Latest / ChabadLife.TV Street Farbrengen / Street Farbrengen Episode 122 - Vanilla Chassid?

Transcript

Street Farbrengen Episode 122 - Vanilla Chassid? · ChabadLife.TV Street Farbrengen

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Sahar, you know it's interesting how sometimes conversations from two different disparate locations hook up and create a moment of aha and wonder.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: So someone this morning told me they're on Sheduchim and they told me they can't go out with someone whose vanilla ice cream.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: And in the evening someone from Israel said to me, The Rebbe wants his Chidim to be just like him.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought to myself, That for sure is not vanilla ice cream.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, yes, the rubber was not vanilla ice cream.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: So so what what what are you thinking about this, Riven?
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, well, the really the emphasis is more on what my friend said from Erzis Threll.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: But I get what this person was telling me.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: They they they we've been down this road before that a lot of people's sense of self is to be like everybody else.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: Especially in religious groups, especially um by chasidim and to some degree chabad.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: But the Rebbe, when I say that what we were talking about, was the Rebbe wants you to be holy and totally grounded in Ilam Haza at the same time.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the most difficult mission.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's usually one or the other.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: I can't straddle both worlds, right?
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: The Rebbe wants both.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: He wants you to feel a tzilus while you're out, you know, I don't know, taking out the garbage, so to speak.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um but going but it's not it's not that.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: That's not the right way of saying it.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's the Rebbe wants a grounded person where the world, and I'm not saying it's for this reason, but the world is in awe of you.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: Not because you're spitting light out of your mouth and there's sparkles all over your aura, but because you're just so much of a phenomenon of both worlds.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's a famous, there's a well-known um, I forget his name, Suardoz, Harvey Suardo's, I think his name was.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: He was some guy in Amherst University, a poet of this and of that.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: And he came out uh from Yachidas and said about the Rebbe that he he printed it in the York Times after Gimbel Thomas, and he said that the Rebbe had the the greatest sophistication in mind he's ever met, but he had the amuna of a child.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what is wanted of us, essentially.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: The Rebbe expects that on our own level.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, we're not on his level, of tsitkis and so forth.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: And it just caught my my it made me laugh that this other person is saying, I can't go out with another vanilla flavor labager.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I know what that person means.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: So it's kind of uh and and like yeah, what does that mean?
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: What does I I I was gonna ask, you said it's obvious, I don't know what you mean.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_02: I I'd like you to describe that more, please.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: Well it's it's almost like I mean let's get let's let's get honest here.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I don't know how many people know this.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: The Rebbe had clippings of from the newspapers and magazines that the secretaries would give him every day.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, this obviously we don't have to say that he wasn't on the internet and so on and so forth, you know, because there wasn't one then, but and I don't know if he would be on the internet today.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: But the bottom line is that he was kept abreast of things.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: And we know all the great stories of all the Israeli um IDF officials coming in to see the Rebbe and of being blown away that he knew more about.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh there just came out something I saw recently.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: He knew more about the technical end of aeroplanes and and uh and such stuff than than they did.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: 15 years and they and they write and they say, that's because the Rebbe was an engineer.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: Anyways, at the same so so there's no I I'm not saying go out and learn engineering, and I'm not saying, you know, that's what's I'm saying that you're you're so let's talk brass tacks, so to speak.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you're you're skirting around the issue.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: Let's dive into where that what what happens now.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: So, for example, one of the things I think about quite often now is who is in the United States the strongest Jewish group nationally?
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: I guess Kabbat.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh don't guess.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: It is.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: Who has got the least voice on the political national level?
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: Probably Chabad.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: Who's got the only they we needed a jackass like what's his name?
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: Carlson.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: What's his name again?
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: Tucker.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: Tucker.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: There's a poem rhyme there, but I won't say it.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: So Tucker goes and says Chabad is taking over, you know, they want to do this, that, and the next thing.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what propels Chabad into the national consciousness is a guy named Tucker Carlson.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: So all so you go to COL Live and you think Chabad is the strongest political voice in the world because they have a uh this guy spoke and gave a blessing at the state house during some, you know, whatever state thing that was going on in Virginia or Iowa or whatever the case may be, or we know that there was a party for Hanukkah in the White House, etc.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: etc.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: But I've mentioned this before, but galvanizing thousands and hundreds of thousands of people to make things move, I don't see that.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: And now we have a president who gets up and says, I don't know if he's talking about, I haven't been following it.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: He's talking about Jews or he's talking about non-Jews.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: You should keep Shabbos.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, this is insanity.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: On one thing, you say, wow, it's messianic and da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's because we're not doing it.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: We don't recognize our own power.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: And there's reasons for that, um, which we don't have to go into because it's not our place, because you and I are both really not part of this whole thing, anyways.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: But um so that's what I mean by being involved and being abreast of things, and at the same time, taking charge from a place of Tarah and Mitzvas and influencing everything.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's the Rebbe's kind of lightning rod that he is, that he takes from the highest and connects the lowest, right?
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I I have to say this.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: I came across when I was at my daughter's house recently on Shabbos, I came across a book by a woman who just passed away, famous.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: She was uh Dr.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: Edith Eger.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: Very special book that she writes.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's actually actually humbling.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because she writes a lot of things that that, you know, I don't live, and she did.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_02: What's the book about?
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: She's a well-known, she just passed away at like 98 years old.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: She's a Holocaust survivor.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: She danced, she was a she was a ballet ballerina and a gymnast when the Holocaust came to Hungary where she came from.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: And she ended up actually dancing for Mengala in Maxima.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: So she had a terrible set of circumstances, and she writes in the book, but then she comes to America just to make it short, and she ends up getting a degree in psychiatry and psychology psychology and does a lot of work with PTSD, speaking at military bases and so forth, and she was world-renowned.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: She's good friends with Viktor Frankel.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but in her book, she inter she weaves her own work that she had to do being a Holocaust survivor while she's bringing up different situations that she encountered as a psychologist.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: This is like the last quarter of the book, third of the book.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll give you an example because it's kind of like what we're saying here.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um and she tells over a story that she spoke at some military um venue, and somebody came to her and said, I want you to speak to my mother.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: She doesn't eat, she doesn't sleep, she she's just complaining all the time, and we really think she needs an intervention, you could help.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: But she doesn't live there, right?
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: She was visiting, so she only has an hour to be with this one.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: So she does she writes about this woman, a 71-year-old woman comes in, and she looked pretty buttoned up, right?
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: And all put together, and she doesn't stop complaining about everything.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like the the color of the of the wallpaper in the hotel.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like she would even complain about that.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: And somewhere in this conversation, she mentions that at 16 years old she lost her mother.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: And Dr.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: Egar writes that that's when she lost her mother.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: And she says to this woman, do you know that souls don't have any rest if their children continue to mourn them?
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: Now she's 71, right?
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I don't know what else went on in the conversation, and they end up taking a taxi to the local cemetery.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: And when they get to the local cemetery, she tells this woman to take off her shoes and her socks.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: After she takes off her shoes and her socks, she says, stand on the grave of your mother and talk to her.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: And she writes that she walked away, she gave her privacy.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: And that when she, after half an hour, she went to get her, whatever, and she was holding on, like hugging on the Mitseva, right onto the tombstone.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: And she walked back into the car.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: A little bit later, she got a beautiful letter from the son who said, like her her mother, his mother was changed.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: But so she's grounding herself with her feet on the earth of where her mother has passed away.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: And because of that event, she goes to Auschwitz.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: Now we're talking about the 80s.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: She goes to Auschwitz, it's very difficult for her, and she puts a stone on the place where her, her mother, this is like an amazing story.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: Her, her mother, and her sister standing in front of Mengele.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: And Mengele, Yamachamo, says to her, Is this your mother or your sister?
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: She's 16 years old, she doesn't know what's flying, right?
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: She says, This is my mother.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: So he goes, you go to the left, and the sister and her to the right.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: And she's been in a place of guilt for th whatever, 40 years, that she was the cause of her mother's death.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: And she took this story from this person from the the the 71-year-old woman, and she put a stone on this place and she made peace with whatever she needed to make peace with.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: So she's a very phenomenal person that she works on herself.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: But why I'm bringing this up here is the context of standing on the ground of her gr of this woman, standing on the ground of her grief.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: The the it reminds me uh as I'm saying this, this the the part uh the Rishima that I told you once before, where the Rebbe's school teacher, the Khaidra teacher comes, he sees them all excited.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: And the Rebbe says, Why are you so now he's 16 years old, the Rebbe writes, and the teacher says that he found a hint in the Torah as to the pogrom that had just taken place where they were living.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, What does that do for you?
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, It makes me feel more comfortable, you know, that I see in the Torah the source to the pogrom.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: And the Rebbe answers back, is Daha Pagram, but it was a pogrom.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: People died.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: That's grounded.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: The Rebbe knows it's a Shkachapratis.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: The Rebbe knows he's takabarais of Baraama that he looks into the Torah.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: One of the most difficult, I think the most difficult mission that the Rebbe put us into is into the capsule of being in heaven on earth at the same time.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: So you can go other chasidim and either just conform with everything or fly like an angel.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: And the Rebbe wants you to be an angel flying here, so to speak.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: And isn't that what we're coming up to we're coming up to uh Shwuz, isn't that Kabal Satara?
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: So I guess that is the so the Gazero.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: If you're grounded in this world, you can't be a one-flavor vanilla ice cream.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: You have to be colorful, you have to learn how to navigate different situations.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when where I grew up, which was very sarcastic, we didn't hear a lot about it, but basically very sarcastic about Chasidim and so on and so forth, right?
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: They saw Chasidim and they saw religious Jews as being one-trick ponies.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: And the more you went away from Yiddishkeit to Long Island, right?
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: After you left Brooklyn in the 30s and the 40s, you went to Long Island, you went to Westchester, and then eventually Rockland hung out with Rockland, you were more sophisticated.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: But lost heaven.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_04: Right?
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: So where isn't that the Pshat that if you have um that's a Pshat or in soft Lamila Maila Alen Tachlis Matamat uh L'Mylama Alane case?
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: You're higher and higher and lower and lower at the same time.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's a hard place to live in.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: But I think when you really um embrace it, it answers the ennui, you know what ennui means?
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: It answers the boredom and it answers the friction that slows you down in what most people think chassidis is demanding of us.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_02: Explain that more.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: Most people I think think that Chasidis demands us to be oiswelt, so to speak.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: The more oiswelt you are, the bigger chasid you are.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: And since most of us are not holding there in this generation, we think that the whole thing is nothing to do with us.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: Not the Davening, not the Daven Barichus, not the Chasidis.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: And in the end, what's more important is what this person meant, which was I don't want a vanilla flavored person.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: I want a person who's dynamic.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: I want a person and it doesn't happen in religious context of being a chassid, and it's actually the complete opposite.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: But it's hard to have both.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, you're saying it's hard to have both, but that's being demanded of us.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: Isn't that isn't that who the Rebbe is?
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so aren't we supposed to like emulate as much as we can who our Rebbe is?
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: I I understand what you're saying, and I mean very, very powerful what you're saying here.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um how do you apply it?
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_02: How do you how do you thread that needle?
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, if you don't learn Hasidis, so forget about the conversation, because then you don't have the heaven.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: So you're saying learning Hasidis is the heaven?
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's a already like step one.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well, when I say heaven, it's actually not heaven.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's the what's gonna merge heaven to earth.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'm surprised you didn't say the Davinic.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: Wait.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: I know it says the Davin, don't I?
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't I wasn't questioning your uh knowledge of what the obligation.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: I know you weren't.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: I know you weren't.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if we spoke about this, but we learned about this.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: This incredible Mimer from the Rebbe.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I want you to know that I just started doing Dafyomi.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um I have a confession.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: I did not know that.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: I have a confession.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: I was I always understood that it's not our thing, but I'm started doing it.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: That's my groundedness, by the way.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: And why am I saying that?
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: For those people who learn Dafyomi or they learn whatever that they learn, you have to learn the Rebbe's my moral.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: Otherwise I think, for me at least, Chasidis becomes a nice wispy philosophy that you escape to and then put it down and you you know go to work.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's where you find the Rebbe.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_02: What does that have to do with Dafyomi?
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: But okay.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um we should be learning memorium like Dafiomi.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I mean.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um I learned other chassis, don't get me wrong, but but the Rebbe's memorium, and I'm not talking even about the Muga ones, I'm talking about the unedited ones.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: There's such essence of what the Rebbe is all about there.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: In any case, uh you know, who am I to say?
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's not the point.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: The um so where were we?
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: So the Rebbe in this myra that you and I were learning with a bunch of people, says this incredible picture.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: I think we spoke about it in the name of that the Semich says over that he heard the Altar Rebbe Davening, and he says the word Bidvekus.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: He was cleaving to God.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: And while he was dovening, the Alta Rebbe was saying the famous word, I don't want your Ganadin, I don't want your Giluiam, I just want you.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: Right He's having a total miss Well He's saying, I want to have a total I don't even can't even say it this way.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's an expression of having a total mystical union with God.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_04: Right?
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: And the Rebbe asks How does that fit in with the fact that when you're Davani, you're supposed to be asking for whatever you need?
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: Your physical needs.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: Only the Rebbe would ask that question.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's what I'm saying.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: The chasid other chasidis of thing would wouldn't even have that question.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: And the Rebbe's the Rebbe and Oylum Haza is something else.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's for the plebeians who live, you know, wherever they live.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: And the Rebbe asked that question.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: And it was tough for us to figure out what like the both the answer and and and I came to the conclusion.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if I'm right.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: I asked a couple of people who I trust would know if I'm correct.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: And they said, Yeah, that sounds interesting.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting as they say interesting as a Chinese curse, you live in interesting times.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: So that's like this.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: How do you understand the Alta Rebis statement?
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want Giluium, I don't want Gun Aiden, I only want you.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: I want you.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: Do you understand that as his request while he was dubbing?
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_02: Do I understand that?
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: What what what how do you understand it?
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I don't understand it in the sense that just like the Rebbe says that I don't know what actually Olam Haba is.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm asking you, Alta Rebbe was saying, I only want you.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: That is what we've been told by the Tsemach that I only want you is a request.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: Is it a tfilah?
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I'm asking you.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I came to the conclusion it's not.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: I came to the conclusion it was a statement.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's where the altarabit was holding.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: And therefore, there's no contradiction asking for his physical needs.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's the voort that in your physical world, there's no contradiction to having you alain.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: You only you.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's a fact that that's what he was dovening with.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a fact that the mitzvah is to dovan for your needs.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the rebels' question.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: So the the in other words, it's connected to heaven and grounded on earth.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm saying I told you that I had this relationship, uh, a business relationship with a Israeli actress we were writing a movie for.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: And she unfortunately was in an accident and passed away just recently.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: And um so she had never had kids.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I took upon myself to say kaddish for her.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: She was becoming, she was Shomashavas, and I know that that would be something that would be appreciated.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so I've been looking at the Qadish.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: I am saying it.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: And if you look at the Qadish, it says the Abhishta who's Lamaila from he's beyond praise, he's beyond all of it's literally saying lais machshavat fisimbachal, no thuck and grasping you.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's literally saying you're exalted, you're uh and now in the non-Hasidic world, they're gonna say you're praising God, that even though someone passed away, you still created, you're still connected.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, no, no.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: What's the connection that someone passes away and you say that he's that the Abishta is beyond praise, he's beyond all these different levels.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: What's the connection?
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: That's the whole point.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: That is the connection.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: Stop wanting to make everything make sense to you.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: Not because it doesn't make sense.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_02: I I you know I'm not sure if I understand your con how you're connecting that to your shot of what that means.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_02: But it's an interesting idea in and of itself.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_02: But go go back to what your opinion is about this.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_02: That you're saying I only want you.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_02: Look what we're saying.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: We say first we say Yesgada, Vizgadah Shmeirabba, his great name.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: Very good.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: And what?
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: After we say to be in your life, we say, um birchasa.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: You're beyond all blessing.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: Vishirasa, and all, I don't know, singing praise, Tushbachasa praise, Vindechamasa and Nachama.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: Why are you saying that is what the altar of is saying, I don't want anything but you, is this level of you're beyond all this praise and all this understanding.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: But you're saying it for a person who just died?
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: What's the connection?
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: So, on the simple level, we say the connection is that you can't understand it, and that that's the way it is.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: Commission Varachalatoy, Varachalara, and uh tough noogies, uh you this is life, and we're saying we accept uh this dichotomy of why'd you get rid of that person?
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: To put it bluntly.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm suggesting, no, that's not what we're saying.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: Not that we want it to make sense, but it doesn't make sense.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll say that the Abish does beyond making sense and we'll s and we'll live with that.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: We're saying the whole essence of life, of death, of yards, of whatever, is that you're beyond all of this.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: But we're right here in the world where we are saying cadres for someone who died and it hurts, and it's real, and that realness and that pain and that loss is connected to the very essence of that.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: You're connecting.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: Now that puts a question on the Rebbe's Rashimas, actually, now that I think about it, because his Khaider teacher said, I found a reason why the pogrom happened.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_04: Right?
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: Isn't that like saying Kaddish?
• 28:33
  unknown: Okay.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: And the Rebbe says, No, well, well, it was Dhaha Pagrom.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean the person still died, and you're still having exactly your me dois don't get cancelled.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: So then, but why not being holy because you don't mourn when someone passes away?
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: You're being an idiot, you're being an oismensch.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: Tora is grounded.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's like that woman standing on her mother's grave with her feet in the earth, finally willing to deal with the fact that she died when she was 16.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: Telling, based on what?
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: That this soul has no peace if you're still mourning and upset.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's a pretty heavy-duty picture, no?
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: And out of this thinking, she comes up with the Victor Franklin, her one of her mentors was Victor Frankl.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: And the name of her book is called The Choice.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: You always have a choice how to be and respond to any situation.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: And the minute you give ownership to somebody else to create your emotional state, to influence how you think, etc.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: etc., then you're not doing your job.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: And you're not doing your avoidance.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: And it fits with the Rambo.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: Rambo says the basis of all of Tayramisus is choice, free choice.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I get it.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: So really hard, but I get it.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: I started off saying this is very hard.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: But this is the this is the uniqueness of the Rebbe that that the Chasidim, I don't mean Lababajidim, the Chasidim can't figure out.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: But they whenever they touch it, they realize there's something going on here that they haven't been having in their own experience.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: And on the other hand, a lot of us in Chabad are tied into the groundedness and we lose the connection to I only want you.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's hard to straddle both worlds.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what we're here for.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: I saw an incredible, I don't know if I we we spoke about this, I saw an incredible piece from the Frida Kareva that little piece that he says a fabrigen is to change your mind and your heart.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: And that when people leave the Fabring, they should be able to go home and be the light in their house and be the light on the street.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: And then goes and says a little more personal.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: What I call a little more personal.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: You should change your hanachasichli.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: See your mind should be put into a place of wonder after Ferbringen.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: Your heart should be warmed up and excited.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: And listen to what he says.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: And you should want to do work on yourself because that's muck.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's core that's corresponding to the street in the house.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: You have to have bringing you come home, you're gonna talk about the verbring, or you're gonna, I don't know, learn Torah and this and that.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: And here listen to that language.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: Forget about even the whole connection.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: To want to work on yourself because that's an oinig.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: To work on yourself.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: To face your crap in light of all I want is you.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: Not pretend that if I have you, I don't have any crap.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm here to get, I have clarity of what's real, and I'm gonna face my.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: What's the most uncomfortable?
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: You know, one of the things she writes in her book that blew me away.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm giving her kind of like a kaddish if I bring in here.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um she had, I don't know if we're allowed to talk about this in like Chabad circles, but you know, too bad.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: She was 16 years old when she got taken away, right?
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: 1943, 44.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: So she had met this boy named Eric.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: And Eric and her became very close, and they it was sounding like that they were he promised her one day, he didn't say it, but they were gonna get married, kind of thing.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's how she felt.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: And she gets carted away in one of these cattle cars, and he's standing outside screaming for her.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's like he can't, this is a great movie scene, right?
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: And he says to her, I'll always remember your eyes, and I'll always remember your hands.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: And we'll see you soon.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't have no idea what's happening.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: She writes in her book that he died the day before Auschwitz got um liberated.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: Oof.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_01: So leaving that on one side, she ends up a long story, she ends up marrying some guy who helped her out after the war.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: And now they're in El Paso, Texas.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's where she moved to.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: And eventually she divorces him.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't remember the time, a year later, two years later.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: This is gonna blow you away.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: Two years later, he comes, you know, they still they had three kids, so they had what to do with each other.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: So one day he comes and to her house and says, We should go out together.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: And he goes, she goes, like, what do you mean?
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we should go out on a date.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I want to take you out to a restaurant.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: You and me?
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: He comes to the and he's all dressed up.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if it he said it to her maybe on the phone, and they go out to this restaurant.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: And he says to her that whatever he said to her, that they should get remarried.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: She writes the most incredible thing I would like it.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: It totally threw me for a loop.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: She goes, I was I I'm I'm being a little bit poetic here, so I don't remember the words.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_01: That she was overwhelmed by his his name was Bella, by his ability to be vulnerable.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_04: Because I could have rejected him right on the spot.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: And she says, and I realize he was a partisan in the army, in in the war, excuse me, and he did this and he did that, he always was willing to take risks.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I realized that he was being so vulnerable, and she ends up remarrying him because he was real.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_01: So in in whatever that story is all about, the bottom line is that I think that's we're very worldly chasidim in Chabad.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: And we have the highest Chassidas.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: And we often think that it's only the so to speak, the dedicated space cadets who are the Mashpiyim that are into Chasidas.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: And it's the wheels wheelers and dealers of Beijmuel that are running the Gashmias of Lababaj.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_01: And together we're a team.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_01: So this person I think was saying to me, that's vanilla flavor.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: The Rebbe was dynamic, is dynamic, he he encompasses everything all at the same time.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: And everything has its natural time in the sun.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, isn't that how the Reb explains the Noichemala Kecha and then all the mitzvahs of the so-called Ten Commandments are very Pashachen?
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: Very simple thing.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: So what so what do you think the Peshat is that you wanna after for bringing work on yourself because that's geschmack.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_01: That's delightful.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: How do you understand that statement?
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think it's pretty clear, but the based off of what you just said, the once you have that experience of wanting that bridge to exist between heaven and earth, and for that to be fused, the the yearning to go after it, the avoida that you need to now do in order to do it is going to be a pleasurable experience because you're not giving anything up.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_02: You're you're you're infusing your already based desires and experience for either heaven and earth and and bringing them together.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like what this doctor said about her husband coming back to her.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: You're willing to face your limitations, and that's geschmack, because that's where everything lies.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_04: Wow.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: So um and that and that's what a forbringgan says the reb is all about.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well yeah.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: So we're coming to parsh but Midbar.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_01: The Rebbe's Seika Tapshana is like it's a crazy sicha.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean crazy, whatever.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's a s the why was the Torah given in a place where nobody owns anything?
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: Isn't that similar to what we're saying?
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_01: You can go to the you you can no one has Balabatushai to say to you you can't go high.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_01: But the Reb is saying just don't just keep your feet in uh uh on the earth.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_04: Right?
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_04: And and that's Gishma And you know Yeah Sidis and Yiddishkite is not a escape.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's exactly what the altarabba was saying.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_01: I only want you.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not a contradiction for combining your needs.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_01: So Metashem, Devish should give you everything you need.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_01: And everything that will give you Parnasubagashmi Suburnias and give you Sviya Sarratsain and Nachama for all of the chills and shablains.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what a chablain is, but I know that it means something to do with pain and suffering.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_01: And it and should comfort all of those things that bother us.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: But not by pretending they're not there.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_01: But being vulnerable to say to the Abishta, uh even though this is very painful, I want you here back.