Love and Awe - Wednesday Night Women’s Shiur

Okay. I want to talk as we get closer to Matan Torah. I want to speak tonight about a fundamental about us getting the Torah from Hakadosh Baruchu, our relationship with Hakadosh Baruchu, and how that teaches us about our relationships with our parents, with our children, with our spouses, with our friends, with each other, because there's a certain hashkafa of relationships that Hakadosh Baruchu teaches us by example, by the relationships, the way that Hakadosh Baruchu designs and teaches us how to have a relationship with him. So, a few examples. It's fascinating that the ma'amad of Ma'amad Har Sinai, the event of receiving the Torah in Har Sinai, is to us the greatest, the single greatest expression of Hakadosh Baruchu's love. There's not a human being that ever received more love from Hakadosh Baruchu than we received when Hakadosh Baruchu gave us the Torah. When Hashem gave us the Torah, he gave us his essence. He gave us his everything. He connected with us in the deepest way that Hakadosh Baruchu could connect with a human being. That's why in in in davening, when we refer to when we daven to Hashem that we should understand the Torah, that tefillah takes place in the only brachah that's called ahavah, ahavah rabbah or ahavat olam, because Hakadosh Baruchu giving us the Torah was was everything. There's no expression of love. It doesn't exist in the universe an expression of love that's more loving than when Hakadosh Baruchu gave us the Torah. Everyone knows the famous Russia that the Torah begins with the word "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" and tell us "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" So, I think we can agree on that that is the greatest expression of love. So, it must have been a very loving moment then. Probably a lot of guitars, a lot of going like this. Is that what it was like? Yeah. Is that what it was like? Absolutely not. There were aspects of it that were frightening. It was a coil shofar. There was a sense of tremendous year. by her Sinai. The Torah says that it says "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" It was a frightening moment. It was so frightening that when said "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" And then when he said "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" We died again. >> [snorts] >> So, to me that's something that we need to think about. How do we How do we put that together in our minds that the moment of greatest love There is no moment of history where there's more of a chef of love coming down on a human being than when we stood by her Sinai and yet it was a moment of year. There was year and hour. And the truth is that that moment ended up being a dogma for us of our entire relationship with Hashem. That our relationship with Hashem involves ava and yira. And when we say ava we mean ava. To love Hashem >> [snorts] >> that loving Hashem is an absolute. It fills me completely. It's It's It's just an incredible nourishing ava. And that's the Hashem I'm supposed to have yira from? I see it feels like it takes away from the ava. Yira means to stand apart, to stand in awe, in fear, to hesitate, to be a little bit trembling. Then over the bus described how bear when he was in her house, how she watched him make a bracha and he would tremble but but till he said baruch he was trembling in front of Hashem. He didn't think Hashem loved him? Where Where was the love in that moment? You see from here an important you say that's lost on us because we live in a world that has a hard time holding on to two feelings at the same time. It's a limitation that our world has that we as Yidden would be would be beneficial for us to learn to transcend that. That there's such a thing. And by Yidden it's not a stira. There's such a thing as feeling ava and yira at the same time. And it's not just that there's such a thing but it adds to the relationship. It adds to the relationship. I'll give you an example. On the happiest day of the year and the yomim tovim at least the deoraisa yomim tovim, the happiest day of the year is Shemini Atzeres. Right? Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkos, Pesach, Shavuos, the day that it says "Vehayisa ach sameach" is Shemini Atzeres. Okay? "Us sameach" "Vehayisa ach sameach" "Ach" we have a mesorah throughout Shas that the word "ach" means only is a limitation. "Ach" always means a limitation. In the loshon of Gemara, the Gemara always says "Ach is a miut." It's always coming to exclude something. Isn't that interesting? That the day that's so much love that there's just like no end to the love is described as "ach sameach" like simcha but like with a miut, like something missing. And Reb Tzaddok Hakohen mi Lublin and nobody taught simcha better than the Chassidim Reb Tzaddok Hakohen mi Lublin asks this question, what does "ach sameach" mean? And he says it's coming to exclude silliness and simcha for the wrong things. Simcha shel hilulus. It's coming to exclude that sometimes people party, quote-unquote, in ways that are not appropriate, in ways that are not celebrating the right things. So even when simcha is explosive and all-encompassing and fully embracing and enveloping but we're still careful. We're all still careful how much simcha we have. There's a limitation. And says Reb Tzaddok, that limitation is not saying there's so much simcha, but that limitation is saying this is the key to the so much simcha. Cuz if you spoil it by including types of joy that are not Torah-dikker types of joy, you're not adding to the simcha, you're taking away from it. So the "ach sameach", the limitation on the simcha, increases the simcha. Sometimes you have to limit something to make it more profound. You know, you have a anniversary dinner and you tell your husband we're going out, we're going to sit and eat and have a very special dinner and then you invite your five best friends to come along. The adding did not add Right, I don't have to explain, right? The adding did not add to the dinner, it took away. When it comes to simcha with Hakadosh Baruch Hu, adding subtracts. Kol Hamoisif Goireia. And sometimes the fullness of something is by holding back. When it comes to having yirah from Hakadosh Baruch Hu, certainly that's the case. Because the sense of being loved by Hashem, the way the Mesillas Yesharim describes it, the sense of being loved by Hashem, increases. The beginning of perek yud tes, the Mesillas Yesharim describes it so beautifully. He says it increases when you realize how great of a Hashem loves you. You know, to be loved by a nobody feels nice. To be loved by the creator of the world, that's pretty incredible. So the more that a person recognizes the greatness of the one that loves them, the greater the love and then the more that a person realizes the greatness of the one that loves them, the greater the awe. And that's something that comes together. And as we continue to realize Hashem's greatness, we feel tremendous awe, but tremendous love. Because I We don't even can't even imagine Hashem's greatness, but if we could imagine even more greatness, then the awe expands, but so does the love. And still he he loves me and he chose me and he wants me and he takes care of me and he sends me his brachos and he listens to my tefilos. Such a great Hashem listens to my tfilos. The love increases. And the more the oil increases, not the less love there is, the more love there is. That's the way it is with avodas Hashem. >> [clears throat] >> By Har Sinai, it was the same thing. The greatness of the ma'amad that Hakadosh Baruch Hu shared his Torah with us. I'm sure I told you this at different times. One of my most um life-changing tidbit conversations that I used to have when I used to walk my rosh yeshiva home from davening. So, we used to always uh you know, used to always try to, you know, ask him questions and talk to him about different things. And I had many, many, many dozens of like mini conversations with him just walking from the yeshiva to his apartment up the steps to the second floor where I lived. And then he wouldn't let me follow him up to the fourth floor where he lived. And and one time I asked him about a Rashi in parshas V'zos Habracha where [snorts] Rashi says that Hakadosh Baruch Hu Rashi is medayek from a pasuk that Hakadosh Baruch Hu, you know, there were all tens of thousands of malachim by Ma'amad Har Sinai. We know this, by the way, it's coming up cuz the Klal Yisrael saw the malachim. And they saw that the malachim stood with flags. And we have we had flags in the midbar cuz Klal Yisrael saw that the malachim had flags and they also wanted flags. What the significance of flags is, we'll talk about in a few weeks, but they saw that there were tens of thousands of Klal Yisrael in very high madreiga by then and they saw the malachim. And it says that Hakadosh Baruch Hu did not bring all of his malachim. He brought a sampling of malachim. V'asa may ribevos kodesh v'lo kol ribevos. He brought some of his tens of thousands of malachim. Why? Why didn't he bring all? So, Rashi says that this is Anava Anusa She Kodesh Baruch the humility of Hashem. Hashem was such an Anav he could have brought all of his Malachim but he only brought some of his Malachim. How do you feel about that? Make sense? Why not? What's bothering you? I'm a I agree with you to be bothered. >> He doesn't need Malachim to come with him. Doesn't need anyone to come with him. >> Right, but does this show his humility though that Hashem is an Anav? >> [clears throat] >> That he didn't bring all of his Malachim. >> No. I mean if he if he wanted to show that he was an Anav he wouldn't have brought any. >> Okay, that's a good question. >> He also didn't want to he didn't want there to be more Malachim than there were Yidden. >> Why? >> Because he was giving the Torah to the Yidden not to the Malachim cuz the Malachim were jealous that they would get the Torah. >> Well, either way they were jealous. I think the biggest issue is that aren't we here for the honor of Hakadosh Baruch? Isn't that why Hashem created the world? Weren't we created to honor Hashem? Don't we say Baruch Elokeinu Shebarahnu Lichvodai? Like yes, we're not we are not supposed to be by like Gaiva because we are not Hashem. Because every mailer that we have we say it's not me, it's Hakadosh Baruch. But Hashem Hashem Agdulah Agvurah Tiferes Netzach Hod to you Hashem is all of this greatness. Isn't that our whole life to honor Hashem? From the morning to the night isn't the entire purpose of the entire world to be Magalic Shamayim U'malah Ha'aretz De'ah Es Hashem? So, what is suddenly by Mayan Har Sinai Hashem is like, "Okay, all of that might be true but I'm not going to bring all my Malachim." What does that mean? It's bothersome, right? Like suddenly Hashem is an Anav? In what way is Hashem an anav? I don't even understand anav by Hakadosh Baruchu. Anav means it's not me. Hakadosh Baruchu is like, "It's not me." Who else is it? Emes Malchaynu, Eifes Zulasei, Who Eloheinu, Ein Od. Of course it was you. Hashem is an anav? Let the other avos take the zechus. Take the credit. Really? Of course not. It's Hakadosh Baruchu. So I asked this to my Rosh Yeshiva. And he answered me so quickly that it was like clear that he like had gone through this. Like this was so poshut to him. He said to me something life-changing a life-changing answer. He said to me that had Hakadosh Baruchu brought all the malachim to Ma'amad Har Sinai, the Ma'amad would have been too overwhelming for us. And we would not have been able to take it. As it is, it was very overwhelming for us. As it is, we almost couldn't take it. But if Hakadosh Baruchu had revealed his true kavod, we're not big enough for to be able to receive that kind of kavod. He said the humility of Hakadosh Baruchu is that he sacrificed his kavod so we could have the Torah. Isn't that incredible? And the truth is that this is not just true then. I'm talking to you about divrei Torah, right? It's Hashem's Torah that we're talking about. Pretty amazing. We are talking now. Our conversation is Hashem's Torah, right? You think that I understand it properly? The way Hashem means it? Do I understand it the way like the way Hashem intends it? Do you understand it the way Hashem intends it? Isn't it a humility from Hakadosh Baruchu that he lets us talk about his Torah? And he lets us learn it and talk about it and say it and repeat it and enjoy it and grow from it. His Torah, his nefesh, his essence, his everything, his deepest secret, his greatest love. He just says, "Here, it's yours and you could learn it and be mahadish and build on it and tell stories about it and connect with it and grow from it. That's a humility that he allows us. The Torah is fire. I want to tell you something. I just told you a rashi. It's important to know this. We should both be dead. Okay? Because when the other went into the other one, many times he died from the right? You know that. And the is not as holy as words of Torah. Do you know that? Words of Torah are holier than the other one. It's a lot. You can make a lot of money from the other one. Why are we alive? Because he's humble. Because he says, I know my my Torah is fire, but I love you my children and I want you to learn my Torah. I'm going to allow you to learn it even though it's fire, but I'm going to protect you from the fire. It's amazing. That's the humility of the other one. I'm his son and the other one. The other one shows up to give us the Torah. So incredible that he's sharing it with us. The awe that we have from the revelation of Sinai, okay, I couldn't be bigger. We wouldn't have been able to take more, but what we did see was so great that we just feel more loved by the other one. Had the other one said, "Grab a guitar. We're going to sing. Everyone's going to enjoy singing together. You know, we'll we'll roast marshmallows. And then I'll give you the Torah. It'll be a warm mushy moment." We would have been missing the extent of his love. Because the whole greatness of his love is that he was so so so shockingly incredibly great, gave us a Torah that's so shockingly incredibly holy, and he gave it to us. That's amazing. I I I should have known that he chose us to give us this It's incredible. The year and the other are not a contradiction to each other. I could just borrow who says that in our relationship I could just ask I could just borrow who I love you. And when I could just borrow who loves that means he loves more than a human being even knows how to love. I could just borrow who loves with the greatest flame is possible, but there are boundaries in our relationship. There's a necessity for covering between us. Right? There's a necessity. We have to have covering. Where is the place that we get the greatest love from I could just borrow who? In our lives in our lives here Waterbury, Connecticut pay above where we get the most love from I could just borrow who? In shul. In the base managers in the base of course. Where could we Where do we get more love? We We hear words of Torah where we each other. We gather for Simchas and for tsouris. It's our place that we gather to serve our sham, right? That's our place these places that I could just borrow who gave us this ability to create Kadusha even in Israel. We have Yeshivas and we have shuls and we have and we have the capacity to create Kadusha in Israel. That's an incredible thing. Incredible thing that I could just borrow who gave us and it's one of the greatest expressions of our sham's love. Our sham could have said that Kadusha and Kadusha wait for the base of to be built. You want to have a place that has Kadusha. You can have the It's We're in Boston and our sham didn't create the we did. You know, our sham wanted us to stay in Jerusalem. We did our various. We caused the us. I could just borrow who could have said okay the base of was destroyed. When it's rebuilt you'll have a place of Kadusha again. What could our sham do? Our sham said a positive and say for but I heal him not. I could just borrow who said no. There's but they can so but they should be above all. The Gemara about bubble cuz the Hutz L'Aretz was Bavel in those days, Iraq. So, Hashem said, "No, no, no. You're in galus. It's your fault that the Beis Hamikdash was destroyed, but I love you so much that I'm not going to make you wait for 2,000 years before you walk back into a Makom Kadosh. It's not the same as the Beis Hamikdash, but I'm going to give you a Kayamus of Kedusha. I'm going to show you my love." So, now that we have this place, place called a shul, are there halachas of awe in a shul? There are. What are What's an example of those halachas? There are halachas. I'm not just talking about like where it's really not nice to do this in shul. There are halachas. Do you know that if you walk into a shul, a shul proper, to get something, I'm sure you've learned these halachas. You're supposed to sit down and learn something or say a or some Tehillim or or say a tefillah. You don't just walk in for a mundane reason and walk out. It's not your living room. You know that you're not allowed to use a shul, I'm sure you've learned this. You're not allowed to use a shul as a shortcut. Even if it's easier to go through the shul than to go around it. A shul is not your living room. You don't just use it as a shortcut. You know? You don't walk into the Oval Office and the president's in the middle of a meeting and you're like, "Sorry, I'm just trying to scoot through." You don't You don't do that. You know? This is This is the This is the most hashuv place in the world, a shul. Okay, so to me that takes away from its love. If Hashem really loved me, he would let me even use it as a living room. Do you like that argument? But, it's not a true argument. It's not It's a very American argument, but it's not a true argument. Because in a way it would take away because a place of true love from Hakadosh Baruch Hu is a place that has the boundaries of the relationship with a Hashem like Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Where there's a relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu, there are boundaries cuz Hakadosh Baruch Hu is is Hakadosh Baruch Hu. And there are boundaries, and that's why with our relationship with Hashem, the avah is not believable. to. If we would only feel for 1 second in our lives the true love that Hashem has for us, we would not stop smiling for as long as we live. I'm not kidding around. The You know why we can't feel it? Because wants to have the say in this. You would not feel pain, tsar, confusion, worry, fright. If you were able to experience the real love Hashem has for you for one moment, you'd be cured for life and any kind of darkness. That's how profound it is. And yet, our relationship with also demands certain boundaries, certain rules. There's a way that we talk to God. We have to be dressed properly. Perhaps we should wash our hands. We address in a certain way. You know, we don't just say Hashem understands. You know, we we have a certain We have a certain state of honoring Hashem. We honor Hashem as well. Also, we follow Another example of how we do this is that we follow God. Hashem says we we eat this, we eat this. Hashem says to be careful with our kitchens, to keep this separate from this. We're careful in our kitchens to keep that separate. Hashem says there are all kinds of different from the most personal to the most broad that commands us. And we don't just say, "Yeah, whatever. Hashem loves me. I'm sure he gets it. This is pointless. I need to drive somewhere. Hashem understands. Hashem love I'm saying he loves me." We don't say this. There's a lot of explanations for this, but just in terms of this conversation, no. Part of the relationship is love and part of the relationship is a respect between God. And the respect, shockingly, the respect goes both ways. Do you know that? The the um God gave the Torah to us. There are many in the Torah that describe a certain respect that had for us. Like "Panim el panim dibur Hashem imachem, b'Har Sinai face to face Hashem spoke to you. That's not the like a melech to his to his eved. A melech to his eved the eved is at a distance. Face to face is like two people that love each other looking into each other's faces. That's how Hakadosh Baruchu spoke to us. But in there was a tremendous amount of love, but a tremendous amount of respect. The Torah compares the Torah contrasts, I should say, our service to Hashem with um with the avodah of Baal Peor. So, Baal Peor was an avodah zarah, and the Baal Peor was worshipped by using the bathroom in front of the avodah zarah. That's how they worshipped the avodah zarah. Sounds like a very bizarre practice, but there was a method to it. There was a reason for it. There was a logic to it. The logic was that I'm nothing and nobody. I'm dirt. I'm filth in front of you. That's the logic. I'm I'm battel um mevuttal. I'm nothing in front of this god. That was the idea. I'm totally degraded. I'm totally nothing. We don't serve Hakadosh Baruchu that way. The exact opposite. We're taught to respect ourselves and to be clean and to be dignified and to be dressed properly and to stand erect when we daven. We don't daven like we're groveling on the floor. We stand with a full shiur komah. We stand We bow at different times to show our hakna'ah to Hashem, but we stand strongly in front of Hashem. Amidah zu tefillah, right? Tefillah is like a We stand with pride. Hakadosh Baruchu not just that Hakadosh Baruchu tells us to respect him, but unbelievably Hakadosh Baruchu kaveyachol, if you can even say such a thing, Hakadosh Baruchu respects us. Hakadosh Baruchu gives us kavod by honoring us to serve him and by honoring us in the way that we serve him. Incredible. This nekudah is an important nekudah that drips down to our relationships as well. And it's important to to know that. It's a fallacy in the world that we live in that loving relationships don't have kavod and that kavod relationships don't have love. That's a fallacy in the in the in the in the world and we have to think about that. In our relationship with Hashem, the fact that there are limitations, the fact that we speak to Hashem a certain way, the fact that we davin with a certain a certain way, the fact that we follow halacha doesn't take away at all. For if anything, it adds to the love that we have for Hakadosh Baruch Hu and the love that Hashem has for us. But it's true also with parents and children. There's like a trend today a little bit like if I have to show my children I love them, so then I don't have any boundaries. My children could come into my room whenever they want and they could climb where they want and say what they want. And I'm not talking about when our children misbehave. I'm talking about what we are mechanech them to. And it's important to realize that the way a Torah dikka relationship blends together in the proper amounts, just like a recipe. You can't have different amounts of the ingredient. You can't play around with that. You know, you switch the sugar and salt, the cake is not going to taste too good. You know, the definitely we definitely give much bigger doses of love than we give or to our children, for sure. But there there have to be boundaries. There has to be such a thing as how do we talk to a parent? That's not taking away from our love. It's like I love my kids, but you know, what about me? What about respecting me? That's not the way we look at it. We look at it, I love my kids and therefore I need to have a healthy relationship with them and the healthy relationship I have is that I teach them that there are boundaries. That they have to knock on the door before they come into my bedroom. You know, telling a child that teaching a child that they have to knock on the door before coming into a bedroom, I know that there are young parents today that feel like I'm showing a certain distance that my child has to knock before they come in. I want to always be available. And I appreciate the feeling and I'd much rather you have that problem than the problem of well, they shouldn't even knock. I don't want to hear from them. I'd much rather this problem. This is a better problem. >> [clears throat] >> But it still needs to be corrected because healthy love between a parent and a child is healthy love that has boundaries. It's not different than we have on us. That's also of like a father and a and a son. And and and therefore it is important that there be certain boundaries. Now does that mean that we should always be on our that our is the most important thing? I happen to know I think I'm 99% sure that I'm accurate about this that the one of the children wrote a little like appreciation of the and he wrote that the himself was never like about sitting in his chair to his own children. The let his kids sit in his chair and I seem to remember such a that when the was sitting in his chair his kids would climb all over him. And I love that. And that's great. That's that's boundless that's great. But there's still in our circles we've still maintained you know that we don't call our parents by their names which the world just seems to be throwing out the window. Somehow it's not a good boundary that we we don't call our parents by their names. You know, if I love my parents and my and my children love me so then come on like we're all equals let them call me by my name. No, you're taking away. You're not adding to the love. You're taking away. Go check that they're not it's not it's not working out so well. You know, [snorts] it doesn't add to the love. With his with your boundaries love flourishes. With your boundaries that's where love flourishes. There need to be boundaries. We don't talk that way to a mother. There needs to be an understanding in the house that we don't talk that way to a mother. Of course, you know, all of us have our kids that are feistier than others and that struggle more than others. I'm not you know, I'm not saying and therefore we you know like that it pass holes anytime something's happening that's off the I'm talking about what the tzurah is that we are aiming for. And the tzurah that we're aiming for is that there's something It's interesting. Certain things just disappeared over the last generation. And I don't try to turn them back. You know, sometimes when something changes, we have to just be sad that it's over. And you know, maybe as your kids get older, you can teach them these things. But I'll give you an example. Um if you're talking to your friend and you say I decided to go to Eretz Yisrael for Shavuos and stop off in Paris on the way back. Like you say something insane like that, okay? So your friend says to you, "Are you out of your mind?" Would your friend say something like that? Yeah? You You out of your mind? Are you crazy? Would your children say, "Are you crazy?" >> I don't know. They'd say, "What are you going to bring me back?" >> I don't know. I'm pretty sure it's universal that when I was a kid I'm pretty sure that there was no such a thing You don't say, "Are you crazy?" to your parents. You don't say Even though I I I don't mean that you're crazy. You just don't There's just not There's not a phrase that you say to your parents. It's not a respectful phrase. Even with a very loving easy thing and we're laughing and joking like, "Are you crazy?" No, not to my I'll say it to my brother. I'll say it to my sister. I'm not saying it to my father. I even till today when I talk to my father, I would never say, "Are you out of your mind?" Never. It wouldn't even occur to me to talk that way. I would say, "I'm so surprised." That's the most I would do. Like, "Really? You did that?" You know, I don't speak to my father in third person. I don't you know, I don't do any of those things. But I would not say are you crazy to Would you say to your parents are you crazy? What? >> No, but my kids would say that. >> Yeah, they Something changed in this generation. I'm telling you something changed. Something changed. There's something wrong with you. Even phrases like that like kids I don't know maybe we caused it a little bit. Maybe we were a little bit too liberal. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's just the generation. I don't know and we have to be careful because we can't be over mock but there is such a thing as being mock or a generational shift. There is such a thing. And maybe on some level there were levels of year in the generation before that weren't healthy. It's possible. I don't know. But But to have boundaries to have a sense you're talking to your mother. How do you talk when you talk to your mother? You're talking to your mother. You talk a certain way. I know that you grow up this way like not to say she about your mother. You say mom you don't say she, right? Right? Remember that? >> Yeah, my mom my ima. >> Yeah. You know, like She told me to. We don't We didn't talk that way. No, I'm making sense? I don't know do our kids know that? >> No. >> Something got lost in the generation, no? Something got lost. Something got lost. Now there is there is a certain mile that happened also that our children are more expressive and more honest and more straight forward. There is there's a certain Would you agree with me to say that our children are more honest with us than we were with our parents? Unquestionable, right? It's unquestionable. Unquestionable that our children are more honest with us. Whether we like it that way, that's not always so simple but they're certainly more honest, more open. And do we want that? In terms of the honesty and opening their hearts, yeah, we're very grateful for that shift in the generation. Do those things come hand in hand? Maybe a little. So, that's why I'm saying we have to candle with care. You put your fist down and start making these harsh boundaries with your children, maybe we lose the advantage of our generation that our children will say to us, "I think you made a mistake raising me." I don't know. I've I've gotten that, you know. That you know, there's We get commentary, you know? We get Maybe some of you don't have children old enough yet to give the full commentary. Just wait, it's coming, you know? We get commentary, you know, from our children, you know? One of my kids was like, "You raised me almost 200% right." What? [laughter] Yeah. Yeah. >> [laughter] >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think I've been downgraded since then, but but But even that was like, "What?" And what what I can I'm just trying to imagine saying that to my parents. Like, "You raised me almost right." We never spoke to our parents about how they raised us. It never occurred to us to have that conversation. So, there is something that there's a mylah in today's generation. Our children are talking. They're communicating. They want to hear. There is a mylah. But there does need to remain some boundaries. You know, there needs to remain some boundaries. I like the knock on the door because the knock on the door, besides for the fact that it's healthy for a couple to have their own place and so and so forth. But the knock on the door is a certain like, "This is the mother. I'm respecting her space." But I want to say that the same thing goes the other way around. There are parents that don't respect their children's boundaries. Like for example, unless you are cautious for something dangerous, it is not appropriate to read your children's diaries. It's not appropriate. Now, sometimes we worry. Sometimes a child's behavior changed or there's some reason to worry. I'm not saying there aren't any issues. If a child has a private drawer and doesn't want us going into that drawer, we may not go into that drawer. I heard a story recently about a kid that keeps money in his in an envelope in his house and his mother keeps taking the money to pay the cleaning lady. You're not allowed to take your kids' money. Now, if you want to know if legally, halakhically you're allowed to, is it really his? Maybe it's really your husband's. Discuss that with your wife or your sure, okay? But I'm telling you from a kind of perspective, okay? You're not allowed to take them. A child has their money in an envelope or a wallet in a drawer. That's their money. Now, if you have an arrangement with them, which we've had many times cuz cash is not easy to come by in today's generation, you know, who has cash? So, your son knows that you're going to leave a little note in his wallet with how much you owe him and you're going to pay him back and he trusts you and you've paid him back before or her. Okay, I hear that. But they need to be respected. I went into your drawer and I took your money. Who do you think you are? I'm the mother. No, that does not give you a right to invade your child's privacy or take her things. It doesn't give you a right. There's a certain respect. We respect our children's boundaries by unless we absolutely have to, we do not criticize our children in front of their friends. We respect them. That's how we show our children respect cuz I showed us respect. So, the model of the relationship from is that respect goes both ways. We respect our children by not criticizing them in front by not embarrassing them in front of their friends, by not having them hear us complain about them to our sister on the phone. It's not easy. But we respect them. We respect their privacy. We respect their privacy also when we have a child who's a little bit older and still wets their bed, which is very prevalent today. Not 100% sure why, but it's very prevalent today. And we don't tell anyone. We don't tell anyone because it's degrading for our child. And we respect them by respecting their privacy. I don't mean a teacher or a rav, a therapist. Of course, then we of course, you know, when our children, without realizing it, but they trust us to tell those people. But we don't sit by on the couch with our relatives over, you know, Shabbos, you know, a way and and complain to our families about our child that wets his bed. And God forbid he should walk by and hear his parents talking about that. We don't do that. That's how we respect our children. We respect our children's bodies. That's another thing. Respect them both in terms of respecting them to knock on their doors. They also have a right to their privacy. Now again, when children are playing together in today's day and age, we have to have over them. And too much privacy for children could be dangerous. Yeah, of course that has to be balanced. But overall, my daughter, my son is in their room, the door is closed. I knock, and I do this, and my wife does this. We knock on our children's doors before we walk into a room. Of course. They are human beings. And I want to teach them that they're human beings. You want to know the single biggest protection that for Shalom, your child should not be taken advantage of in a way that could be damaging, and you know what I mean? Is is teach them to respect themselves. If they respect themselves, they will know when something is off. If they've been disrespected, they may not have. I knock before I walk into. You know, if Hindy's door is closed, she knows. Her door is closed, I knock on the door before I come in. You know, I'm super super close to her, but she knows. She knows she has her privacy. And I could tell from her body language that she feels totally comfortable. She's not uptight when people are around cuz she has her privacy. She has her space. It's very important. I hold even Could be some Could be we've talked about this before. I have this very strong uh um feeling that a great chinuch is I have this thing. I do with my grandchildren also. I love tickling my grandchildren. I love it. Okay? I I I ask first. I say, "Do you need a tickle?" My kids My grandchildren know how to indicate that they do. And then when they say stop, >> You stop. >> we stop. You know why? Because it's the right thing. And because we teach them that they're a vilem on their own body. And it's a shmira that they won't chas v'shalom allow someone to take advantage of them. Because from the time that they were young in their own home, their bodies were respected. And of course, that means chas v'shalom that we don't hit them inappropriately. We don't knock them around inappropriately. We treat them with respect. Our children get respect. And perhaps it comes together being able to make boundaries about how they treat us. But deep down, subconsciously, they know that they are also treated with respect. There are also things we won't say to them. We will say, "Are you crazy?" But there are other things that we won't say to them. You know, because we also treat them with respect. And we talk to them respectfully. And there's And there's a mirror image there. And the same thing is true between husbands and wives. That there's of course the closeness between a husband and wife is legendary. The whole Shir HaShirim is a description of the other between and Israel. And the Shir HaShirim is called not just holy, but Shir HaShirim is called if all the Shirim has all tell us if all the are Shir HaShirim is Kadashim. And the that thought that was the most the most sublime muscle of the relationship between us and is the relationship between a husband and wife. And that's incredible just to think about what that means. You know, to be even to be in such a muscle is just unbelievable. Tremendous tremendous other. But respect. There has to be respect. Respecting each other's space, respecting each other's time, respect trying not you know that even on the little things that every couple knows in their own intimate life, in their bedroom, in their bathroom, in their home, in their conversation with each other. There's a way that husbands and wives and I'm not going into details cuz that is a private thing that each couple knows how to show not just love, but how to show respect. That we respect the other. We respect people's boundaries. We respect people's needs. We respect in the way that we talk, in the way that we act. There are ways of showing respect even in the most intimate of relationships. And there's no greater because there is no relationship more intimate than us with our And there's other and era. Era translates in a marriage to respect and respecting boundaries. And between friends and between siblings as well. To have that sense of the that the love doesn't mean that there are no boundaries. Love means there are boundaries. That's how we maintain it. When I love someone and I'm speaking with them and I'm talking to them, we're dealing with something difficult with them, I can express my love together with my respect, and I express the other and I expect the other person to also express their love together with their respect, and that's how we can have some very very Sometimes we can have very very difficult conversations. I don't know if you've had this ever. It's not a fun It's but it's It's to have a really really really really really tough conversation with someone and to walk away from that conversation feeling like you didn't agree and it wasn't easy and it wasn't pleasant and it was upsetting, but it was respectful ways. It's not pleasant, but that is the godliness of the way Torah talk to each other. So, as we head to as we head to Har Sinai, as we go through the steps of Sefirah, as we get ready for Har Sinai, this week's parsha is Behar Sinai, as we get ready for Har Sinai, just to take a few minutes to contemplate our relationship with Hashem, the love and the respect, our relationships with our children both ways, ours with them and theirs with us, and our parents still today with We still could work on our relationships with our parents. You know, you know, you know, the those of us that have the that have parents alive or grandparents alive can work on it that way also to show love with respect. You know, as parents or grandparents get older and they need to be taken care of more and it becomes harder for them and they slow down a little bit, it it becomes hard sometimes that respect because they in a certain sense you're in the role of taking care of them. You know, what a change from the way things were a few decades ago when they were in the role of taking care of you. You know, when that happens, you know, everyone's parents and grandparents should be healthy and may have asked for but, you know, when it happens that there's that we're taking care of our parents to maintain a sense of covenant boundaries as much as possible. It's not always possible and sometimes it has to just be emotional. Because sometimes children have to take care of their parents in ways that don't feel so much like boundaries because we have to get in there and take care of them. But emotionally and the way we we talk speak with them and the way we speak about them, we can we can still make boundaries in the sense of dignity. Dignity, dignity, dignity, that has to be our parents deserve to be treated with dignity as much as possible. And sometimes just the natural process of people getting older create situations where they're treated with indignity. Anybody who's taking care of a parent in a hospital or a grandparent in a hospital knows that hospitals are places they might as well just name them indignity. Okay, they're places that are deprived of dignity. And for us to try to go the extra mile to provide that dignity for them whether they are market or not, but for us it's important to do that. So, there's our relationships with our parents, both directions, and there's our relationships with our children, both directions, and our relationships with our spouses and our siblings and our friends. And all of those changes what the boundaries are. It changes how the era works, how the covenant works. The as the era changes, isn't the era different to a sibling, to a spouse, to a parent, to a child? Right? The the the contours of the era is different, the contours of the boundaries are different. But the concept that there's such a thing as so much love that there's no boundaries that does not exist in the world of Torah, there's no such a thing. With love comes boundaries. That's how we protect the love and we dress the love and we and we we we show the love khashivus by surrounding it with boundaries. Yashar koach, thank you. >> Thank you.