Our Vulnerable, Authentic Journey to Freedom: Rabbi YY Interviewed on Inside Out Podcast

the yeshiva.net. >> So, we'll jump right in. Rep. Yobson, it's an honor and a pleasure to have you back here with us on the platform. We have so many questions for you and we when as we were narrowing down our options because we we don't want to keep you here for many hours, which we could certainly do if you know um if we could, but >> I think our we are going to keep you here as long as we can. Thank you. How long is your podcast going on for? >> Um, we've been doing it now for over 5 years. Has it been eat 2020? We started in 2020. >> 2020. >> Yeah. Okay. Amazing. >> Six years now. Yeah. Thank God. Thank God. >> The first week of CO. >> Wow. Wow. >> Yeah. But it's grown a lot since we interviewed you last. Thank God. Okay. >> Hashem has blessed. >> Amazing. Thank you for the honor and the privilege. So our we usually when we start preparing questions we we discuss what we want our listeners to walk away with. I think for this episode what we would love for our listeners to take away is is just to have a a sense of freedom of inner freedom that maybe doesn't necessarily come from changing the circumstances but really changing how they see the world. Um like we don't see the world as it is we see the world as we are. There's that quote. So sort of just to be able to change our lens and you pes all about freedom and I don't think there's anyone who would say I don't want to experience inner freedom or maybe very few people if there were but I was actually was walking on the boardwalk this morning in Miami and I started to pay attention to people's demeanor like what they look like. Did they look happy? Did they look free? And obviously looks are very limiting. you can't really see what's going on in a person's mind, but I noticed that most people were not smiling. And granted, this was Miami, Florida, beautiful weather, right on the ocean, on the beach, like couldn't ask for a better morning in terms of like how beautiful it was externally. And I didn't I maybe saw one person who was smiling and who had a swing in their step. The rest of them were just sort of walking like kind of trekking through, maybe getting their morning workout done. And I think it's the same if you really observe and look around. You don't see so many people who look like they're experiencing that sense of inner freedom. So from your perspective, you know, this is PESU, it's the festival, a season of freedom. Why do you think that so many people don't experience it? And also, what do you think true freedom looks like? Where does it even begin? >> Wow. >> Gigantic redundant questions right into it. Okay. So, you know, this is obviously a biggie. It's maybe, you know, one of the biggest questions in life and one of the great searches and profound searches for so many of us, especially this time of the year. But I think it would be fair to say that freedom takes a lot of work. Uh, happiness takes a lot of work. It requires deep, deep emotional, spiritual, psychological, self-awareness. a lot of work, a lot of discipline, and a lot of surrender. So, in many ways, it's easier not to be free. I know it's going to sound a little weird. In many ways, it's easier not to be happy. Which means to be able to experience even a little bit of freedom, we have to make some very profound choices. The only way way I can make choices if is if I'm not stuck in my survival template. If I'm not just reacting to life in many ways, if I am just a machine reacting to stimuli, life is more predictable and it's easier. I don't have to make choices. My wife tells me something, I get triggered. Okay, I say something, she gets triggered. My kids say something, I get triggered again. It's almost like consistent. It's predictable. Everybody has their coping mechanisms, their survival template, their ways how they react to the world around them and to their own inner world. and we just move with that. That is actually easy even though ultimately it's torturous and it's painful. The real idea of freedom requires so much deep work. Now it's worth every moment of it because it's transformative but the work that is required is for a person to first be able to be able to watch what is happening inside. I have to be able to see the exile I'm living in. I cannot leave Egypt if I have not entered into Egypt. So I have to be able to see what does my Egypt quote unquote look like? What does my exile look like? Where are the triggers? Where are my blockages? Where are my blind spots? Where are my wounds that I am just reacting to instinctively because that's what I always did. Can I really observe it? Can I be conscious of my consciousness? Can I be conscious of my reactions, of my thoughts, of my emotions? Now we have to say the truth. It's not easy to do this because there are such powerful emotions and they threaten to sweep me away and take me away down a huge current and there's a tsunami and there's an undercurrent. So it's like who has time for you now to sit and observe your emotions. I just become my emotion. I just become my trigger and I'm just completely subsumed or consumed in it. So this takes a lot of re a lot of real inner work but it is divine work. This is the divine work because it's this moment where I can begin to differentiate between different forces inside of me, different parts inside of me, different voices inside of me. And you know what else? I can start making choices. One of the most u I would say one of the most profoundic insights on the exodus of Egypt comes from a student of the Baltov and of the mag of Misri who is known as Rabim of Chernobyl. He was one of the great great masters. He has a book called a work called the light of the eyes. And he says something simply when I saw it the first time a few years ago I was like whoa. He asks the famous question God keeps on telling Moses I will make Pharaoh's heart stubborn and I will make sure that he does not let you go free. I will cause him to remain abstinate and defiant again and again and again. I will make sure that he doesn't let you go. So everybody asked the question, so why are you punishing him? Why are you punishing him? You're the one who made him stubborn. You're the one who made him defined. And you say, "And by the way, now I'm going to give you 10 plagues and I'm going to crush you and destroy you and drown you." This is not fear. Great question. And of Chernobyl says something significant. He was saying, "No, God was explaining to Moses, what is the incentive of people to go out of their exiles?" Why? It's familiar. It's predictable. At least I know what's coming. What is the motivation? And he said, look at Pharaoh. Pharaoh is the king of Egypt. He's the most powerful and successful person here. But he does not know what it means to live with choice. He is reacting. He's basically describing what it means. The first step of freedom is the very ability to make choices. The very ability to make choices can only come if I'm not reacting anymore. I'm actually living and in touch with a deep eye that can observe everything that's happening and yet not be consumed with everything that's happening. And then from there I can begin to choose which posture I want to hold on to, what behaviors I want to embrace, where I will allow my mind to dwell and wallow and go into, what type of words will be coming out of my mouth, what type of relationships I'm going to build, how I'm going to respond to my spouse, to my children, to my grandchildren, to my brother-in-law, to my parents, to my siblings, to anybody I'm dealing with. That is where the beginning of redemption happens. And because there is pain in that because I have to be able to see all the parts, it's sometimes much easier to avoid it. So what it means to be the king of Egypt, God says, is he actually doesn't have choices. How many of us really live in a life where how many choices do I really have? This is reality and I'm just doing the best I can to survive. And the truth is so many of us maybe all of us we are trying so hard everybody is trying so hard to do the right thing and to be good and to be here for our loved ones and also to be happy and to be free and to do God's will and to make a beautiful pes and yet so often people are falling apart and even successful people and affluent people who are not struggling with putting bread on the table thank God but there's something internal that is causing so much distress and anxiety of people. And by the way, PES highlights it more than any other PES highlights it more than any other time of the year because it's supposed to be the time of our liberation. And it's only with very very deep inner emotional work and a lot of surrender that we can even begin the journey to discover a part of us that gives us a little bit of a taste of freedom. >> What would you say that first step is to to recognize that? Would you say you have to first I guess experience the shame of recognizing your flaws? >> Yeah, I I don't say we I don't think we need to experience the shame. I think often it comes with a lot a lot of shame. It comes with a lot of shame. We we observe how much shame there is in us to to my mistakes and my flaws and the way I react and the way I respond. And then we have shame for our emotions and my experiences and why can't I be present and why am I not openhearted and why am I not loving and why do I want everybody to leave leave me alone? I just want to get under my blanket. Shame is part of a coping mechanism. It's a very very powerful tool that the Jewish people have been using for thousands of years. We shame ourselves. That's the first one. And we shame the people around us because we s often believe that this is the best way to whip ourselves into shape. Shame is a very powerful factor. In fact, it's the first emotion that the Torah explores. The first emotion that the Torah explores is the emotion of shame. It's fascinating. Adam and Eve, Adam and Kava, experience shame right after they eat from the tree. And therefore, they go into hiding. And the first question God asks of the first human being is, "Where are you? Why do you think you have to hide from me?" And he says, "Cuz I'm ashamed." And he says, "Ah, you ate from that tree." Okay, here we go. self-consciousness, ego, trauma, therapy, shame, shame, shame. So shame has become an extraordinary coping mechanism which we often camouflage as religion and fear of God and doing the right thing and morality. But shame is very very often horribly destructive. We could feel it in ourselves. Shame paralyzes us. Shame closes our hearts. There's a difference between shame, healthy shame. Healthy shame is awe, reverence in the presence of greatness. There's almost a sense that any form of ego takes away from the truth of the experience. That's a holy form of shame. It's called yas bo in in spiritual literature. It's an awe. It's a reverence. It's like you're mesmerized by the grander of infinity and love. and you ask yourself, "What gave me the privilege to be here at this moment?" That's powerful. But the shame that so many of us experience is a shame that literally keeps us stuck in an endless loop of mental chatter finding every single flaw with us. So we have to be very aware of these things. Now I can't obliterate it. We have a lot a lot of shame. It comes as a coping mechanism of many many years. But the more we can observe it and watch it and not get entangled and enshed, the more we can begin to untangle, the more we can begin to disengage, the more we can begin to make choices. Where am I going to dwell? You know, one of the most powerful ideas in Tanya, which thank goodness in recent months and years has become more and more popular. Uh when I was growing up, much less people were learning it. And in the next few decades, I think it's going to become uh the mainstream uh psychology uh for anybody who really wants to heal. But but but the beauty the power of the alterba the author of the Tanya um does your crowd know who the alterba is? >> We've we've spoken about the alterba alterb is the founder of the rabbi of leyadi and he wrote this magnum opus called tanya in the late 1700s. He passed away 1812 and his name is Rabbi Schneman of Leyadi. And one of the main ideas of the Tanya is that the hero you know God's hero in this world known as the benon is not the person who does not experience any trigger and any emotion of shame or guilt or hate or negativity or jealousy or competitiveness or resentment and anxiety and depression and laziness and any any other stuff we deal with. There are such people. They're called sadikim. But that's not that's not the goal of most people. The goal is though to be able to have very very clear awareness of where things are coming from. The different parts that exist in us and operate in us as he puts it. Is it coming from my animal consciousness that's always in survival or is it coming from my divine consciousness which is always infinite and fully confident and joyous and just channeling God's infinite energy. The moment I could start making these distinctions, the moment I could say, "Wow, this is coming from here. is coming from here. Now I can actually choose what will my thoughts, words and behaviors express. Which part of me will they express? Will they express my divine inner desire for absolute connection with my spouse, with my children, with my loved ones, with the world, with God? Or will my words or actions or thoughts express the fears and the anxiety and the shame of my animal soul who's trying to survive in a very dangerous world? and therefore tells me react this way, go into these emotions, go into this anger loop, go into this rage loop because that will help you survive. But I could start making these choices without shaming and guilting myself for the fact that God gave me an animal soul. That's the key. God gave me and you and all of us an animal soul that goes into survival. There's no need to guilt and shame. >> On the contrary, it's a beautiful gift, >> right? But sometimes if you don't go through that process of feeling the shame, there could be arrogance cuz you've separated. You were like, well, I have an animal soul and um so I've done this, this, and this and so I'm going to move on, you know, and then you haven't gone through that process of feeling shameful and and then that that could lead to more humility. Well, anybody who's genuinely doing this type of work will experience the fears and the shames of the animal consciousness very very acutely and that always humbles us. I mean, if I'm really doing the work, arrogance becomes one of the most powerful coping mechanisms. The animal soul uses arrogance, judgmentalism, hierarchy in order to be able to survive. And if I'm better than most people, again, it locks me into a stuck confined posture in which I'm not really open. Arrogance is a defense mechanism. It's a very, very powerful tool. Very powerful tool. Just like shame, just like anxiety, just like guilt, just like negative emotions of anger or rage. Arrogance is one of the big ones and sometimes very sophisticated. You know, look how much work I have done. Look how wise I am. I'm better than other people. Look at my this one. Look at that one. Look at that one. And really what it's doing is it's simply keeping me stuck in a very torturous, very torturous exile. We could even feel it vividly because when we're in that state of arrogance, we're simply trying to protect ourselves from openhearted relationships. We cannot be in a real relationship with God. Because in the presence of God, everybody is equal. Everybody is a manifestation of the infinite light. Everybody differently. I may have my resources and talents and gifts that God wants to shine through me, but I don't own it. Trust me, I don't own any of it. I don't own the oxygen that I am inhaling right now in order to be able to survive and speak to you. So, it's just a gift. So, when we can let go of that, we become so much more open. But there is a fear in letting go. Arrogance keeps me safe in a fake way. It's fake news, but it keeps me it keeps me small, safe, and in control. letting go of that is a very very important component. So this is this is such beautiful and ongoing daily work that anybody who's involved in it, it's very hard to become arrogant if you're genuine because there's always layers to work through and the what the Tanya calls the kipa, the coverups, the masks, the shells are so so prevalent and can so creep in into the holiest experiences that it's really work that makes one very humble and also very grateful. Before we continue, we want to take a moment to quickly share something that caught our attention. When was the last time life actually felt spacious? Not rushed, not reactive, just grounded. Mountain View by Sheffer Living is a master planned from community in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Created for families looking for more. More space, more connection, more room to build the kind of life many families have been hoping for. >> Imagine mornings where your kids can run outside safely. Carpool is 5 minutes. Shabas actually feels like Shabas again and you know your neighbors and they know you. The community includes a beautiful shaw, a mikvah, a woman's wellness center and a K12 yeshiva focused on nurturing the whole child through joyful Torah living. Homes start around $549,000. And with North Carolina's low taxes and cost of living, many families are discovering they can trade pressure for peace without giving up the things that matter most. So, if you've been wondering whether there might be another way to live, this may be it. >> You can learn more at www.chealiving.com. Check them out. >> Right. Well, that that's what I was saying about the shame that actually meditating on the shamefulness allows for humility instead of arrogance. That's what I was just saying like you were saying shame could be dangerous or not a good thing. You were saying the the holy way >> the holiness of shame is being in awe of Hashem that how how did I come to be so privileged to >> to have this experience but then isn't there a shame that's good in >> acknowledging the flaws that I have >> very good so I think acknowledging the flaws is critical critical always acknowledging my humanness my vulnerability my frailty the fact that I make mistakes the fact that I fall, I stumble and I sometimes have a very weak moment. And even internally, the fact that even if nobody sees it, I'm struggling with something that may be very very lowly, maybe very brute, maybe very base, maybe very promiscuous. And to be able to acknowledge that with a lot of humility, I think that is extremely extremely important. What I think we have to be careful of is when shame begins to write the narrative. When shame begins to be the narrator of my life, that's what often happens. The shame inside of me is the one who's doing all the narration. It's even telling me what to do, when to do, how to do, why to do. And it's a great motivator. And what often happens is I am completely vict I'm I'm completely hijacked by my shame. My shame is literally controlling me and dictating me and it can almost feel like holy and religious because it's keeping me in shape. It's keeping me in the shape. When shame becomes the narrator, the primary narrator of my brain which is a component of my animal survival template and coping mechanism trying to keep me safe. I often can lose touch to my to my grander, to my beauty, to my divinity, and to the full power of my soul. And I can never really feel my love. It's it it really blocks my love because shame eclipses. It covers up our creativity, our our ecstasy, our energy. That's what it wants to do. It wants to keep me very, very small. It doesn't trust me. It doesn't trust me. It wants to keep me very very small, very very uptight and that's what it does. So that's I think we we all need to make a very important distinction and if it is controlling my life so much I need to be able to acknowledge that and just the fact that I can acknowledge that is the beginning of a journey outward out of it. >> Yeah. The acknowledgement is so important because in a place of shame and constriction and um like struggle it's very hard to access the divinity especially when someone's in in a loop. It's very hard. It just it takes us over. >> I mean, I know for myself, it just takes us over and we're not not in the mood of anything. Like, uh, you know, I don't want to eat. I don't want to sleep. I I It's just like we become the And it's like so blah and and there's so much criticism there. >> I I personally happen to suffer from this. So, I'm I I know I'm not talking in an extract way. I I deal with this. I I have I've discovered later on in life that for whatever reason somewhere in my DNA there's like an embedded a code of like be ashamed with yourself. I don't have any other way of putting it. It's almost like in such a deep place there is a shame embedded in my existence. Not because I did anything wrong which means I could never do anything right because if it's shame because I lied or I cheated or I deceived okay I could repent. But if it's shame because of my existence can I ever do anything right? No, which which by the way also lead me led me to be productive in some ways very productive in some ways you know shame is an unbelievable motivator it actually can have great advantages but I didn't know how deep it is and it's really really something I and I think many of us need to confront because this is what happens after they eat from the tree the moment they eat from the tree of ego and self-consciousness they experience the deepest shame in the world and Really? It's not Adam and Eve's. It it it's now it's there once they ate from the tree. That shame is there. And God says, "Wow, you you are really embarrassed for me." H you think this relationship you think I really don't like you anymore. That's what it is. And because they started to experience their detachment from God and the soul is so so so ashamed. So it's actually rooted in a very sacred and a very very holy place. Very often it's rooted in a very very sacred and holy place. The maral of Prague says that shame is the deepest emotion that motivates people more than the moral of Prague. He lived in the 1500s. You know the Talmud says the whole second temple was destroyed because of shame. Somebody was shamed. It's not you know the whole story with Kamsa Baramsa and the Talmud. It's crazy. It's crazy insight. But the point here is that our temples are destroyed because of our shame. Donald Trump is president of United States of America partially because he was shamed in public by a previous president and he said when I was shamed in public I said I'm going to show you all that I will be the president. Imagine one president shamed this man and all part of God's plan. But I think in all of our lives, shame is such a it's such a powerful powerful force. Converting the shame that destroys into shame that expands, which is the awe and reverence of having the privilege of channeling truth and authenticity every moment of life. But I do have to say this is a lot of work. It's work. There's pain in this work. You know why? because there's grief in saying goodbye to all the parts of us that have helped us survive. >> I think also what you what you mentioned is so is so profound and important that we can experience shame regardless of what's happening around us like not necessarily from having done anything or something that we regret. Just shame is sort of like a a way that we sometimes feel just by virtue of existing. >> You nailed it. It's it's a way of showing up to the world. It's almost guilty till proven innocent. Guilty till proven innocent. Shameful till proven that you're not shameful. And here is the vignette. You could never prove that you're not deserving of of shame and therefore it's just consistent and it could be so unconscious. It could be so unconscious. And then when we read the Torah and we say, "Oh, God is now also angry at me." So now we have justification to feeling so horrible about ourselves. And it's >> right. It's almost like easier if someone did something and they feel shame about it because they have the clarity that I did this, I feel shame about that and I know what I need to work on in order to get rid of the shame. But if we just feel it, which I could totally relate to that just feel the existential feeling of >> Yeah. >> just but then what what are we there's not a lot of clarity about what it is that we're feeling shame about. So it's like okay, where am I going here? >> Yeah. >> It's like a lot of confusion around that. It's a very very deep question and the beginning of healing is to identify it to be able actually to look at it and to be able to have compassion towards a self that was developed based on that shame. All of the instincts the fears the anxiety social anxiety uh human anxiety in relationships not even conscious. It could all be unconscious. But what a mess. What an emotional mess has been created in my psyche and in my instincts. All trying to avoid this feeling of shame. You know, thinking maybe if people will like me and I'll accomplish great things and I'll get validation from this one and from that one from my family or from friends or from the world and and but it's like a bottomless. It's like a literally a bottomless pit. It's like a cup that has a hole and you're f you're filling it with water but nothing nothing can stick. So this is really where this is very emotional work where we really have to be able to confront the deepest deepest form of our shame, the deepest reality of our shame. And I think deep deep down the shame is coming from Adam and Eve's shame. We're feeling I never said this before but it just dawned on me. We're feeling the shame of Adam and Kava in the garden. We're feeling it. >> Intergenerational transmission. >> Well, we we are all we are all the genetic uh genetic embodiment of Adam. I mean, it took a couple of years. 5,786 years. But, you know, in the presence of eternity, that's nothing. It's just a little blimp. >> You know, a thousand years is like one day. So, it was just a few days ago that Adam and Kava had this shame. But I think it's so it's so visceral. It's so real. And our gift to confront it is healing the tree of knowledge. It's healing it. It's dealing with it. Because we cannot go back to the pre-tree consciousness. I cannot just take off my clothes and walk around without clothes and expect everybody to say, "Oh, Rabbi Y, it's nice to see your authenticity." It's not really going to work. So, we live in a world of clothes. We live in a world of masks. We live in a world of of so many cover-ups, psychological and emotional and spiritual and social. And yet to be able to realign ourselves because before they ate from the tree, there was no shame because they knew that they're just channels of God's oneness. There was not even a self-consciousness like I'm just grateful to be alive and to channel your oneness. After that, I suddenly feel detached and that's the shame. That's why very spiritual people will have more shame than other people. Not because they're worse. They're not criminals. They're good people. But because they feel the pain of the detachment more and they're like this is so shameful. You know why? Because the greatest shame in the world and Rifka if I may say is the shame that I feel detached from my creator. There is no shame that is deeper than that. There's no shame that is more acute than that because really we are so connected. We are so one. Really there's no separation. Separation is a lie. And the fact that I'm experiencing it in such a deep way is such a source of shame. And that's why I hate myself in such a deep way. What is this evil inside of me? What is this horror inside of me? And the way to heal it is by giving that itself over to God and by realizing that I'm not separate even in my shame. I'm completely completely connected. And this is my role to be able to reveal the oneness inside of my identity to be able to choose to surrender this moment of shame and bring it back to the source. It's a very very emotional process. Very emotional process. Is that the the redemption? That part is the we're meant to feel every day. We're meant to see ourselves as leaving Egypt. Is that the redemption aspect? >> Yeah. Redemptive consciousness. The redemptive consciousness. In Tanya chapter 47, the alterba says, I want I I I'll tell you a little story because I want I want to really people to understand what I'm going to say. I had a moment. I had an epiphany in my own life. This is a very vulnerable experience I had and it brought me so much clarity. There was a moment in my life where I was telling somebody I was I was doing deep spiritual work with and I told this person it just came to me. I don't know how it came to me. I guess it was a gift. I said at the core of my existence and at the core of my consciousness I feel that this is Hitler's world. It's not God's world. That's what I'm feeling. And I am terrified from it. I am terrified from this world because I grew up always dreaming about the Holocaust. Always. I had nightmares about the Holocaust that were as vivid >> as as the mic in front of me. Huh? >> All of us. I have also Okay. Welcome to the Welcome to the Jewish Club. Holocaust dreamers. Holocaust dreamers. Nightmares. I would wake up. Oh my god. There were Nazis everywhere. I I'm not going to get into it, but like when I realized that this was a dream, I was like, "Wow." I was like so grateful that I'm not in awitz or I'm not in one of those forests where there anyway, it was very very hard. I grew up now I the truth is I read a lot of Holocaust literature. I read a lot of it. I watched so many documentaries, testimonies. I would almost like eat up every story. I still could not believe that it happened. like 70 years later, I still didn't believe it was I I I still didn't believe it happened. I had to be proven that it was that it happened by reading another testimony. I'm like, you know what? IT ACTUALLY HAPPENED. IT actually happened. Anyway, so what am I saying? Oh, so at this point, I told this person that I have to say the truth. I feel that at the core of the world is Hitler. Like he's really running the world, not God, not Hashem. And I'm terrified. I'm terrified. And this person, thank God, they knew they knew Tanya very well. And I know Tanya very well because I've spent my life teaching Tanya and learning Tanya. And the person told me the alterba writes in Tanya chapter 47 that the way to get out of our exile is by saying and experiencing God's oneness. But alterba says there it's a choice every day to either embrace that God is one and start experiencing the world as his or not. So make that choice right now. What do you want? Which world do you want to live in because you could choose both. There's evidence for both. You can choose both. You're going to have to choose it. And I remember that said I remember that alterba said it's a choice every day. It's a choice. And like I know the choice I want to make. I don't want to live in Hitler's world. I want to live in God's world. I want to live in a world where I feel I can feel that everything is really God. I am God. You are God. We are God. Even though there's a lot I don't understand and this crazy chaos, but I could surrender that also to God. And it was a life-changing moment for me. I still have to work on it every day. I didn't go like this and it went away. But I knew what I have to work on. That is redemption. Redemption is when you can feel in your body. I said the other day in a class we were teaching before I was teaching aidic discourse of and I told the crowd I was explaining something he said. I said this P this Passover if you have five minutes of an embodied experience of the frequency of God's oneness in your nervous system that will trump 53 years of knowledge. 53 years of knowledge which I had I learned a lot in my life but I didn't know what experiences it was all detached or a lot of it was detached I can't say all and I realized five minutes of experiencing in my bones right here in my nervous system in my heart what is God's oneness experiencing it what is Hashem's oneness it's more powerful than 53 years of knowledge knowledge is good it's amazing it's a map it's a blueprint it's inspirational I like it that's what they deal with, but it doesn't come close to the experience of it. That's what redemption is. Redemption is not an idea. Redemption is not theory. Redemption is not ritual. Redemption is not tradition. Those are all good stuff. I'm pro rit well and protradition. I do it all. But that's not redemption. That's trying so hard to continue the stress. Redemption is an embodied experience of God's oneness which pervades every bone in my body, every cell in my organism, every neuron in my brain and every jinum in my makeup and that's a different experience. And over there there is so much love, there's so much humility, there's so much gratitude and there's no ego. And the moment I feel that in my heart, I know that I can't replace that with anything else. Food, women, alcohol, computers, money, fame, validation, affluence, beautiful toys, power, attention. It doesn't come close. I like food. I like attention. My animal soul has its broken thing brokenness. Yeah, I like things that are sometimes not very healthy. But the moment you feel that, you can't replace it with anything. Like there's nothing that's even a close second, you know? There's no there's no close second because everything else is fake. Everything else is just fake um imitations. It's literally imitations that are not real. That's not real. There's only one source of real energy and that's the energy of real divine love. There's no other source. And and if you experience that for 60 seconds, it's an experience of eternity. Like it says in Tanya that when you connect to Hashem even for a minute, it's an eternal connection because God is beyond time. So when you experience that redemption for one minute because the next minute already we're distracted, it's an eternal moment and it's a reference point forever. Now even if everybody around me is triggering me, I have a reference point of where I can be. That reference point, that's what it means to have a a Moses inside of you. You know how we talk about Moshe inside of us? we want to go back to Egypt. And Mosha says, "No, who is Misha?" Mosha is the reference point of redemptive consciousness. It's called Das in Tanya chapter 42. He says the Mosha inside of us is the Das. It's the reference point we're capable of having of what redemption feels like. >> So even if you're seeing a fractured world and predisposed to believing that, you know, Hitler is running the world and all of those things that people experience like the negativity of the world. If we can access the divine consciousness by acting the way we would if we were in a divine world, are you saying like is that is that the way to access that state? Like to sort of be the change like to to to do the things that someone who was fully connected to Hashem and in that divine state would do like is that would you say that would be a >> I I don't think that's what initiates it. I think that would be a natural consequence. I think that would be the consequence. I think the the the process requires for a person to really really be able to sit with themselves, to sit with all their pain, to sit with all their shame, as you said, Rifka, to sit with all the moving parts, to be able to sit with it and and gently accept it and with compassion and love and also start tuning in to the deeper frequency of the soul, the divine soul, which is channeling God's oneness. It has antennas that pick up the godly love that's present in our consciousness every single moment. But for this, I have to be disciplined. Meaning, if my animal soul is running the show, if I eat whatever it wants me to eat, if I don't exercise and discipline my body, if I'm just following conversations and clips and my phone and anything, if I'm just reacting to life, my antennas become more and more blocked. So we need to be able to learn exercises and schedules and methods to be able to tune into that deeper pure essence which knows in certainty that God is one and that there is goodness at the core and the more I can experience that flow I can also see the other parts but I can start differentiating between the two and then there is the process of surrender. Surrender is very very important because there is so much pain in the world and there is so much cruelty. Right? If you're watching the war of Israel against Iran and a missile comes and kills three children in a family, the Beton family in Bamesh lost three children. Now I could start thinking Pes there's going to be a mother and a father and a daughter who survived and three children will be missing from the seder table. Won't say the manishana in this world, right? Like it's so so who has answers for this? Nobody. You got to be out of your mind to think you have answers for this. There's so much of that. We spoke about the Holocaust, right? A million and a half children. A million and a half children. The story of the Beton family. It wasn't one family that lost three children. It was so many families. Not only three children, 11 children, nine children, and another hundred cousins and uncles and aunts. So this is where surrender is the only way forward. It's almost like I say to myself, I don't understand the sun. I look at the sun. I enjoy the sun. I'm thankful for for the energy that God sends through the sun for the vitamin for the vitamin D and for the warmth and for you're in Florida and you had the privilege of going to the water. I'm in New York, but we still have an amazing beautiful sunny day today and I'm thankful for it. But I don't even understand anything about the sun. We don't even understand the secret of a cell of an atom. So do I think for a moment I can even begin to comprehend the one who created the sun, the one who created the universe? It's it's completely beyond logic that we can have any understanding. And you know what? I'm fine with that. I I am I'm terribly pained by the pain that I or others experience. But I'm fine with the fact that I could surrender that I am not God. It's actually refreshing for me. I'm going to say something a little funny. Maybe for me it's such a liberating experience that I don't have to be God. I used to think I have to be God. Every time we think we need to control our kids, our wife, our husband, our family, our friends, our world, my work, every time it's really me thinking that Y Jacobson has the responsibility of being God. And you know what? I'm done. let God be God. And then I realized God doesn't even want me to be God. He hasn't given me the credentials. He hasn't given me the training. He hasn't given me the knowledge. If I can figure out the few little things I have to do today, I am grateful. So it's like it's such a refreshing moment because the more we surrender to God, the more we can exercise the power that God has given to us. The more I'm busy playing God, the less I can actually do what I'm capable of doing in this world. It's like taking on somebody else's role, which I can't even. So all day I'm choking and frustrated and hating myself. I'm taking responsibility for this result and that. Relax. Relax. It's God's world. It's not my world. But you know what? He put me here for a mission. So why can't I just focus on my mission? It's a very liberating moment. And it's not easy. It's not easy because I have the perfectionist bug and uh I need to get things done and I want to see change and I want to see transformation and I want it all within the next 3 seconds. So it's hard. Surrender is is is is bliss. When it's done again surrender could be unhealthy like everything, right? I could surrender to abuse and I could surrender to tox to toxicity and I could surrender to stupidity. That's not surrender. That's fear. That's shame. That's not That's mediocrity. Surrender is surrender to the infinite. Not surrender to abusers. Not surrender to evil. That's not surrender. That's stupid. That's fear. We're not allowed to surrender. This is surrendering to that which we must surrender to. Because if we don't surrender to that, we actually remain paralyzed. So for someone who wants to surrender and experience the divine state um and to really get there, but they don't really know where to start for listeners who might be, you know, in their own um and be shame induced uh situation, where would you tell them to start? Like what are just some things they can start doing to move them out of the state they want to move out of into surrender, more of a surrendered state? >> I just had a thought. My first thought was they should start I I I thought three things this order. First is self-awareness and curiosity. The next time your wife or your husband say something and you're triggered, your teenage daughter says something and you're triggered, your son says something and you're really triggered, your mother-in-law, your mother, whatever it is, your neighbor, your friend, your employee says and you're triggered before lashing out at them explicitly or implicitly, imploding or exploding, depends on your fightlight model, but that you'll discuss with your local therapist. Before you go there, can you be curious? Can you go internally and say, "Wow, what just happened? What just happened?" It's not so easy. But the more I can become curious without reaching verdicts and judgments, the more I am open to growth. The Tanya speaks about being that comes from the Zor. Real wisdom is the ability to say what I don't know. I'm open. Teach me, God. Teach me. I don't know anything. I don't know, but I want to learn. I want to grow. Curiosity before I come to the conclusion you're horrible. You're sick. You're wounded. You're a mishuga. You have mental illness. You're just like your mother, grandmother, great-grandmother all the way to the snake. Be okay. We'll get to that. Okay, we'll do that all right now. Can I be curious? Wow. What just happened? The more I can be in that state of the unknown, the more potential for growth there is. Right? I told my students the other day, you can't have the egg and eat it too. If you want the chick, the egg has to crack. We begin growth by cracking open the eggs of our life. That's number one. Number two, pray. Ask Hashem to help you, to guide you, to open you up. Okay? And then number three, and here my shame is going to come in, but this just popped in. Number three, I wanted to say tell them to listen to my classes. >> That's a very >> And then the shame came in and said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. Is that really that really?" The first two I get. The third one is that the animal soul, the divine soul. And then I thought, "No, I think that the classes will help them. I think my classes will help them because that's what we learn about constantly. how people can become more self-aware and how people can really help themselves tune in find find the ability to tune in to a deeper frequency of divine oneness where we all have unbelievable reser reservoirs of of strength and energy. You know, everybody has the solution for their life. That's the that's the real that's the real truth. Everybody has it inside of them. That's what it means. You have a soul that is a piece of God. It means I cannot tell anybody what to do because you have that soul. The challenge is we need people in our lives to help us bring it out, to help us believe in it, you know, to empower us. And I think everybody needs support systems. We all need people in our lives, who we trust, who we love, who we can really talk to about this. We all need, nobody is alone. You cannot be alone and do this work. It's impossible. I mean I am grateful for for mentors, teachers, friends, my spouse, uh God bless her and and and special people in life that that help me go on my journey. It's it's without real vulnerable work and complete honesty and authenticity, nobody can get anywhere. Authenticity is the name of of redemption. And we all need support for that because it's so easy to fall apart. It's so easy to go into to blame and shame. We all need real support of people who love us but challenge us. They love us and they challenge us because they love us. And I think, and this is a big one, everybody needs a one person in the world to see them. Everybody needs at least one person in the world to see them, to see who they are in their deepest greatness. I'm not sure. I told this to my wife the other day. I am not sure there was ever a great person in history who really really was great who did not have one person to see them. I don't think it's possible because only when there's at least one person who sees me can I see myself. And by the way, I can't see my children if I have never been seen. I can't see my children. I will just see my children the in the way that I see myself as another tool and I will I will give that pressure to them even if I mean well if I have never really seen myself cuz nobody ever showed me who I am because they never saw themselves nobody showed it to them I don't think I can see anybody else in the world >> what does it mean to >> I once read I once read an account it so moved me it so moved me I still get emotional when I think about it the previous labba describes the alterb the founder of Kabad when he came to his teacher the mag of misri and the mag of misri told him that the balm my teacher told me that you're going to come to me and when you come to me I need to tell you who you are and he told him about the nature of his soul and that he's going to he has a mission from God to reveal a depth of Judaism that was not revealed till that point known as the world ofidas and and and you're going to have a lot of opposition But don't worry because this is the path of truth. And I still get emotional because he had somebody to see him. And when you have somebody to see him, even when he was arrested and persecuted and almost executed and he suffered terribly from people who misunderstood him, suffered terribly. Alterba, I could still cry for how much he such a pure soul suffered. He did not ever doubt himself. You know why? because somebody saw him. And so often people live and nobody sees them. Nobody sees who they are. And they're always doubting themselves. They're always doubting themselves. >> If someone does feel that way, Hashem is Hashem sees who they are. >> So that's the key. Hashem sees us. Hashem sees us. But I think Hashem always sees us. And Hashem is the one who saw Moshe. He told Moshe who he is. But I think at least for most of us, >> for most of us, because our souls are in bodies, we need a human being to see us. I think we need one human being to see us. >> What does it mean to be seen? Like how would you describe someone who's who feels seen? What is that? >> That's a great question. That's a great question. It's a great question because it's a very very emotionally charged and deep question. What it feels to be seeing is somebody who actually sees my divinity. They see my true greatness. Not just they see my talents or my achievements. That's all nice, but I'm not talking about that. They see your soul. They see what God sees. They see your real real energy. They can almost see how you manifest divine light in this world just by being before you achieve and before you become a mother and a wife and a great person and you have podcasts and you do whatever you do which is all amazing and beautiful and incredible. But before all of that, it's the divine light that you embody in this world and they just see it. And when they can see it, you can see it. And then there's a level of inner confidence and resilience and holiness that cannot be substituted because it's not coming from a place of ego and the need to justify. You know a lot of my work a lot of my work for many years at least partially was driven by trauma and it it it took me to productive places. I told you before I was a high achiever. I did well in many areas and I I I even was doing a lot of positive things with it. I had a positive influence, but a lot of it was driven by a wounded a wounded self, a wounded self-esteem that needed that validation and that productivity and those that feedback and so on and so forth. But when we can be seeing on the deeper frequency of what our soul really looks like, that's all over. We don't need that anymore. Like you have God's validation. Like God create like God is make creating me right now. The Band says the world is being created every moment. Like that's infinitely more than any compliment that Rabbi Wra will get for the next billion years. Any compliment that I can get. Somebody once told me even if you have videos and you have 7 billion views. Now there's no 7 billion people using YouTube. But let's say he said your videos have 7 billion views and you achieve every milestone your ego wants to achieve in the world. every milestone. Okay, this person told me a mentor of mine, he says, "You still will have not scratched the surface of your true greatness." And it's like he nailed it cuz our true greatness is a cyh our true greatness is is infinite. 7 billion views don't even scratch the surface of that. So it it's really living in a completely different frequency. That's what it mean. That's how I understand what it means to be seen. I'll tell you somebody else I see it with the labavba at least what I feel had one person to that really saw him and that was his father-in-law the previous labb he really I think he really saw him and I think it gave the rebba a gift that was incredibly profound incredibly profound beyond even what most people imagine just like the alterba had the mag of misri to see him I think any really really great souls, they need one one at least one. If you have more, amazing. But at least one person to really really see you because it changes everything. The Reb had to have so much. People don't even understand the selflessness. I watched the Reb growing up. People don't even understand what he went through. People don't understand the greatness of these souls. How they dedicate themselves to humanity, to the Jewish people. It's not it's not People don't even understand. Not because they don't want to, because it's very hard to understand this. And you need to be able to really really know that you're doing God's work, that you're really a channel for Hashem because only from there can you get that strength and that that love and that resoluteness in the face of a lot a lot of internal and external challenges. >> And the Reb was able to do that with whoever everyone who walked by dollars had that feeling of being seen. So the Reb was a able to do that if when you when for those of us that had the gift of seeing the Reba and many people feel that when they go to the oh now is they feel seen by going to the oh >> I think um I think it's a two-way street meaning somebody could see me but if I'm not ready for it I won't be able to experience it >> right needs >> so I have to be ready for it a lot of inner work It's not just somebody sees me. It's I have to be able to be open >> and authentic and vulnerable and worked through so many blockages that I'm actually fertile. And then when you put a seed into the earth, the earth can sprout. But if the earth was not plowed and it's not fertile, you could put in all the seeds into the world. So people can see us, great people can see us, we can have relationships, but if I'm not cracked open, it won't really take root. it won't really take root. So, this is really a lot of inner work. >> Don't you think they can Don't you think they can see you before you're ready? And that gives you the opportunity to be to open yourself up. >> Perhaps perhaps this this I think is a very individual question with people. It's also a question of what Hashem allows at certain moments. A real reb can only channel what Hashem wants him to channel. So the rebba like any great saddic channels what hashem wants him to channel for that generation for this particular person for this particular millu. So that's another very profound question where what does Hashem want to allow a reba or a sadic to channel at this moment at this generation and that's that's part of the creator's uh infinite plan that is above my pay grade >> right but sometimes a even a human being can see you and you don't see yourself but because you see >> it can plant seeds it can plant seeds for sure it can plant seeds there's no question there's no question that a a human being who sees you can plant seeds and they may be dormant and then wake up one day. That's very powerful. Yeah, that's true. >> So, we have to do our own I I I'm kind of as I'm talking to you, I'm thinking there's two parts and you tell me if I'm wrong or right that we have to do our part and then there's the other aspect of redemption that Hashem is there to >> bring the miracle >> of course. >> So, there us being a vessel of doing our work and then we need Hashem. It's a partnership. >> But you know, the interesting thing now is that God has expedited consciousness. In other words, he's cracking us all open. What I'm seeing is maybe my own personal experience, but I think I'm seeing it with other people is we have been trying to hold it together for so long and we were doing pretty good job. We're trying to hold it together. Hold it and hold it and hold it together. We're trying to hold it together. And we did. We did. We're here. We're all here. You know what I mean? And we just can't hold it together anymore. Cuz I I see sometimes there's people, they're very successful. They're affluent. They don't have the physical stress before Pes that their parents used to have. They don't have to clean their own house. They don't have to cook for their own seder. They don't even have to go buy matzah. Somebody else does it for them. They just have to swipe a give them a credit card number. So, in many ways, like they're blessed in ways that our grandparents didn't even imagine in terms of what they can give their children and and the types of holidays they have. And yet, I see that so many people even in this position are not holding it together anymore. They're not holding just there's such deep anxiety and pain and disappointment. And it can't just come because of physical hardships because so many people have been blessed in our generation more than in any other generation. Let's face it, even the schnoers among us are are doing are doing much better than our grandparents did. But I I think that God is expediting consciousness, bringing us closer to our own internal and cosmic redemption. And for that, we need to be cracked open. And it's a gift. It's a gift to surrender, to let go, really let go of our shame, our fears, our expectations, our ego, and just let the love flow uninhibitedly. So, I think it's a gift, but it's a painful gift because we're being cracked open. A lot of us are just being cracked open. And sometimes if you don't realize it, you know, I haven't realized it in my own life. And then in my marriage, I realized that I'm being cracked open because of challenges I was having. And then I didn't want to confess to that. And then I realized it through my children that I'm being cracked open through challenges that they were having. So God gives us these gifts, but it's all to crack us open, to bring us to bliss, to bring us to redemp redemption. So when when things are not going the way we want to, when when we see those crises in our lives, I know it's hard and and we can cry and grieve and and and pray, but really I feel it's cracking us open and it's a tremendous gift. >> And would you say that is the creassans of the the splitting of the sea? >> The splitting of the sea is the ultimate cracking open. You know, one of I told this I told this I said this in my Tuesday women's class yesterday and I find it to be I have to tell you one of the most beautiful insights I've heard in my life. It comes from the alterba and he says people think I'll put it in my own words. There was a splitting of the sea and the Jewish people walked through and they were saved and then the water came back and the Egyptians went in and they drowned because they didn't get through fast enough. And says is a much deeper interpretation to the story. It was the same experience that saved the Jews and killed their enemies. It was basically the death of the ego. When all the doors of perception are cleansed, the ego gets cracked open and you see the truth of the universe that's under the water which is God's oneness. Anoid mulvad. What happens when the ego dies? Alterba says depends who you are in life. If my life was defined by ego then when there's a ego death I'm dead. But if my life is defined by surrendered by surrendering the ego to the divine then when there's an ego death I come to life I start breathing so the same experience can be death for one and life for the other depends which frequency I'm living in when I live in the frequency of truth and surrender take away more of my ego kill everything of it I'm done with it here take it destroy ah I could breathe finally Jacobson is just a humble channel. That's it. A humble channel. I don't even have my own name. I'm just channeling the divine. Wow. What a privilege. What joy, what serenity, what tranquility. But if I'm still holding on to that, my ego, my power, my fame, my influence, keeping it together, controlling the ego death is literally it's literally death. and and the more ego death, the more painful, the more anger, the more resentment, the more I hate God, the more I hate the world, the more I hate all the people around me who are disturbing my brilliant fake paradise. I think what you shared earlier about the the steps that someone could take if they're feeling stuck or if they're feeling that, you know, like that they don't have access to the divine that divine space. I think they're so brilliant because what what what holds people back from really accomplishing and achieving the change they want is feeling that it's too big. It's too overwhelming. Where am I going to start? What am I going to do? And the two the two things specifically that you mentioned, prayer and going to the yeshiva.net, which we both Rifa and I both do already. They're they're so accessible. Anyone listening now, >> there was a third. >> The first thing I said was curiosity to what's happening internally. >> Right. Right. That's a little harder to do. >> I can't fool my nervous system. >> You know, if my son said this or my daughter said this or my wife said this and I am imploding and I'm like they are ungrateful, they are spoiled, they are rotten. Wow. No, but I'm right. Maybe you're right, but wow. You know, that curiosity, I think, is very helpful. >> It also allows you to pause for a minute instead of like, >> yeah, pause. It's all about pause. You see, you have to know when to pause. When you have to leave Egypt, don't pause. Cuz if you pause, it's going to become Don't pause. You got to know when to pause, >> right? >> When you're when you're experiencing the flow, don't pause. Jump into it. Give them the love, surrender. But when I'm experiencing the pain and the anger and the resentment, that is Egypt. Pause. Pause before you go worship it. >> Can we talk about this collectively? So this is we're discussing till now individually our own personal redemption. Then collectively is it the same thoughts and tools that we should be using for example with what's going on in is in Erit Israel right now. There are people hopefully over Pesak there will be a miracle and I want to discuss miracles with you after that. But first I just want to discuss like what would you just say to to collectively to the Jewish people that we're meant to feel this this feeling of redemption but collectively we are in pain right now. There's sirens going on. Families are dying. >> There's no question. I did two programs with Israel yesterday, a Zoom and a radio program. And in middle it was like as I'm doing this radio shot and I'm talking like sometimes every few seconds another what's called hatra another warning Jerusalem here Jerusalem it was it's it's beyond it's literally beyond I think it's very very intense times there's no question but I think the process of the individual is also true for the collected and that is the Maharal of Prague says something so beautiful I mentioned mentioned him before. He lived in the six 1500s and he says that the night of Pes is called the seder night. Seder seder means order structure. Let's face it the most chaotic disorganized night in every Jewish home is Passover night. Pes night at least in most Jewish homes, right? Like this is say that you couldn't give it to any other night. Say this is the night of order. Like please. And the moral says something so beautiful. He says, "This is the night that teaches you that in the midst of the chaos, there is a secret order. It teaches you how to realize that there's a seder in life. There's a seder in history. And not because everything is perfectly orchestrated and choreographed for our liking. It's because there's a deeper order that unfolds from all the chaos in our lives and in the world. And I think the Jewish people have held on to that for thousands of years. And we're seeing this today in Israel. It's incredible. It's a transcendent miracle. The first miracle is that Iran is being crushed. The second miracle is that with all of the ballistic missiles, each one could kill 100,000 people. Relatively, we are seeing unbelievable miracles with that which nobody should underestimate. Yeah. The third miracle is that Donald Trump and BB Netanyahu decided to take down Hitler before the Holocaust, not after the Holocaust. The fourth miracle what we're seeing is the resilience of our people. Every single citizen of Israel, every single Jew in Israel, children, women, men days before Pes. And yet I had yesterday programs with people where they wanted to know how to achieve inner liberation in bunkers, in bomb shelters, in mammads. Really? That's what you're thinking about? And I'm like, they want to know how they can achieve inner spiritual liberation. Really? There's ballistic missiles flying right now. I You can hear them sometimes in in the zooms and in the programs. It's incredible. Incredible. You're talking about a people >> that is somehow connected to a divine frequency that is beyond nature and yet we live in nature. And I think that's what collective redemption looks like. Collective red looks like when each of us tunes in to this frequency of divine oneness. Collectively it creates a frequency in our people in our land and in the whole world. >> So each of our redemptions matter >> each one of us. >> It's not just it matters. I think the basic definition of faith in God means that every one of our journeys is indispensable to cosmic redemption. Because for infinity, the size of a black hole and the size of a small person like me is the same. A grain of sand and the largest planet are exactly equal. So if nothing matters, if I don't matter cuz I'm so small, nothing matters. Nothing matters. Nothing is too big to matter. And if things do matter, then everything matters. Then every single one of us is a part of this journey. Every single one of us. >> Yeah. I think it it's a beautiful way to look at it and that each one of us matter in in an infinite way in our own in us that that can actually that thought can actually help us work on our through our challenge and feel the redemption just knowing how much >> I think everybody it's it's real stuff I heard this from the Reb countless times and he really believed it. I have to tell you growing up I heard this from him and I used to if I may say I would sometimes doubt it in my mind like do you take it so seriously he took it so seriously he really would say that everybody's individual redemptive process is indispensable to the universal redemptive process. It's not a joke and it really makes sense so to speak because if everything is one. So my thoughts and your thoughts are deeply connected to each other. And when we go into that frequency of oneness, my work reverberates throughout the entire world. Your work reverberates throughout the entire world. Even if it's not visible from the ego posture, but from the divine posture, it's all interconnected. You know, there's an ecosystem and there's a spiritual ecosystem. And we're all givers and takers in a very real way. It's like in a very this is real. This is real stuff. It's more real than what we see with our eyes. Just like atoms and cells and and and bacteria and and and and you know viruses and germs. We may not be able to see them but they are very very real, you know. So this is real. It's very real. This work is real. >> Okay. That can be number four in a tool to know that we are making a difference collectively on our own personal journey. >> Yeah. Listen, I think a lot of us have this knowledge. We learned it growing up, especially people who are steeped, you know, in Judaism and Yiddish and Torah. But I think today the challenge is to bring it from the head into the heart, >> right? >> I think that's a very big challenge today. Like somebody wrote to me yesterday, a rabbi, he wrote to me, he said, you know, sometimes you have teachers who talk to you about prayer. And he said, I had a teacher who didn't talk to me about prayer. He called me over one day and he said, "I want to pray together with you." And he said, "And he showed me what Davening looked like." And it changed his entire life. And I was like, "Wow." Literally, somebody wrote this to me yesterday in California, a young man. And he wrote to me. He says, "Many teachers, they'll tell you what to do and how important it is." is my teacher didn't. He called me over and he said, "I want to davin with you. I want to go on a journey. I want to go on a hike with you and then I'll get I'll take you on the hike and you'll see if you like it, you'll do it. And I think that's where education must be uh transformed in our own lives as parents. I'm going to either preach and tell you what to do, how to do, how important it is, or you know what? I'm going on a hike. This is an amazing hike. You want to come along? Amazing. Come along. And you know what? You'll remember it forever. you're going to come on this hike again and you'll take your children. That's experiential Judaism. I don't have to teach anything. I just need to embody it. And that is what teaching is. That's the best way of teaching. >> That's the most authentic way to be. >> It's authentic. Yeah. And remember, our kids know it anyway. My kids know exactly what I care about, what I don't care about, when I'm angry, when I'm not angry, what I'm passionate about, what I'm not passionate about. They know it anyway. They know. I always tell people, you don't have to pay a therapist. Ask your teenage kids to tell you who you are. They won't even give you an hour. They'll give you four hours as long as you're quiet for free. They will offer you unbelievable X-rays, MRIs into your subconscious. They will tell you every mishagas and insecurity you have. And it's all for free. >> So they're the they're the ones that see us. >> Children see us, but they cannot be given the responsibility. >> They cannot. We >> our children see us. That's true. That's true. But they can't be given their That's not fair. >> Yeah, >> it's not fair. >> Somebody told me, a student of myself, he's writing a book. How do you raise parents today? >> He's trying to raise parents. >> I once said in a sermon, I said, "One of the ten commandments is respect your father and mother." I said, "It means respect your fatherhood and motherhood." Respect the mother inside of you and the father inside of you. You're not 5 years old anymore. But there's a mother and father inside of you. Respect it. See it. >> That's really good one. That's >> Yeah. You don't have to be a victim and just react and respond and constantly walking around eggshells. There's a father in you. There's a mother in you. Can you see it? Respect the mother inside of you. And by the way, the more you'll do that, the more we'll also be able to respect our mothers and see how hard they work with the tools they had. Most of them really tried to do the best they can. Let's hear it for our mothers. Hey, >> and for and for the mothers in front of me. For the mothers in front of me, >> the mothers I'm talking to. >> No, >> we can also applaud the fathers who also tried very hard with the tools they had to give everything they had. So, I'm going to applaud the fathers. >> We have all those. We have the inner child. We have the inner parent. And uh >> no, people don't realize, my wife actually told this to me today. She said, "People don't realize that our parents did not have a lot of the tools and resources that people have today." Yeah, it's true. >> Even had a look at neurode divergent children. You know, when I was a kid, I was seven, eight years old. I started to pull the hair out of my head because I had crazy anxiety. I didn't Nobody called it anxiety then. And you didn't go to therapy then, but I was pulling the hair out of my head, right? Just think about the tools that people have today to even be able to have these conversations. This was a landscape that so many people were just completely unfamiliar with. So, there's a lot of pain, but there's also so much opportunity. saying it's interesting how there's so many more tools but there's so many more challenges. >> Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. It's always connected. It's always connected. >> How? Why is that? So many more tools and so many more challenges. >> Because I think the tools precede the challenges. The Talmud says, you know, as a new challenge comes up because we have to work through another layer to bring the world to redemption. He also gives us the tools to be able to confront it. Like, let's face it, today for a for a marriage to be called happy, you need to put in much more work than a lot of our parents had to put into their marriages. They went with it. They went with it. Who even thought of getting divorced? You had to be crazy. Unless your your your husband was a serial killer and and you you you know, >> they were in survival mode. They were in survival mode. >> And and and and there was also there was a so much commitment and dedication and rebuilding the Jewish world and so forth. today to have a happy marriage we need to put in much more work, so much more self-awareness, so much more confronting our wounds. So, it's a great challenge, but what a great gift. What a great gift. >> It could also be that there aren't more challenges, but we're more aware of the challenges. >> For sure. >> Yeah, >> that that that's that's true. But I also think that it's important to understand that there are also being aware of the challenges sometimes is part of the challenge. Like you know when Adam and Eve were naked but they didn't know that they were naked because it didn't mean anything. It wasn't a challenge. >> You understand what I'm saying? The awareness of something is sometimes what the reality is of it. It's not the reality of shame that is the problem. It's my feeling of shame about the reality. Sometimes with abuse, molestation, the event itself is catastrophic, but it pales in comparison to the interpretation that a child gives to the event. That's a whole different experience. When the child realizes or feels, I'm worthless. I'm worthless. I have shame at my core. That is much worse than the event itself. >> Yeah. It's the same with with mental health. I think what people people who have depression or anxiety, it's it's not depression or anxiety necessarily per se that are the problem as much as >> how they see it in their lives playing out and the impact it has on them and what is preventing them from being able to do. I think that just adding fuel to a fire that makes it more difficult to get out of it. >> This whole idea that you're sharing that uh want us wanting to be seen like that everyone should have somebody that sees them. >> Oh, of course. And we we're in the middle of analyzing it all because >> I think it's more powerful than most of us can imagine. >> Yeah. It's one of those things that is probably one of the most deepest desires a human being has is to be seen. >> I would say yes. And not only desires in other words almost like this is what we want as a as a fancy you know as a fanciful luxury but really I think essential to life. >> Yeah. But you know what I was just saying usually we have that if we create that opening of letting go of our ego that there's more possibility for someone to actually see us. >> Oh of course not only that it's much deeper I think. Yes. And much of the ego is constructed as a substitute for being seen. >> Wow. >> Yeah. And >> that's what I feel much much of the ego is is is is brilliant brilliantly of course this is not consciously >> but brilliantly much of our egos >> and it which comes with all of our insecurities and everything that the ego you know makes sure to embrace and avoid is done as a substitute for be really being seen >> and and it's ego there it's like the acronym for edging God out and on the other side of that is being connected to Hashem. If you are genuinely working on your connection to Hashem, why would you not be your true authentic self? Because Hashem created you this way. And if if he created you this way, why would there be shame and embarrassment about how he created us, >> right? The challenge, of course, is that it's usually not in words. It's preverbal. So, I could give myself a hundred brilliant lectures about it and read books and and and hear good things and believe them, too. But the preverbal energetic uh survival template has its own formulas and methodology and things that inspire it and move it. And it's usually words and ideas don't touch that frequency. >> So we have to work on a much deeper deeper level. But don't you think in order to be seen the person has to be able to like see your flaws as well in order like it's hard and you know >> a saddic is connected to their nama. So they it's natural for them to see an shama but for a human to a human we're going to we're we're flawed and so then in order to see someone else we're going to see their flaws as well not just their yeah >> their brilliance. The truth is the way I the way I at least the way it's felt by me and my own experience is that I could never ever see anybody if I have not really seen myself. I just can't. Not because I don't want to. I would love to, but I just don't know how to. >> Right. But doesn't that also mean seeing your flaws? >> Yeah. It it's it's it's not a contradiction anymore. In other words, the the gift of really seeing yourself and seeing somebody else is a divine gift. It's not a rational gift. It's not a gift of of of nature because I'm looking at you and what do I see? You're looking at me and you see my personality traits. You may see good things. You may see flaws. That's all seeing with the human lens. But seeing the real self is seeing the divine self, seeing the energy behind everything. So it's really a gift >> if you need if so in order to see someone else you have to see yourself. In order to see yourself someone else has to see you. >> Yeah. >> Right. >> Yes. >> So it's interesting because I think the best thing that we could do that we have control over is to try to see someone else but then someone has to see us also. So we have to hope that everybody's working on seeing each other. It's like a collective. >> I think I think it's so true. Not only that, people don't realize it. It's actually a mitzvah in the Torah. It says three times a year, God is asking for everybody to show up to the Bik three times a year. And the Gmorrah says, "You're coming to see and you're coming to be seen." So it's like a mitzvah to come be seen by the creator. It was a place where almost you're looking at a mirror that will reflect back to you who you really are. Not just I could see my physical features but but a an energetic soul mirror where I come to see and be seen. So it's literally a mitzvah like a mitzvah. And that's really what the B mikdash was about. I think that for someone who doesn't feel seen, if you first try to see someone else, that will allow you to be seen. Like the seeing someone else can come first in order for you to be seen because you're really working on seeing the other person which allows an opening for you to be seen. Yeah, I think I think it certainly could be helpful, but I also feel that the real ability to see somebody is not something I can really choose. I could really want to I could really want to see my child. I could really want to see somebody else and it's amazing and I'm working towards it and it's a special gift. But I think ultimately something has to open up inside of me. >> Like I can say the right things, I can do the right things. I can genuinely work hard and so many of us do that but there's still a blockage that doesn't allow me to actually see them and it's not because I'm not trying >> and that's the inner work that the redemption that we have >> yeah I think yeah there's really like a blockage it's like a certain energetic field that I'm not I'm not connecting to >> right >> and not because I'm I'm trying I'm working hard like I know in my own life I always try to do the right thing I mean at least I tried I I made obviously a lot of mistakes but but then I realized that there's blockages that I have to confront like I'm I'm trying I'm I'm not I'm trying to be authentic. I'm trying to be honest. I'm trying to do the work. But then I realized that the work I'm trying to do I'm doing with my words and my brain and they are part of the problem. They are also imprisoned. >> Yeah. One one thing that I I started to be very mindful of is being truthful where sometimes it's like let's say in a simple a simple example of someone saying hey do you want to go out right now? And not even to say, "Oh, I'm I'm busy." If I'm not busy, >> you know, to say now doesn't work for me, but to be very mindful of the words I use this. And even those little opportunities can actually lead to more truth. And I think the more we're in line with with MS with what is just real for us, the easier it might become. >> It's so important what you're saying. I I think it's so it's so crucial and important. It's the small white lies that are said with good intentions not to insult people and to make our friends feel good and they are they are they are destructive. They're destructive because the soul is very very sensitive. You know the definition we have for Hashem we don't have any definition but the one definition we have iss God's seal is truth. the prophet yo Jeremiah saysim right we finished the ms like truth is the closest definition we have to hashem because what else is there besides truth and authenticity right and and and white lies you know those little white lies I'm stuck in traffic um >> yeah that one too >> I'm stuck I'm not stuck in traffic I left an hour late >> right >> I couldn't come to the wedding because my kids were sick no they weren't sick I wanted to come to the wedding. No, you didn't want to come to the wedding. >> Yeah, I could just be honest, you know, without being insulting. I could say, I am so so sorry. It's not going to work. I am so so sorry I'm not available. Now, the reason I may not be available is because because I'm depleted. I'm exhausted because it takes a lot out of me. Whatever it is that every person has to decide what God wants from them, you know, and I'm not here to tell anybody, you know, how to judge that. It's a very individual point and sometimes we want to make sacrifices for close people and friends. I mean that's part of life but to to lie even small lies is very very destructive extremely like it puts us into another framework you know being aligned is 24/7 that's what I you know the Tanya says this and as when I grew up I always felt that it was so repressive like can't we just chill out like once in a while just like I don't want to have any responsibilities like for the next few hours just like let let leave me alone but then I realized that that's that's coming from a from a depressed place Because real life means real presence. Like it's real. Like there's real relationships. There's real energy. There's real authenticity. There's no such a thing. For 2 hours, I'm not married. For 2 hours, I don't have a soul. For two hours, I'm not authentic. It doesn't work that way. Either I'm connected or I'm disconnected. There's no other choice. Either I'm I'm moving into connection. Take a marriage, right? Either I'm connected to my wife or I'm disconnected. Either I'm saying something that brings us closer or I'm saying something that brings us further. There's no such a thing. I'm just this neutral, passive, objective, lifeless identity. Either I'm in a relationship with truth, with Hashem, with authenticity, with life, with love, or I'm not. I'm I I'm drifting away. Every time I take a bite of food, it could be a tomato, it could be avocado, it could be a toast, it could be a cup of coffee. Either I'm going into connection or I'm going away from connection. And this is true with exercise. It's true in every conversation. It's true every text message. You know, we talk about gossip and slander and and and idol talk and and fake talk, manipulative talk. These are not just not nice things to do. It's really a person who's living in alignment. It's like like when you cherish your energy, you realize, am I really going to write this text? Like, is this where I'm going to spend my time? Is this conversation where I want my soul to show up? You know, I I would say a lot of Judaism, what people don't realize, a lot of Judaism is about self-respect. It's really about self-respect. It's respecting and cherishing the energy that Hashem is channeling through me right here, right now. Can I respect that? It's it's very real things like, am I going to really invest this energy in a conversation or in a text exchange or in a WhatsApp group or in a or or in food or in behaviors that are anything but authentic, connected, real. So talking about real we wanted to discuss real miracles and and how you would define them. So at Creas they saw the splitting of the sea and today um I wanted to ask you how you would define a miracle because I want to give give you an example actually just on Thursday I was crossing the road and I was hit by a car and um I consider it I really you know what I had two minds going afterwards. I really consider it a miracle. But I could say it was within nature because I landed on my knees. All I got was a bruise. And I could say, well, I just happened to have landed in the right place. But I genuinely I I have actually thanked Hashem for this moment of like experiencing this revealed miracle. But you could in today's world also justify it. And so I wanted to know as well. And I think it also ties in in in seeing and being seen. And how do we actually see a miracle >> right >> today? >> So, generally in in Jewish thought, we talk about two forms of miracles. What's known as revealed miracles and miracles that are channeled or manifested or filtered through natural mechanisms or resources. The famous examples would be Passover Pes versus Purim, right? Pesak, you have these 10 plagues, supernatural plagues, as you said, the splitting of the sea, the mana comes down from heaven, the giving of the Torah, the clouds of glory, the rolling stone, you know, the well of Miriam and all these things which are all supernatural phenomena that people observe with their own eyes undeniably. Then you have the Purim story. If the New York Times or CNN would have to report the Purim story, they wouldn't write that it's a divine miracle. They would say that this was a stroke of diplomatic genius by the first lady of the Persian Empire who happened to be Jewish and her name was Esther. And she was quite a resourceful, wise, brilliant, shrewd, sly woman who managed to manipulate Hmon's ego and put it against her husband's paranoia. And between the two, she played a brilliant game and got him drunk. And between his paranoia and Hmon's ego, she managed to have them confront each other. And her king ends up exe and her husband ends up executing Hmon and she manages to use this moment to plead for her people and saves them. So essentially, if you read the migilla, the whole book of Esther, there's not one supernatural event there. That aasher got drunk is not a supernatural event. The fact that he killed his wife was not a supernatural event. fact the fact that he was a crazy alcoholic addicted promiscuous womanizer was not a miracle. The fact that he had a beauty contest for four years checking out every beautiful woman in the Persian Empire was the way things were done and not a miracle. And then he finally happens to like Esther who happens to be a Jew who happens to find out about an assassination attempt who happens to be in the palace when a crazy anti-semite is appointed as prime minister of the Persian Empire and his name is Hmon etc etc etc etc. It's called being in the right place at the right time. And what we call in Judaism, you know, we call masle. Good luck. Like great, you won the lottery. Okay, wonderful. Somebody has to win the lottery. Sometimes the cookies, you know, crumble in the right places and sometimes people fall down on their knees and they don't get bruised and it's amazing. It's beautiful. So, where's the miracle? And it's true that even Judaism attests to this because it's the only book of Tanakh. There's 24 books in the Hebrew Bible. 24. Everyone has the name of God besides one. Which one? The book of Esther. The book of Esther does not have the name of Hashem even once. And it's surprising. Couldn't they at least make a mention to the creator of the world? These are books written by the Jewish prophets and Jewish sages. Just say, "Thank you, Hashem. Thank you for saving us." Not once, not even once. And it's called holy books, holy writings. What makes it holy? And we read it on Purim and we cherish the book of Esther. And that's exactly the point that the uniqueness of purim teaches us that if you have sometimes you look at life and you can isolate the events you can isolate them and you could say it's natural right let's take our times President Trump there was an assassination attempt on President Trump twice in June 2024 and a few months later the first time he was in the middle of talking in Butler Pennsylvania you remember the bullet was literally the trajectory of the bullet was his skull and his head. What happened? Trump moved his head by a half an inch. The bullet grazed his ear. If it would have If he would have not moved his head, he wouldn't have be in the White House today. Israel would have to face the Hitlers of today, Iran themselves. And we know who would be in the White House today. Somebody more like Vashi. And as a result of that, you can isolate the event and say Trump had Masle. A few months later, the FBI caught another assassination attempt. Iran tried assassination attempts against against Trump. He won the elections. He lost. And they came back to the White House October 7th. Putin, Ukraine, Syria is dismantled. HAMAS, isolated events. But when you put everything together, it's all one grand miracle just like Purim. In fact, the Iran war started right before Purim, three days before Purim. So I think in many ways that's even a deeper miracle. The reason it's a deeper miracle is because when you see an open miracle, okay, God, you're capable. You're infinite. You know how to flex your muscles. The real miracle of life is to be able to see that every breath is a miracle. That every moment is a miracle. that every time I cross the street, that every time I can hug my child, that every time I can inhale and exhale, the entire biological system, the entire planet, the universe, consists of trillions and zillions of infinite miracles. Anybody who knows science, even the basics, knows that just the finetuning of the universe statistically is impossible. If anybody says that such things happen randomly, it's anything but rational. Just for us to be able to sit on a planet together and have this communication, it's beyond. Nobody even realizes the trillions of things that have to happen, right, coincidentally, for life to exist every moment. Especially when you start seeing events coming together that literally save the Jewish people. Cuz what happened now in Iran, imagine it would be like Roosevelt taking out Hitler and the head of the SS and the German Air Force and Varmmach in 1938. Imagine Roosevelt doing this in 1938. How many people would have been saved? Thank God Trump and Netanyahu decided to take out Hitler not after the Holocaust but before the Holocaust. Kamina was planning. So it's all looks like, you know, there's an air force and there's a Mossad and there's F-16s and there's interceptors and there's, you know, cyber security and there's a great army and a great leaders and we're thankful and grateful for that because God runs his world through natural mechanisms. But when you start looking at events and you start putting the pieces together and you see this grand miraculous jigsaw puzzle and 4,000 years, three and a half thousand years after the first PES, we're here to tell tell the story of divine freedom. That is the ultimate miracle. The miracle that shows us that every single moment of ordinary life is a divine intimate experience. Wow. It's interesting because I I I feel like hindsight gives us a little bit more perspective on on that idea that when you see things in isolation, you don't really see the miracle in them. When you're putting the pieces together, which you can pretty much only do when you're looking back at an event, then you start to see how everything >> pieced together exactly when you know when it was. >> People don't people don't understand what the Jewish people were facing. Nobody understands cuz it was all underground and they were waiting for the right moment to literally make a second holocaust. And they weren't even hiding it. We just didn't believe it. Nobody believed Ayatalas in in Iran when they said the first holocaust never happened. But our aim is to make a second holocaust because the first one never happened. So we're going to make a second one to make sure it does happen. And they didn't want to kill us in one day like Hmon. They wanted to kill us in one moment through nuclear bomb. You don't need a day. You just need a second. You need a split second. There was a Jewish uh Jewish philanthropist. He's a very wealthy man and he told me that he met President Obama in the White House and he told Obama then made the the deal with Iran, you know, and he unfroze $150 billion. $150 billion these Hitlers got to be able to sponsor terror and build an infrastructure of terror around the whole world and of course build a tight noose around Israel with kamas andbala and Syria. So people didn't even realize what's happening. So this fellow told me, I told Obama, I said, "You know, we lost 6 million. If Iran builds this nuclear bomb and they're capable through their ballistic missiles, they can declare war on Israel and we can have a second holocaust. It's not a joke for us. This is not luxury." So Obama tells them, "Don't worry. If they declare war on Israel, we will help Israel." And he turns to President Obama and he says, "Don't you understand? In the first second of that war, 850,000 Jews can be dead." And he said even Obama was quiet for a moment. People don't realize what is happening here. It's literally taking down Hitler in 1938. The world waited till 1945. Thank God with the grace of God, Trump and Netanyahu did it 6 years earlier. How grateful we have to be. But how can of this happened? 150,000 missiles to paralyze all of Israel. Kazbala had in the north. Syria was one of the most dangerous regimes with an aim to destroy Israel. Hamas and Gaza. And then you have Iran. Iran, you know, 1700 kilometers preparing and building this whole infrastructure. And then came the horrific horrific massacre of October 7th where Israel was caught sadly sadly offguard not realizing who the enemy is and what they have to repair. But in that aftermath, Prime Minister Netanyahu and much of the Jewish people almost woke up from a comeomaos and within the next few months events started to develop in such grandness with the assassination of so many leaders who aimed to destroy Israel. And suddenly Kamas started to be dismantled with the Israeli war in Gaza and Kizbala, the story of the beepers and the death of the killing of Nasraa and of Sinir and the first campaign against Iran in the in June of 2025 and Syria suddenly Syria was considered one of the scariest regimes and Syria falls apart and now a partnership between Israel and America to take down and crush the head of the snake. People don't understand all the other wars that Israel fought. There was always a question. Will America support it? For how long will America give weapons? How long can Israel maintain this? When will they have to come down and and and acquies to some stupid to some ceasefire that won't even help them and just give the enemy time to regroup? And here for the first time in history, there's a full partnership. America is boasting the fact that we are fighting hand by hand at full partners with Isra. Now you have to remember Israel is a tiny tiny little country. It's the size of New Jersey. Israel is the size of New Jersey, 9 million citizens. America is a superpower with 300 million citizens. But America, Trump is boasting that we're partners with Israel to crush this tyrannical regime. So you could all look at it and say nature, nature, nature, and plenty of tragedies. But if you look at all of the events together, this is a grand grand miracle unfolding before our eyes. literally saving our people and bringing the world into a much better and holier place which is fertile for redemption. Besides the fact people have to realize that every ballistic missile that comes from Iran, I mean people don't even realize a ballistic missile if it falls in the wrong place or in the right place I should say from their perspective, one missile can kill 100,000 people. Now there were horrible tragedies and so many wounded and may God comfort the families that are broken and heal all those that are wounded. But to be able to observe this with all of the interceptors and with all of the amazing amazing technology literally we are living in biblical times with miracles that are stupendous and beyond and it's happening and unfolding before our eyes as we have this conversation. So I think that we are really um witnessing extraordinary miracles and the entire Jewish nation in Israel is an embodiment of this because from a natural point of view even living in Israel today is is is is so challenging so difficult. I heard Netanyahu say at a press conference that Trump told him, President Trump told him, he says, "I don't understand." Most nations, they run away from regions of war. And by you, everybody wants to go back to Israel. Passover, everybody wants TO GO TO ISRAEL. WHICH CRAZY people is this? And and Natao said, "I had to explain Trump the secret of Israel." The truth is that the Jewish people feel even Jews who consider themselves secular and Jews who consider themselves leftwing, but deep down they may not even be able to explain it. deep down in their gut. They operate within nature, but also on a supernatural level. There's almost like this embedded feeling that our entire existence is beyond nature. And they have a point because 4,000 years later, we're still here not only telling the story, but continuing the story, recreating the story with a vivaciousness that's unprecedented. >> True. You know, you're reminding me just this morning someone sent me a video of um a a couple going by the Reb that were going to Israel and they asked the Reb, "What can we do to help the situation there?" This was in the 1980s and the Reb said, "You could speak to Shamir and encourage him to be strong about um not giving land away." And he said and he actually said it says here when a woman pressures a man um it has it it puts pressure on that has more influence than anybody else. So >> smart mana >> that was um that was a nice empowering thing for us as women uh and we're actually taught that the women are the ones that kept the generation alive in Mitzim and it is in their merit that we were redeemed from from Egypt. So I wanted to ask you for all the women that are going to be sitting at the table say a table what what is the message today for a woman. I think it's very very powerful thing you're saying because you know very often we don't estimate our true power and I think every Jewish woman, every woman in general, we're talking now about the Jewish people, every every Jewish woman, every Jewish girl, every Jewish young woman, every Jewish woman in whatever position of life they're at has a very very deep secretive uh treasure that they have been given from generation to generation. and they could transmit it to the next generation. It's it's almost a hidden truth. Some people call it paternal, some people call it maternal holding or the maternal gaze. It's almost it comes from it comes from Miriam and it comes from Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, Leia. It's a sense of faith that is unbreakable and also a deep knowing of what's true and what's not true, what's important and what's not important and not allowing it to be entangled with forces of insecurity and toxicity and narcissism and fear and poison because holy energy can be contaminated. So, I think today's women have a secret energy that's passed down from generation to generation that can help heal an entire generation. Somebody told me the other day. Pretty intense line. They said, "If the women and mothers heal, their families will heal in their sleep." Which means there's a very, very deep, deep power that God has entrusted to the woman. But we always have to safeguard those spiritual powers and not allow them to become entangled with what may seem as holy but can sometimes be distractions from the truth. When a woman is truly truly a humble conduit, a womb for God's truth, the power, fortitude, honesty, truthfulness, and love she can bring out in herself and the people around her are inc are incredibly incredibly powerful. But first she has to do it within inside. So I think if everybody can really connect to that part in themselves and it's not easy because there's a lot of grief, there's a lot of pain and there's a lot a lot of disappointment and there's a lot of masculine and feminine rage. Masculine and feminine rage comes from the fact that so many of us have felt unseen and rejected in very very primal ways. And we're still trying to reclaim that. And one way of doing that is through rage and through creating very fierce boundaries and keeping our hearts a little shut down. So it takes a lot of work to be able to open ourselves up to our true love, our true infinite power, to soften our hearts, to be able to trust and to be able to allow ourselves to be embraced by God. And then the miracle of the women in the generation of Egypt and in the generation of Esther and in the generation of Kaneka will continue in our generation as well. And I can't continue telling you more because I'm not a woman. So this is all I know. >> The rest is up to you guys. >> Well, for the man it says that Adam knew Kava like he knew her. So >> that's true. >> The man try to get to know the woman. >> So men Yeah. The man men's work men men have their their work. We have to confront our fears and our demons and our insecurities. We have to find our power. And my wife told me the other day that so many men have married their wives hoping that they are their mothers who are going to nurture them in the ways that their mothers didn't. So they're looking not for their wives, they're looking for mothers. And women married men hoping that they're going to be their fathers and give them what their fathers didn't do. And therefore, they're looking to their husbands to be fathers instead of husbands. So this is work that we all need. I think men have to discover their masculine power, their ability to lead, their ability to be present. As somebody once wrote something so profound, they said, "A woman is the ocean." It actually says this in Kabala, but they put it very well. A woman is the ocean. Don't try to relax the ocean. Men like to create structures in the oceans. We want to build canals and docks and places where we could swim. He says, "A good man knows how to jump into the ocean and show his wife or his woman, I'm here. I'm present." Many of us men are scared of our woman's intensity, of of the women's intensity, of feminine love, of feminine intensity, of feminine emotions. And that's our fear. That's our fear. You know, the ability to be able to remain present as a leader, as a father, as a husband, as a man in your wife's heart. Not to shut down, not to disassociate, not to judge her, not to start rationalizing with the women and making them make sense for the masculine, brainy, compartmentalized brain. But the ability to be present with an open heart, that's a gift that many of us have to learn. >> Wow. Wow. I mean, the way I'm hearing it as a woman is that a woman could really change not just her family, but the world by allowing herself to be vulnerable, like vulnerable enough, >> be seen by others, which means she's hopefully in a place where she can share her full self and her truth. And that hopefully leads to feeling more liberated and feeling more of a sense of freedom and getting to a better place >> and and realizing her true divine power. Realizing her true divine power, which should not be confused with fake power by closing off her heart and creating so many thick boundaries that nobody's allowed into her life. That's not her real power. It makes sense. We do that. We do that because if I've been hurt, I don't want to get hurt again. So I just close my heart >> and I don't even open it to myself. You know, to really live with an open heart, we have to have so much trust. It's a very vulnerable place to be. You know, I know from my own life and my own experiences and my own teachings and people I connect to, so many couples struggle today in relationships and they're both good people. They're both good people, but it's hard for them to open their hearts. You know, I was listening the other day to a lecture from a friend of mine. She's a a woman whom I know well, I should say. We've done work together and she's a therapist and she was talking about this. It was a Ray of Hope evening in Queens and Dr. Tamar Pearlman who's an acquaintance of mine. We've done conferences together and spoken together. She was talking about a couple that came to her and they're both really really good people and but the woman has closed her heart because she was hurt very very badly as a child. She was neglected. She was abandoned not even in dramatically horrific ways but just nobody was attuned to her. So there was a sense of inner betrayal and a sense of inner abandonment and she tried so hard like so many people she tried and tried and tried and gave everything of herself and feels depleted. So there's a deep deep rage that comes out towards her husband and and and she has her heart closed and her husband who's a loving person doesn't want to get hurt by his wife. So he closes his heart and and Dr. Pearlman said she said I looked at this woman and I said I want you to be honest with me. You your heart is now closed. Is it really serving you well? Is this really what you want for your husband, for yourself, for your children? Is this really serving you well? Is this right now helping your life? And she said, "No." So, Dr. Pearlman said, "I know it's hard to ask this from you, but I want to ask you to try because you deserve it. Can you soften what would it what would it look like if you could soften your heart a little bit? Just soften it a little bit and take the risk of real connection because you deserve it. because you are deserving of living a life of blissful love and connection. You deserve it and you're strong enough to take the risk. I can do it for you. Those are the moments for all of us women and men where miracles happen if we choose if we choose to soften our hearts. Softening a heart is very vulnerable. It means I'm letting somebody in. It means I can get hurt again. It means I can be misunderstood. It means I can be rejected. It means I could be made fun of. It means I can again be exploited. But it's the only place where real connection can happen, where real love happens, where the magic of our love to God and God's love to us can actually be manifested. So this is I think the choices we all have in front of us. It comes with a lot of inner work. It also must come with a lot of inner respect and compassion. I cannot do this if I hate myself. I can only do this if I love myself. I saw a great line. Don't go to the gym because you hate your body. Go to the gym because you love your body. Don't soften your heart to the people around you because you hate yourself. Do it because you love yourself. You're deserving of much more. We are all deserving of much more. Our loved ones are deserving of much more. That's why we want to do it. >> Wow. What are some common um issues that you see today amongst married couples >> or I would say maybe the most common one that's tremendous. >> I just >> Yeah. Yeah. It's a great question and and there's a lot to say but one thing that what what pops into my mind what just popped into my mind was so what is so much disassociation emotional disassociation which is usually good people who want to avoid confrontation at every cost and that's why they're disassociated remember if I don't feel I won't feel pain if I don't feel I won't feel betrayal if I don't feel I won't feel anger if I don't feel I won't feel loneliness. I won't feel rage. I won't feel anxiety. I won't feel the pain of being alone in the world. So much better not to feel. And then I could be such a nice guy and I could be such a nice woman, such a nice man, such a good husband and wife. But both of us are on lockdown and we connect with 5% of our hearts because we're disassociated. I find that so many good people have done that and really out of noble intentions. I know I did that. So maybe I'm just talking about myself, but I see it. Disassociation is such a silent killer because it looks very noble. >> I'm collective. People even have this line from Tanya that they employ to justify this association. It's called the mind rules the heart. They use that line from Tanya to justify the trauma of this association as though the alterba was advocating people not feeling. His point was that the mind should be a adult in the room, a parent mentoring the heart, helping the heart, guiding the heart, showing the heart the ins and the outs, what's safe, what's not safe, like a real ruler. Like it says Joseph Yosephot, he was a ruler in Egypt. He made sure that everybody had food. what Alb is talking about that the mind helps the the heart know the landscape of emotions and be able to get the food it needs. But we often interpret it as like a dictatorship. The brain rules the heart and says, "Stop feeling. Stop feeling. Don't feel. Don't emote because that way you won't be angry. You'll be safe. The world and the house will run smoothly because there's no emotions." So I lived in that state for many years and I thought that I could live my life through my brain and it's actually a much safer more predictable place. Not only that in my case I thought that understanding something is experiencing something. I didn't know the difference cuz I was shut down. Those wires didn't exist in my conscious psyche. So it took me tremendous amount of work just to be able to know that there's a different frequency of living. It's called emotions. It's called emotional connection and it's a very different landscape than the brain. >> So I think so many in marriages we we are so afraid of going there because we don't want to kill each other. We don't want to fight with each other. We don't want to hurt each other. So, we like almost intellectualize our marriages and we do the right thing and we're we're we're suffering and there's an a silent rage and and and disconnect that is so deep so deep and it's so painful but we haven't addressed it because it's it's difficult to address. >> When did you make your shift? When did this happen? I'm still making my shift. But I would say I would say in recent years, I would say 2020 especially, I I began just becoming aware of much more things. I've I saw different things unfolding in my family, in my own marriage, in my own relationship with my children and in my own internal pain and was really a wakeup call slowly slowly to be able to go much deeper and to be able to do a lot of inner work. And with God's grace, I'm still working on it every day. This is not something as I told you know I could snap my finger but I I I at least I I I realized that I was in a very very stuck place. I I I did not realize how disassociated I was. I did not realize it. I disassociated because of pain and I didn't I didn't know it because most of us when we disassociate it's preverbal. It's not a conscious decision. Nobody sits down in a chair and says you know what from today I'm disassociating. I'm cutting all the wires of emotions and I'm just going to become an intellectual chat she G GBT AI expert. Now the truth is yeah many of us have become AI. Jews are smart people and we have become artificial intelligence and we have done well. AI is brilliant. Let's face it. The only problem is that AI is not human and humans are not AI. AI doesn't have a soul. AI is brilliant for information. If I want to know anything about anything, AI is better than anybody else. But if I want emotional connection, if I want to feel connected to my soul and to the divine energy in me and in others, I can't do AI. We need a different experience. It's a different frequency. You can't live life through your brain. You just can't. It's not life. So, I'm still learning this. I'm still excited about this. You see, it's like I discovered new wires in my system. >> May you always be excited about >> Amen. Amen. Amen. >> And thank you for sharing with us and being vulnerable. What what do you have to say about vulnerability and oversharing? Like do you do you ever see you ever think >> it's a great question people >> there was somebody I'm gonna tell you something funny there was somebody who told me the other day says listen to your old classes your old classes you were so much more intellectually rigorous there were ideas this person told me you spoke about people and ideas and today you speak so much about yourself like your classes became so much smaller and more parochial this person was really really giving me uh rebuking me for for for this type of conversation. The truth is that uh obviously I don't feel that way. I think that today the only real teaching is teaching that's vulnerable and authentic. Um there's a difference between sharing your truth in a way that's relatable to people and can help people and just sharing my truth to vent. I think there's a very very big difference. I I'll explain to you what I mean. Um here it is. A lot of people feel that if they let go of their pain and disappointment and sense of grief and abandonment and rejection or whatever the cause of their pain, they're going to lose their personality. In other words, who would I be? And this is a question everybody has to ask themselves. Who would I be without my stories of pain? >> Right? I felt at one point in my life that what gives my life so much drama and interest interest is my pain. And if I let go of my pain, I'm just going to be this regular boring guy who has nothing to sell. It's like the pain is rich and there's so much color there and there's lust. There's luster. It's attractive. It's fascinating. It's perplexing. It's dramatic. But that is another coping mechanism from the animal soul. Because the truth is every one of us is so much bigger than our pain. Our pain is part of our story. It's an important part of our story. And ultimately our pain is can become the catalyst for our greatest growth. My own deepest awarenesses in life came through my pain. There's no question. And in that sense we have to cherish it because it's a gift. But we ought not to make the mistake that we need to worship our pain because that's the secret of our greatness. We are so much greater than our pain. We are infinite. The pain is an important part of the story that helps us put ourselves in context, helps us remain humble, helps us remain empathetic, helps us remain grateful, shows us where our stumbling blocks are and where our vulnerabilities are. And so I think that's a very important distinction we have to make in life. If my if my pain becomes my god and I start worshiping my pain and every person I meet I have to talk to them within the first five minutes about everything painful I went through life it means I actually don't have real self-respect. I need my pain to cover up for my sense of insecurity and inadequacy. It's almost like if I could tell you how painful my childhood was. Ah now you're going to like me. It's almost have a great conversation. Great conversation opener. Let me tell you how painful my life is and I will become the hero of the century. You know what? That's trauma. You don't need that. You don't need that. We all need to deal with our pain, confront our pain, grieve. Some of us need a lot of time, a lot of gentleness, a lot of compassion. I'm the last one to tell people to bury their pain and repress their pain. I don't think it helps. I don't think it's effective. But you're much bigger than your pain. And that's what we all want to know. And that's what we want to get to. Even if it's a process, maybe it can't happen in one day. Maybe sometime I have to sit with it and I need the compassion and I need the compassion of the people around me. But we deserve better. You deserve more than reducing yourself to the pain of your life. So vulnerability and authenticity I think are the greatest methods of teaching today. That's what I find in people who teach me or the way I teach others. But I think we always have to remember what real vulnerability is. Vulnerability means that we want to be open with each other and authentic to be able to help each of us find our divine infinity. Vulnerability is not about proving to you what a great victim I am and therefore forever I am a victim and nobody understands me and I'm just destined to be a victim for eternity. I may have those emotions. We have those emotions like we have other emotions. I may have a lot of emotion. That's part of my animal soul survival template. I am Mr. Victim number one and the whole world doesn't understand me and I am abandoned forever and that's what makes me so romantic and interesting. Okay. So, it's my animal soul trying to survive through that emotion. So, give it a little love and give it a little compassion but I can tune in to a much deeper greatness in which I could really connect to people and I don't have to remain a victim forever. >> That is a beautiful answer. >> Thank you. And I think that >> an >> answer that comes from a lot of experience >> and I think by the way >> and and your breadth of language and your expansive vocabulary I feel like your ability to to put words onto experiences that many people don't have words for I think is so important. Like people listening to you describing an experience and them being able to hear it and say, "Oh, that's what that is. I I wouldn't have had the language for it. And I can only imagine how many thousands of people have been helped through through that process of vulnerability. You know, you being able to share and be open and at the same time bring put words on these sometimes experiences that people don't have words for. >> It means a lot and it's a great privilege to be able to be a channel for uh God's wisdom. >> That's also what happens when you do work. you're able to genuinely help other people. Words that come from the heart into the heart >> always. Yeah. Somebody once said something very wise. He says, "You will never be able to meet people and touch a depth inside them them more than the depth you have touched in your own soul. I will never even be able to see a depth more than I could see in myself." So the more internal work we do and we embody automatically we just channel a different level of of energy a different level of of frequency. In terms of words yeah I'll tell you the truth to be very honest words have been for me a blessing and a prison and I'm always very very sensitive to the duality. The truth is this is a very very great theme. One of the profound themes of the alterba the author of the Tanya in his discourses. God created the world through words. So words are both channels of the infinite but they're also containers that imprison the infinite. Because the fact that I could look at a rock and call it a rock rather than divine energy. Or I could look at me or I can look at a cup of water and look at it and say this is water rather than divine energy is because the words >> because the words contain and the words eclipse the infinity of it. >> Much of my life I'm I'm God has blessed me with with a gift for words, a knack for words. But words can be as deceiving as they are revealing. And it's a very very sensitive it's a very sensitive world. >> When I was young, I was sitting at my dining room table once. It was just one night and I think I was reading a I didn't get a very I didn't get a an English education really. So I I I had to come to the language myself. I read a lot. So I think I was one night reading a dictionary and my mother is is a teacher of English literature. She knew even though she's a refugee. She's from the Soviet Union, but she she learned a good English and she became a pretty pretty good pretty fluent in English literature and some of the great literary writers in English and she even taught it for many years. So I would sometimes ask her the meaning of words. This is before Chachi BT and AI and even Google and internet. So I was once I think reading maybe a dictionary or reading an article with complicated English words and I was asking her the meaning of these words and how to use them in a sentence. And at some point my mother turned to me and said, "You know, you will one day be a great orator. The way you put words together, the way you use words, you're like a wordssmith. You put these words together." And it was a very very encouraging moment and very very helpful to be able to articulate ideas in words that can really make them relevant to people. Yet, in the continuation of my life, I also learned how words can sometimes be such a powerful cover up because using the right words can be a great substitute for experiencing what I'm saying. In fact, I once had an internal emotional experience where I was asking somebody to give me I was a child. I don't know. I had this internal experience. I was asking somebody close to me to give me a certain emotion like I want to feel them and they said we can't but we can give you the words to describe it and that will even be better than the emotion because it's going to be much more neat. >> It was such an eyeopening experience for me because in my own life I've used words to substitute the experience and in many ways words are much more neat. They're organized. They're compartmentalized. They're categorized. They're eloquent. Emotions are not always eloquent, but they're real. So I I know for me the challenge is really to be able to use words as channels, not as absolute definers of the truth. If words are channels, amazing. The moment the words become entities in and of themselves, they actually become a liability. >> Wow. Wow. I never thought of it that way. So it's like almost full full circle where you can have you can experience both the emotions and wow that's really >> special explains children don't have words right they don't have words when God asks Moses to become the first leader what does he say what's one of the first things he says I'm not a man of words in fact I don't know how to talk really for a guy who didn't know how to talk he said some pretty incredible things So the Alreb says something amazing. He says, "No, it's not that he didn't know how to talk because he didn't have a vocabulary. He didn't know how to articulate words. It's because when you're channeling the infinite, there's no way of putting it into words. When you're actually in the presence of pure infinity, there's no words. Every word will be a desecration. It's going to compromise, dilute, and much worse eclipse energy." And that's why he's named Moshe because he was plucked out of the water. The moral of prag says you know humans speak animals don't speak but they convey sounds very dramatic sounds which is a form of conversation but fish don't even utter sound Moshe came from the water he was like the fish completely submerged in the infinite he I have no words I have no words and god had to say I am the one who created words I am the one who created the whole verbal reality I can give you the gift of channeling infinity through words. And that's the real gift of Torah. The real gift of Torah, which comes from a lot of humility, is to channel that which cannot be said through words. It's almost like a breathtaking experience. It's almost like, how am I going to say this in words? I I >> you know when we were taking a little break earlier, I was talking to my son and I was telling him about some of the tips that you had shared like practical tips for people to to be able to start implementing positive change and and become um connected to the divine. I told him about your classes and he said, you know, a friend of his said that one one of your uh videos that you shared on the yeshiva.net completely changed his life and it was just like he felt like it was a miracle that he came across that that particular class and I asked my son could you find out which one it was and he did and it turns out it was um it's called bom ashar for yal nissan and I was thinking how full circle is that that yal nissan is next week it's like just this time of of year that uh that he you know that he probably had listened to it and anyway I I just think that it's so incredible how one one one of your videos, one of your classes and of course the way teaching the discourse of the Reb that he said on his birthday 1971 the discourse begins with the words which is a verse from uh from the Nasi that we say from a prayer that we say on that day the 11th day of Nissen the tribe of Usher every day of Nissan we discuss another leader of another tribe known as the Nissim. So he set a discourse 11th of Nissan 1971 on that verse and it's an incredible it's a landmark mimemer landmark discourse and I taught it a number of years ago. So that's very very special to hear the feedback. Quickly what does that what just tell us quickly in a nutshell what that >> what that discourse the theme of that discourse >> the theme of that discourse one of the themes it's very very profound and I did a four it was a fourpart series and you know my lectures are not that short I always say double triple speed was created for me that's my narcissism it was literally created for my classes >> um because I speak too long or whatever long but one of the main themes in that discourse >> from the inside text which I like. >> One of the one of the main main disc one of the main themes of that discourse is that if we can get rid of all of our blockages and we can really tune in to our deepest life energy, we will realize that most of the things we think we need are not really our needs. We need them as a substitute for not knowing who we really are. So it's almost like I have this pain in me and I need to numb the pain. So I see a piece of cake so I go for the piece of cake. I see an interesting person so I may have a crush on them. I see something else and it becomes very very sophisticated because my 50 60 years I may be chasing things, people and goals only because I don't know myself. I never really had the chance to know myself. And when everything breaks up, breaks down and I become completely disintegrated and I get to meet myself for the first time, I realize that there is nothing about the real me that wants anything besides besides complete oneness with Hashem. Everything else is literally a cover up and a distraction because I don't know who I am. It comes back to what we spoke about earlier about the shame. Our deepest deepest shame is because we're so connected and yet we don't know how connected we are and there's so much shame in our disconnection which was all part of the design. So really really if we get like you'll ask a person what is your real need? Your real need you say well I want love. I want comfort. I want health. I want to have a good marriage. I want my children to like me. I want to like my children. I want to have a nice house. Whatever it is, everybody in their own way, right? Physical, emotional, and it's all true. We all we all want these things. And if you go deeper and deeper and deeper, he says, you will find out what the alterb used to say during daving when he would say, this is what he discusses in the discourse. Alterba would say when he would go into his spiritual states of oneness during prayer and he would say, I don't want your earth. I don't want your heaven. I don't want this world. I don't want next world. I don't want paradise. I only want you. I only want >> you know that's my that's my >> Oh, wow. So So what is that? It's not that the alterb didn't have desire. He was like, "Oh, we're all excited people who get excited about that." No, he had the deepest desire in life cuz all other desires are ultimately distractions of this true desire. So the moment I get rid of the distractions and I get in touch with this desire, oh my god, this is like infinite. Suddenly desire here is is it's an infinite desire because it's connected to the fact that we're one. We are essentially one. We are divine. The divine is us. The said hashem is everything. Everything is Hashem. In our deepest deepest core, we are complete oneness with the divine. We are manifestations of this one oneness. And therefore that is our our our our deepest deepest need and desire. And everything else is either connecting us to that desire or distracting us from that desire. So of course I want a good marriage. What do I really want in my marriage if it's part of my deepest desire just to be one with God? Then the marriage has a chance of being the best marriage in the world because I could see my wife. There's no ego. Over there is the place where there's no ego. There's no transactional relationship. All other relationships are transactional. That's the key in the mimer. We have to ask ourselves how many relationships in my life are not transactional. Transactional means I'm in a relationship with a person, but I want something in return. I want your attention. I want your money. I want your power. I want your humor. I want your your skills. I want your investment. Whatever it is, which is fine. It's fine. We all have transactional relationships. It's business relationships. But the real relationships in life can't be transactional. Transactional means there's nothing I'm looking for in return. I don't need you to validate me. I don't need you to compliment me. I don't need I'm not scoring points so that I can get brownie points. It it's that's all that's all trauma guided relationships. That's places of very deep weakness and insecurity. The place of real relationships. It's not transactional. It's the presence of you, the presence of the other is infinitely precious because it's really the presence of of of the divine and deep down we're all connected on that level. So that's really the the main the main theme of this discourse to put it very briefly. >> He goes through a whole journey like breaks it down layer by layer by layer. It's a very very life-changing uh discourse to experience it especially. >> It's like experiencing. >> Yeah. Yeah. Listen, it's it's it's I'll tell you, you know, we could live our entire lives and not know this part of ourselves. Like I can only know the part of me that's always running after people and situations in order to meet my needs. Because everybody needs things, right? I have an organization so I need support. I have a family. I need to support my family. I also have you know my needs in terms I want to be accepted. I want to be successful. Whatever it is each person in their own way, small, big, larger dreams, smaller dreams, but I I can always be I'm chasing something and there's a torturousness there. And there's an element of manipulation even if I'm not trying to be manipulative. But the only relationships that are pure are relationships that are just they're not transactional. There's literally no transactional. with the relationship itself is the purpose. How can we even go to that place? And why should we go to that place? And the answer is it's not a why. It's when I'm in the frequency where I am the divine that God's love to us is unconditional. So in that space there is so much love. There is so much oneness. And it's not for any goal. It's not because this person is going to like me. I'm going to get attention. I'm going to get support. I'm going to have a lot of friends. I'm going to be very popular. I'll have a beautiful resume. I'll have a great tombstone. I'm going to look back at my life and I'm going to say, "Wow, so many people like me. I'm going to win the Nobel Prize." Those are all torturous calculations that come from a very broken self that doesn't know how rooted it is in divine oneness and infinity. The moment you go, you even for five minutes or one minute experience that part of you, it's like all I want is you. >> Wow. Well, this is this is definitely good to listen to before Pesak so that we can get into that space of letting go of our needs and >> so we have to be careful when we say letting go of our needs like always we always have to be careful it could feed in to a place of uh of guilt and shame and self-loathing. It's almost like needs are evil. Um, I have seen people in my life that I've been close to who have learned at a very early age that needs are bad. Needs are narcissistic. And the real martyrs of God are those who don't have any needs and they're just here for the whole world. And at some point, they become so depleted and they're running on so little oxygen that they can only give you a fake heart because they're not present anymore. They had to so disassociate it. And it's not even their fault. They learned that their job is to give and give and give and give and give. And the only thing they don't know how to give is themselves because they don't have a self anymore. And let's face it, what's the only real thing we can give our children? Our hearts, ourselves. I could cook food and I could buy the best clothing and I could take them on the best hotels and the best vacations and pes programs and khan program and everything. And it's nice. It's it's beautiful. But if it's a substitute for giving them my heart, my presence, I'm missing the point. But the only way I can give people my give them my heart, my presence is if if I have it. Like if I'm in touch with it. So >> there's surrendering needs. The surrendering needs from being so in touch with your core soul. And the surrendering needs because there's so much shame inside of me. So it's just a very very subtle distinction. You understand what I'm saying? If I'm surrendering my needs not because of guilt and shame, but rather I realize my deepest need is not ego. My deepest need is not validation. My deepest need is not that you should tell me, "Wow, this podcast was life-changing, so why Jacobson for 5 minutes could feel that he's a somebody." Those are all needs that I don't really need. I'm not they're not touching the real truth of me. So then I can choose. I choose. When the alterba said, "I want only you." knew this was the biggest choice. This is what I am. This is who I am. This is what makes me most alive. This is where I will be most present. Versus the other side where is ah I don't have any needs and everybody needs everything and my goal in life is to be selfless and really what happens is we give people only a shell of ourselves. We don't give them ourselves because we don't have it anymore. We don't even know what it's like. So it's just a very very subtle distinction between martyrdom that strips us from our creativity and dedication where we are glowing. The alterba changed the world changed my life. Changed the world because he was present. He was fully present. The reason he was fully present is because he was not living with his blockages. He knew exactly who he was. And who was he? He knew his deepest desire is every moment to be an infinite channel for the divine. Wow. And that's where I want to live and that's what I'm going to choose. So when he's talking to his child, the child feels that his father's heart is on fire. He feels his father's heart. How many children today feel their father's heart is on fire? How many? I can't ask question for myself and then my child can feel it. How many children can feel their child's their father's heart is on fire. >> That's a different type of experience that doesn't come from saying I don't have needs. I'm a nobody. I'm just here for my children. I don't even exist. Then we just have dead people, lifeless people, robots who mean well, who mean well and are trying very very hard. And you know, I was I was there once upon a time. So I understand what it is and and I'm really not judgmental because I have the same struggles like I everything I say here is completely not from a place of judgment because I have the same struggles. I have to work on it every day and I can easily get stuck in all of these places easily get stuck in all the places. A lot of person a lot of people who are religious Jews and learn Yiddish and then they learn they learn they learn they learn discourses they learn they learn mus whatever they learn they're such good people and they use all of these concepts as a way of justifying their self-hate and their self-shame and their disassociation from their emotions and it works for them because I'm like a martyr we call it msirus nefish we think msus nephish means that we don't feel we don't experience instead of understanding ms nephesh means We surrender our ego. We get rid of our We let go of our blockages so that we can experience our truest bliss. Ms nephesh people translate sacrificing yourself for God. The alter ebba translates it ms nephesh means surrendering and letting go of all parts that eclipse that the real and deepest bliss in life is my intimacy with God. You see the difference? >> Wow. What a reframe. That's unbelievable. >> It was worth it for this whole part. It was worth it for this line. >> I'm telling you. Yeah. And it's this not this didn't come from me. It's I had the merit of channeling it. This didn't trust me. This did not come from me because I was not planning any of this nor did I ever say I don't think I ever said this in any of the classes and I've given a lot of classes. It just came out. So I'm grateful. I'm grateful to channel that. >> Which part did you never say anything in the classes? Which part >> this reframing of what muses means, >> right? >> You sacrifice like who are you? You're just a little little person. The main thing is Hashem and just sacrifice everything and just let God like just it's all for God. Or it could be in different ways. I sacrifice for my wife, for my kids, for my family, for my community, right? And it's just whatever. And and and what happens is the primal child in me is very very outraged. It's very abandoned. And you know what? It disassociates me. It disassociates me. I may be showing up for my family 24/7. The seder will be impeccable, immaculate, flawless. The house is clean. Everybody has a new suit for Pes. Everybody has new shoes for Pes. There's only one person not present at the sedar. You know who that is? Mommy or Tati. They're physically present, but their soul is not present. Their soul is not present. I've been there. I was there. I was trying. And we do the and we try to be nice but real presence. Real presence to fill my heart on fire. I don't even know what that looks like. So to be able to reframe a serious nefes actually means not I sacrifice myself for God so that I'm now a nothing and everything is for God. I mean technically it may be an accurate translation but it's so much deeper than that. It's surrendering all of the external layers of self, all of the other voices, all of my wounds and ego needs that don't let me experience who I really am. That my deepest deepest desire, my deepest bliss, my deepest relationship, my deepest heart is on fire with one desire, with one craving. And that is to be a channel for Hashem, to be completely one with Hashem, to have real real veus. And when I'm aware of that and my marriage is part of that, my relationship with my children is part of that and my work is part of that and my lectures are part of that and my classes and my podcasts and whatever I'm doing, my food, my exercise, my sleeping and even bathing or or having a conversation with somebody or going on a walk if it's part of that everything is transformed into a divine experience of intimacy when they become a distraction of that because I don't even know that part of me. I may only know the ego part of me or the wounded part of me or the insecure part of me or the anxious part of me. So now my marriage is so much more dysfunctional. Now I'm looking to get for my wife things that she can't even give me. I'm looking for my wife to fill the wounds that I never dealt with. And I want my wife to fill them by always saying the right thing at the right moment at the right time so that my wounds should not be triggered. Now which woman can do this? And the same is true the other way. I don't mean to pick on the men, right? The woman is waiting for her husband to fill every single wound that she has. Which man, if women can do it, how do you think men can do it? They don't. Who can do this? Who can do this? Even if they do it once in a while, this can only come from everybody confronting and taking responsibility. We're adults taking responsibility for what is going on inside of us. My wife will never be able to fill my internal wounds. It's my job. I need to fill it. It's my relationship with God. Then I can come and we can develop a relationship from that space. And then what we can give each other, what spouses can give each other is something that's infinite. It's priceless. They can give each other the gift of real connection, of real trust, of real vulnerability. That only comes from people recognizing what they really want in a relationship. What do they really crave in a relationship? Now, I just have to say that this is a lot of work and it's daily work. So it's not just because it's it's it's working through a lot of stuff. You know, we have to be very grateful for this type of awareness and also aware of the fact that sometimes one partner is ready for this work and the other one is not yet ready. I just want to acknowledge that cuz sometimes that's what's happening. There are quite a few women whom I know that are doing a lot of this work and their husbands are not ready yet. They're af they're afraid or the other way around or the other way around. So it's it's just important to acknowledge that. >> And would you encourage them to continue on like to continue doing the work and hope that eventually that will change? >> I'll tell you what we have to do is we must develop deep relationships with God like like I it's ultimately about me and God. Like ultimately I cannot change my husband. I cannot change my wife. I can be an example. I can remain with an open heart. I think one very practical tip for that is is I'll tell you from my personal experience um talking about being vulnerable. So here's an example. I'm going to be very vulnerable now. The reason I'm going to be vulnerable is because I think it's going to be very helpful to a lot of people. I hope so. At least with God's grace. Okay. In the past, if I would see my wife stressed or my children stressed, you know what that meant for me? It meant that I was a bad husband and a bad father. It meant that I was not doing what I was supposed to do. So of course I got angry. It was like an insult to me. My children or my wife being stressed or being over being anxious meant that Y Jacobson was a failure. So of course I was angry. And who was I angry at? I was angry at the people who are showing me that I'm a failure. Like if you could just be happy, I'll be a success story. So what did I do? I disassociated a little. I disconnected a little bit that you know I went into my own my own little orbit. even if I tried to behave civily but it comes out. We disassociate and the heart shuts down a little bit. It was such a emotionally for emotionally for me it was a transformative I can't say epiphany because it happens over time. It's not a moment of epiphany to realize that it's actually the other way around. I don't have to be afraid of my wife or my children experiencing whatever they're experiencing. You know what I can do? I could remain openhearted. I could remain openhearted. I could actually remain present. I don't have to blame. I don't have to go into self-lame. Nobody was blaming me. My wife didn't tell me, "I'm stressed because you're a horrible husband." My children never said that. Everybody goes through the journeys that they go through. Life is stressful. Everybody has their own emotional landscape. Why am I closing my heart? That's because of my own trauma. because of my own inner shame. I was interpreting my children's reactions or my wife's experiences to my own horrible shame. So I was blaming her for no reason. I was blaming myself for no reason. And what happened? The marriage the marriage suffers and there's no reason for that, right? To be able but it's hard emotionally to do because I still struggle with it. Like I I watch the other I and sometimes it's with other people. It's with friends, it's with family members, it's with siblings, it's with partners, it's with neighbors, it's with whatever. and any type of relationship. Of course, the closeknit fat marriage relationship is where it comes out most, but it's all types of relationships. But if I can actually not go into self-lame, I can actually remain present and openhearted with open curiosity and say, you know, I'm just here to contain. I'm just here to love emotionally. And even if I hear those voices like stop being stressed and you have everything you need and what are you, you know, we go INTO THIS PHILOSOPHY, WHAT ARE YOU COMPLAINING ABOUT AND OTHER PEOPLE have it worse. You know when husbands start preaching to their wives why they shouldn't be stressed because other people have it worse and you have cleaning help and YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE TO COOK AND YOU'RE GOING HERE. OKAY, GREAT. GREAT. What the husband was doing is simply afraid of his wife's stress literally and trying trying to manipulate her emotions rather than jumping into the ocean and saying, "Let me have a good time with this." But I don't mean it in a cynical way. I mean, let me just be here in love. Let me be here and open. Let's swim the ocean. It's going to be amazing. For this, we need masculine leaders. For this, we need men to be able to show up without becoming little children because they think their wives are their mothers who are supposed to always be happy in their presence. What's wrong if your wife is having a hard day like that forbid? I'm talking to myself now, but also to my male uh my male uh companions and friends. And the same is true obviously in a different way the other side, right? So, so sometimes the other person is not ready for work. But if I could be present with what's coming up for me and saying, you know what, I don't have to live my life running around your emotions. I don't have to react in that way. That's a choice. I could remain present. I could remain loving. I could remain openhearted. And I could even tell the person, you're having a very, very hard time. You're blaming me. You're blaming me maybe. But I want to tell you I've done a lot a lot of work. I don't think this is about me. I am here. I am available. I am present. I am loving. I am connected. And I'm always here. And what very often happens is an hour later or two hours later, there's a very special moment of connection when we stay the course. But this requires not fake work, right? Sometimes my wife is upset at me. Maybe I did something. Now I can say, "Oh, it's not about me. Now I have to say I made a mistake. Let me apologize." Okay. But sometimes I could know this is not connected to me. Like this is not connected to me. I'm a human being. I showed up. I did the best I can. So to be able to trust yourself when your job is to take accountability and say, "My wife or my husband is upset because of something I did and it's right for me to be to be to apologize and say, "I made a mistake. I made a mistake." Yeah. You know, I was supposed to be there 4:00. I forgot all about it. Instead, I ended up in Starbucks at a business meeting. Okay? And the person may be very, very upset at me. And still, I don't have to close my heart. I could be present, including with the other person's nervousness and anxiety. But sometimes it's not even connected to me. I don't even have to go there. I could just remain fully present. These are the patterns that I think we all need to learn because in relationships this becomes the difference between a powerful, beautiful, healthy relationship to a relationship which we become more and more estranged and less trusting of each other. That is such a powerful message and it's so important. And I actually, it reminds me of a of a story that I heard from someone or maybe I read it in a book about um a husband who his wife was aging and then he and he was no longer as attracted to her as he was before and she started to in and I I don't remember where I heard this just but the story will kind of you know highlight what what the message is. So, she started to inject her face with all kinds of stuff and get all these surgeries so she can look younger and all this stuff, assuming that if he's no longer attracted to her, then something's wrong with her and she has to just do all this stuff to change in instead of recognizing first of all who's whose problem is it really? And that's another interesting question, you know, that he's not as attracted to her and and also instead of having a real raw conversation about what attractiveness even means. Where did that come from? What didn't they nurture in their relationship that it came to this point? like all these other more important conversations that were in had because she was automatically projecting that if he was not attracted to her that it's her fault. >> Yeah. >> And you know, unrelated story, but I just think it's it's the the message of >> people assuming that their spouse's fill in the blanks is their work. >> I think that's a huge relationship. And by the way, by the way, I think it's also important to note when a marriage is not really worked out and couples are not doing this work. What can happen, it doesn't always happen, but what can happen is the husbands and the wives seek attention and validation from other men and from other women. And it's a tragic situation. Sometimes it goes very far, but sometimes it doesn't go far. You know, it's flirt fl flirtatious text messages, WhatsApp, conversations here, conversations there. And it's such a subtle energy that really comes in between husbands and wives more often than people are ready to admit because we all want connection. We all want love. We all want acceptance. We all want to be really, really connected to people. This is a deep desire that God made. It's not a shameful desire. Children need attachment and want attachment and crave attachment. Every one of us wants attachment. People who say I don't need attachment are either completely detached from themselves. Pun pun intended or maybe some angel that I've never met. And the reason we want attachment is you know why? Because we were created because of God's desire for attachment. So attachment is is is woven into the DNA of the universe. The question is what type of attachment is it? attachment that's bringing us closer to our true divine essence or it's attachment that is camouflaging and substituting our real attachments. So when our marriages are not creating that type of attachment, we seek that attachment. And when we're not aware of what we're really looking for, we will take, you know, you know, fast foods. We will take a fast bite just to feel good for five minutes. So I know because I I know in my own life I lectured around the world a lot. I give women's classes every week. I have a big woman and there were times in my life when my marriage was struggling and I realized it was very very subtle but I realized that I was sometimes looking for attention from people and it was feeding a very very deep insecurity inside of me that I had to confront. I really had to confront and each of us in our own ways you know what it what it means in a person's life but then we are not operating with pure energy we are not operating with neutral energy these are transactional relationships where I'm trying to get somebody to feel a certain way about me and it's very very impure it's very very impure and it really comes in between a marriage and this is where people this is where a lot of honesty is such honesty is necessary like I am I don't know I don't know I'm I'm I'm talking here. I don't know how much you'll appreciate this, but I understand so well today why in Jewish law and I think women also appreciate this, but men understand this in a certain way because of the way God made men. So I think just men understand one aspect here a little better or a little in a personal way. You know the reason Jewish law is so so careful with boundaries between men and women sometimes people see it as repressive like oh big deal like you know just chill like just party you know what's the big deal but the truth is Jewish law is really a blueprint for the most sincere authentic pure life and heaven knows how contaminated those connections between opposite genders can if there is no real real reckoning of who I am, where I'm coming from, and what I'm really looking for and what this relationship is about. Um, I have to say something and I know may find this funny. You know, I grew up at the feet of the Reb. And the Reb was one of the few spiritual masters who would meet women. It's one of probably the first Rebas who would give public addresses to women. This was unheard of. you know, women teach women, men teach men for good reason. The Reb would give a few times a year. He would address the women um by dollars. Women would go by and men would go by separately, but men would go by or families would go by and women would sometimes go into the Reb's room sometimes with a family with their husbands, but sometimes they came in and would the window you would see sometimes he opened the window shade, you know, it should be open the windows. There should be the room was unlocked, the secretaries were there. Obviously, he was very very careful with all the laws of no question. And I watched it and I un there was a moment where I could understand what a sadic is because you know God has made our brains in a very interesting way to be able to be present with every woman you meet and completely completely in the most pure neutral sacred space. It's just it may be a simplified way of talking about a holy person but this is such an important goal and challenge for each and every one of us in our own lives to be able to I once asked a therapist whom I'm very close with and he's a marital therapist and naturally you know the men come the women come sometimes they come themselves so I asked him a very honest question I said what do you do when a woman comes to you she's very vulnerable she tells you things she would never tell her husband She may be very appealing on many levels and you're overtaken by that. What do you do? Like what do you do? And he looked at me and he said, "I'll tell you exactly what I do. I acknowledge how enthralled I am by this person. I acknowledged how attracted I am. I acknowledged how vulnerable I am to fall into this relationship. And then I make a decision. If I could put that feeling on the side burner and not guide the therapy based on wanting to have her come back again and again and again and again without her husband, I will continue as a therapist. If not, I will say this case is really not for me. But he said the first thing is I have to be honest about what just happened. If I'm not honest, I say nah, I'm beyond that. I'm a sophisticated guy. I have a great marriage. It's not a big deal. It's not a big deal. Come on. She's neb a broken woman with a miserable what? He says, "I just lied to myself and it's going to create disaster because subconsciously my therapy will be guided by one agenda. I want her in this office. I want her to like me. I want her to trust me." I was very very moved by his by by that line because so many people are unaware of this. And by the way, women too, women therapists too, with other women or with men. We could be become so entangled and inshed and transactional and it's camouflaged. I'm a therapist. I'm helping her. I'm helping him. They're broken people. And really, I am feeding my own wounds that I never dealt with. I never dealt with. And I'm using this woman or I'm using this man. I'm actually using them. They're paying me, but I'm using them. So, this is where there's no substitute for this type of internal reckoning of authenticity and honesty. And when we go into those places of authenticity and honesty and we start feeling the frequency of the alterba that I really have really really one desire and nobody nobody will be able to fill that outside of Hashem then it's so much there's actually much more bliss in a person's life and we realize that all the distractions were literally like the difference between eating toxic food that makes you feel good for 3 minutes and then you're in a bad mood for the rest of the day or eating like a real healthy meal that like your body says thank you. It's literally the same difference, you know, >> like feeding your appetite versus feeding your hunger or >> right and feeding your appetite and your appetite is not coming is not is not about that food. It's an appetite because I'm stressed or I'm anxious. So, I'm taking some toxic food to numb my pain for 5 minutes and then I'm just in a worse mood, you know? So, it's like the same is true with life. Am I am I pursuing distractions or am I pursuing real real oneness? It's it's always a question we always have to ask ourselves >> and it's it's it's probably the most important question in life. >> Every relationship every this conversation including what's my agenda here in this conversation. What is my agenda in this conversation? These are I have to ask myself this question. In past in past stages of my life I didn't ask myself this question or worse I fooled myself. I deceived myself. And it's true constantly. This is 24/7. Either, as I said before, either we're getting close to connection or we're going we're drifting away from connection. >> You know, somebody once told me, he said, "Every conversation between a husband and a wife, there's no such a thing as a conversation that was about nothing." >> I love this. Either the conversation brought you closer or the conversation brought you further. It's so true. My wife may ask me, "Can you go pick up our son today from school?" A simple question, right? It's not very dramatic. But the way I answer it brings us closer or brings us further. I may say and I'm thinking, "Oh, really? You have so much to do today and you can't." And you know what's on my you know what I mean? I didn't even say anything. But women feel, men feel, women certainly feel and we just got a little further. Nothing happened. Or you know somebody once told me we we live in Muny so in the back there's always a lot of birds and they're very colorful right so somebody once told me he says my wife says to me wow look at that red bird look at that red bird and he says I'm not interested I'm reading the I'm reading the newspaper right but at that moment I could like okay let me see your red bird right or say my wife is really excited about this red bird and he says here. Let's go see the red bird. And it