest answer to the question who I am or who anybody is is really when we can let go of the very question when we can let go of the ego and just become a channel for the ultimate Cosmic uh energy wow so I was born in uh 1972 in Brooklyn both of my parents my mother and father are immigrants from the former Soviet Union okay they both grew up under the tyranny of Stalin and the Communist Regime uh their family suffered horrifically uh my grandfather was arrested almost executed tortured sent to the gulag But ultimately both families made it out and uh they made it to the United States of America and uh my parents got married here in the 1950s and they raised their family I'm the youngest of five they raised their family in Brooklyn New York my father was a journal for 50 years he was a correspondent of the Israeli daily the largest Israeli da in the UN and he worked for Yiddish and English newspapers here in the United States and then founded his own Yiddish newspaper I had the privilege of growing up at the feet of the laich Reb we grew up in the crown height section of Brooklyn New York so I literally grew up at the feet of the Reb and uh was very privileged to absorb uh his talks and teachings and ideas and insights in my formidable years and uh today I have the very powerful and uh profound privilege what I see as a profound privilege to be able to teach these ideas uh to share them with communities Jewish communities and non-jewish communities um Jews from all backgrounds and walks of life secular and religious and very secular and very religious uh both here in the United States and abroad and in Israel in different languages so yeah here I am today trying to be a channel right I mean and so I I know many people who studied at the foot of Rabbi salc I know no one who studied at the foot of the laab rabi you're the first person I've spoken to that has said that so can you just tell me a little bit about like what that meant what that looked like uh and you know tell me about that experience yeah it was uh it was certainly extremely profound experience because the you know he was born in 1902 in Ukraine and essentially he lived through in a very intimate and direct way the greatest Revolutions of that era he grew up in zaris Russia 1902 you still have the Zar running the country he grows up in a city called nicv Ukraine his father becomes a chief Rabbi one of the largest cities in the Ukraine he then experiences the Bolshevik Revolution 1917 the Zar is murdered the Bolsheviks take over there's a Civil War in Russia ultimately Lenin emerging is triumphant between Lenin Stalin and Trotsky Jewish life is completely transformed in the Soviet Union what the Communist party did to Judaism in 10 years the enlightenment couldn't do to Judaism in 200 years wow the rebba ultimately flees Russia he escapes Russia 1928 and where does he moved he moves to Berlin and he watches the rise of Adolf Hitler so from zaris Russia to bolik Soviet Union he comes to Germany he's there when Hitler comes to power and he experiences at first hand he then leaves Germany and moves to France and when the Nazis occupy France in 1941 he escapes in the last boat with his wife they never had children he makes it hit to the United States of America in June 1941 and nine years later his father-in-law the six laab re passes away and the rebbi I should say reluctantly I don't think he really wanted the job he studied in Berlin and Paris engineering mathematics and he wanted to be an engineer but he becomes LA and probably the most influential Jewish leader not just of this Century but probably of many centuries as I once heard from Rabbi saak the former late former Chief Rabbi of Britain that since the destruction of the second temple he doesn't know there was a leader who influenced and had an impact on every single Jewish community in the world so that was the Reb's personal life but put together with that he was an extraordinary genius his Mastery of all parts of Torah was incredible but also his Mastery of Science and psychology and biology and physics and astronomy and cosmology geology was very very profound and a unique master of both Jewish mysticism and Jewish law and weaving them together so his presentations almost every Shabbat and every holiday went for hours these weren't half an hour sermons and the re almost never Ed jokes or stories so these were intense presentations that can go literally hours I mean shabas afternoon he could speak for 3 hours 4 hours 5 hours 6 hours 7 hours and there were no tape recorders at the time this was shabas right and Shabbat and holidays we don't use recording devices so everything had to be memorized wow everything had to be memorized sometimes the holiday would go for a few days you know two days of R Passover together with Shabbat so you can have 10 15 hours of material that he presented and this was profound profound material existential psychological spiritual halic profound discourses on talmud on on biblical explanations Rashi toos myones Zohar all of theic and mystical literature orary events education Israel relationships uh and most and what was really profound was he would always show how every single idea in Torah has relevance in the emotional psychological life of a person so I was there from a very young age absorbing this and it was an extremely I would say transformative and historic experience every single time uh the Reb's uh uh genius and profundity of ideas and and relevance really it transformed my life completely it transformed my understanding of Judaism and when I was a teenager I had the Merit of joining the team of oral scribes it was a small team of people and their job was to memorize and then transcribe it through through the week so that was extremely it was an extreme I still I still Saturday night I still have my my nervous system hasn't registered that it's been 32 years so I still have an anxiety Saturday night because I'm feeling the load of work wow that I'm about to enter into um memorizing it teaching it and then transcribing it but today we have uh dozens actually hundreds of volumes of the Reb's talks and teachings because of this team of people and uh it went throughout all the years of his leadership until the rebba you know he had a stroke he fell ill in 1992 and then he passed two years later so this uh really shaped a lot of my I would say my identity as a Jew as a human being my thought process and today really I feel you know that I have the priv of sharing a lot of that wisdom at least the way it was filtered through my own imagination and creativity and life experiences to many people uh the re had a very very uh unique combination of profound scholarship coupled with very very intimate emotions you know you have people that have great minds they're real geniuses but the heart pales and comp the heart doesn't match the mind sometimes the opposite you have Titanic gigantic Hearts but the mind doesn't match it right remember had that profound synthesis having a heart that really felt the heartbeat of the Jewish people in the world in such an emotional way mhm but yet coupled with tremendous Vision also you have people that have great vision but they don't have the skills of translating it into the Practical world you have people are very practical but they don't see you know the birds ey view the larger Vision here again they re had that combination and his C and concern for the people and for the Jewish people and for the world it was really something that uh it it touched you in a profound way I say the one of but you know I think I would sum it up you know I would say you know we meet a lot of people in the world and sometimes we meet great people and we're touched by their greatness and when we come out of a meeting with them or of a speech they give or a book they wrote we feel how great they are we feel how powerful they are how interesting they are how fascinating they are how brilliant they are whatever they how skilled they are I think the Reb's greatest contribution is that when you came out of a meeting with them or a talk with them you didn't feel how great he is you felt how great you are and that made all the difference W that was his uniqueness when you stood in his presence it was almost like he wasn't there I never met a person that was so self-effacing even though he was a genius and he was world famous in many ways when you were in his presence you didn't feel his existence rather he had that ability of becoming a mirror to you like allowing himself to become a springboard and a catalyst to show you who you were and that had a tremendous impact on me was it really he was one of those unique leaders who doesn't aspire to create students or disciples but really to create leaders right his greatest ambition was always for people to be ambitious so that was something very unique you have something as great people and they want to create students and disciples who are loyal to them and certainly the re had lots of people who were loyal but his greatest inspir his I think his greatest message to empower people was can you really own your power do you realize your power take the book and run with it run with it to uh you know to make a touchdown The World is Yours to change and transform and uh that light that he ignited can't be extinguished because it wasn't his light it was the light that he managed to ignite I think in me and in many other disciples wow beautiful so one small clarifying question which is so do that mean he didn't prepare any of his speeches by hand he didn't write them up he was very interesting I think he prepared them but not usual most people they come and they come with notes he' never used notes never so I think he prepared them I don't think he prepared them in detail and other words every word he would say I think he prepared the main ideas he wanted to discuss not always I think sometimes he did not but I think often he prepared it but then he would begin to speak and there was a flow of Consciousness and you could see how he's going from subject to subject and he would quote from literally you have Scholars they're focused on their theme the Reb's scholarship was not limited to a particular part of Judaism or Torah or life or intellect so you know suddenly he's quoting from cabala and quoting from kism and quoting from philosophy and quoting from psychology and then giving an example in contemporary physics or science and then talk about something that's going on in the world and then talk about the challenges of relationships or education or Jewish Identity or Jewish continuity and then suddenly we'll analyze you know some story in the in the Hebrew Bible and the tamak and then Del into a deep ttic discussion and he didn't give us the footnotes earlier he didn't give out a paper says this is what I'm going to be talking about you know prepare do your homework right like in many great yes the those who give the Torah lectures they give it a to be talking about these three uh sections of the talud go prepare he did not do that so you had to be prepared and really just have that intellectual and emotional flexibility to be able to go down this journey and it was a very very powerful powerful journey I always felt that there's something historic happening it was like Moses coming down from Mount Si and sharing wisdom and we knew that we're not going to remember it and record it it's going to be forgotten forever the Reb is not going to go and repeat it the next week again he he's sharing he's sharing from his soul and um he was he was he was you he was such he was a very very I would say above being a he was a Godly person you did not feel any ego there you really felt that it was a real channel for God like just trying to be a channel for God and bring out the best in people and the best in the world um I still get emotional you know when I think about that you can see his sincerity authenticity he was was very very intelligent but not an iota of cynicism usually intelligent people usually often intelligent people are more cynical than other people CU they they see through facades they're not naive they've been around the block and the re has been around the block to put it mildly from 1902 till 1994 he's been around the block and as a leader he received hundreds of letters every day so he had his finger on the pulse I would say of every Jewish community on the planet which was very very unique he sent emissaries there he was involved people wrote him about all types of issues usually at some point you experience fatigue right you become cynical sometimes you become bitter maybe resentful certainly you become jaded you're exhausted especially as you get older you know let me just relax let me retire one of the unique things about the Reb is that his candle it's like the his candle never stopped burning it's like the burning bush you know the the vision of the burning bush he once explained Moses was becoming a Jewish leader and he was afraid of leadership Moses was was a Mystic Moses was a man of God he want to remain in the desert right and commune with God on a daily basis he didn't need the leadership he didn't need the attention the validation you know egotistical or traumatized people need that validation you know tell me how good I am tell me how famous I am tell me how many likes I got and how many subscribers I have on YouTube so I can be a celebrity so I could tell myself that I'm somebody but people who are worked out they don't live in that plane so leadership is actually a sacrifice and and what God was telling Moses at the first encounter was you see this Burning Bush it's not going to be consumed when you become a channel for Infinity when you become an ambassador for God you the energy that you're channeling is infinite so the tree burns and the fire will not be extinguished because you will not be consumed and that what that's one of the most powerful messages of leadership that I have seen I learned from the the re he embodied it so even at the age of 89 I never can hear an ounce of cynicism I could sometimes hear frustration a lot of pain a lot of tears but also a lot of joy and a lot of Ecstasy but never cynicism there was this unwavering faith in the Eternal Destiny of the Jewish people and that goodness is going to Prevail that Redemption is go is unfolding and that the world ultimately ultimately even though it looks that way is not a jungle it was conceived in love and each and every one of us is part of an indispensable mission to bring the world closer to a Redemptive State of Consciousness that lack of cynicism was very inspirational for a young man like myself wow wow yeah until today you know I'm I am I am I I don't have that experience obviously like the Reb but I've been around the block somewhat I've visited hundreds of communities I get hundreds of emails and most of them are not me how great life is they talk about the pain of Life the corruption they experienced abuse dysfunctionality and the entire gamut of what people experience and uh it's very easy just to become jaded to surrender to this sense of either cynicism or uh you know uh I would say la certainly lack of enthusiasm and even the spear and at those moments it's the Reb's presence the soul that he represented what he showed me what a person is what a person could be that really it's it's it's even hard to describe in words it just it it allows a fire to be ignited in my belly not to become jaded to realize that the story of life is not something that we can logically figure out God created logic he's Beyond logic and if we try to take you know if we try to force Infinity into mathematical equations we obstruct our ability to experience reality and its full majesty and its full pain and in its full Bliss so there's an element of surrender to a higher reality that's beyond me it's beyond my ego and I think our greatest Happiness is when we really become channels when we can allow the ego to go out of the picture ego stands for I always tell my students easing god out and when I can suspend it and it's not easy because the ego is really a part of our survival so we have to have a relationship with our ego we need to talk to our ego with empathy uh but ultimately we want to Ego to open itself up and say the greatest Happiness is when you're a channel when you're an ambassador of infinite love and happiness and hope and healing and Redemption and then miracles happen through us to us and inside of us beyond what our egoic minds can control I'm taking it all in here I appreciate it uh so are there so you shared a couple different things kind of this idea of um being self-facing without being cynical creating space for others activating people to become leaders um are you can you think of examples of like how so there's one thing to have that Outlook is another thing to like embody that in a way that it affects others there are examples that come to mind where you saw either interactions with you or where you saw him interact with others where you saw him make certain choices in the way that he either spoke or carried himself that like there was like a moment for you there or something like Are there specific examples of that yeah I would say I I would say every every day I saw the rebba or I heard him and I would hear him almost every single week and sometimes a few times a week because he he would teach often yeah over many years um I I can see it again and again his interactions with people uh I'll give you an example please I uh the Reb Sunday would stand and distribute dollars for char thousands of Jews would come from all over the world and non-jews would come and they would get a dollar for charity and a blessing and sometimes people would seek his counsel and advice and perspective and blessing these were short meetings but they lasted a whole day a whole Sunday and uh I saw this once on a video somebody whom I knew actually he was a young man he was very ill he had a serious illness and he got online to see the Reba and as he's approaching the rebba and the rebba was already in his high 80s he does something very uncharacteristically this F uncharacteristic he starts making with his finger to the re like you might make to a three-year-old boy who's stealing the chocolate from the pantry and it's supposed to be for the guest you know and you're making with your finger like this okay which usually we wouldn't do even to an adult who's not a laab somebody who's Triple our age even if he's not the laab and yet I guess he was very angry or frustrated or upset maybe had that you know just intimate emotional intense emotional experience and he was going like this as he comes to the Reb as he approaches the Reb he's still going like this and it was quite surprising and he tells the rebba just a few words he says I am so disappointed with you those that's not usually what people would tell the you know they would thank him they would bless him they would ask for a blessing usually that was the case they would ask for advice not tell him how disappointed they are in him but that's what he said I don't know why he was so disappointed with Reb could be he felt that the rebba somehow could have slept him out of his illness and did not I'm not sure would be my own speculation and Reb looks at him and I am my heart stops from I want to know how the Reb is going to respond like I'm thinking about myself if somebody would come over to me and sayb why why I am so disappointed with you I actually may be annoyed I may be frustrated I may even be resent I'm not going to tell them I'm annoyed you know I'm a gentleman I'll smile I'll say tell me why but inside I will not like it you know the compliment sits much better it resonates much more and I see and the Reb looks at him and repeats his words so you're you're very disappointed with me and the Reb looks and says you know I second that cuz I'm also very disappointed with myself and that was the conversation and I could see his sincerity when he said that there was no ego there like you're disappointed with me yeah I'm with you I'm disappointed with myself too and in many ways this person was a so he was a follower of the Reb anyways I felt that the Reb was telling him you know I'm with you in your disappointment I'm your Reb even as you're disappointed with you know why I'm also disappointed with me so we're still we could still connect but what a lesson for parents and children you know some our children come to us especially as teenagers taty mommy I'm disappointed with you we often get you know we become egotistical like this you know how much money I spent on your education on your therapy you know first pay me back $900,000 and then we'll talk about how you know we get there and even if we're not you know maybe so narcissistic but very often it becomes you know him versus me her versus me and this lack of appreciation and what happened to respect and you think I spoke like this to my father and my mother they also had issues and you think I said it we repressed everything we didn't tell anybody command you respect whatever all these good sermons from the re I learned at that moment what if you can be there with your child in their frustration you don't have to be scared my ego my trauma my wounds create this coping mechanism where I have to remain you know aesthetic after remain above after remain aloof because if I'm with you you know I may fall apart it's a form of emotional suicide but what if we can actually breathe in our internal Divine selves which it's not made up from the chemistry of egotism it's not made up It's Made made up of the chemistry of infinite light so I can actually be there with you I can be humble I can I can challenge myself and it allows me to open myself up to so much more opportunity to so much more creativity that was a very very powerful lesson for me I'll tell you something interesting the last time I saw there re M was Sunday it was a Sunday it was a March 1992 the Reb would give dollars every Sunday and I would usually not go because I grew up in Crown Heights and there with thousands of people going why should I be somebody else on the line I didn't feel it was fear to him right but that Sunday night I was going to Israel for a wedding of a cousin this is March 92 so I went to get a dollar and uh I heard the rebba on Shabbat the Shabbat before because there was a very big faing in a gathering and he spoke for a long time and I have transcribed it but this was Sunday evening and I went to 770 that was the headquarters of kabad where the Reb lived and uh I got online this was already 6 around 600 or 6:30 p.m. so he was standing for 7 hours he was 89 years old he would stand and he seeing thousands of people men and women and children from all them graphics and spoke to them and listened and responded and gave counsel and blessing and I'll never forget this right in front of me there was a girl she looked like four years old she seemed French and her father was holding her they seemed like a secular French Jewish Family okay that's what it seemed to me and they went they were right in front of me and the Reb gives this little girl in her father's arms uh a a dollar and she looks him right in the eyes I'll never forget this and she screams out loud she says rebi of luich I love you I saw some of his secretaries felt a little awkward it wasn't usually yeah what a girl what you would expect a girl to tell the re you know so some I saw some people felt a little a little awkward but the Reb's face lit up uh he was his face was shining there was a smile that was radiating from his from his holy countenance from ear to ear and he he looks at him and he says thank you very much and he gives her a second dollar as they're about to leave he gives her a second dollar and he says this is for your love right after that was my turn the smile was wiped off his face uh his secretary told me told him I'm going to the holy land that night and he gave me a dollar he said blessing and success and then he gave me a second dollar and he said lots of uh you should give this for charity in the Holy Land the next day he suffered a stroke at the resting place of his father-in-law he would go twice a week to the grave site of his father-in-law in Queens and that's where he would pray and he read thousands of letters that he would receive and he would pray there at the grave of his father-in-law the next day Monday uh I still remember was the 20 27th day of Adar ader 1 uh 1992 that's uh 5752 in the he Jewish calendar he was praying there and he had a stroke and he fell down he fell down there so these were the last words I heard from the rebba literally this is this is for your love to be able to see that interaction you know a four-year-old girl coming to this great Jewish leader and he thanked her for telling him yeah how much she loves him and appreciates him and then gives her a dollar this is for your love um it was it was just it was so simple it was so authentic it was so vulnerable and it also taught me a message it taught me in many ways I felt like this was a mission of M that wherever I go wherever I travel I should be able to be a channel for this type of love because you know that's how we Heal the World that's how we heal our people with that uh that dosage of of infinite Divine love that's how went you you eluded again so much there I feel like I'm it's a fire hose from me right now and I'm appreciating literally every of B so thank you um you alluded a little bit and it comes to the story at the end as well you alluded to kind of the way Generations have changed a little bit that you know we say that like I would have never said that to my parents I would never said that to my grandparents maybe every generation says that I don't know um but there's certainly I think those who are in and those who are in parenting there seems to be a sense now that like children are running the show more than they did in previous generations and that there isn't that sense of you know getting up to walk parents out or or that respect um or that sense of you know almost we've gone too far that people are kind of so want their children to say they love them so much that they're willing to like acquiesce and to bend towards whatever they need and I just know that's another area I know that you've spoken on a few words on kind of what you see in the trends of parenting and what advice you have for people that are struggling with that well this is a very very hot and contemporary issue because there's really there's two perspectives and I would say on two extremes you know one perspective is we ruin the Young Generation in our Obsession to get them to love us and like us and appreciate us and come friends with us we have lost the art of discipline and being straightforward and creating a line between right and wrong and truth and falsehood and this is a father and this is a child and you do what I say and there is a master in this house and there is discipline and you follow the right behavior and in many ways that's what makes children happy and it makes them fulfilled it's almost like we allow them to run the world and run the life and and they're miserable anyway they're anyway Mis able that's one perspective and another perspective you know talks about feeling their pain and understanding their traumas and understanding their wounds and being sensitive to them but I think it's so important not to pull the string in one extreme and another extreme I think the fact is that in previous generations there may have been much less awareness or maybe be much less mental space to be able to deal with the inner wounds there was so much crisis happening every day there was such a need simply to struggle for survival people faced adversity sometimes in horrific ways I mean I know about my parents' youth right you know my my grandfather was taken away from the house in the middle of kides Friday night in 1938 by the Communists and thrown into prison my father was four years old and now he's without a father and his baby brother is without a father and it would take years until they would find out his father is alive until he would be liberated from Stalin goool L let's just understand he doesn't even know if his father is alive right the fact that he doesn't have a father you know what type of trauma does that create you know what does that do to our emotions do we have to disassociate emotionally in order to be able to survive and can we be aware of this so perhaps in a previous generation there was much more struggle and the focus was put one foot ahead of another foot right and Forge ahead and let's rebuild Jewish life with tenaciousness and commitment and for that we have to be in awe to an entire generation who shows life over death MH survival over becoming extinct building families after a horrific Holocaust building Israel building Jewish communities in the diaspora we have to be in awe but I think it doesn't take away from the fact that we could be sensitive to the truth that many of us grew up without a deep focus on understanding what's happening inside of us what our triggers are that we should be able to connect to our loved ones in a much more authentic and vulnerable way and that's what we want to give our children today so I I'm certainly I understand I think real attachment doesn't exclude discipline it includes discipline but it's a discipline that comes with deep awareness if my child is triggering me very deeply just to ignore that and ignore my anger and frustration and resentment is not enhancing the relationship it's actually depriving the relationship from being real and deep and authentic and I think real Torah values is that we create a home with values values that are based on integrity and authenticity and as we call it in Judaism the the acknowledgement the presence of God and our duties and responsibilities in the world but coupled with a very deep sense of emotional Attunement to what our children are going through at every stage of their life and allowing them to become truly authentic people and I think in our generation I am not of the opinion that we have this spoiled generation of kids who feel entitled there may be truth to some truth to that but I think we have a generation of children who are actually yearning for a much deeper authentic relationship with God with Judaism with their parents with their community and they're not allowing us to get away with a much more superficial relationship because many of us have not learned to deal with our emotions we don't deal with our own stuff we're not dealing with our own stuff so it's like let's just make it look good and they say no tati you're miserable you are miserable are you a really happy person is your marriage with Mommy real or it just looks good you're making a living you're supporting us you're sending us to good schools or good universities but deep inside have you dealt with your emotional traumas and I think if all of us would have that courage and humility and resilience to be able to be curious about all those triggers that we're experiencing in our marriages and our relationships with our children and our relationship with ourselves we'll become much better people we'll become much better parents you know I've told my students something I once read you know Passover is coming and one of the great customers of Passover I don't know it's thousands of years it's like one of those enshrined customs in most Jewish homes but we don't know why it is and the custom is of course we have the AF we have that broken matah MH the parents the father or the mother hide the matah and then of course our children Discover it and they demand a prize in order to give it back to us in my days it used to be you know potato chips or a black and white cookie if you were a rich family if you were Roth child you asked for park or pen today it's more like a Lamborghini or a private plane a private jet a private yacht if not they'll call Child Services on you but what what's what's the depth behind this custom the depth behind this custom is very very meaningful it's telling us TTI Mommy Daddy Mom Pop mom ABA IMA whatever you guys hide your children are going to reveal and we sometimes invest a lot of years and a lot of brain power to hide stuff not just from them from ourselves it goes into our subconscious and that's our a it's the broken matah it's the broken parts of our lives that we have hidden way and they're very we are very successful in suppressing them or repressing them and keeping them under the couch and then our children come and guess what they find the African and they say here here TTI here's your African here's your broken matah and would say wow how we respond to that moment really defines the future of our lives and their lives either I look at my child and I say how dare you how do you have the to take something I worked so hard I'm repressing for so many decades and you're exposing it I may not say it consciously but I may say it unconsciously and I'm feeling uneasy in this relationship or I may humbly look at my child and say wow thank you thank you for bringing this to my attention thank you thank you for allowing me to become a better person to work on my broken pieces to work on my broken parts to realize that my soul came down to repair my animal Consciousness to repair my body the soul has a mission if I'm struggling it's because I'm engaged in a mission show me a person who's not struggling and I'll show you a person who's not fulfilling their mission they're not fully alive if I'm perfect there was no reason my our soul came down here for a purpose the Tanya says Tanya is one of the great works of Jewish spirituality and mysticism it's the it was F it was written by the kabad founder RAB of leadi so it's like one of the basic books of Jewish spirituality and kism and certainly of kabat and he says there the soul itself is divine it's a derivative of divine infinite Consciousness it doesn't need ton it doesn't need fixing it came down to bring healing to our coping mechanisms to our what he calls animal Consciousness to our body so this is the work that I need to do with my own broken matah and my child just gave me the opportunity and then if I can say thank you to my son and my daughter and embraced my a and internalize it you know what happens together we can declare we can engage on a true journey to Redemption next year in Jerusalem right right so um I I want to do one step further I'm I'm a muser guy as you know so I'm very practical with these things so I'm so moved by what you just shared and I could think of lots of ways to apply but you know in terms of someone hears that from you and they want to live differently the next day is that you need to go to therapy is that you need to you know fight with your spouse in front of your kids so they see what's going on like you know what how does one put that into their life that that's that's the most important question you know what's what's the visceral experience of this what does it look like yeah and I think it's really not one specifically one thing or another thing but I think it's a host of things for example generally it's the ability to be able to pause and breathe before we react Victor Frankle said between stimuli and reaction there's a moment there's a moment and that moment that moment lay the potential of all human Freedom you know my child said something to me my wife said something to me my teenage girl said something to me before reacting can I pause can I breathe can I watch what's happening inside that's number one number two it's a general relationship with myself are there moments that I meditate that I work on myself that I pray that I go inside that I become aware of what's Happening inside of me and how I am reacting because when I become aware of these things I become aware of my neural Pathways I become aware of my patterns of my emotions of my instincts of my thoughts it's the only time I could start making choices sometimes I need therapy sometimes I need the assistance of a professional a mental health professional whatever the Capac it is to be able to help me aware of things sometimes I need the help of all of the various healing modalities that I think God has blessed our generation with there's so many new healing modalities somatic healing and energy healing and sometimes planted healings for trauma that can help people really get in touch with layers of themselves sometimes subconsciously that I didn't know I didn't know about all my triggers I didn't know how angry I am I thought I'm not an angry person I thought I'm Mr chill and then suddenly suddenly you know you get exposed to the truth the more we have a relationship with ourself and we need a support system for this I think we also need real people in our lives real confidants it could be a spouse it could be a best friend it could be friends it could be a teacher a rabbi a therapist people that we can really really really be honest with I think we need a very deep relationship with our soul or deep relationship with God um I think we have to also focus on our bodies our bodies Our nervous systems are what you know Judaism calls our bet mikdash you have the divine presence the dwell in a home in a bet mikdash our body is the betam mikdash it's a temple it's a sanctuary that houses the divine presence which is the Divine Soul you have to honor the betam mikdash in fact the Torah gives us a Prohibition you're not allow to demolish even one brick even one stone in the Holy Temple it's one of the prohibitions our body my man's rights my man lived in 12th century he was a great physician and a great philosopher but considered the greatest one of the greatest Jewish sages and and codifies of all time and he says that the body should be healthy and wholesome is one of the ways of God so in Judaism that synthesis if if if there's no body awareness and I have to say the truth you know I grew up in a very very intellectual environment there was very little body awareness the focus was learn learn learn learn learn learn learn learn learn learn and you know we know the Jewish obsession with learning and it's amazing and It produced Nobel Prize I'm not going to now discuss how many Jews won Nobel prizes cuz a lot of Jews do that you know 30% of Nobel Prize winners went to Jews and we're not even a quarter of 1% of civilization and it's amazing the people of the book and learning is everything but what about the vehicle the vehicle the container the nervous system is the bridge between the mind and the body if we don't regulate our nervous system if we're not in tune with those parts of ourselves I don't think we can heal ourselves I don't think we can fix ourselves so I think it's you know the Practical thing of a person to do when they want to approach this begin with time and energy that we really focus on healing on inner Redemption on opening up our own blockages we have so many blockages and we don't need to live with those blockages for many of us it's survival I know myself I have blockages that I have developed at a very very young age and uh you know to give you one example I have done very well in Yeshiva you know I was considered a genius yes I did very well today I know that a lot of it was a coping mechanism in order to get the validation and respect that I needed for survival and I think the more each of us can really go into that space and see what type of coping mechanisms that I develop maybe at a very young age not even aware of what I did and that brought me the fame the success the money the respect the awe the reverence the love I call it fake love cuz validation is not real love it's fake love that desperately needed to get right if we can work on all these stuff then we can open ourselves up to something that's under all of it and that's the true self the true self is a Divine Consciousness it's a derivative of Hashem it's a derivative of God it's your most powerful infinite self it's indestructible it is filled with love and compassion and it's always whole no abuse in the world no molestation in the world no dysfunctionality in the world no developmental trauma in the world can traumatize the soul the body can be traumatized the brain could be traumatized the nervous system can be traumatized and we have to heal those things but the soul may be hidden but not traumatized and when I could open up myself to my soul there is infinite Bliss and there's infinite creativity because it's a piece of God and there's infinite wisdom and wholeness and that's where real relationships happen and that's where I could connect to my wife and to my children and to myself and to other people my loved ones in the most powerful powerful way it's where the self and the selflessness converge the self is not about the ego the ego is a counterfeit self the ego and the coping mechanism which might include my insecurity my narcissism my fear by the way sometimes insecurity looks humble but it's actually ego it's it's I I so don't know who I am I so don't appreciate myself so my ego becomes insecure that's how I survive I survive by becoming a people's pleaser can you like me can you like me can everybody like me can I do exactly the right and perfect thing I look like the kindest person in the world it's really a form of feeling so detached when you really love yourself you love your soul you're a derivative of God you you need to be yourself you can't live for other people that's not going to be you you're not even going to be really kind my kindness is coming from my insecurity you know this journey of self-discovery um which is really the core of the book of Tanya that I mentioned earlier I find to be one of the most meaningful aspects that I get from from from Judaism it's a whole different life when I'm in that space when I could function from that space there is honesty there is authenticity there's vulnerability I'm not afraid of all the pieces in in in in myself and a very important part here is and this is very very strong in the hdic tradition of Jewish spirituality is that we don't amputate any parts of ourselves we don't look at our ego or our coping mechanisms or animal Soul as evil like you're destroying my life get out of my life CU each part actually is saying something each part today there's a you know a school in Psychology known as ifs internal family systems Richard Schwarz and I was talking to him about this we had an interview online about the the ifs and the Tanya and a very fascinating idea in in in in inic spirituality is that every part in us even what we find to be evil and toxic and destructive and it is underlying it there's an innocence there's a purity there that has been blocked that has been diverted that has been camouflaged that has been manipulated that has been exploited so we don't have to be ashamed of any part of ourselves what we need to do is invite it into the conversation and with empathy try to understand what is really going on there's something that my anger is covering there's something that my anger or my frustration or my hatred or my shame or my anxiety there's something it's covering up there's something it's trying to protect me from in other words at the surface it may be very destructive deepen down deep down there's an innocence there there's a purity there so when we can bring all the parts of ourselves into the onto into the conversation so it's almost like a conversation between many people around the table the Tanya gives a beautiful illustration he says you know when you go to a court there's a jury right so he says this one has this opinion and this one has this opinion and this one has this opinion and then there's a judge and he says look at yourself that way inside ourselves there's so many different parts and everyone has an opinion and this one says you know blow up detach disassociate get angry break the window punch him in the nose run away to New Zealand shut down you don't need anybody in the world you're just independent Macho H this person is your enemy it's all going on I'm like oh wow wow thank you thank you thank you and and everyone wants full control but when we're aware of all this we can actually allow our highest self our core self our divine self to be the judge and say I got you all I hear you thank you for your opinion I know where you're coming from and now let's give the verdict and that verdict doesn't come with amputating any part of ourselves so there's a relaxation there there's a Serenity there there's realizing that every part of our s is serving a purpose beautiful so talk me through the example you gave you know you mentioned that one of the things you noticed about yourself was that you you seek validation when you did well in Yeshiva so when you kind of had that I got I got yeah and got it and got it so when you had that moment where you realized about yourself what did you do with that information right you didn't amputate it so what did you do right I I I still have to deal with it today you know when when I come I was just in Israel and uh I was going to Tel Aviv uh this is uh this this week I was going to Tel Aviv in the morning there was a podcast it's a very very popular one of the five most popular podcasts in Israel it's called the biology of winners and an Israeli Jew a secular Jew his name is aan aarya he asked me to come on and he wanted to interview me actually about theic approach to life the tradition of kism ofas of T of of the Reb the alter Reb Etc and you know I thought I was calm but on the way there there was a lot of traffics I got delayed of course go to Manhattan there's traffic you go to Tel Aviv there's traffic you go you know if you want to get somewhere to important places there's going to be traffic um as I was getting as I was getting uh uh closer suddenly I felt this anxiety that I prepare well what if he asks me these questions do I have an answer what am I going to say what am I going to say and then I realized there was a part of me that's was worried about how I'm going to come out of this am I going to look good is he going to want me back is he going to be blown away is he going to be impressed are people going to like it are people going to hear it and say wow that was incredible or not and I had to really tune into that voice and give it empathy and say I know I'm I'm so sorry that this is what you need to do make me anxious in order to survive but this is a voice inside of me that is very worried for my survival it's very worried that if I don't come out perfect what's going to be what's going to be left you're not going to like me he's not going to like me she's not going to like me and what I did was I acknowledged it I gave it a little love I gave it a little compassion I understood it I didn't get angry at it and then I said but I don't think we have to go there I I I get your me I don't think we have to go there I think the most powerful and best thing I can do is show up with authenticity with vulnerability and realize that I just want to be a channel for all the wisdom and love and truth that God is going to send through me today it won't be perfect I promise you it won't be perfect I'll make mistakes tomorrow I may say oh I could have given a better answer but you know what I'm going to show up with the tools God gave me today to be able to be a channel for whatever wisdom I'm going to be a I'm going to Merit to be a channel for today and it's it was such a liberating experience and every time I get up to give a lecture or a speech anywhere around the world I can hear these different voices there's a voice that's always waiting for the compliment is there going to be a standing ovation can you come to me and tell me that was incredible can you please tell me this was the best lecture you ever heard in your life or at least a second to the best Le no the best lecture you ever heard in your life there is that voice and then I remember what it says in Tanya the need for compliments I don't mean compliments in order to give constructive criticism like to realize where I could do better that's good feedback but the obsessive need for you to compliment me versus you to criticize me is really coming from a place in the self that feels lonely it feels detached it feels like it has to create a counterfeit ego in order to survive where the truth is that I'm really just a Channel of God's Infinity everything is God's reality I'm just a Channel of his light and I manifest it through the way God wants me to manifest which includes my brain my heart my soul my imagination and my being and I just want to show up to be a channel the great Masters compare the person the healthy person to a chauffeur what's a chauffeur a chauffeur is that's why on rosashana WE blow the chauffeur chauffeur is a Rams Horn the chauffer doesn't create the sound the chauffer channels it and when the chauffeur channels it I blow if the chauffeur is hollow if the chauffeur is plugged the sound will get stuck the chauffeur is Hollow the vibration the sound will travel through the chauffeur and its resonance will go from the narrow side to the broad side and Enlighten and Inspire the entire Community with the chauffer and the mag of Michi was the successor of the B the founder of the movement said that basically Rashana is the day that God blew or not blew the soul into Adam and Eve so God blew the chauffeur who's the chauffer Adam and Eve we are the chauffer we are the channels for the Divine energy the greatest challenges can My Chauffeur be Hollow can it be egoless if my ego is there you know I block the sound I block my creativity if I want to be creative and I'm obsessed I got to be perfect I got to be amazing I got to be I'm actually not creative I'm just in this place of of of fear if I could say you know what I don't need a compliment actually you don't no one has to tell me how good it was of course I still like compliments and I like to get positive feedback I'm not a self-effacing completely individual but it's it's tuning into that part of me I don't need a compliment and if you compliment me great and if not it's perfectly fine I'm just going to be a channel and the more the ey becomes a channel the channel doesn't need compliments in fact the compliment may take me away from my power you're actually making believe that Rabbi y y Jacobson is this separate detached isolated lonely creature who's dependent on your compliment no the real Rabbi w why is the rabbi why why who's a channel for God's Infinity so actually do me a favor don't talk to me about me cuz you're not helping me you're actually minimizing me you're putting me into this little box you know it's like I'm standing in front of the Pacific Ocean or in front of the Atlantic Ocean you know watching this incredible incredible display of of of God's ocean with all the majesty and richness and royalty that ocean represents and I insist on reducing the entire ocean to one bottle of water and I take a bottle of water and I fill it up with water and I stick myself into the bottle and I put a lid on it and that's what I do you know we are the ocean we are we are channels of of infinite energy our body is the bottle it contains the water through my body you know always say really what death is you know Judaism doesn't believe that death is the Ultimate Reality where we just die it really means that the water gets poured back from the bottle into the ocean life in this world simply means that the bottle is contain in the water the last thing we want to do is put a lid on it and separate the water in the bottle from the water of the ocean when I'm focusing on me that's what I do I put a lid on my bottle and I detach myself from the source of creativity it's like all I have is that little water in the bottle pour me you know open the lid open the lid that's the idea of Mikvah the whole idea of Mikvah is we go back into the source and we don't create that separation so but these voices will continue to exist in me as long as I live I assume and and it's really noticing them with compassion understanding what they're trying to do and really realizing that that's the whole purpose the whole purpose is to bring the truth of God's Oneness into my ego into my brain into my neural Pathways into my nervous system there's a beautiful expression in the mid God created the world so that we can create a home for Hashem a home for in infinite love in the physical world and every one of us has an opportunity to do that every single day to take our physical bodies Our physical homes our physical workplaces or our environments and really Infuse them with these truths of Oneness and and it's this that allows for marriages to function so much better imagine I don't have to be defensive when my wife criticizes me MH how cool is that I don't have to be defensive when my children talk to me I don't have to be defensive When anybody talks to me I can actually show up I can show up and it's not because I'm a mat am a worthless nobody on the contrary a real person who's in touch with their soul protects their boundaries because it's not my own boundaries I'm protecting because I'm narcissistic it's the boundaries of Integrity that I'm protecting so I should be able to be me I should be able to be me and I would say that all of Judaism in many ways according to the Tanya is really being plugged in to the source of the Divine electricity and I don't want to pull my plug out and I have to make a choice will I pull my plug out and then the refrigerator is just a dead refrigerator or I will keep my plug in and that's what it means to be in tuned I think that's what it means to have a relationship with Hashem a connection with Hashem means being plugged in 24/7 to the source of all creativity to the source of all love to the source of all life wow wow okay and I want I want to shift us for a second CU you're speaking so beautifully about going into our own nishas our own Souls um I know you just returned from trip to Israel and there's feels like in addition to each person's challenge around what's going on there's kind of a big thing happening now right what's happening in Israel what's happening in America with anti-Semitism like you mentioned you know your your grandparents and parents and theisha living through history it feels like we're living through history right now again um you know what's your take for lack of a better term like how do you make sense of what's happening right now to be a Jew to be a fully aware Jew I think is to always live in the vortex of History to live in the moment where history the Jewish people somehow always attract this attention that is completely disproportionate with their numbers and if you don't understand what Judaism really is and what the Jewish people are it can become so confusing and then we become emotionally sick people because we blame ourselves and we try to figure out how we can change ourselves in order to fit in and become loved and I think that's the greatest challenge of the Jewish people we have so desperately try to create peace in Israel and abroad to be loved to see a better world different than the world that our grandparents dealt with under Stalin and Hitler and as a result of that we often Bend ourselves out of shape blaming ourselves trying to appease the enemy and believing that really they want peace as much as us here I quote Churchill who once said appeasement is feeding the alligator in the hope that he will eat you last so I was I was now a trip to Israel my focus of the trip was simply visiting bereaved families the wounded in the hospitals soldiers returning from Gaza and wounded from October 7th visiting soldiers army bases uh visiting some communities and especially visiting the kibuts Sim and the towns in southern Israel that were massacred on October 7th 2023 um it was a very very intense trip uh Israel has lived through a visceral trip trauma and it's still living through a visceral trauma Ian you're talking about tens of thousands of families that have been affected and changed to the core devastated the loss of loved ones the torture of loved ones 134 hostages still in captivity 6 months later in the hands and in the tunnels of people who gy will cut the throats of Jewish children will burn Jewish children alive will rape and mutilate Jewish bodies will torture them with joy and Glee It's hard for Jews to digest this like after the Holocaust it was hard for Jews to kill Nazis right certainly to torture and and he's talking about Nazis MH take a baby and do what they did with babies on October 7th it's even hard for me to talk about it I've cried so much I mean like so many other Jews it's a devastating moment now it's a devastating moment and to visit people you know I have visited the father of a hostage who freed himself from the tunnel of Kamas his name was sham he freed himself from the tunnel of Kamas he he knew Gaza well cuz he served there as a soldier earlier so this young man freed himself from a tunnel of Kamas with two other hostages they found a home and they finally came out they were free and by mistake the Israeli Army shot them so when they already saw the light they were killed you know speak speak to such a father um I spoke to Jews who watched their children be murdered on October 7th parents siblings and a lot of them so it was a very very intense experience because the Jewish people are facing now a profound profound trauma what is equally painful is often our inability to understand who we are to understand what we're facing when you have so many Jews who blame Israel um who try to bend over backwards to a he's the enemy who don't understand what the Jewish people represent what it means to be a Jew what our responsibil what our responsibility is today I think that's D I think it's doubly painful you know what I have learned and I think what we all must learn is that we are literally experiencing the ultimate power of the Jewish people to make this world a good place and that's what attracts so much anti-Semitism rationally this doesn't make sense I mean Assad murdered 700,000 people in Syria right did you see one demonstration 700,000 people murdered in Syria I didn't see one demonstration not in Harvard not in Colombia not in Oxford not in NYU and not in Duke I didn't see one right in darur millions of people Millions were murdered I don't see any demonstrations you're talking about a little tiny country with 7 m 6.6 million Jews it's like a match on a football field 22 Muslim countries around it one little tiny Jewish State and this is the root of all evil in the world Jews don't constitute one quarter of 1% of humanity we are smaller than a statistical error of a Chinese census right and yet so much hatred to the Jewish people for me I told somebody somebody was saying how do you know the Torah is true I said oh just look at anti semitism today there's no other way of explaining it than realizing that the Jewish people were chosen by God to change the world our role is to transform the world and make it a place of goodness kindness morality Holiness and love and that is at the core of all anti-Semitism don't blame yourself realize how successful you are realize how holy you are why is it that every desperate and Tyrant for the last 4,000 years has been obsessed with a tiny minority group that simply from a number perspective is inconsequential so we always find all these excuses we're rich we're poor we're religious we're very religious we're secular it used to be they hate us because we don't have a state we're parasites now we have a state oh we hate you because you have a state and there's all these explanations in every generation and what we're dealing which really is once again Jewish Consciousness needs to be ignited we have to understand who we are we are the people who left Egypt and stood at Sinai God made a covenant with us to sanctify the world we do it through studying Torah through celebrating its Mitzvah celebrating Jewish life and becoming a True Divine Light onto the Nations not to be embarrassed not to duck not to be afraid and not to surrender ourselves and surrender our souls and sell sell our truths I mean we are now facing an enemy that would love to see every single Jew in Israel and in the world dead that is what we're facing and when Jews become insecure and become weak and start apologizing for their existence it's not only a mockery it is so painful it is so disturbing the world respects Jews who respect themselves if there any ever be a day that the world will love Israel and the Jewish people it's when Israel will love Israel it's when the Jewish people will love and respect their faith their tradition their Heritage their history their God their people and same is true with Israel itself you know in the mind of many Israelis and Jews we created this fictional idea called The Green Line because that would justify a secular Democratic Israeli state in other words pre-1967 green line of a majority of Jews it can be a secular democracy after the 1967 line it was Israel occupied it let's make a two State solution a Palestinian State and a Jewish State and everything will be fine and we' have invested all of our resources and that is only one problem nobody believes it besides the Jewish people all of the neighbors of the Jewish people say no all of Israel is an occupation we want every single Jew dead T Aviv and Kaa and herzelia and all parts of Jerusalem it's all an occupation you don't belong here Allah wants you dead and this is challenging us now to our core we now have to decide what are we going to say why are we in Israel for real why are we in Israel we're not in Israel because of the UN we're not in Israel because of Lord balur we love balur and we like the UN when they say something that is not against uh morality and life where the reason we're in Israel is because thousands of years ago God gave this as a gift to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Moses for thousands of every Jew who lived and breathed and walked the face of the Earth believed in his or her bones that this is an eternal Divine gift to the Jewish people for us to be able to betray that as a betrayal of all of Jewish history of all of the Jewish story of all of the Jewish Consciousness and I think the world is almost begging from the Jewish people to speak about this with unwavering Clarity and not to be ashamed and not to be embarrassed this is not an occupation Moses and Abraham lived thousands of years before Islam was born before before Muhammad was born this is the Jewish Eternal Homeland they they most people billions people believe in the Bible we have to stop being embarrassed of quoting these we gave the Bible to the world we gave God to the world we G I think I think this is a time that the Jewish people once again are called on to become the ultimate Jews to become the greatest version of ourselves to embrace what Jewish history is what Jewish Consciousness is not to bend over backwards the the path of appeasement has come back to haunt us profoundly and the Jewish people need to be United around us we have each other Jews are a holy people we're a Divine people that's why they want to kill every Jewish child no no matter what you look like you can call yourself an atheist I have met Jews living in those Southern kibuts they were more leftwing than any leftwing Drew you met right I met a woman she told me on a daily basis she would take cancer patients from Gaza to the best of Israeli hospitals and bring them back believing in Brotherhood believing that ultimately the Covenant of humanity is more thick than anything else the Covenant of human humanity is thicker than Muslim versus Jewish blood MH and it's these people who were targeted first targeted first with the gliders who came in and slaughtered literally slaughtered them shot them tortured them I'm not going to get graphic now about what happened and I asked this woman would you still do it today would you and she says real the reality the reality has changed I told her you're making a mistake the reality hasn't changed your reality has changed the reality hasn't changed there was a fogal family in itamar every member of the family was slaughtered with a look like chickens Friday night in their home the father was slaughtered the mother was slaughtered and all the babies were slaughtered I remember seeing the pictures I said the moment that happened you should have realized that the reality is not the reality that you imagined it to be you didn't have to wait for, 1400 Jews to be slaughtered to realize this the first moment there was a rocket a rocket that was shot from Gaza to kill Israeli civilians that was a declaration of war we have a weakness the Jewish people have a weakness we will sell out our souls and our mothers and our people just to experience a few years of rest that's our weakness we want to so believe in and it's coming from a good place we so want to believe in peace we so want to believe in love we will sell out we will deny reality to be able to get four years of peace and even those four years are not peaceful they have built with tens of thousands of rockets tens of thousands of missiles that was a declaration of war we just live in fictional Illusions and we have to be able to sober up and realize who we are as a people what our responsibility is and not be apologetic about it right wow okay I have so many questions there but I want to be sensitive to our time I I'll ask you as we close to you know we're in the season of Passover of pesak now um give us some Torah heading into the holiday or around the holiday yeah in 1937 in 1936 there was a appeal commission set up by the British to figure out what should be the future of Palestine which was under the British mandate David benan who would later become the first prime minister of Israel was sitting on the Peele commission and uh Lord Peele who was doing the interviews asked benorian and he said what is your kushan kushan was the Arabic term for a deed like you have a deed for your house what is your kusan for this piece of land you know all the Arabs I speak to all the people living here in Palestine they all have their kusan MH he said what is your kush and of course there was a Bible right there because they would swear on the Bible before they would begin the testimony and Boran pointed to the tanak he pointed to the Bible and he said this is our Kush it says there are hundreds of times that this land was given to the Jewish people Abraham walked there Isaac walked there Jacob had his dreams here David built a temple here Solomon David and Solomon built a temple here you talking about thousands of years before Islam was born M our prophets Isaiah Jeremiah Ezekiel and then ban did something wise he turned to them and he said you know does any one of you know the date that the Mayflower has arrived in Massachusetts the date does anybody know who was the captain on the Mayflower does anybody know what food exactly they ate on the Mayflower does anybody know exactly how many people were on the Mayflower and everybody looked at it you know probably you can find a historian who knows this or if you know today you can Google it in 1936 you couldn't google it and then ban said and how long ago did the Mayflower come a few hundred years ago and now come to my people is there a Jewish child who got a basic Jewish Education who doesn't know the day that the Jewish people left Egypt the food they ate when they left Egypt how many Jews left Egypt who was the leader who took them out of Egypt every Jew with almost the most minimal Jewish Education knows Moses 600,000 m in 20 60 matah how do we know cuz we still eat matah every single year and we know the exact date it's called PES Passover the 15th of Nissan and borian said this is our story we left Egypt we marched it took us 40 years to come to the land of Israel and I think that's the essence of Passover we don't tell a story We relive the story we eat the food that they ate you could still feel how stale the matzah is you know why it's 3,300 years old even though we say the mat this year is delicious it almost tastes like it's 3,000 years old we reenact the story every Passover every experience and as I once told somebody you know just think about it I'm sitting at a Seda with my children yeah when I was a child I sat at a Seda with my parents when they were children they sat at a Seda with their parents and their grandparents if we can imagine a large Auditorium a large Hall with a Seder table and each seder table goes back another generation so we have my Sader table or your s table with your children friends children maybe brothers sisters nephews nieces grandchildren go to the next s table it's the previous generation the next one is the previous generation how many seder tables would it take to get to Moses and the answer is just 30 wow people don't think of it that way it's just 30 seder tables literally 30 maybe 40 30 40 and you're back to Moses this is not a story that could have been created in fiction this is a story that was lived by m millions of people every single year that's the power of Passover I should add one thing and I heard this from the former Chief Rabbi of Israel Rabbi Israel mayor LA and he told me he visited boria once prior to his death in St Boker which was his farm in the ne and he asked benan if this is a true story about the kushan and the mayl benan confirmed it and then he said to Boran and I admire his courage for saying this he says you know prime minister Mr Prime Minister I have a question and that is if I have a kusan and I take the kusan and I throw it on the floor and I step on it and I trample on it what do you think would happen he said that's not a good idea because you're destroying your kushan I said would anyone then take seriously would anybody take me seriously about this kushan when I embarrass it he said no so he looked at Boran and he said Remember the tanak is our Kush when we in Israel step on it trample on it don't take it seriously we are delegitimizing our rights to the Holy Land and his message to borian was is Israeli Society needs to understand that Judaism is in our DNA not everybody in Israel is religious and we don't live in a generation where we enforce religion it's not going to work people have to choose their lives voluntarily but if we disassociate from our DNA if we disconect conect from our kushan we're disconnecting from oursel We're disconnecting from our country and I think it's one of the mistakes that happened in Israel and in the Jewish World the two cannot be separated from each other when we do we weaken the fabric of our civilization of our society of our army and I think it's one of the tragedies that Israel is dealing with today and I think every Jewish leader and every Jewish teacher and every Jewish parent needs to realize this RAB Lao told RAB La said benan was smart enough not to answer the question because this is a uh this is a painful reality I think a little bit of a split personality that many Jews today suffer from you know we love Israel we want Israel we believe in Israel the first generation after the Holocaust the Holocaust was so visceral and real they didn't have a problem like this is our country you like it great if not jump in the lake right today it's been 70 80 years 80 years since the Holocaust the students in campuses need to feel the morality of Israel they need to feel the truth of it just to say the Holocaust it's important but just because you at a holocaust you can't steal my house you at a holocaust so find yourself a house in Uganda or somewhere you can't steal my house cuz you had a holocaust and not every Jew has an answer to that even spokesmen of Israel don't always have an answer to that and I think this is where important to come back to the kusan there's nothing more powerful than our kushan and people tell me oh but they're not going to believe it it's a religious argument it's a religious argument and I said the most important thing for them is to know that you believe it Hamas and their supporters say the most outlandish disgusting things and the world accepts them why because they see they're serious they feel their authenticity they're not embarrassed why are we embarrassed they just need to fill your authenticity they need to know that for 900 years every Jewish kid stunning in a Jewish school started their studies with rashi rashi lived 900 years ago in France and the first rash in the Bible says that the whole book of Genesis is Superfluous because the Torah is a book of laws so why don't you start off with the laws in the book of Exodus the whole book of Genesis is unnecessary that's what Rashi says rashi's name was Rabbi Solomon he was the great Rabbi lived in France and he wrote the most important commentary on the Torah on the tanak on the Bible and on the tal this his question and what's his answer and he's writing in the 10 hundreds during the first crusade in France no one has a dream of Israel being settled by Jews it's a fight between Muslims and Christians which ones are going to Prevail and that's when Rashi penned this commentary and he said the reason the Book of Genesis was included into the Bible is because one day the nations of the world are going to come to the Jewish people and say you guys are a bunch of Thieves and thugs you have stolen this land you are occupiers you are a foreign culture that has invaded our land and thrown innocent people out of their homes and you have no right to be in this land get out of here and rashley says the Jews will not know what to say and that's why he says the whole book of of Genesis was written for the Jewish people to be able to understand and have an answer for themselves and for other people and say this is not an occupation wow okay thank you so much I want to First just thank uh Ellie schel who made the connection between us for for bringing us here today um and I want to encourage all of our viewers to check out uh the yeshiva.net if they want to see more of your content I hope they'll find you there if they haven't already or the YouTube channel is also F they can go to my YouTube channel Jacobson YY Jacobs YouTube anywhere else that's a there's a lot out there there's WhatsApp commun Spotify podcasts WhatsApp communities yes all right so look up y Jacobson uh but on the yeshiva.net they could sign up for everything okay perfect great all right thank you so much really really appreciate itk you thank you to you and to Israel and to all of the Jewish people amen thank you amen thank you [Music] the yeshiva.net [Music]