JUDAISM WITHOUT APOLOGIZING - Episode 1- Reb Moshe Don Kestenbaum- Divorce/Off The Derech/Middos

In a world where everyone seems to have not just a microphone, but a megaphone, the voices of our Gedolim, our Rabbonim, and Roshei Yeshiva far too often seem to get lost in the noise. This podcast is here to change that. I'm your host, Hillel Eisenberg. Join me as we sit down with our nation's leaders as they address the hashkafic challenges that matter most, without the fluff and without the drama, with truth that doesn't flinch. Buckle up cuz this isn't your typical podcast. This is Judaism without apologizing. Hello everyone, I'm Hillel Eisenberg and I'm thrilled to share with you the Judaism without apologizing podcast. This episode I had the great honor and privilege to sit down with Reb Moshe Dunn Kestelbaum who blew me away with his humility, his razor-sharp perception of people, his insight into some pretty thorny issues. Reb Kestelbaum has been around the Jewish block. He was a Rebbi in the Waterbury Yeshiva for many years. He's now the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva Gedola Ohr Yitzchok, a post-high school Yeshiva in Passaic. He's also a well-known machanech. He's a speaker. He does parenting courses and marriage counseling. He's also the author of two of the most widely used contemporary mussar sefarim written in the last 30 years called Eilu Amidos and Eilu Ma'avos. Both have which been subsequently been translated by ArtScroll. He is also the author of two extremely popular English books. One is called Run After the Right Kovod and the other one is called The Heart of Parenting. And he additionally has thousands and thousands of shiurim on a wide variety of topics on TorahAnytime and we had a fascinating discussion about struggling teens and therapy and marriage and divorce and parenting and middos. and he gives an amazingly refreshing perspective on living a life as a Jew on fire in today's day and age. So, I think you're really going to enjoy. Take a listen. Thank you Rabbi Kessin for the mail for joining this podcast, Judaism without apologizing. It's a school's an honor to have you on. It's a school's to be here. Thank you. So, I want to dive right in. I know that you've seen the gamut of bachurim struggling to bachurim getting married to bachurim married and now raising children. I want to those all require separate set of questions and I want to start from parenting and we'll make our way down to the world of bachur hood. Let's begin with our first question. Are there more struggling teenagers nowadays than there used to be, than 30 years ago, than even 20 years ago? Is that a myth? Is that fake news? And if it is in fact true, what would you say are the causes for that? And is there a sort of a fault in the parenting? Obviously, there's a million factors, but can you point to a potential flaw in modern day parenting which has led to the the high numbers of struggling teens? Or you might disagree and say there are not in fact a high number of struggling teens. It's a great question. I don't know the numbers. You know, the Jewish population has Baruch Hashem grown so much that a lot of things are hard to know. Do we have greater numbers just because we have more people or actually the percentages have risen? So, the Jewish population used to be smaller. So, it is hard to know. But, I will share with you the following which may explain why we have or maybe a few reasons why we have greater problems today. Chazal tell us in Gemara in Sota that before Mashiach comes, Chutzpah Yaskeh, there's going to be a lot of Chutzpah. Children today are naturally more disrespectful than they were. And it keeps on going up and up and up. And it's scary. Why? Why do you think that is? Chazal tell it does. So, it doesn't mean we can't explain it. Chazal say Chutzpah Yaskeh, the Chutzpah is going to increase. Why? I don't have a I think it's a decree from Hakadosh Baruchu. I think there's some positive side, you know, positive things in it. But, that's Chazal say before Messiah comes Chutzpah is going to increase. When you say Chutzpah, what are you what are you referring to? I'm referring to, as the Gamorah says, the children speaking back to their parents. You know, children used to be more afraid, naturally, of their parents. I don't know about you, I don't know your age, but there are many things I didn't think about saying to my parents. And I'm sure my parents, I don't remember, they probably told me. I was pretty well-behaved, but you know, I would have never thought of telling that's going to go on like every generation. Everyone's going to tell their kid, I would have never dreamed of saying that to my And it's hard to imagine that happening with our children today, our children telling their children, I would have never dreamed of saying that. That that's pretty scary. That's pretty frightening. Children today are more disrespectful. And I would say it's a gezeirah from Hakadosh Baruchu, and why I cannot tell you. But, I think because of that, automatically we're going to have a tremendous challenge in front of us, because many of the problems that arise is a child is disrespectful to the parents, whether verbally or maybe even their reaction to Yiddishkeit. It used to be people, children were more comfortable, I'm going to say more comfortable, they'd be willing to go along with what their parents told them. They may be willing to behave in Yeshiva, even if they're miserable. You had kids probably in Mesivta years ago that were miserable. And they just went along and did what they were supposed to even though they were miserable. That doesn't mean that it was a great situation. It doesn't mean that maybe later on there weren't problems with their Yiddishkeit, but I think there's a certain willingness to go along a humility, subordinates, we'll go along, okay, this is what the rabbi say. In fact, you see that these Yeshivas have really adapted by by force. These Yeshivas have adapted to be much warmer. Not all of them because maybe maybe not all of them believe it as much as they should, but I think they're forced to because if we're not going to be nicer, the kids are going to rebel. So it's forced, the children kind of forced a revolution of chinuch that we have to be more tolerant. We have to be soft. Now put some people think, and you'll get me back to where we were cuz we're going to get lost, but some people think it's the other way around. Some people think that the reason why kids are so disrespectful is because parents are so liberal. And then you have these liberal mechanechim like Kestenbaum who's telling parents to like absorb and be soft and be understanding and not respond harshly to the behavior. And I'm the problem. Cuz the kids are responding to that softness and if we would just be tougher and we would, you know, clamp down on the kids, they would behave. They wouldn't talk that way. Maybe they wouldn't dress that way. The reality is, as someone who's been in the field for quite some time, it's not true. And my experience is with parents that clamp down and are very tough and don't give in and put their foot down, doesn't doesn't lead to great results. The kids end up rebellious, running away, not in a good situation. So how would you balance instilling structure in one's home but also not having that rebellious backfire attitude from the child. Meaning how do you have a balance? You can't have a free-for-all. Obviously, there has to be some sort of parental structure and guidance. And setting the red line in the sand, saying those things we don't do or those actions we don't do, but at the same time allowing the child to live in his 2025 life where he needs to be loved and empowered and etc. It's a good question. I don't have the exact answer. I recently gave a parenting course and I tell the parents, you know, you'll do it your way. I don't have the exact answer. And there's not necessarily one way. There are some rules that I think apply to everybody. And that is parents, you know, not becoming angry. Really not becoming angry. Not taking things personally. But at the end of the day, my view of chinuch is that chinuch is about teaching, not controlling. My job is to teach my child that he's not allowed to talk to me that way. That he should not act that way. My job is not to enforce chinuch. Even uh we teach our children to bench. I don't think we stand there over our child making sure he bench, making sure she bench, making sure they said every word. That is going to lead to a lot of, you know, resentment towards Yiddishkeit. Chinuch is to educate, is to teach, not to force. Parents very often think my job is to make sure my child did everything. Well, you can do that when your child is, you know, 3 years old till maybe they're 13, 14, maybe. At some point you cannot force them anyways. So, I think the chinuch philosophy of teaching, not forcing, begins at a very young age. I want to teach my child right from wrong. And if my child is disrespectful, I will tell them, I should tell them, that's not how we should talk to a parent. But I'm not sure the approach is that I will lock them in the room if they do it again and force them into position where they better be respectful, because otherwise the consequences will be so great that they don't have a choice. Because I think that will lead to a child that's resentful. And I want to share with you something else. I tell this to the parents all the time. In terms of chutzpah, listen, there's a very important idea here. In marriages, when a husband's upset at a wife, a wife's upset at their husband, what is the proper way to communicate as we're taught, you know, that you should say it very nicely. I know you didn't mean anything, but it really upset me when you came home 10 minutes late and you didn't tell me. Unfortunately, and we can talk about that, but unfortunately most people, I shouldn't say most, many people do not communicate with their spouses that way. When they are angry, when they're upset, they let them have it. Maybe they control and temper it a little bit, but it's not usually in the nicest, controlled way possible. When a child today is disrespectful to their parents, all they are doing is expressing their feelings. It used to be a child was afraid to express their feelings to the parent, so they didn't. Today, not because a parent would beat them up, but there was a certain fear of the parent, which which has been which is deteriorating as chazal tell us. So, what do we want from the 13-year-old, 14-year-old, or even 10-year-old? What do we want from them? We want them to come to us and say, "Mommy, I know you really love me and I feel bad complaining cuz you're always so good to me, but I have to say it does bother me when you don't buy me enough clothing and other girls in my class have this." Is that what we're expecting from a 13-year-old? And by the way, many, many parents will respond to that even if they say it nicely. But you don't ask Okay, so you have two options. Your child, you know, doesn't communicate to you, or I'm not sure the other option. Your child will not communicate with you. You Your child is not going to be able to talk to you at 13 years old the way that most 30 and 40-year-olds are not able to talk to their spouse. So, the child is going to communicate with anger because Khazars say they're less afraid of the parents. Which in my view, which is a bit Khazars, there's a big bracha here. There's a big blessing here. My child can actually tell me what they're upset about. They can actually communicate. I recently in this parenting course I told the parents that maybe your child is angry at you, and maybe your relationship is in a bad place. Well, when your child yells at you and they're actually saying something that has some content in it, that's an opportunity. You could just yell back. You could just walk away. Or you could say, "I see you're really upset about this. I want to talk to you about it." What an incredible lesson we teach our children when we don't act like children. We want to teach our children not to have the bad middos of caas, the very bad middos of anger. So, what do we do? Our child yells at us and we yell back. So, we're doing exactly what we shouldn't be doing and role modeling exactly what what what what our child is doing. We're the adult. We have to If our child screams at us, we should tell them, "It's not respectful, but I want to talk to you about what's bothering you. And when you when you're ready to talk, let's talk about it. And if if you're a real tzaddik, you're real tzaddikess, you go back to the child 3 hours 4 hours later and say, "You know, you were screaming at me before. I didn't like the way you're communicating, but you're obviously upset about this. Let's talk about it." Wow. Wow, that's greatness. That's greatness. In order to be a parent today, and maybe this is why Hashem created chutzpah, number one, to enhance the relationship that we're able to have with our children. But number two, you know what? You become a big person today if you're a good parent. You cannot be a good parent today without being a big person. Cuz if you don't have self-control, if you going to take things personally, if you don't have control over your anger, you're going to have a very hard time so dealing with your child unless they're a goody-goody, which some children are. Let Let me interject on that point exactly. Have we come to a point in our society where our schools are so perfect or or or amazing or systematized or fantastic and well-run oiled machines where parenting has become the duty of the school on a on incorrectly where parents on a subliminal level or sometimes on a conscious level say these schools are so big and their brand is so massive and their rebbeim are so good and the system is so awesome and they've got detections for every form of educational problem that they come in and swoop in and help out. On a little tiny but increasingly level, the parental duties are shifted to the school and therefore the parents relinquish the roles of major mashpi'im, the primary hashpa'ah onto the child. Instead, it's the school doing it and therefore the parents are sort of exaggerated babysitters. Is that accurate or not accurate? And if it is accurate, what how do we sort of retain the the checks and balances separating church and state where the school teaches aleph and bet and the parents teach middos and proper ethical behavior? You know, that question really reflects a complete miss on what chinuch is. It's not just teaching your kids how to learn Torah, teaching your kids how to make blessings. That's not the only part of chinuch. And if that was the only part of chinuch, teaching your children halacha, and teaching your children to bench, then you're right, the school does most of that. Of course, we'll talk. There's more to it than just telling them what to do. But the most important part of chinuch is the love, respect, relationship you give to your child. Today's children that chass v'shalom are off the derech, it's not, as people mistakenly think, a Yiddishkeit problem. I have not seen a healthy, emotionally healthy 15-year-old, 16-year-old who did well in school and is like, philosophically I have questions on the creation and I'm going to go to Harvard and and and and etc. go off the derech. We don't have maskilim today. It's unbelievable. Baruch Hashem, we don't have that. Intellectual people going off the derech. People going off the derech because they're in pain, because they don't feel good about themselves, because unfortunately they're rejected sometimes in school because of ADHD, because they struggle academically, and all types of problems. They chass v'shalom go off the derech because they feel rejected by their parents, rejected by their community. It's all emotional health issues. Our number one responsibility as parents is to be, pardon my vernacular, to be a good mom, to be a good dad. To be a good mom, to be a good dad. I don't care. Say it like a Nigel. A good mom, a good dad. Who loves his child and his child loves him and loves her, and your child is close to you. That's number one. And that the schools cannot do. The rabbaim could say from today to tomorrow, "I love my talmidim." They don't love their talmidim like a parent loves their child. You know, rachmana litzlan, lay aleinu, we had a terrible car accident, you know, years ago. Two precious bachrum passed away in this car accident. The other ones that survived, many of them were were in in hospital. Who was sleeping in the hospital by their bed? Their parents. They were there. We love them. We visit them. We care for them. Who's by their side? Their parents. No one can replace a mother. No one can replace a father. Schools do not replace that. Schools can teach. Only parents can give the children the love and the self-esteem that they need. Schools can help. Schools can do a lot of damage. But the most important people in a child's life is a mother and a father. And in terms of teaching our children the laws, the halachos, the middos, and everything like that, it's mostly taught by example. We see the children see us bench, the children see us daven, the children see us learn, etc. They're influenced by that. But of course, and all the teaching and all the what to do is not half nearly as important as the role modeling. And who are people they're going to want to role model? A mom that they hate? A dad that they can't stand? Or a mom that they love? My mom is so loving to me. She I love her. I love my dad. So I want to be like him. And we're so busy, unfortunately, "Bench! Stop! Do do do do Stop!" So busy with that. It's such a mistake. Because if we have the strong relationship, we don't have to be always telling them what to do. They're going to want to do. They're going to want to be like us. They're going to want to follow the beautiful Torah we have. One of the things I've seen that really bothers me, I do some counseling on the side, not often, but but I get the feeling with parents many times, if their child is having a problem, they hand them off to the therapist. Let's hand them off to the therapist and the therapist will deal with the problems. And I'm being a good parent because I'm paying It's expensive. I'm paying for the therapy. It's a terrible mistake on many, many levels. I've had parents bring me their child and I saw quickly that the child wasn't really the entire problem, if that. The parents needed help. No therapist working with your child for an hour, whether they're talking, whether he's playing video games, whatever they're doing for that hour, no therapist can replace the parent. And I think it's irresponsible, by the way, for any therapist, barring a crazy situation, to be working with a child and not be working with the parents. Wow. Because if you would help the parents, the parents are the most necessary components to that child's well-being. So, nice you're working with that child, you know, and I'm not talking about a child who's 20 years old and then the parents are crazy and you you have you have you have to be away from them. But in a normal situation, even a difficult situation, you have to try to work with the parents who are in the best position to help the child. And I think yeshivas that work with children must feel a responsibility to guide the parents. Because when you help the parents, you will help the child a lot more. You're the rebbe, you're the therapist, you'll spend an hour a week with the child. If you spent that hour with the parents and got the parents to be more understanding, more compassionate, and build a relationship with the child, the parents would help the child. What should a rebbe or a therapist do to approach the parents who, in 100% out of the cases, will be in denial of their flaws? So, most So, first of all, if the parents have you have to find out if the parents have flaws in their parenting. You have to find out. If the parents are perfect and the child has a disorder, which is rarely the case, and even if the child has a disorder, it's usually impa- impacted by how the parents are reacting to that disorder. You know, you have to find out as a therapist, in my opinion, it's your responsibility to find out how the parents are handling the child. And if it needs to be corrected, you need to talk to the parents. I don't want to talk to the parents cuz I'm scared they're not going to listen. Well, that's irresponsible. You know, if the parents don't listen, don't listen, you tried. And then, by the way, you're in a tricky situation, which I don't have the the answer. But on one hand, you're working with a child, and your child and the child is telling you, "My parents are always yelling at me." So, what are you going to do? Tell the child, "Oh, your parents are right?" Now, I'm not saying therapists, there are a lot of therapists, should say a lot. There are therapists, unfortunately, that wedge between the children and the parents and cause a lot of damage. And that's not the right thing to do. A child needs his parents. And you don't want to cause, you know, a wedge between them. But on the other hand, you can't lie to the child, either, and tell them, "Oh, your parents are right for yelling you because you misbehaved." No, they shouldn't be yelling. This is a big This is a very big pet peeve of mine. It is such a terrible crime when a therapist keeps on working with a child and doesn't look and doesn't work with the parents. It's a crime. They could have saved the kid's life. You're working with a child an hour a week, you're not going to very unlikely going to save the kid's life if the kid's in a dysfunctional relationship with his parents. But you could save the kid's life by working with the parents. Baruch Hashem, a number of times over the years, I sat down with a child and his parents, and we talked things out. And I've seen miracles. I've seen such beautiful things happen. But I will tell you, I've dealt with two different types of parents. Mostly the first. I've dealt with parents that said, "Please tell me what I could do better cuz I want to help my child." And they're actually willing to listen to me when I tell them, "Well, if your kid says this to you, you can't scream at them. And if your kid needs this, you have to think about maybe your kid does need it." And they accept it. And then you do have some select parents that no matter what you tell them, "No, no, I did everything right, everything right." They just refuse to hear that they've made mistakes. And this is why the world needs mussar. This is what my rebbe, Reb Pearsall Touro, we need mussar. We need to be willing to be honest and admit we made mistakes. There's an interesting thing that you write here, and I mean this, I even underlined it many years ago on that line you just said about needing Musar. Fascinating. You say here that learning learning Musar and improving one's middos is more important than the key of the actual mitzvahs of the Torah. And obviously I'm not going to get into the nitty-gritties of what that That's not me. That's Rabbi Vital. Right, right. According to Rabbi Vital. But I actually wanted to focus on an even stronger concept, which is that those that are sitting and learning, but are not actively working on their middos, they're not considered as if they are sitting and learning. It's considered like I don't know exactly what you want to call it, but their limud Torah is not at its best or it's not the correct fulfillment of limud Torah if your middos are not being actively worked on. Is that a Did I accurately paraphrase your statement or no? Yes. Yes. Yes. There are many sources. You know, the Vilna Gaon says a person's a person's life is to work on his middos. The Alter Rebbe says the whole Torah was given to to perfect a person's character. And the truth of the matter is Torah perfects a person's character if the Torah is learned properly. And if we see someone that learns Torah and doesn't have good middos, that's perforce a sign that they're not learning Torah with the right reasons. They're not learning Torah at all lishma. And of course, as the Gemara tells us in Yoma, it's a big chillul Hashem when someone learns Torah and doesn't have good middos. And it causes of course tremendous damage in in chinuch if a rebbe is teaching Torah and doesn't have good middos, a parent that's religious, and certainly a parent that even is a talmid chacham, that doesn't have good middos, of course, is a tremendous you know, harm to to to the children, to society. So why is it that we don't see this as an emphasis? You don't walk into a shul at 9:30 and see 25% of the people learning Mesillas Yesharim or Shaarei Teshuvah or Nefesh HaChaim. You don't Mussar seders in yeshivas are notoriously empty. It's just not a focus whatsoever. And if what you're saying is is true, then the the focus and the ideal of our lives is to perfect our middos and learning Torah while neglecting to work on our middos is essentially a bracha levatalah. So, then why in fact isn't it sort of on the pedestal of where it should be? I don't have any answer. But, first of all, I want to share with you, you know, why maybe part of why it is this way. First of all, when you talk about certain sefarim, Shaarei Teshuvah, Mesillas Yesharim, they're very much primarily bein adam l'makom sefarim. So, it's a little bit less middos focused. They have parts, you know, famous perek Mishlei perek aleph about middos, but you know, it's not the focus of many of There's There's two types of There're different aspects of mussar. Mussar is a broad word. There's mussar in a you know, bein adam l'makom and there's mussar in bein adam l'chavero. But, let me tell you why I think mussar is not so popular, especially bein adam l'chavero, especially middos. Because people think it's simple. First of all, people think it's simple. If you ask somebody, "What does it mean to have good middos?" You're a nice guy. You don't scream at people. People don't People don't realize how complicated it is to have really good middos. Real good middos, first of all, is not just external behavior, that you don't go around screaming at people. There's a lot of internal work inside of you, inside of ourselves. Are we jealous of people? Do we want good for people? Are we angry inside? You know, as they write in the sefer, in marriage, a lot of real middos come out. And as Rav Chaim Vital says, we can judge a person's middos by how he treats his wife. I'll add, as the wife maybe treats her husband. And because with everyone else, you don't scream and yell cuz you want to look good. But with your spouse in privacy of your own home, the truth comes out. I'll tell you something else, you know, I speak to my bachrum about middos, but not only speak to the bachrum about middos, you know, the last few months I do once a week a shalom bayis course. And many of the bachrum are not even dating yet. But it's valuable to hear it now cuz I'm merited to sham, they'll keep it in their head. Even when I used to teach 11th grade, I would talk about these things and you know, one particular married person I have in mind, he said to me that he remembers now, he's married years later, he remembers what I taught him in 11th grade and it's made an impact. So, for example, I I spoke to the bachrum. A person, you you you talk about a bachrum and you say, you ask for a resume, you don't ask for I'm sorry, ask for information. You say, what if a bachrum is he's a very idle, he's very idle bachrum. He's very idle, he's very sweet. So, you think until I got married, a little bit, you think that if you're a sweet guy, you're going to be a great husband. You're sweet guy, you can't hurt a fly. So, I told the bachrum, yeah, he can't hurt a fly, but he wish he could kill a few. Many of the people that are very soft, but they're holding a lot of anger inside. Their roommates taking things, they don't want to say anything, either they're scared or because they're they think that's good middos and maybe to some extent, but really they have a lot of anger inside. And then they get married and their wife is doing things they don't like and they have no idea what to do with it. To express it, they don't know how to express it. Because when did they ever express when something was bothering them? To hold it in, they know how to do, but then they have anger. And when it was with their roommate, they don't have to be with their roommate, they could just take a walk. But their wife, if they do take a walk on their wife, it's not very nice. It's going to be quite insulting and they don't know what to do. And sometimes it comes out in anger and sometimes it comes out with maybe even worse is they just keep it locked in and they're carrying a lot of anger and it's felt. And a lot of problems come out. Being a baal middos is quite complicated and takes a lot of wisdom. You can't just expect and we expect like, "Oh, in our yeshiva we don't focus on mussar, we don't focus on understanding ourselves, we don't focus on working ourselves. We focus on learning Torah and of course we teach the bachurim to be nice guys." If if if we do that, we teach them to be nice guys. And then we expect them to get married and their wife says something they don't like and they're just going to be able to deal with it. And if they need to tell their wife something, they'll be able to and they and there is an important place for communication. How we expecting them to do that? And then they have children and their child is disrespectful and you expect them to do what I asked them to do. Stay calm. Understand that they're in pain. Don't take it personally. How do you How do you expect the person to do that without serious work on themselves. So So what if a 19-year-old bachur comes to you says, "I want to work on my middos. But don't just tell me to read Shaarei Teshuvah. I want to like practically like Learning mussar sefarim oftentimes is just a hisorerus to the concept that I need to go ahead and work on my middos. So what is the practical next step of working on my middos? Okay. So So with all arrogance and I'm not saying my sefer is the only one but the difference of let's say an Olam Hamiddos of a more classical sefer is in Olam Hamiddos we don't just tell you not to get angry. We tell you ideas and thoughts of how maybe to work on yourself. You know, not to get angry. And And that's And that's so important. And so important. I spoke in my daughter's seminary a few months ago and I said to them I I said I want to tell you it's not okay for you to scream at your husband. It's not okay if you scream at your husband. I'm not going to say it's never going to happen. And if And if a wife screams at her husband, the husband should be a man and take it and stay calm and talk respectfully back. But it's not okay for a woman to scream at her husband. It's Hazal. Anger is forbidden. A nice warm is forbidden. You have an obligation if your husband forgot something or came home late to talk to him about it, not scream at him and call him names and yell at him. That's a very basic thing. Hopefully they're teaching that in schools and seminaries. I don't know. But it's a basic thing. Now, if people at least learned a lamidus or learned another mussar safer, doesn't have to be my mussar safer. But if someone learned that, that's very valuable. At least I can look at myself in the mirror and say, "I shouldn't have screamed at my husband. I have to apologize for screaming at him." Not apologize maybe for maybe he I'm right about what he did wrong, but I have to take responsibility for my behavior. Many people, men and women, live their whole lives, "I was right for screaming cuz they did that." There's no responsibility. Like, no. Hashem expects more from us. Hashem expects us to work on ourselves. Now, that's one piece. Knowing that I have to work on myself. Yes, there's another piece, you know, to putting into action. But if you don't have the first piece, there's nothing to talk about. There's so much depth in me that see my see Listen, Hashem gave me a big gift. I wouldn't be talking to you about this if not for my rebbe, Rabbi Paysach Krohn. He gave a daily mussar vid for about a half an hour every day. In Yeshiva Ohr Yisrael You talk about yeshivas where they're running away by mussar seder. First of all, you're putting a safer in front of them expecting to learn it. So, that is itself is maybe not as fun. But my rebbe gave us a vid, a class, every single day. And it was so enjoyable. It was so geshmak. He would point out to us the you know, the human nature, how funny we are, how flawed we are. And he he had just an amazing sense of humor. So, the way he did it was just just amazing. But it was so engaging and it was so exciting and it really excited me the rest of my life and certainly the the next 10 years, you know, after that to really be aware and conscious and and understand myself and pay attention to myself. So, it's very hard to expect someone that wasn't exposed to that kind of musser that my rebbe gave to even understand the significance and have that appreciation for it. I would only hope that as the Hashem through this podcast and and Baruch Hashem, you know, is just spreading awareness that we have to find swaram. My rebbe has Baruch Hashem they wrote over things from him, Mind Over Man. Find swaram that talk about in a way that you find engaging, stimulating, and it's a whole world of wisdom. It's a world of wisdom. So, circling back to marriage for a second. Let's I want to delve into that. Are there more divorces nowadays amongst younger people than there were 20 years ago or 30 years ago? Or it's just where everyone knows everyone nowadays more than we did did 30 years ago? Meaning, you very often hear about 24-year-olds who are getting divorced. Not saying it's a global pandemic, but it's creeping up. Is that accurate? And if it is accurate, why is it happening and what are perhaps steps we can take to stop that? So, I I don't know. I don't know the numbers whether it's more or whether there's more Yidden and more news goes around. I don't know. But, there are reasons to think why it may make some sense that we could have more problems today. Like we said, you know, there's more chutzpah today. We are used to be many of us can think of our grandparents or great-grandparents. It used to be people stayed married. Not necessarily in the perfect relationship where they they they may be fighting and arguing, but they loved each other and there was a commitment to each other. I don't know if we're as committed as we used to be. In general, just, you know, people move from thing to thing, whether it's because we're just used to having things quickly. I don't know if we have the same level of commitment that we used to. Part of marriage, part of the foundation of marriage, is I'm committed to this person. And I'm committed to working it out. So, I don't know if we have the same level of commitment. People may be quicker to like, "It's not working out." Maybe, I don't know. I also think there going to be many challenges today which are going to affect marriage, communication. So, today communication because of phones, I think, is weaker. People don't have to communicate verbally, they could send a text. So, they can come into marriage really not having good communication skills. We also have challenges with technology, which may also impact, whether it impacts the man because of what he's seen, whether unfortunately during marriage there issues, so that also has for sure played a role in in in in divorces. Um, you know, so there is a varied of of a variety of factors. I will say that I believe strongly it's our responsibility to prepare our young men and women for marriage. We have them baruch Hashem, unbelievable, we have them in yeshiva. Most boys are in yeshiva till they get married. And many of them after, but they're in yeshiva till they're married, and if they go to work earlier, they're still there for quite a long time. The girls are in school through seminary. We have time to teach them. We must teach them. We must teach them number one, the importance of working on your middos, working on yourself, getting to understand yourself. You know, there is more talk today about being healthy, but that's not what I'm referring to. I'm not talking about referring to being emotionally healthy, which maybe overlaps with me those. But, you're a healthy person overall, but really understanding yourself, working on yourself. That has to be a focus in the yeshivas. I'll be honest, not everybody is ready for this at all. Not everyone can teach it. But, maybe the rosh yeshiva who the rosh yeshiva gives an unbelievable sheer on the Gemara is not equipped to teach it. It's not a It's not a flaw on on the rosh yeshiva. Everyone has their strengths. You know, for myself who hope and qualified to teach some middos, I couldn't give the high-level sheer in in many yeshivas. So, everyone has their strengths, but we should recognize this needs to be done. So, if I can't do it, do I have a rebbe, do I have another Do I have a mashgiach, do I have someone who could do it? Am I looking to hire somebody who can do it? Maybe I can bring someone once a week who could do it. Maybe I can give them svaram that I appreciate or someone else can tell me. Maybe I'm just not into this, but I can get them to the svaram. One second, can I just interject? The yeshivas the typical bachur is going to mesivta and then yeshiva for 3 years, and then he's going to Eretz Yisrael, and he's going to BMG. So, the time to educate on marriage and preparation for marriage would be that obligation would be thrust on the Mir or Brisk or Yagdil or wherever they're going in Eretz Yisrael, and then on BMG. Neither institution I think is is running to give middos classes clinics. I certain maybe the Mir a little bit, but certainly not Brisk or Yagdil or or and certainly not BMG. So, the question is Are you suggesting that these institutions should in fact have these? I mean, I know there are No one's Listen, the the not listening to me in Brisk you know. No, no, I know. I'm saying in a utopian world. I just say. First of all, I think we should be stressing middos in mesivta. We There's no reason we shouldn't be stressing me those in Mesivta. We should be stressing me those in elementary school. There's a lot to talk about this. You know, the fact that I don't know if it still exists, but the fact that I have a feeling that it may exist that there's a concept of freshy treatment in Yeshiva is antithetical to what it means good middos, which is you're nice to everybody. You're respectful to everybody. We have to be teaching good middos, and there's no we could start at a very young age, but through Mesivta, through base medrash teaching middos. So, that was the first part I was in the middle of talking about, teaching people the importance of working on their middos. That's probably my opinion the most important part. If you give me a guy, you give me a bochur that has been working on his middos, he's been learning, you know, I'm sorry. He's been learning a lot of middos. He's been working on himself. Even if he's not prepared for marriage, I'm pretty comfortable with that guy. You know why? Because he's been working on himself, and then when he gets thrown the curveballs in marriage, he's got some footing. He's going to work on it. He's going to figure it out, and he cares to figure it out, most importantly. Give me a girl, you know, I feel that's one of the greatest chos Hashem gave me, that girls are actually learning all middos, and girls are actually learning mussar, cuz that was not so common, cuz they didn't learn mussar so much in the old days. So, girls actually learning mussar, such a great zechus that girls are learning mussar. Even if they don't know about marriage, they're already ahead of the game. Oh, I'm not supposed to be screaming at a husband. I have to work on myself. That's already like we're, you know, we're 80% there. We're We're We're in a good place. Now, is it beneficial and important to also teach specifics about marriage? Yes, and that I would say you can wait. If you don't you know, whether you'll have to decide. I would I have no problem doing it with younger base medrash guys, because I don't know if I know what's going to happen when they're older, so let me do it now while I know I can do it. Also, it is connected to regular middos, too. It's not just Marriage is not in a vacuum. But, um I think we need some specific, you know, and there are in BMG vadem and this and that, but our question is are we like something we're demanding and saying like you have to. You have to be listening. You have to be working on it. You have to hear or it's like it's a nice thing. It's more than a nice thing. It's critical. Talk about children. One of the greatest impacts is the gedolim to what Rav Pam and others. Shalom bayis has great impact on our children. We have to work on ourselves to be a good husband, to be a good wife needs work. So, what advice would you tell a pair a couple that is trying their best to create a house of kedusha and tahara and avodas Hashem. What advice would you tell them to help them be happy, successful Jews who happen to be living in America as opposed to happy, successful Americans who happen to be Jews. And to specify what I mean is very often you could have people that they were learning in kollel for 2 years or 3 years and they had a wife who went to fresh out of seminary. She's they're all inspired. And then they enter the workforce and the itch to make a lot of money kicks in and they look around and they see that wealthy people are celebrated and it becomes more and more difficult to say ruchniyus is my ikkar, working on my middos is my ikkar, my emotional bank account is completely used up by the effort to attain wealth and style and food a good food, vacation, whatever it is. What advice would you give to somebody to s- starting out to circumnavigate, to prevent that from happening, to stare in the eyes of a a society that very, very much focuses on attaining wealth and building bigger and bigger houses and saying, "You know what? I'm going to be okay with making $200,000, feeding my family, and being making sure Lima Tire is weaker." Meaning So, $200,000, that's that's a lot of money. $300,000. Whatever it is. You're going up? Uh, that's what we've come to. Meaning it's it's it's very, very a new topic, right? Not really. I'm saying it in the context of marriage because you have a couple that was together on board ready to build a house that's filled with Kedusha and then it sort of I peters out a little bit when they see, "Hey, I can we can make money in" Okay, so first of all, I really think there's a big difference between middos and shifas for Torah and and ruchniyus. There is there is a difference. Of course, middos is a chelek in Torah and a chelek of of of korel of being a yid. And I also want to say, I don't think anyone looks at themselves as Americans. I think everyone really, even if they get caught up in things, view themselves as as yidden as Jews as precious yidden. If a person is cares about middos If a person cares about middos and a husband cares about how he's treating his wife and a wife cares about treating her husband and we have to teach men and women in yeshiva that that's their most foremost obligation. To be a good husband, to be a good wife. To really work on yourself. So, I think that can carry through really under all circumstances. Because even if you don't have the time, even if you're not learning as you should be and we can talk about that. And even if you're not as focused as ruchniyus as you were before but the middos is something it's really easy to keep focus on cuz you're always interacting with people and you're always interacting with your wife. And by the way, one of the beautiful thing about middos is you could keep it on you at all times. I don't believe middos is about learning a safer. I wrote all my middos from a collection of 10 years of sitting in my brain as I was dealing with situations on the ground, not from reading s'farim. It's from from dealing with my own life's experiences, dealing with my own jealousy, dealing with my own anger. That's what's shared in there. So, if somebody works on their middos, cares about their middos, what happens is he takes that to work. When there's a someone else at work that he's jealous of, he thinks about that. I'm jealous of him. I have to work on it. Let me think about why I shouldn't be jealous. Oh, I'm not being so nice to him because I'm jealous, or I don't want him to get a promotion, so I'm not saying nice something nice to the boss. That's not good middos. That's not right. I have to trust Hakadosh Baruchu, and I'm going to say something nice. So, you bring Hashem into your world cuz middos involves, you know, typically in work, we're involved with other people. So, really middos really can connect us, bring kedusha into the world, into our workforce. So, I don't think that the middos will be actually Of course, if you get caught up in money, maybe it could turn into bad you turn you into having bad middos, but I think the middos could really stay strong even if you're not as strong in the learning as you should be. In terms of how we stay connected to our Torah, to our values, you know, and not get caught up in the in the rat race. So, first of all, just to be malameid z'chus a little bit, I think a lot of people are not um I think it's a little bit exaggerated about everybody trying to become rich. I think today the cost of living is so high is everybody's trying to survive. Now, you could argue about whether, you know, their standards people's standards are too high, but the cost of living, even when you try to keep things on a lower standard, are very, very high and very expensive. So, I think a lot of people are working hard to make money, not necessarily cuz they want to be millionaires, because they're trying to survive. They're trying to pay their bills. Life is expensive. You know, you throw out in passing $200,000. I mean, if you would have told me 10 years ago about $200,000, that's that's a rich man, $200,000. So, so we're there's a lot of pressure just to survive. You know, in terms of in general guidance of of how to keep the shidduch ice, I think it's important a person is connected. A person has to connect himself to something. We can't do it alone. You have to find a shul. Either you live near a yeshiva, amazing, but most of us don't. It doesn't work. It's for younger boys. But, we're connected to a shul that it's not just a shul where we come to daven. There's a shul where they have learning going on, and I'm connected to a chevra of people that are growing. And we have to think about where we're living. Am I living in a neighborhood which the people, unfortunately, are not so connected to to ruchniyus? They're all just talking about their their newest clothing. I have to think about where I'm where I want to live. You know, we who we surround ourselves with has a tremendous impact. So, you have been dealing with struggling bochurim for a long time, and I think that it's fair to say that certainly in America, we've come a long way as a society in Klal Yisrael in dealing with struggling boys. Can one make the argument that we've we've developed such grand institutions and retreats and camps where it could almost be conceived as a l'chatchilah path where you have a mediocre bochur who's in a good yeshiva, but it's traditional, it's cold, it's the rebbeim are old, it's it's stark, it's intense. And he looks across the pond and his friends who he grew up with who are struggling but are in this yeshiva with, you know, emotionally dynamic rebbeim and it's fun and there's concerts and there's trips and there's whatever. Do is there a risk that we're going to be attracting bachurim who do not need gen- that genuine chizuk? Who if those places weren't plastered all over the world, they would muster up the self-motivation to to steigen, to come to seder, to learn stark. Is that a problem? Is that a problem that there's no way around it? What would you say? That's an excellent question. I know there are people I don't know specific people. I was a rebbe in Waterbury for many years. I know people that had ties to Waterbury because the kids in they felt that the kids were not happy in their yeshiva cuz they saw the action going on in Waterbury. And maybe some kids left their yeshiva uh to go to Waterbury. You know, but I want to tell you as follows. Every boy needs chizuk. And there's no reason why we should shouldn't be putting into every yeshiva. I'm not saying we fire older rabbaim. But look how clearly we should be putting rabbaim into chinuch that are dynamic, that do connect with the boys, that can give the boys chizuk, support. Chinuch, a lot of chinuch is giving bachurim kavod. I literally just wrote an article that's being published this week in the A Ded. The number one ingredient in chinuch, in my opinion, the number one ingredient in chinuch is is kavod. Is giving a kid respect. Is making a kid feel that he's important because he is, not cuz you're lying, cuz he is. He's a ben Hashem, she's a bas Hashem. Most of the kids I mentioned before that fall off is because they don't feel good about themselves. So, the reason why many of these yeshivas that work with kids are struggling and are successful is because they're giving the children the chizuk. They're giving the children the encouragement. They're giving the children the space. There needs to be, in my opinion, different yeshivas, of course. But I don't think there's a yeshiva that should not have tremendous amount of hisuk, tremendous amount of warmth for the boys. To say that this top yeshiva, where the guys are momish learning, you know, 24/7, to say that they don't need the hisuk, the warmth in the other yeshiva, I wouldn't say those words. I would say they may be able to survive without it. Of course, we do have, unfortunately, fall out from the top yeshivas. Sometimes fall out while they're still in mesifta. Sometimes fall out when they're base medrish. And sometimes fall out 5-10 years into marriage, lay alenu. There are a lot of people that just go through the system. They don't want to rock the boat. They don't want to mess up their shidduch. They don't want to upset their parents. Everything looks good on the outside, so they keep going and going and going, but there's a lot of unhappiness, a lot of challenges that are not being dealt with. So, "Kina'as sofrim tarbeh chachma." If a yeshiva that has warm rebbeim and has a lot of hisuk, you know, is drawing, and oh, they want to leave cuz they want that. So, learn from them, in my opinion. Bring the hisuk. Now, I want to be clear here. Yes, some of those yeshivas have a lot of allowances and a lot of free-for-all-ness, but that they need to have for the kids that they have. The kid that's learning well in a strong yeshiva doesn't want that. He doesn't want that. Even those kids in those yeshivas that are letting them dress and and and not go to shiur and and whatever it is, like I mentioned before, those kids are in pain. Those kids are usually fallouts. Have usually been rejected from their elementary schools, from their previous mesifta, often unfortunately from from their families, from their communities, they've been rejected. So, it's a big mistake. I tell this to parents like when they have one older child that's struggling and they make allowances for them and they say, "Well, my younger child now he's going to want a smartphone and he's going to want to do that and he's going to want to think so I I I can't let my older child have those allowances cuz then my younger child's going to want to." It's not exactly the case. If a child's happy and he's doing well, he's not looking around so he's not looking around saying, "Oh, I want to be like that kid with long hair and do whatever he wants." That kid's struggling. I'm happy. He's happy. He's happy where he is in Yeshiva and baruch Hashem the kids by them for the most part that are in the strong Yeshivas are very happy. And these Yeshivas are doing a great job. Do I feel I don't know which ones? Do I feel I'm sure there's some of them that need to give the kids more chizuk? I'll tell you the problem the challenge I think there is in the very stark Yeshivas. When every kid in your in that Yeshiva is learning till 12:00 at night, I think it's very hard for that child who learns till 12:00 to feel special. And very often he's trying to learn till 12:30, till 1:00 so he can feel special. And that to me is tragic. How special it is a bachur learning. Not till 12:00, it could be 10:00. Whatever many hours, how special it is that the bachur's learning Torah. And I feel we have to do a better job and I'm not pointing fingers at any Yeshiva. But we have to do a better job of making every kid feel deservedly so. That is a Wow, you're a ben Torah. You're so chashuv. You don't have to out compete. And unfortunately some Yeshivas suffer terribly from this, the competition. You don't have to compete. It's not you're the best bachur cuz you got the best p'shat, you learned the most hours. Every Every mispar of a chover, Hashem, every yid is a star. Every yid is precious. I think we have to do a better job that every year in every buck in Yeshiva feels like a million dollars. He gets the music he needs and he won't be looking at other places because oh, they're getting the Rebbe loves him. The Rebbe doesn't love you? That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. You have us at another Yeshiva because the Rebbe are so nice. So be nice or they're right. Be nice. Be nice. What would you say to a bucker who's in a mainstream Yeshiva but he's not in the top 1% and therefore he is struggling to find self-worth and he is slowly declining but not that he wants to and not that he's struggling as many emotional health issues. It's just he's not the top one and the top 1% often are the ones that get the spotlight. It's either the top 1% or the the the bottom 1% which is always in the menahel's office and gets all the attention with the menahel because he pulled the fire alarm or he got caught with cigarettes. Right, so it's those two and then everyone else is like, so what do you do with a a bucker who he's just coasting but he doesn't want when he genuinely wants to be he great but he's mediocre and he becomes internally a little bit depressed. What would you say to such a bucker? Listen, if I met with him privately I would try to give him a lot of his act and try to explain to him especially if would he would he would never come to the point he would never go to a a Rebbe and express his feelings cuz his Rebbe is 70 and is a maggid shiur and not the type and there's no second seder shmuel that's in his whatever that So he's he's on his he's on an island. Well, he said he's coming to me though. Okay, so what would you and this you're looking at this podcast. What would you tell him? What would I tell him? I would tell him I'll tell you. I'll tell you. Every year is incredibly precious. Every year is a son and daughter of Hashem. And by the way, that's where our self-esteem should come from. Immediately. Not how many hours I learned. Not what a great I can say that I can say I am. My self-esteem comes because I am a child of Hashem. And I am important and Hashem values me. Hashem loves me and I'm important. And my actions count. We just had the partial of the Nesiim. Partial of Nasso. Whatever this is broadcasted. But we have partial of Nesiim. And the Torah repeats the Nasi each Nasi's carbonized. So there are different explanations. But recently I have a simple pshat that I like. The Torah wants to tell you you could be bringing the same carbonas. I know the circle Torah that each person has different carbonas. But without that you're bringing the same carbon. He's bringing the same carbon. The fact that he's bringing the same carbon doesn't make your carbon less precious. The fact that you're learning Torah and he's also learning Torah doesn't make your learning less your Torah learning Torah less precious. Your mitzvah's precious. Your Torah's precious. You are precious. And you should try to find yourselves find yourself people that will help you feel that way. And appreciate that. So how do we develop individuality and creativity and uniqueness in a world where you have 6,000 people in your grade. You have a thousand people on your block. I'm assuming let's say you're living in Lakewood, you're living in Monsey, or you're living in San Jose. But you're you're in a yeshiva that has 500 people. How do you strike a balance between being socially with it and normal and up-to-date and every you know, you're you're one of the guys. But you're also an individual and you're you have your individuality and your imagination, your creativity, which I think are integral components of being of achieving greatness. I don't mean becoming a godol hador. How do someone maintain or create individuality in a world where it's so easy to just be like everyone else? So I think the challenge you're referring to is really a challenge that, you know, happens in when bachurim are younger. Right? If you look at people that are married, 30 years old, 40 years old, we don't really have that question because everyone's doing something different. Everyone has their own family. There's a lot of individuality. But in Yeshiva, they're all wearing their white shirts and their own jacket and they're learning and doing the same thing. And by the way, for that reason, some bachurim try to find individuality through, you know, they can't wear colored shirt in most Yeshivas, but try to find socks. Maybe they could sneak in a black sock with a stripe, whatever. So I can have my individuality. No, but that's my point. They're screaming. So so So I want to explain. But I want to I want to tell those bachurim and I want to just share the idea. You know, I allow a little bit more in my Yeshiva individuality with with dress, but the individuality um Clothing is a very cheap way to express individuality. I'm not knocking it for someone that needs to do it. But at the end of the day, what makes me different than you is that, you know, we look pretty much alike. We're both wearing black jackets, white shirts, no ties. So we look alike. Beards. We look the Look the same, you know. You look a little younger. Less gray hair. But you know, if our individuality is that I'm wearing different clothing than you, that's pretty weak. Individuality is not in clothing. Individuality is in our thoughts and our actions. Now, while we're all younger, a lot of our actions are going to look the same. But as we get older, that thought process, that development that you're working on yourself, if you've been working on your middos, for example, if you've been working on yourself as a person, as you get older, b'ezrat Hashem, you will be able to give and offer and express and your individuality will shine. While you're in Yeshiva, there's limited opportunities for individuality to shine. And if you're And if you try too hard, it's you know, you just stand out. But inside yourself, individuality is found inside the person and then it blossoms as you get older. So, it's very important you think for yourself. You could think you know, you could think for yourself. Your Yeshiva gives a shmooze on a certain topic. Now, I might get in trouble for saying this. And you don't agree. You don't like it. Individuality means that I have a brain. My Rebbi taught us a chiddush right here in the tell. He taught us that just because your Rebbi said something, you need to understand it. You have to be responsible for it. If your Rebbi tells you to do something, if your Rebbi tells you to shoot somebody, you have to understand what he's telling you. You can't just walk around my Rebbi said it. You have to own whatever your Rebbi taught you. I'm not saying there's never a place to say I don't understand my Rebbi said it, but you have to own it. So, this bochur who you want individuality, when the Rosh Yeshiva's talking, try to understand what he's saying. If you don't understand it, go ask him. If he doesn't have the time for you, talk to some other Rebbi or Rav and say, I don't I don't know if I understand this. Even in Gemara learning, so many times a Rebbi says a p'shat in the Tosefos, in the Gemara, and I don't like it. So, bochurs like conforms like, okay, but that's a p'shat. That's a That's what the Yeshiva said. No, that's not Torah. Torah is yours. So, individuality is our mind. We have to teach bochrim to have individuality in their in their thoughts, in their development. It doesn't have to be with clothing. You know, every Yeshiva could have its own dress code, but to teach them to be independent thinkers. That's what my Rebbi taught. My Rebbi right here My Rebbi was a very unique person. And he really taught us to be to think for ourselves. And that's why Baruch Hashem, his talmidim are quite different. But the funny thing is that a lot of times people can actually spot us out and say, oh, you probably learned by Reb Pair. Cuz there's the unique maybe the stands out the uniqueness. But but he taught us to think for ourselves. So you mentioned that clothing is probably the cheapest way of expressing yourself. You also mentioned that it typically weeds itself out when one gets into adulthood just because of the nature of of having kids and a family makeup. But you you do see so many 40, 50, 60-year-olds who they're going to wear a $5,000 tie, which is essentially their way of saying I'm going to spend $5,000 for you to approve of me or I am going to spend a ridiculous amount of money on a $500,000 car, which it's not that much more comfortable than a $40,000 car. It's a $500,000 you're going to spend for other people to observe and say, "Hey, this guy is unique. This guy is impressive." So it seems like a major Do you disagree that it's not coming from there? I disagree with you that that's the goal. Their goal is not to establish individuality. Their goal is to receive approval. Their goal is to receive covet. And that goes back to what I said before. Our job as parents and machonchim foremost, I think this is the most important thing in chinuch as I mentioned before, is to build people's self-esteem. When we don't feel good about ourselves, we look for other people's approval. If I wasn't the biggest talmid chochom, but now I'm very successful financially. And by the way, many of them suffer when they were in yeshiva being the shvacha bochur. And now they have a chance to finally get people's approval. Now they have a chance to get the yeshiva coming asking him for money. And be honored. I'm not saying people get honored for this reason. It's a big chosid to get honor. But people want to establish themselves to get other people's approval. I wrote a whole English sefer on covet. I don't know if you saw it. It's called Run After the Right Covet. The more someone feels good about themself, the less they need other people's approval. As well, if we really work on themself ourselves, we become more intelligent. Oh, cuz I'm driving a fancy car and everyone is impressed, that's a reason that I should feel good about myself. Right, isn't it like the You should be embarrassed. You should be embarrassed. It's you have to spend that much money. You know, I'm not Listen, I'm not judging anybody people. I'm very against judging people's spendings. You know, people say, you know, why is he flying private? Why is he spending the money? I don't judge any people's spendings. I don't have the kind of money, so I don't have the opportunity to to withhold. If I had the kind of money and was not spending it, we could talk. I don't judge people's spendings. And many of those people are so generous with stock and such giving people. I don't judge other people's spending. I think people only judge other people's spending because they're jealous, etc. Unless they're a rabbi was trying to be his his kehillah. You know, I I doesn't bother me. I don't look at I don't look at something. So, I want to say like this, I'm just saying, I'm not judging why the guy is driving his fancy car. Is it just to get up people's approval, etc. etc. etc. But there's no question that there's a lot of that. And you'll say, well, isn't that shallow? Like, you know, that this is what this is this is what you think is is valuable, they have the fancy car. But I don't It's not just about the car, right? If if I I heard this from someone else recently, so it's not my idea, but it's quite simple. If I'm driving $500,000 car, then you understand that I'm running a successful business. And I feel good about myself that I run a successful business. So, instead of taking advertisements out there and saying, I have a successful business, my car, my watch, my suit, my bar mitzvah, my wedding shows that I'm a successful person financially. But I will But I will say that if we were giving the covet to people when they're younger, people would have a less need for it and less interest in it. And also, there's another thing here. If the people around us, in general, weren't so Listen, if you had people I'm not you know, I'm not saying I'm above gosh miss, but all I can tell you is that and again, obviously I'm I'm a so I'm just just giving an example. But if everyone around a person was like me, they're not pulling up with a $500,000 car. I'll probably make them feel good cuz I'm nice. So, it's a such a nice car. But at the day, they're not bringing me the car. Hopefully, they'll bring me a Gamara. They'll give me a a vart because they know I'm not going crazy. So, we have to raise we have to raise people to feel good about themselves because they're Yidden and proud Jews. And if we we we were more proud of being Jews, we'd be a little bit less proud about things like money. Very well said. So, I want to talk about one final thing, which is a difficult topic, but in the topic of Bochurim who are struggling with inyonei kedusha, many many Bochurim have this issue where they've tried everything. They're on an island because yeah, they had they they went to Walmart during second seder one day. They bought a $15 smartphone and they could do whatever they want. They tried to put a filter on it. They could take off the filter. No one knows that they have it. It's essentially an immensely personal battle that I don't know what percentage of Bochurim have to deal with, but a lot. What advice would you give to people, Bochurim especially, who are for the for very often battling this in private and in secret with immense sadness and depression that comes along with the pain of falling in this in tsunami of of tuma. So, yeah, I don't think the problem the challenge is limited to bachrum. And certainly if a bachur's facing challenges, it doesn't just not necessarily run away when he's older and plenty of adults struggle. So, I think it's important that it's not just a to the point out it's not just a bachrum struggle. I really talk to my own talmidim my own bachrum about inyanum shmiras einayim. And I explain to them why and I'll tell you what I do tell them. This is what I do tell them. The greatest challenge of technology is not what we see as much as what happens to us after we see. The yetzer hara is great after we looked at something to tell us what a bum we are because we looked at that. And then he plays back every shmooze we heard since ninth grade about what it does to you and what type of person you are if you look at stuff. And I don't want to be another one of those recordings for that bachur when he falls. So, therefore I don't talk so much about the severity. I have to machzik myself, but I don't talk the severity of shmiras einayim. What I talk to bachrum primarily is about chizuk about encouragement about not giving up. When a person feels depressed, feels bad when he that he watched something he shouldn't have watched, it's actually not a mitzvah. It's actually a hechsher aveira. What happens if a bachur feels bad? He may watch again. He may wake up late the next morning, etc. And I think it's a terrible message if ever it's said like, "If someone's watching this, then how could he be learning tzeitzis?" Or how could he be davening? That's That's like To me that sounds like apikorsus. I mean, aveiros and mitzvos don't cancel out. An aveira doesn't cancel out a mitzvah. Learning Torah, davening, doing mitzvahs gives us strength ultimately to be able to push out the the eight Sahara. I I have to share with you a great vart. I was I thought before that maybe it'll come up. Is there a sitter there? So we say we say in Krias Shma we say Ba'al Elohim l'Tzitzis Orisa Mosos Chareidim es Kamocha Hashem Elokeinu. You should see the tzitzis and remember all the mitzvahs of Hashem. So it's a pella cuz a pasuk or two later we say again L'maan Tizkeru es Sisu es Kamocha Hashem Elokeinu. It's amazing about davening. So many questions that we just can just keep reading and don't notice. We say twice L'maan Tizkeru. What's going on? What's the What's the remembering twice? The Seforno says something amazing. The Seforno, if I understand him correctly, says that L'maan Tizkeru is not going on seeing the tzitzis. We already did that already. You saw the tzitzis, you remember Hashem. It's a continuation of Lo Sasu Lo Sasu K'maaseh Mitzrayim u'K'maaseh Eretz Kena'an L'maan Tizkeru es Sisu es Kamocha. So say, don't get distracted by all the eight Sahara, by all the desires. L'maan Tizkeru. You need to focus on Hashem. The goal of not looking and separating ourselves is not just a mission onto itself. It's part of the whole mission of kidusha, of getting close to Hashem. It's positive. It's not negative. When a bochur sees something, an adult sees something he shouldn't shouldn't look at, I think the most important thing is is he doesn't get depressed. Depression's not about Hashem. I'll prove it to you. If it was about Hashem, so why am I sleeping late tomorrow? Why am I Why am I messing up further? Imagine a husband always comes up home late. He's apologized. I feel so bad, I feel so bad. And then he comes up later and later. If you feel so bad that you went against Hashem, so then why are you continuously doing it? And why are you not davening more the next day? Why not waking up early to learn to make up? You can never cancel, but to show Hashem that I'm learning more cuz I saw something I shouldn't see. Now I want to learn more. So it's not really about Hashem. It's about myself. I feel bad. I feel like a loser. And that's why on Yom Kippur people are not depressed, people are happy cuz they're doing shuva. I'm getting closer to Hashem. It's positive. Right? It's an unbelievable thing on Yom Kippur. My favorite piyut Kianu Amekha Vianto Elokeinu, I forget the words. So, we sing to Hashem, we are your people. And then right afterwards, a asham And now that we sing, ay ay ay, ashamnu bogad. If someone be listening from outside and hearing that going on, bogadnu gozalnu dibarnu dofi, they'd say, "What were you guys just saying?" Uh we were guilty, we rebelled, we stole. It's a mitzvah shiva. Because we have a simcha. We want to be better. It's positive. We want to be better. Depression that bachrum feel and adults feel when they look at something is not a mitzvah. It's It's a shaar there. I wanted to say, and someone told me afterwards it says it somewhere. Maybe I saw it. But the Gemara says in Yoma 29b, hirhur aveira kasha me'aveira. So, what I suggest, hirhur aveira kasha me'aveira, the thoughts of sin are worse than sin, it means the thoughts after you sin, not before you sin. The thoughts after you sin are more difficult. They cause much more damage than the sin. The reason why people are torn apart today is not cuz they saw things they shouldn't say. It's because afterwards they felt like pieces of garbage and it caused them to fall apart. I tell my bachrum, you looked at something you shouldn't look at, do me a favor, learn for 5 minutes afterwards. Right afterwards, learn for 5 minutes. One word of Torah is 613 mitzvahs. You'll get thousands and thousands of mitzvahs, more mitzvahs than you got aveiras. Of course, it doesn't cancel out. You have to do chuvah, but at the end of the day you want to show Hashem you messed up. Now I want to do something good. If people would do this, I think ultimately they would get clean, too. Because I'm going to learn now I messed up. I'm going to go to shul the next day. I'm going to learn. And eventually, I will push it out. It ties back, I'm sorry, but to me like so much of Yiddishkeit comes down to kavod. The person watching what he shouldn't look at, it destroys his self-kavod. And it shouldn't. Okay, we can feel bad. We can regret it, and that helps us maybe not do it again. But at the end of the day, I'm still a Yid. Hashem still cares about me. Hashem still wants me to learn. Hashem still wants my davening. My kavod has to stay strong. My self-kavod has to stay strong. Most people, unfortunately, if they're not told this, and sometimes told the opposite, if you look at this, you're this, you da da da, it's funny. No one ever says about lashon hara that if you say lashon hara, you're a bum, you're a rasha, you can't daven. And the Chofetz Chaim talks about it, but we we don't give those shmuessen. Why don't we give those shmuessen? Because, well, I know I say lashon hara. I I know bachurim struggle with it. I don't get them depressed. And all of a sudden comes the shmiras einayim, boom. Full court press, boom. Let's beat them up. No one says about bitul Torah even, cuz you don't want to get guys to like lose their mind. You got to be careful about the Torah, which again, you know, it's scary, but the mitzvah of shmiras einayim, it's it's a word much chamira there. So, we don't say talk that way, cuz we don't want to get people depressed. And all of a sudden, we think it's okay to tell bachurim that if they looked at something, people they looked at something, like that's it. The end. You messed up. It's not as bad as lashon hara. You messed up. Messed up? So, now pick up a sefer, learn for 5 minutes. Get up 5 minutes earlier to shachris tomorrow. If people would do this, I believe they would get themselves out of the mess. Part of the mess is the depression. Is the giving up. It is the des- despondency. There are such a theory such a thing of addiction. But I want to tell you, you know, and where you define addiction, don't define addiction, it's complicated, but oh, so much mental health problems and so much addiction comes from one word. To me, it's the magic word. What's the magic word? Kavod. Kavod. Kavod. Just that people should feel good about themselves. We should feel good. We're Yidden. We're precious. And by the way, it keeps the person humble cuz it's not I'm only I'm precious. Reb Pello, you're precious. The ninth grader in your mesifta and curious 4 years younger than you, he's precious. The three-year-old is precious. A Yid is precious. This is what we need to give over. The one message, you know, you know, if this is what we end with, we don't have to end. The message I want to give over is this is what we need to go the If you want to talk about one area that we need to get going in class some more and more and more, is every Yid is precious. Every Yid's valuable. Every Yid's important. That's it. If we feel good about ourselves, we also stop looking at these things and doing these things because I feel too good to be involved with that. Excellent. So, just as a final takeaway message, what would you say to the thousands and thousands of young men and women out there starting their lives, whether recently married or they've been married for 5 years, who want to stay on fire as Yidden? What message would you say to it retain their cover, to put to the forefront their unfathomable preciousness, and instead of living a life after 120 looking back and saying, "I just chased Na'arishkeit my whole life." Really, really focusing on the fire of Yiddishkeit as opposed to the Na'arishkeit of the rest of the world. What parting message would you say to help them, enable them to live a life where they're on fire? So, my my thought would be I'll start like this. I was recently at some type of panel by the Agudah convention. Don't worry, it was in a side room, a small thing. But okay, still was still was a covered. And talk about another type of this, real covered and fake covered. That was a fake covered. Although, it was a real covered that somebody asked me. But after that, it's fake, right? Right? Anyways, you know what I'm saying. Someone is married asked you to be mesader kiddushin to get a bracha, the one that asked you gave you the kavod. Everything after that is is a show. Okay. But anyways, so they asked me this question, how do The question was, how do you deal with technology? How do you deal with with with social media and everything like that? And I said that a person who doesn't have is not busy, person's not busy with good things, is going to end up being busy probably with narishkeit. You can't tell a person get off social media, get rid of your smartphone, get rid of rid of these things, and then have a void with nothing to do. Unfortunately today, people have a lot of anxiety, so then they nothing to do, they're anxious. But you can't leave people with voids, you know? This fir now we just we just said, you know, la is asur levalkan einecha. Don't get distracted with all the other things. Remantisku. In order they should remember, in order they should be focused on doing the mitzvahs. So I would tell people to get busy. We need to be busy. I started my own learning project recently. It's mamesh changed my life the last, you know, year or so. We need to be busy. We need to be busy. So we have to get busy with things. We have to be busy with with women, busy with chesed. Find shiurim. Different people may talk to us, you know, find shiurim that we like, find sefarim that we like, find chesed projects that interest us. We need to be busy with good things. Men busy with learning. We need to be busy with good things. If we're not busy with good things, if we're not busy with good things, then I think it's inevitable, as Chazal tell us, we're going to end up with sin. We're going to end up not feeling good about ourselves. Again, we should recognize who we are, despite everything we've done wrong in the past. I just shared with my bachurim an incredible Gemara that it was Rav Adda bar who killed millions and millions of people. It's hard to say it over but it's a Gamara and again in the Zion and base he became a Garrett Sadech. How he was accepted I don't know but he became a Garrett Sadech he became a Yid and I think it was a Godless on the Zion's part he should have said I killed millions of people it's over. Kill yourself you can't it's forbidden. Okay so lock yourself in a room. He can't he became a Yid. He didn't say I killed millions of people so my life is over. We cannot take away the past certainly most of us didn't murder anybody. We can't take away the past especially we hurt hurt people. We can do chuva and Hashem has a lot of compassion but there's the whole present and future but we need to be busy we need to be busy with doing good things. Thank you very much Rabbi Kesselman for coming on and joining. Thank you. It was a lot of fun.