Latest / ChabadLife.TV Street Farbrengen / Street Farbrengen Episode 107 - G-d. My Critic or Companion?

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Street Farbrengen Episode 107 - G-d. My Critic or Companion? · ChabadLife.TV Street Farbrengen

• 0:00
  Speaker 2: Reuven, I saw a video this past week that really blew me away.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: It was a guy who, after suffering a really tremendous loss, had an open miracle revealed to him.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: And his reaction was, God, what do you want from me?
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: And crying out to him.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Honestly, I just I need to process this with you, Ruvain.
• 0:38
  Speaker: Listen to Street for Brandon.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Zakari, besides the word process, is a trigger for me.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: I do.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Explain to me what you need to why you need or what does it mean to this thing that you need to process.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: First of all, my reaction, but I I want to discuss his reaction, really, and I guess my relation to that and understanding where how much where that came from.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: But his reaction to seeing a miracle in front of him was, God, what do you want from me?
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: And I relate to that, but I felt like that was not the first of all, without going into the details of the video, he didn't just say, What do you want from me?
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Because most Jewish people are comfortable with that.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: He said it in pain.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, he did.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Now, after you have a miracle of some sort, why would you ask, What do you want from me in pain?
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: You just got soothed.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: I mean the story simply is that he had lost his son, and he and we all know who he is because he's a soldier in the Israeli army, and he had a miracle with two miraculous statements were made to him, and one by somebody who he went to as a special rabbi, and the other one on the street who he never met before.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: So when you have a miracle, when you have something positive happen to you, Zachary, after such a long string of crap that you've been going through, is your reaction what do you want from me?
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: I related to it.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Okay, so what do you what what's the nature of the question?
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: The nature of the question is what Hashem is giving you a gift.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: This is this is like So talk to me, don't say you.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: No, no, I'm gonna talk to you because I don't wanna I don't want to relate to it so much right now.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm saying I'm gonna want to talk about it if you don't want to relate to it because I don't like pontification and philosophy.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: But it helps me externalize it so that I can look at it.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: I want a for bringing is not to help externalize it.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: Take your externalization and go to Columbia University and study the pygmies in Africa.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: I'm not saying it's not for the purpose of then internalizing, but it helps sometimes to first externalize something, to see it, identify it, understand it, and then bring it in.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: No, that's where you're screwed right from the beginning.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: Do tell.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Because you're wanting to externalize it.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: And now the only way you take it in, quote unquote, internalized, is with the externalities.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: And that's why most people's Hasidic experience is dry, boring, and they have to go take ayahuasca or now the new rage, they gotta breathe.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I think you're starting off on the wrong foot.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: Fine.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: Convinced, convinced okay.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: So yes, the idea that a miracle would happen after a lot of suffering, yeah, and it's you know, it reminds another thing that I heard this past week.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry to veer, but I think it is connected.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: Where um at least externally.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: Um, Ellie Wiesell and the famous story with him and the Rebbe when he said, How do you believe in God after Auschwitz?
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: And the Rebbe's response is how could you not believe?
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: What what does that mean?
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: What does that statement mean?
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: What does that response mean?
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: Help me understand, and again, the connection that I'm thinking that I'm making.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: Are you saying that this man's miracle that he experienced is similar to the Rebbe saying, How could you not believe in God after Auschwitz?
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: No.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: So why are you putting the two together?
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: I I'm not a hundred percent sure.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: I'm just saying I feel like there's a connection.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: You feel?
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: Yes, there's a feeling.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Um, I'm gonna say there is a connection in a similar way.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: Please.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: You're at because you're bothered by the fact that besides the fact that the the statement itself hardly makes any sense unless you really pry it open as to Ellie Wazell saying, We went through suffering.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: I don't want to believe in such a I can't believe in such a God that would do it.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: And the Rebbe says, How can you not believe in that?
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: What does that mean?
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: We all know what it means when you're being pressed against the wall and you say, God, you're not here in my life.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: That's simple.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: To go and say, now that you're pressing me, how can I not believe in you?
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: It's a pretty big kiddish.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: And I think that's what this guy was doing, actually.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: He was in pain.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: Hashem shows him a beautiful moment, and he goes and he says, What do you want from me?
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: In pain.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: What's the connection?
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: Very simple.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: If you're gonna show me beautiful moments, why did you just contrast it with such darkness?
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Or put it on a very simple, I know you don't want to internalize it before you externalize it.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: No, no, no.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: You convince me wrong.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: It's not an issue of wrong, it's an issue of whatever.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Are you willing to step up the plate and be great after you've been small?
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: Same question.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: I've been small, I can't become great.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: I've been doing X, Y, and Z.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: I can't do this.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: I've been eating crap my whole life.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: I can't get healthy.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: I haven't gone a lifted my fingers since I've been uh 15 years old.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: You want me now to go to the gym?
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: I can't do that.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: Same concept.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: So Eli Wiesel was saying that.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: Well, no, yeah, go on.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: No, no.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: Eli Wizell was saying, no, I I'm not quite saying Eli Wizell was saying this, but Eli Wizell was giving a good argument.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: How can you believe in a God after Auschwitz?
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Now I you know the what I say about it, but we'll repeat it.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: If you say there's no God after Auschwitz, then why was there an Auschwitz?
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: What's your answer?
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: If there's no God, there's no reason because the world is bad.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: Oh no, the world is bad, okay.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: And if there is a God, do you have a reason?
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: No.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: No, but when you have no God after Auschwitz, you can't ask and leave the question up in the air, why did it happen?
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: But if you embrace a God, you can still have the question.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: You're saying staying with the question is the It's better, the Rebbe's saying, than embracing and being satisfied with mediocre human behavior.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: I asked somebody about this story with the Rebbe, and their understanding was because there were a lot of miracles that were also seen in Ashwitz.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: Well, contrast it to our story.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: So that's not what the Rebbe that's not what the Rebbe said.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Well, um The Rebbe said there were also miracles so you could believe in God.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: No, no, no.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: Okay, okay.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: Who was the intellectual that said that answer?
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: So I mean, come on.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: Just listen for a second.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: So the and I'm I'm contrasting it to this other story because he was in pain, had a miracle, and asking God, what do you want from me?
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: In a painful way, I think.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: Well, at least, yeah, that was the implication in the in the video.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: And he's saying, I do believe in God, but how can I believe you know what he was saying?
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: He was saying, I can't tolerate that I lost my son in the fact now that you showed me a miracle, because now it makes it more painful that I lost him.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: If I say there's no God in this whole thing, which in a subtle way he was saying, I can tolerate that my son got killed.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: But now that you show me in your in my life that you're here, that makes his loss even more difficult to handle.
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Stay hidden.
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: By the way, welcome to Gullis.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: Isn't that the story over and over again in the Khumish?
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: Let's go back to Egypt.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: It was better there.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: Why is it better there?
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: Okay, so it says we ate freely, we didn't have to do Torah and mitzvahs, and blah, blah, blah.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: We didn't we didn't have to bury ourselves, like it says in this week's parts, etc.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: But the bottom line is it's better.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: Why is it better if you're living in pain and suffering?
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: What does that say?
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Huh.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: I guess it's the you're saying it's the comfortability of gullus, of being in gullus, the comfortability of being a slave and and not have, you know, cabbala solomaku.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: It's the comfortability, staying in your trauma, because it makes no sense and it's painful.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: Then what happens, let's say you've had trauma for 30 years, and all of a sudden you say, I'm out of here, baby, right?
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: And you walk out of that trauma, whatever it is.
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: I thought you meant a different type of walk.
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: And you walk out of that trauma.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: Isn't it traumatic that you walked out of it?
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: But for 30 years you didn't.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: If I stick in it, that responsibility of 30 years is off my shoulders.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: So there's a paradoxy.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's a paradox.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: Can I let go of the past and not blame myself for it by moving on?
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: No, that's not what I said.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: No, that's not how you said.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: Are you gonna stop are you gonna let the blame you do have to take responsibility for what you did?
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I I got it.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: So are you gonna it's not do can I let go of the past?
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Can I go into the future?
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: That's the question.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: No, I understand this guy's dilemma.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Because if you're gonna show me a miracle, and by the way, the miracle was, but you know, it's like I asked an Israeli soldier today, I don't understand the celebratory spirit in Israel right now with the last dead hostage to come back to Israel.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: They're like, uh and Natanyah is saying uh Shechy Yanu and blah blah blah.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: I don't get it.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: Why are you celebrating this?
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, I get it that we want the the the goof to come back and have a proper burial, but in the same time that you're you're you're burying him, he was murdered by by animals who are still trying to murder us.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: Why are you celebrating it?
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: Sounds like weak to me.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: Now I know that's not what supposedly they mean, etc.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: So I I the relationship between you know, the in the Basilagani, the Rebbes says the word, you know, I'm I know you're familiar with it, Siva Sashem.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Scheduled.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: You're only here for so many years, uh, and a warrior, and a blend of colors like that.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: You're working with everybody in the group.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: Okay, but let's talk about warrior.
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: The warrior does the warrior ask was I good so far?
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: So this answer about I I just think that we're friggin' weak because we want to be weak, because it's hard not to be.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: You know, I had this crazy thought this morning, and um I don't know if I should say it in public, but I'll just say it anyways, and what the hell.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: There there's a lot of um ways uh said about the idea that God is always watching you, right?
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: So it says even you're in the dark of your room, all by yourself, Vahulu Vahulu, God is watching you.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: How do you understand that picture?
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: How do you take that in?
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Viscerally.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: What's it there for?
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: Let's say that to prevent you from sinning.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: How?
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: By feeling an eye is watching over you the same way you wouldn't do certain things when you're being recorded, or you wouldn't do certain things.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: So what's the emotion?
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: What's the emotion associated embarrassment, shame, you know, uncomfortability.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Which of course we all know that you don't feel that he's watching you.
• 14:31
  unknown: Yeah.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: Okay, so commensurate with how much how should we say, realness in the dark of the room is going on, is how much you're not going to feel that he's really watching you.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: But that's besides the point.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: But we get the picture because we talk about that when we're sitting in the Gemara and then the Shuchanorich in the base magish.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: I remember somebody once telling me that they wish they believed in the at Simpshutai, because then you could just go to the bathroom and hide from God.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: Anyway.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: And I had this thought like this.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: What if you took it to mean God is waiting for you to access him in the room to not do what you're about to do?
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: And that's what it means, he's watching you.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: Not guilt, not shame.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Well, as they call it in the outside world, higher power.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: And it's waiting for you.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: He's watching you, meaning he's there with you.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: He's there with you.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: Now what are you gonna do with that awareness?
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: Are you gonna use him as God get me through this?
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: Let me get over this test?
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Or are you gonna say, go to the bathroom?
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: Like you just said.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: It's a different way of looking at it, right?
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: We we we have this kind of like adversarial simplistic I I say it very often to some of the non-chabadniks that I spend time learning with.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Stop thinking like you're in Khaider.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: You're not five years old anymore.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: God is not the big meanie in the sky who's going to, you know, the principle that you don't want to go visit when you did something wrong.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: So you go to his office.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Get out of that.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: Uh if you feel, this is Chasidis.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: If you feel that godliness is a delight, is uplifting, is energizing, is expansive, has great future seeds planted by the fact that you're with that godliness.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: Now, how do you understand the negative impact of an Aveira?
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: The Haider way is he's mad at me, I'm gonna get punished.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: And I'm not saying that's not Tara, but I'm saying it's it's so infantile in its scope, sculpting.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: So what is it now?
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: I mean, there is a concept of healthy shame.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: So it's you know, what's okay, what what's the healthy shame?
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: You're letting down you're you're you're letting God down when you want to be connected.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: That's not healthy shame.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: Healthy shame is a let myself down.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: So yeah, you're letting yourself down.
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah, finished.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: Period.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: Okay, so that's a lot different.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: I mean, I yeah, and then that ties to what you said before that you're you're stuck in the past you because going into the future you that you can be means that the past you was either wasteful or you weren't even.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: Maybe it was.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it and it probably was.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: And that's the and that's the holdback, that's the payoff.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: Even though you're in so much pain that you really do want to leave it, the payoff is that you don't have to then think about it.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: Say it again.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: You don't have to think about it.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: You don't have to you don't have to live with that past 30 years of trauma that you're holding on to because you are now able to leave it.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: What do you mean by leave it?
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: It happened.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: No, I'm saying leave leave the feeling of the trauma, the effect of the trauma on you.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: That's what you were saying.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: I'm not no, I'm not talking about the trauma itself.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about that I let if I'm able to cut rope now, why didn't I do it 10 years ago?
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm saying the payoff is that you don't have to look at those past ten years.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: Because you're still in it.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's not so simple to say the payoff is that you don't have to look at it.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: You don't have to, ironically, take it's the same thing as the Ribbison, in a sense.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: If I don't if I stop myself from making a change because then it reflects on the years that I didn't make a change, right?
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: Then in a sense it's like no God after Oshwitz.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: You're not embracing yourself.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: You're avoiding embracing yourself.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, embracing meaning taking responsibility.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: That I say, oh wow, I could quit smoking.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: I decide now I'm gonna quit smoking.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: So it took me 10 years to decide to quit smoking.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: No, it didn't take you 10 years, it took you one moment when you made that decision.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: You didn't do it 10 years ago.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: I get that.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: So are you going to not make the decision because you're so bent out of shape that you didn't do it earlier?
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: That would be foolish.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: It would be foolish.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I get that.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: But in a sense, the Reb is saying, leave the question in the air that you didn't do it for ten years, because look, you could do it now.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: Better to have the question and cut rope than not have the question and stay in your pit.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: So it's a big irony.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: Howard is uncomfortable.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there was something I was.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: That's why we put God in in a in a uh prison and we say, Oh, he's looking at us, and he's like this little ogre.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember seeing somewhere that it talks about the idea of imposter syndrome as being like necessary because everybody feels like an imposter to the next level that they're trying to grow to, and and okay, I get that.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: But you're not there yet, so why are you an imposter?
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: Well, because that's how you get there by being an imposter.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: So it's like be comfortable being an imposter to that next level that you're growing into because that's how you grow into it.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: I don't call that an imposter, but okay.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: That's how it was being described.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: I'm just saying.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: So I'm thinking about it here, is like, can you be an imposter to your future self that you want to grow into?
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: To you don't feel like you're connected to it.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: You feel you feel everything that you're describing in terms of looking at the past and feeling shame that uh the past 10 years were wasted or potentially wasted, whatever.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: And you're now kind of just growing into it versus being it.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: Like the way that you're describing it sounds very powerful, and it sounds also overwhelming.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: Overwhelming.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: Just seems like a big hurdle to overcome for that guy, for example, in the initial story.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: I know, that was your reaction.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: I know, that's what I'm trying to say.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: And I'm saying to you, you're reacting the same way he reacted.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: That was my the whole reason I started this for bringing it.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: So, so what are you gonna do about it?
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: Do we not have any power of decision?
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: No, we do.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: Okay, so what are you gonna do about it?
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: No, not not I want to.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: I'm going to decide.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: No, not going to.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: I decided.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: Well, I don't know if you did or not.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: I decide.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: So we I did yeah, I get it.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: I did I decide to appreciate the miracle and know that God is with me now and is was with me in that pain, also, even though I don't understand it, and I'm moving forward.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: So you're left with the question if you gave me a miracle now with this guy, why couldn't you have given me a miracle to bring my son back?
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: Well, we don't know the answer to that.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: So I get the the the the the the the tension and the paradox, but again, the Rebbe's answer is very is very deep.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: So you're gonna live with with Auschwitz after Oshwitz without a God, and now you have no questions?
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: Or are you gonna have a God with questions?
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: God brings questions.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: You know, uh uh uh we're coming up with uh with uh I'm studying a topic for another movie that we're doing.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: Do most people feel everybody, the whole population, feel that there's there must be a reason why I'm here.
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: I don't know.
• 24:32
  Speaker 4: What do you think?
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: Yes, I think most people Yeah, I I think so.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: Now the question is do most people spend any time on that?
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: But it's there buried kicking around.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: Any any any thinking, except for an animal, every thinking human being of any sort wonders what they're here for.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: At least for a second, a fleeting second.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: But that wondering of what you're here for implies a lot of things.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: Somebody put me here, or something put me here.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: Um I living up to it, do I have to do more to live up to it, etc.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: etc.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: Um But in the very uncomfortableness of those questions is your power.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: And that's runs into one of my pet peeves.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: We we kind of touched upon it last time we met.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: Hasidis is not a band-aid to make yourself feel better.
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: It's not what it's for.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: So if you're in in in if you've had trauma, go to a somatic healer.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: Don't learn a mimer and think it's gonna make you feel better.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: Because one is not for the other.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: And I the I I um I've come to that realization a while ago, and I think that and the reason why people want to make Hasidis being as we called it a few times ago, we have everything, is for the same reason why they want don't want to live with God after Oshua's.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: It's similar to Nuah.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Why can't you live with a question?
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: Everything has to make sense to you.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Life is not gonna always make sense to you.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: Forget about defending God's doing of whatever he does, which you know is kind of insane because we you know how are we gonna do that anyways?
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: But and yeah, but you're saying you don't have to defend and you don't have to understand, and that's your power.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: That's where you feel your power is that you you That's God after Auschwitz.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: You're you're taking it out of your control in a certain sense and putting it in Hashem's.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: You're externalizing again.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: I was saying you because you were so well.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: No, that's not what I mean.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: I mean f you're philosophibling.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: You're right.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: But what does it feel like to be able to move forward when you have questions that cannot be answered?
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: And you refuse them to be answered because they're they can't be, but you still hold the question.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: And I go forward anyways.
• 27:48
  unknown: Yeah.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: Instead of sitting there like a Tatila wondering why am I going through this trauma?
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: Why did I go through this trauma?
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: How do I get rid of this trauma?
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Who says you got to get rid of it?
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Uh, you have to get past it in order to move forward.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: I get that.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: You know, maybe that's the basis of the, I know it rankles a lot of people, the basis of the statement, hi, my name is Steven, and I'm 34 years.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: Uh not an alcoholic, or whatever they say.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: Hi, I'm an alcoholic and I've been dry for 34 years.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: What do you mean you're an alcoholic?
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: 35 years, four years, you didn't take a drink.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: Maybe that maybe that's the same thing.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: I am an alcoholic, right?
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: Because he if he drinks a drop, chances are he's gonna fall fat flat on his face.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: And he's saying, I nevertheless move forward.
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: Well.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: You know, so maybe that's uh uh uh connected to something that I never realized till I didn't realize the same way until this year, where the Rebbe, I don't know if we I spoke to you about it once.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: When the Frida Karebben Perak Hey of Basalagani says, Stusta Kadusha and Stushta Ulamza, right?
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: The foolishness of this world and the what he calls hanachasa' ulam, the social contract and the social norms of this world.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: And one of the norms he points out is eating at five o'clock.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: He doesn't say five o'clock, but eating at set times.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: You're not hungry, but you got to eat at those times.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: I grew up in that kind of a house.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: Five o'clock?
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: It's got to be, you know, meal on the table.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: And he says, but when it comes to kvias item luteras, setting up your times to learn and to dhaven, that can get pushed off.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: So you would think the stus is that you're pushing off terramits compared to not pushing off eating at five o'clock.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: That's not what the Frida Kareba says.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: The Frida Karebbe says the stus or the hanachasa oilam, the assumption in thinking of the premises of this world is I'm here tomorrow, so I could push it off.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: Because the person he quotes the, he quotes the idea that a person doesn't have the, the major says a person doesn't have the luxury of saying, you know what, uh, whoever's in charge of these things, angel of so forth, uh, wait till tomorrow.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: I gotta, you know, get an insurance policy, I gotta set my fare my affairs up, I gotta say goodbye to everybody, and then you can come get me.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: Person doesn't have that luxury.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: So the Friday Gareb is saying in this mimer that your Hanakha Sa'ilam, your worldly limited assumptions is I'm not going to learn today or tomorrow now or govern properly today, because I'll do it tomorrow.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: How often do we do how many people do how many chapters of Rambam do you need to do, right?
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: That you gotta catch up.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: So, and it's Hanakha that you think you're gonna be here.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: That's Teva.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, chances are you will be, Hashem, but that's a Hanakas.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: So aren't we like let's tie this back to To this idea of God after Oshwitz?
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: Hanakas you should have no questions.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: Who said what is what is Lama Stus de Kadusha?
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: In essence, ah is you're living with no questions, despite that there are a million questions.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Rabbi Huddhabila used to juggle, and the Khachamim said, uh-uh, you're making a fool of all of us, and then they found out he was correct.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: Were they wrong?
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: No, no.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: Now they accept him.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: Do they change their mind?
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: No, maybe not.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: We don't know for sure, but maybe not.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: That's it's not the point of the right.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I got it.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: Interesting.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: So so let's now let's ask something really provocative.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: Well, you weren't there at the time, but I can ask myself.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: So we're all standing in 77 in um I don't even remember the word the n the Nun Olive and Nun Base.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: Yihia De Nainu Marinu Virabainu, and that was twenty years later, thirty years later.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: Is it the same?
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: Is it excuse the comparison?
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: Is it me now looking back how do I believe in Meshiach?
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: How do I believe in God after Auschwitz?
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: Is it the same thing?
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: How do I look back at the past?
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: Was I wrong?
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: Was all of Lubavitch wrong?
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: So there's people come up with nice answers.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: It was right at the time, but we blew it, and this and that, and or you know, there's different answers that are irrelevant to.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: I'm not even talking about whether it should continue.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about looking at it as in the past.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: Paradox is the is almost the essence of godliness.
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: God is psychitis, therefore nothing is beyond him.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: And he can do anything.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: But he doesn't have kochis because he's pshitis.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: That's a paradox.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: He's the place of the world, but the world is not his place.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: That's a paradox.
• 33:34
  unknown: Yeah.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: Is that a paradox?
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: And the ultimate paradox tonight's Yud Shad.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: The ultimate paradox to me was the Rebbe telling a hundred people in a small room, and I interviewed somebody about the time that first year, and it was sweaty, and it was hot, cold outside, and hot inside, and the windows were dripping.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: Gives me this whole long thing.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: And the Rebbe turns to these people in the room who've got a lot of them have numbers on their arms, and they just lost half their family or more in the in in the Holocaust, and he goes, We're going to bring Mashiach.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: We're the generation, and we're cherished.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: What the Schnitzel?
• 34:26
  Speaker 4: How do you live with that paradox?
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: That's the avoida now.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: So it's not only the vota now.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: The Rebbe's whole well, the Rebbe did say the Schlistla Kedusha is the Avoida.
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I mean.
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: Is the living with the paradox is the Avoida?
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: And how to Well you said now.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: And I'm saying now, meaning after it's been so clearly elucidated.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, clearly elucidated.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: But how's it feel?
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: How does that paradox feel?
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: Does it feel frustrating?
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: Does it feel it gives tension?
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: Does it bring up questions or does it give you power?
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: It's an interesting idea.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: I am power when Steve gets up and says, I'm an alcoholic and he hasn't had a drink in 34 years, does he feel weak or powerful?
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: For us who are the observers say, Shmendrik, why are you calling yourself an alcoholic?
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: You haven't taken a drink in 34 years.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: And there are people who, by the way, disagree with that process in 12 step or in the AA that they get up and say that.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: Because it sounds like they're weak.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: But actually, that's their strength.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: So let's go back to the room.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: So God's watching you, and you're in your throes of passion, and God's watching you.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: Does that make you feel weak or strong?
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: So the Hader way is I feel weak.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: I'm ashamed.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: He's watching me.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: Is he watching you waving a finger at you or with an outstretched hand?
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: Where do you come with this finger waving stuff?
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: Oh well, I you could there's a lot to point to, trust me.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: We all know that, right?
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: But that's the shot you can find the light in the darkness.
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: You're creating you're in a place of darkness, and you can still find the light there.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: Are you gonna use it?
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: I but I feel darkness.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: Ah, we're back to the it's the same tenua.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: The darkness itself illuminates.
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: That's a paradox.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: It's a the highest level.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a pivot.
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: You know, I saw some I don't know if we mentioned to you when we last met, I saw an amazing answer that in Chap until my Satmar friend pointed out that the Rebbe is talking about Enabakash Allah.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: You are only asked to perform based on your abilities, right?
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: That's simple.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: So the Rebbe says in this letter to who he's writing to, to that this idea, he says, This is what it means that Pischalikat open up for me like the pinpoint of a needle.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: Just so just a little dot.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: Open up for me that amount.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: And the following statement is the uh I don't remember the exact language, a pischalchal oil, and I'm gonna open up to you for you like the Ulam, excuse me, like the the the op the entranceway to the base of Migdash.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: You're familiar with that statement, right?
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: Which by the way, there's no source to that statement.
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: Really?
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: Uh the Rebbe grapples with that.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: But, anyways, um, how do you understand that statement?
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: You do a little bit of effort, and then Hashem takes it over and gives you a lot.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: And Hashem will give you much more than you put in.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: How does that explain Koichen?
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: So here the Rebbe is saying it in a totally different way.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: He says, Enum of Akh Shalfi Koichen, open up for me a little bit of what you could do, and I will show you that you could do more.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: I will show you the koichis that you don't realize you have, and that's the opening up of the Peace Kheshal Ulam.
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: Okay, that's God, which is power.
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: That's power.
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: Okay, that's not God as an idea externalized, and it's not God as a rewarder for your good behavior, it's God's watching you.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: You know what?
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: It's one of the things that I've been thinking about.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: We all have been learning in the last few years that we are called, we said before, an army of Hashem.
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: And the army is given the ability to win the war.
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: And what is that war?
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: The treasure house that the king empties out to pay for the uh and give the kekus to win the war.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: Okay, and what is that in the Maimur?
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: What is the Uitzer?
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: So the Uitzer is Lemila Mila e Aden Kate's Lamatumata Aden.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: That God is infinitely hidden and infinitely revealed down here.
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: How does that help you win the war?
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: What is what what in the world does that mean?
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: And in the end, in this year's Mimer, Chavav, don't think of it like two of what I would call it like two ends of an infinite line.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: You're higher, higher on that end, and he's lower, lower on this end.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: It's in the same place.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: Now what does that mean?
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: It's in the same place that he's Lamata, Begiloi, as Ain Sov, he's Behelem.
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: Doesn't that sound like what we've been talking about?
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: Well Yeah.
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: I hear that, and now I have to feel it.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: But you had your Aaliyah on Shabbos, and you light a Shabbos can you light a candle, and I'm sorry to sound so sarcastic, but this kind of stuff drives me nuts.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: Um I'm not saying not to do it because the Rebbe said to do it, but but we're Yitzi this idea.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: Um you know, someone told me today something that blew me away.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: I asked him.
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: I was learning I was learning Kesashemtav.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: And at the beginning of Kasashemtav, he brings the kavanas of the mit mitzvas.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: Oh sorry, of the mikveh.
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: Yudke vav keudk vav is chesed, yudkav is chesed, he vav yud is gavura, uh, vav yudhai is is uhmanas ortiferas, and you have these kavanas, and the and I went over to a person who studies Kabbalah, yeah, not a chabatnik, and I asked him, I said, what does this mean?
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: Like, what are you supposed to do?
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: Dip and think of these letters?
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: Like, I don't get it.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: It does nothing for me, but I'll do it if it's supposed to, you know.
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: So he gave it a nice answer.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: He said that one of the preliminary concepts of the primary concepts of the Bashantav is the machum sha'admashamun uh shalom sham unnimsa, wherever your thoughts are, that's where you are.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: So therefore, when you go under the water and you have these letter permutations in your and memorized, you go there.
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: Okay, I had a hard time chomping that down, but okay, I hear what he's saying.
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: So today, a very smart man, said to me, That's not the Pshat.
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: And he said something that that that was almost life, I think it's life-changing.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: He said, the Arezals Kavana, which is where it comes from, uh sort of.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: The Arezals, no, it's from the Arizal.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: The Arezal's Kavanas are not have the Kavana, and therefore you will have an experience.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: The Arezal's experience was transposed into the Kavannah that you're reading.
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: That's why we call it Divra Lakim Chaim.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: A mimer is the words of God.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: It's the w living God that the Abish that the the Rebbe is connected to and says the Mimer.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: So the Mimer is not only the way, so to speak, to ravel yourself back up.
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: You have to realize that it itself is the words of an experience.
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: You follow?
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to think that through.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: It's different.
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: And again, so what what did he want to say?
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: He says that's maybe why I was so triggered by your externality thing.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: He said, We don't experience life.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: We analyze life.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: Living is experiencing it.
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: And if you don't experience life, how do you expect to experience Tara in that way that it's the words are expressing an experience of a reality?
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: Obviously, there's a reason why Torah's you know it's a whole long thing, but how could we so what does it mean that we're told that we have an oitzer that's called L'Mail Matter and Cates, Lamath in Takas, the orange sof, and that's gonna win the war.
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: It's such an astonishing idea, never mind whether you f know how to implement it.
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: But that's what the Rebbe's saying is what we're given in our generation.
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: Where God is hidden and revealed simultaneously.
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: There's that paradox all over again.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: So, and the Rebbe says in the first Mimer, Taps and Yodelev, don't think a histalkus means he's not here anymore.
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: Means he's here in a higher way that you don't grasp.
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: It's also a little bit of a paradox.
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: Anyways, Lachai.