The World Was Created for You - Rabbi Avraham Willig

Today we're going to learn about selfimage. That is uh the topic of discussion and it's a it's a power topic because I don't know about you but every day I got to look in the mirror when I wake up in the morning and what am I looking at exactly? You know who am I? How do I feel about myself? How do you feel about yourself? You don't have the answer. How do you feel about yourself? And what does Judaism have to say about that? What does Torah Judaism have to say about self-esteem, have to say about self-image? So, the place we're going to begin today is a segment in the Talmud, right? A little taste of Talmud here. Okay. Um, a little taste of Talmud. You can pass these back. Uh, the The the section that we're going to be looking at is a section in thank you in actually in the in a Mishna in Sanra the Sanhedrin page 37A this is a primary text okay before we open the Bibles here a primary text the primary text of the of the uh of the Talmud it's called the Mishna and there the the garra deals with the Mishna deals with Why is it that God created man as an individual? Why is it that God created man alone? Now, before we look inside, just let's just think for a second, okay? Let's just like think about the big world. You read Genesis chapter 1. God creates a world and and what did it look like? He created, we see, we read, he created trees. Well, how many trees did he create? He created like I don't know how many you think the the Torah doesn't tell us explicitly. How many do you think he created? Uh, you know, two trees. Is this like a Dr. Seuss book? You know, like like this like what this big tree. That was it. That was God created a tree, right? Is that is that is that what happened? God created millions of trees. I mean, he creates a whole world full of trees. I mean, you got to order a lot of trees. If you fill the whole world with trees, that's a lot of trees. Okay. How many rivers? How many lakes? How many lakes didn't God create when he created the when he created lakes? I mean, I don't know the answer, but I know this, right? It wasn't one lake or two lake. I MEAN, LOOK, MINNESOTA ALONE IS 10,000 LAKES. I mean, THERE'S A WHOLE WORLD OF LAKES. HE CREATED, I don't know, hundreds of thousands of lakes. Fair to say. And and and and how many butterflies? And how many chimpanzees and chihuahua and orangutangs and how many bunny rabbits? I God created a whole He creates a whole world and and and everything that he creates he creates in bulk. In bulk. You know why? Because God's Jewish wholesale, my man. Got to think big business. God that was a joke. Okay. God creates a whole world of He doesn't create one. He created elephants. Okay. So on the day you created elephant exactly how many elephants did you create? It was like Mr. and Mrs. Elephants. Welcome. You know there's a whole I mean you got to fill the African the whole the whole African continent with elephants and Asia and you get it. I mean God b And we can go on and on and on, right? You know, mosquitoes, you get it. Snakes, stars, you in the back. How many stars are there? >> Just take a guess. Don't worry, I don't know either. >> Hundreds of billions. Hundreds and hundreds of billions of stars. That's a heck of a lot of star. Why so many stars? Yeah. God wants a lot of things. He wants He wants a big world full of stuff. That's it. We're going big, man. We're going large. That's it. CONTINENTS, PLANETS, you know, oceans, fish. How many fishes God created, you know, on day five of the creation created fish and birds? Millions of millions of birds. You get it? Everything God created. This one creature. It was one creation entirely different model of production. An entirely different totally different unique one one creature one product that's manufactured in the by God in the creation story and that is the homo sapi the human being. God creates, open the Bible, chapter one. God creates a human by himself. One singular being. That's it. Just one being. Now, I mean, anybody reading the story has to wonder like just just just look at this carefully. That's kind of curious. Why would I do that? Now you might tell me, "Oh, I know why population control, you know, we have to worry about uh right, lots of people." Well, not so because look at the as we once spoke about. Look at the first thing that God tells Adam and Eve. The first thing that God tells Adam, what's the first thing? VERY FIRST WORDS EVER. Fill up the world with people literally quote the Hebrew translation. fill up the world with human beings. God wants a lot of you. Well, it's right in line. I mean, it's right in it's right it's parallel to everything else, right? Lots of fish, lots of birds, lots of you know what I'm saying? You get it? Like lots of everything. Well, he loves lots of PEOPLE ALSO. SO, GOD ACTUALLY WANTS LOTS OF PEOPLE. HE wants a world full of big lots of people. Well, if that's true, we our question is even more difficult. Okay. So then so then so then why did God create man alone? admit it actually it's it actually in in a certain sense well if you can pardon the expression it hurts God's interest you know right it it damages God's plan God is it's self-sabotaging God wants a world full of people and yet he created men who just by uh what do you call like a you know like special edition you know special edition like a one time that's a that's a one guy that's it just one. How do you understand this? So, it's the gamarra here that's in front of you that analyzes and deals with this question. Okay? And I want to look through it quickly and I want to focus really on a specific point. Okay? But because it's open in front of us, let's dive in and see what we can see. I'm sure you'll have questions. I'm sure I won't be able to take them. And let's uh Yeah, there's another one. There's plenty here. Here's another one. and um and uh let's get to the bottom line which actually in this case in this printing is actually the bottom line. Okay, so the bottom line is the bottom line. So what's my goal right now? The bottom line. So don't try to hold me up too much even though there's plenty of things to ask. Okay. The Gumra pres the Mishna presents well first of all [clears throat] in order to teach in order to teach that one the the value of one human life the value of one life is so is so extreme. It's so I it's so powerful that the whole world the the the actually the whole world the entire universe is created for one life. One life. And it says, and I'm paraphrasing in front of you, that means if you even save one life, here's a famous line from the Talmet. You might have heard this. Here it is. You're actually seeing it in the source. If you save one life, it's as if you save the entire world and the entire world. One life. The entire world. And if, God forbid, God forbid, you snuff out one life, you destroy one life. It's as if you destroy an entire world. Wow. Proof. Here it is. God created a whole world for one person. Right. Okay. Presentation number one. Presentation number two. In order to keep the peace, God wants a world where you where us humans get along. Get along. And he knows that there's there's always going to be competition, right? I mean, starts already in kindergarten. My daddy is stronger than your daddy. Oh yeah. Well, my daddy has bigger muscles than your daddy. You know what? My daddy, he's in charge of this whole school. Oh, yeah. My daddy's in charge of this whole this whole neighborhood. Yeah, that's it. All right. Well, guess what? If actually my daddy, you know, had a rivalry with your daddy, it wouldn't be so, you know, it can get it can get ugly. >> Well, >> here's the news. the news that all humanity forever and ever is. We all come from one daddy. His name and in order to such a valuable lesson in order to to try to sidestep to try to prevent and circumvent tension between people, fighting between people, argument, arguments between people, rivalry between people, humans, war. In order in order to prevent wars in the world, God created try to keep it simple. Just one just one human being. We all basically we're all one family. We are we're just one big family. We're all related. We all come from one grandpa. Hopefully, you would think, right? God's pretty smart. You would think like, "Oh, we're all one." Okay, so now we're going to get along. Oh, yeah. Look, you have to like analyze this again. You know, in in today's world, like, did this work? I don't know. [laughter] There's tons of fights, hatred. But you know what? God's still smart. I guess it would have been much worse, right? Imagine if we weren't. That's with being family. We're fighting like this, right? There's wars all over the world. Every generation tons of Okay, but you know what? And that's with family. If it wasn't if we weren't family, that'd be even worse, right? So, okay. So, good explanation number two. Isolation number three says the Mishna so that people would not be able to suggest or to claim that there's more than one God. You see the the pinnacle of of the creatures of this planet is the human being and the those who might be want to claim certainly as was very common in the times of biblical times that you know there's there's many gods. polytheism, right? This, you know, paganism is your god, my god, this god, this well, you can, you might be able to bl, you know, blunder, right, by falling into this mistake like, oh, look at that. There's there was, I don't know, five people who were created and it must be like each one has their own, you know, each one has their own manufacturer. Look at that. Five people were created. You got to start somewhere, right? There must be five gods. Heaven forbid. God doesn't want to make you know allow for any mistakes. He creates only one person. Everyone comes from that one person. So everyone knows that there's no one could no one would make a mistake. There's more than one God. Okay. And then the Talmet says interestingly this also uh presents and broadcasts the greatness of God because because as the Talmet says here the mission says we all are minted. It's an interesting expression. All human beings so to speak are minted from the same coin. In other words, conceptually there's there was one human being and he gave birth to everyone. So basically we all come from that. We all come from Adam. Don't you think we should all look the same? Right? You would have suggested that they look the same. However, as the Mishna says, all men from the times of Adam until today, every person looks different. Not one of them is not one person that's ever lived is exactly identical to anybody else. Not one. What does that display and show? The greatness that the the the the infinite skill and greatness of God, right? That that uh everyone uh everyone so many people who should be the same and everyone looks different. And this is um and this is this speaks to the glory and the the greatness of God. Okay. All this is interesting. Now we get to the bottom line. And this is the bottom line. Jent, this is not just the bottom line for this class. You know what? I dare I dare suggest with you know as much humility as I can muster. I dare say that this is the bottom line of your whole life. Here it is. And if you're writing notes, write this down. The bottom line here is the Gar says, I'll say it in Hebrew and then we'll translate. We're on Sanhedrin 37A. The bottom line Therefore, says the Mishna, therefore, what is the upshot? What is the takeaway? What do you learn from everything this discussion? What what do we need to know? What do what do you walk away with that you have to like actually do? Like how does this impact your life? Is this just philosophical? No such thing in Judaism. This is Judaism is not just it's not about philosophy. It's about values. It's about real living. It's about real life decision. Therefore, every single human being [snorts] is obligated to say, quote, the three magic words. Every human being is obligated to say the world was created for me. For me, this whole world was created just for me. That is a an obligation in Judaism. You want to be Jewish, you want to follow the ways of the Torah, you are obligated. All people are obligated to say and to think and to know and to believe that this entire planet, this entire universe was created just for them. You'll say, "Where'd you get that from? How is that the outcome?" I'll I'll show you what the mission is showing us. I'll show you what the Misha is telling you. I'LL TELL YOU WHAT I'LL tell you what I'm telling you, boys. I'll tell you. God indeed. This is not theoretical or philosophical. God actually factually CREATED AN ENTIRE UNIVERSE FOR one man, for one human being. It's actually true. True story. It's not some uh you know some concept. It's true. It's a true story. God created the entire universe. I mean, do we need to go do we need to go through it again? How many cubic, you know, uh uh uh what's the metric, you know, cubic uh gallons of water are in this planet? I mean, are are in this are in this universe? And how many stars? You get it? and and and and and and how much go through all the list and trillions and millions and billions of things that we can focus and look at. How much exactly did God put into this world all of that? All of that he actually he actually created for one human being. Why? Well, simple because one human being, one one person deserves a universe that is that vast, that is that massive, that is that beautiful. Yeah. But how many lakes can I swim in? SO WHAT? SO WHAT? God says it's I'm in CHARGE AROUND HERE. I'M in Yeah. How many lions can I ride on? I don't care. I don't you're going to be millions millions and beautiful birds and beautiful fruits and and incredible landscapes and unbelievable mountains and not just one. I don't care. BUT I I DON'T CARE HOW MANY I DON'T CARE. ALL DIFFERENT TYPES and different places and temperatures. That's right. And and and and all the things that this world comes with just for you just for one person. It's not accidental. It's not accidental. It's by design. It's actually by design. And why did God do that? The Mishna is whispering into our ears the words that are just so it's it's a mega teaching. It's a word which it's a it's it's a lesson which is it's foundational. It's fundamental to our entire existence, our entire self-perception. You, you therefore are obligated to see yourself as worthy of the entire universe being created just for you. Proof. I mean, proof is right here in front of us. God actually creates an entire universe for one person. Now, it, you know, I mean, the world happens. It's not like God's g, you'll say, "Okay, so so God should destroy the world and then create it again for you and destroy the world again. You'll kill everyone. It's not a different, you know, alternative universe just for you." God doesn't do that. I mean, God could have done he doesn't want to do that. He wants a world that's going to be a world. But he created that world in that way. The original model for the sole purpose of mankind forever and ever absorbing the the the lesson and the message that they are valuable. You have the ultimate value. You are that significant. You are ex of extreme importance individually. just you alone. And if if he needed to, God would create the world just for you. Every man and every woman that ever was and ever is and ever will be is that valuable. And if you don't look in the mirror and see yourself as valuable, guess what? You ready for this? You ready for this statement? Is a big statement. You're spitting in God's face. You're sinning against God. You know why? I'll tell you why. BECAUSE GOD DID SOMETHING HE DIDN'T WANT TO DO. HE WANTS A HE WANTED HE WANTS A world full of people. That's his whole plan. That's all he wants. Just like he wants a world full of fish and full of birds and full of and full of everything else he did. He wants a world that's big and and and and and and filled up with, you know, massive numbers of everything. And as I showed you, as I proved to you, God wants a world full of people also. But you know what? He did something that was, so to speak, bad for him. Bad for him. God did something that was bad for him. Only for one reason. For one reason. So that you, you and you and you and you and you and you and you and you for you, every single person would learn the lesson and absorb the message that they're important. And can you imagine how how painful it is, so to speak, for God? It's like it stings. Like, dang, you know, like what a mess, you know? Look what I did. You know, I I ruined everything. my whole plan. I got everything got messed up. I was trying to teach them and they didn't learn and they learned the lesson. In fact, they wake up in the morning, they look at the like, man, I suck. [laughter] Oh man, I'm disgusting. I I hate myself. I I can't stand worthless. Piece of garbage. And he falls into depression. Ah, no value. I'm, you know, I should, God forbid, God, can't say the words, I should kill myself. You know, the world is better without me. My life sucks. You know, you know what kind of you know what kind of a front you know what kind of so to speak damage that you're doing to God? What a to use a Jewish expression. What a what a And you know what? It's a sin. It's actually a sin. And I can prove it to you. It's a sin to see yourself as negative. To have a negative self-image, to have negative self-perception is a sin. I can prove it to you. I can prove it to you from the from the from the Bible. I can prove it to you from the Tal. It's a sin. Now, that's something that sounds even more extreme. Like, we're not used to that, you know? Like, hey man, I'm you know, I go to my therapist, you know, like, okay, go see your therapist, but you right now I'm not speaking like a therapist. I'm just speaking like a rabbi. I need to deliver the truth. You deserve to know the truth. The truth is the truth is that in in God's book, in Judaism, if you see yourself as negative and you you you you step into that narrative, you accept that concept, you're actually committing a it's a very significant sin. And again, I can prove it. I don't time doesn't really allow me to prove it right now, but I'll just just parathetically I'll reference I'll make a reference. If you look at the book of Samuel chapter 15, okay, chapter 15, you see that the great big superstar king of Israel, right, named King Sha gets fired. We mentioned it recently. He gets fired. He gets thrown out of his job. And what's the reason? Tells him tells he comes to him with this with the message and he says, "Listen, get out of here." TRANSLATION, YOU'RE THE KING OF ISRAEL, MAN. YOU'RE THE KING OF YOU'RE the most important Jew in the WHOLE WORLD. AND GUESS WHAT? In your own eyes, you were small. Those are those are his words. In your own eyes, you saw yourself as small. You saw yourself as small. You're a sinner. You sinned against God. Get out of here. Get out of here. You're fired. And he punishes him. And that's the end of his career. It's the end of everything for it. Wow. What was his sin? His sin, King Sha's sin, King Saul's sin was he was he had the sin of low self-esteem. Can you believe that? And he's punished or punished. I have nothing. It's not my fault. Oh, yeah. Here comes a Jewish concept. Here comes a Jewish concept. Who gives you the right to see yourself as small? No, but but but that's what you know, my inner heart tells me. Oh, really? And your inner heart tells you to, you know, to to steal your neighbor's uh to steal your neighbor's stuff. Your inner heart tells you to flirt with your, you know, with your neighbor's wife. Your inner heart tells you to look at things you shouldn't look at. The inner heart tells you to to to get angry and scream at the people you love. Your inner heart tells you lots of things. Well, take control of your life. Don't just follow every in bloody impulse that you know I want to do this. I want to eat this or what you're going to dare to eat like 50 pieces of cake. But but I couldn't help it. Well, start helping it, dude. Start helping it. Who get you have to you have you have to be a big boy. And you can't do things like that. It's against God's will. It's damaging to yourself. It's damaging to society. Well, guess what? Here comes another thing. Here comes another Here it is in the Torah. But they didn't teach me this IN SCHOOL. WELL, YOU learning it here in Judaism. You you give to yeshiva. Here it is. You're learning this at Torah. Okay. You're learning. You want to learn about Judaism. HERE'S WHERE HERE'S [laughter] WHAT WE'RE LEARNING ABOUT JUDAISM. THE MOST IMPORTANT beginning beginning of a life of Judaism is you have to walk around. You have to walk around experiencing the world with a very healthy selfish. How healthy? Oh, very healthy. So healthy that you're like, "Wow, I'm really important. God loves me. I'm valuable. I have inherent value. I'M SO VALUABLE. YOU KNOW, IF THERE WAS NO ONE ON THIS WHOLE WORLD, GOD WOULD CREATE THE WORLD JUST FOR ME. HERE, you want to say this a different way? You want to tell I'll help you. Okay? Be my friend. How much how much gold you Let's say that he took all the gold and you know, out of Australia, you know, the African mines, you know, everywhere everywhere, you know, CALIFORNIA, THEY ALL THE GOLD TOGETHER, RIGHT? collect it from all over the world. How much is it worth? Put a price tag on it. How much is it? How much is it? Come on. Got to be much more than a trillion. I don't know. I don't know. There's no way to measure it. Hundreds of TR. Okay, good. Very good. And all THE SILVER IN ALL THIS is in the entire universe. All somehow you could collect it, put a price. How much? How much is I want to buy all the silver on the planet Earth. How much is that? I don't know. It's a heck of a lot of silver. A lot of money, right? You agree? Okay. Here. Answer this question. How many how many how many I don't know how do you quantify this how many pounds of diamonds are there in the entire world all over the world everywhere you go all the d all the diamond mines everywhere you collect all of it okay how much is it all worth I want to buy all the diamonds in the how much is it worth right I don't know like I don't know trillions or trillions of dollar all okay good and all the oil ALL THE OIL AND ALL THE AND AND ALL THE PLATINUM DO YOU SEE IT DO YOU SEE IT OKAY. I WANT TO BUY UH HERE. I WANT TO BUY EUROPE. I WANT to buy the whole pl here. How much is the whole the whole the whole continent? YEAH, I'LL PAY THE whole thing. How much is it worth? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Is it for sale? It's not for sale. LIKE HOW MUCH IS THE HOW MUCH IS THE PACIFIC OCEAN WORTH? RIGHT. YOU SEE WHAT I'M SAYING? THIS WHOLE FREAKING UNIVERSE HERE. PLANET AFTER PLAN. STAR [screaming] JUST EVERYTHING. THE WHOLE KITTY KAMOODLE HERE. THE WHOLE LOT. EVERYTHING. I'LL DO PILE THE WHOLE THING UP. I GOT A SERIOUS, YOU KNOW, AMERICAN EXPRESS CARD HERE. THE WHOLE THING I HOW MUCH IS IT? HOW MUCH IS IT? WAS IT Google Plex? You know, Google Google, you understand? Trillions, hundreds of billions of trillions of Google or whatever. There's no number, RIGHT? GUESS WHAT? GUESS WHAT? YOU, YOU, YOU, little you. You're worth more than that. That's what the mission is telling us. Is that how you see yourself? You ought to you're actually obligated to do you know that self-esteem and Judaism it's not like extra it's not like oh it's optional oh if I'm lucky I happen to be wake up I'm having a good hair day hair day if I bad that example if if you happen to have be I like the way I look today okay therefore today I guess you know I'm feeling good you know yeah I had a good coffee yeah yeah I like myself it's it doesn't work that way. It's not like, oh, it's a nice thing if you can. It's optional. It would be a good idea, you know, like. Yeah. Look what the mission says. It's right in front of you. It's right in front of us for you to see. Look, I showed it to you today. I showed it to you. I brought I brought you the text. Look at the bottom line. It says there. How long you been in Asia Torah? A week. A week. Nice. Do you know what the word means? Hint, it's right in front of you in the English translation. What does kay mean? Kay means obligated. Here it is in the mission of black and white right in front of you. You are we are obligated. Obligated. It's mandatory. It's compulsive. It's this is not like some extra luxury. You're obligated to see yourself as important. Could you imagine? It's such a, it sounds so funny to our, you know, American mind, you know. Can you imagine? Like here, what's the here? You go up to heaven and you and they say, "Oh, did you have self-esteem? I didn't have self." Oh, go to hell. [laughter] It sounds so cruel, right? Like, what do you mean? It's it's not it's NOT IN MY POWER. YES, IT IS. OKAY, maybe not entirely good. So, go to SO, GO SEE A THERAPIST. GREAT. DO THAT. Do that, too. Right. But the Torah tells us here, Judaism tells us loud and clear, you are obligated. Obligated to see ourselves as valuable. Not how valuable. Oh, extremely very valuable. The ultimate inval. You're important. Then you know what? You want to know something? Just let's stop notice this as you know like just as a sociologist, you study behavior and and study human behavior and and and and interaction. When a person sees themselves as dignified, when a person experiences themselves as important, that itself has an impact, it has an impact on my own on my own happiness. It has an impact on my own behaviors. just the way I you know if you're the king if you if you're the president you don't you wouldn't do things that I don't want to even give examples here you wouldn't do things that are just despicable disgraceful self you know disgusting self- humiliating you see what I'm saying we wouldn't do things that like are kind of embarrassing but like we do them anyway because like who are we anyway who are you who are you you're actually the most important person and you're going to say to me what's driving this why is this true the mission okay so the mission said where mission know this from where what do you I mean I guess we know it from because the Torah tell the Torah presents it that way but what what's the what's the inner engine that's driving this idea why why is a human being so much greater than all other beings. The answer is right there back in that story. Genesis chapter 1 verse 26 27 28 because God created man in his image. When God created you and I, we're the only beings. There's a little bit of God. a little bit of God and godliness inside of there's a actually a piece of God whatever that means I can't explain I pass my pay grade you know I don't understand exactly what I'm saying right now I don't understand what I'm saying right now which is common happens to me a lot but also happens a lot of my students they also don't understand what happens I'm saying that was a joke okay so um um I don't know what it means but inside of every human being is a little bit of godliness. How can that be? Simple. God is infinite. That's what we're learning here at HR. God is infinite. Well, if God is infinite, guess what? This infinite parts and pieces, so to speak, of himself. And this is not my own idea. is what we learn in the from the original texts and the and and the rabbis who teach and the Zohar and and the Talmud who teach us that there's a soul and the Torah itself in Genesis chapter one 20 chapter one and also in chapter two remember the story in chapter two where where there's like a little bit more of a description about how God created man who remembers you can look at it inside chapter two uh you find it there right God creates And how does he create him? First, he he makes him out of dirt, right? He's like a like you go to the beach, you know, you build a you like a you build like a you know the form of a something, right? So God creates man out of dirt, but it's just dirt. There's no there's no life to it. And then what does God do? And then what does God do? Look it up in the Bible. Look at chapter two. You know what God does? I'll tell you what he does. He says, I'll say it in my own way. He's like, he's not breathing. Quick, call 911. Call 911. Okay. Okay. CPR. Go. Okay. Breathe. Breathe in. Okay. And then God, [sighs] he breathes into man. That's what it says in the Bible. He breathed into man. That's what he did. You know what that means? You know what that means? Translation. I should show it to you. You look at me like, really? God breathed in to man the breath of life. That's what he did. Now, when you breathe, if you do CPR, you should never need to. Well, if you do bre you breathe into that person, whose oxygen is that person breathing right now? Yours, right? I think that I think that the EMTs even use the use the expression breathe for him. Breathe for him. In other words, right? You you you blow oxygen into his Okay, good. Well, if God breathes into our If God breathes into our bodies, okay, then what? Here it is. Chapter 2, verse 7, it's on page 11. Okay, you can open and look at it inside. God formed man from the dust of the ground and then he blew into his nostrils the soul, the breath of life, the soul of life, and man became a living being. In other words, the the the the the living being, the human soul is is a little bit of godliness. That's we are we are again it sounds a little bit strange or you must it almost even sounds like blasphemous. We are like, sounds weird to say like like little children of God. Little gods, you know, little mini godly, not gods, but like godly creations. We have a little bit of godliness in us. That's why God says, That's why God says in the Torah again and again and again and again, especially in the book of Deuteronomy, in the fifth book of the Torah, a mitzvah, it's actually one of the 613 mitz, which is actually one of my favorite mitzvah. One of my favorites. You see, you're getting to know me. One of my favorite mitzvah is where God says, "I want you to be like me. Be like me." I know you say, "I want to be I want to be like Mike." No. No. Not in Judaism. I want to be like God. I want to be like God. It's actually a mitzvah in the Torah to be like God. Did you know that? It's a mitzvah in the Torah to be like God. In other words, since we are, again, it's a little bit strange to say it this way, but like some type of children of God in some way. We have a godly soul, right? And God ex expresses openly in the Torah translation. God in the Torah says you he says to us you are my children. You are my children, right? I I I you are you are my children. God says famously to Pharaoh, right? Is right my my this is my this is my boy is my son. If you're a human being, you have a you have you have a little bit of godliness in. So, in other words, you know, like when someone has a baby, you know, and like like the big fight in the family, it's like who does he look like? You know, does it look like like oh, does it look like the mom or the dad? The mom, the dad, the mom, the dad. You know, both sides of the family are fighting. You know, it looks like her looks like him. It looks like Guess what? Guess what? Us Jews, we have a different we have a different concept. uh it actually looks like God automatically. Automatically there's a part of you that has a little bit of like you have a divine image. There's something about you which is godly in inborn. You don't have to do anything, right? You look I bet you look like your dad. I bet I bet people have told you you look like your dad. Am I wrong? People have told you that, right? You look like your dad. And guess what? You probably do look like your dad. Well, guess what? You look like your You look like your other dad as well. You look like God as well. And you want to know something? That's without doing anything. Just naturally you're looking. But that's just na that's just that's just nature. You know what God says? One of my favorite vitas, finish the job. Finish the job. In other words, I want you to look like actually work at it to to look like me. Be like me. How do you say this in the old Latin? Imit translation this be like be like me be like God right imitate is the divine right imitate God a person should walk around imitating God okay so what am I showing you right what am I showing you that there's a there's godliness within us there's godliness within us well then we have value you can't do things that are like you're you're You're a son of a king. You're a son of God, right? Yet you can't walk around doing things which are disgusting and embarrassing and and of such low selfworth. Do you know the Talmet says that the gar says in Shabas on page 50 that you're obligated when you wake up every morning, you're obligated to wash your face. That's what it says in the a person is obligated to wash their face every morning. Why? Wash your face. Yes, wash your face. You know why? Because you are created in the image of God. If you're created, you have to be presentable. You have to look you have to look decent. You have to look like a h have to look like a like a like a, you know, like a like a like an honorable person, right? A person's obligated to to respect themselves, to respect themselves. You're obligated to respect yourself, to accept yourself, to honor yourself, to value yourself, to appreciate yourself. This is, like I said, an obligation. It's not extra. It's not a mitzvah. And there's no arguing. And we'll close with this thought. There's no arguing. You can't say, "No, but rabbi, I'm an exception." Oh, really? You're trying to tell me you're not created in the image of God? What are you like a demon? What? You're Who exactly are you? You're a human being. You're trying to tell me that you're not you don't you don't have a god. You don't have a soul. You're not a human. Humans are humans. You're created image of God. Oh, no, no, no. But you know, I I have all KINDS OF FLAWS. OH, OH, OH, OH, OH, OH, OH. SO, wait a second. Let let me get this straight. Let me GET THIS STRAIGHT. GOD, WHO'S PERFECT created a human being. And God chose to create you. He didn't need to. Do you know that? Hey guys, you know that? You know that God didn't need to create you. He chose to create you. Well, I I I could I don't want to swear, but I basically I could swear to you one thing. I don't want to swear, but I could if I I would if I needed to. I could swear to you that if I could do what you could do and you could do what I could do, I I could swear God would not have created both of us. I I could swear that's true. God doesn't make extras. There are no mistakes in the manufacturing line. He didn't need to create you. He didn't. If he created you, it's because you have a massive value and you have a massive unique entirely unique purpose, job, mission work to do in this contribution to make in this on this in this lifetime in this planet. If I could do what you could do and you could do what I could do, God wouldn't create above us. So, you know what? Why don't we stop first? Many lessons to learn here. First of all, why don't you stop trying to be me? Why don't you stop trying to be that person who you think is so cool? Stop. Cuz that's so dumb. Because you you could try a million lifetimes. You'll never be able to be them because only they are them. And and don't waste your time trying to be someone else because if you do, you'll never be successful. And even worse, even worse, it means that you won't be you. And guess what? There ain't nobody else in the world who can be you. Nobody. Nobody can be you because you are your own unique iteration of God's infinity. No one like you has ever lived and ever will live. Ever. And yolo, my man. So make it work. Make it happen. And you cannot see yourself as as as as worthless. That that that's part of the sin. That's part of the sin. You can't we can't afford we can't afford to to to live this way, right? So let's stop let's let's stop trying to be someone else. Let's try to be just be yourself, right? as the expression is be yourself because everyone else is already taken. >> Be [clears throat] yourself because everyone else is taken, my man. God created you and you have value. You can't say that you don't have value because God doesn't make mistakes and God doesn't make God doesn't does he's God. I mean, do I need to say anything more? He's God and if he created you, you have value. You know, it's like, you know, like you buy that those cheap stupid trinkets from on AliExpress, you know, like they break, you know, you walk in the store, by the time you walk out of the store, they're broken. You know, it's like, we have a we have a guarantee the warranty. How long is it until you walk out of the store? You know, like it's bro, right? That's that's that's not a human being. God doesn't create junk. HE'S GOD. HE'S GOD. GOD DOESN'T CREATE JUNK. And you, little you, oh, by the way, I'm a piece of junk. I'm worthless. I have no value. Oh, really? SO, IT'S YOUR OH, AND I SHALL believe you. That's it. I shall believe you. It's Let's think. It's your word VERSUS THE WORD OF GOD. GOD. YOUR GOD SAYS YOU'RE THE MOST IMPORTANT being on the planet. And you're like, I'm a piece of blankety blank blank. I should kill myself. I have no value. Really? I should believe you. Is that what you're saying? OH, GOD MADE A MISTAKE. HE ACTUALLY CREATED JUNK. GOD'S just not aware of it. He didn't realize. You kidding me? You kidding? You expecting me to believe that? You could tell me a trillion times that you're that you have no value. You're not going to change my mind, man. You have deep powerful endless inherent inherent value. And it's not because you did something right or because you have a great voice or because you're, you know, you're like you're very I don't care what you do or you don't do. Because you have a soul of God that God decided of all people, all creatures and creations decide to put into into you, you're important. We can't afford to miss this lesson. This is the bottom line of Judaism. The beginning of the beginning. It's the beginning and the end. Jens, good luck being you.