Confronting the Guilt, Shame, and Pain

The Yeshiva.net I'd like to introduce Rabbi Jacobson to talk about this very important topic. Thank you for coming. Thank you, everybody. Thank you for the source. Thank you for the honor. Thank you for the privilege of uh addressing all of you today. I know that we have hundreds of people listening. And uh many more will probably watch or listen later. And I'm really very grateful for this uh this privilege and opportunity and to talk about something so important. And for this organization Avnei Chein for all of your tireless efforts and dedication and love for our brothers and sisters in your community and across Eretz Yisrael and all those you impact directly and indirectly. And uh Vihi noam Hashem Elokeinu aleinu u'masei yadeinu konnena aleinu. As Moshe says, "Yirat shamayim tishreh shchinah b'masei yedeichem." May the shchinah dwell in the work of your hands so that you should be able to continue to grow and be successful and be ambassadors of true healing and uh recovery and hope and uh love and uh expansive redemptive consciousness. And with arichas yamim v'simchas hadas u'menuchas hanefesh v'haguf. So my topic today is dealing with the stigmas of uh I would say everything connected to mental and emotional health. The stigmas in our community, the stigmas in our homes, our families individually and collectively. And where we stand today, how we can improve, how can we how we can each become kinder, more sensitive, more compassionate within our own hearts, within our own homes and families, within our communities, for ourselves, for our loved ones. So, I'm going to share a few a few thoughts, a few uh feelings about this matter. And I know we're going to have Soon we're going to open the floor also to dialogue and questions and answers. Everybody could uh I guess you already announced everybody will share their questions and we'll address it on a more personal, intimate level in response to people's questions. I think it probably won't be uh dramatic to say that in our generation, in our times we are seeing something very strange happening. Maybe it's not so strange, but many people call it strange. Namely an explosion in the mental heal health field based on a mental health crisis. There's not a day that doesn't go through that doesn't go by that I myself don't deal with either many emails, letters, texts, WhatsApps, conversations reaching out for this crisis or that crisis, this breakdown or that breakdown, this family or this community going through a very difficult situation. People are wondering, why? What happened suddenly? You know, mothers write to me all the time, "Well, you think my life was so easy when I grew up? Fathers say, "Well, what what do what do these kids want? What do they want? They have more comfort than we had, than our than our parents had, than our grandparents had. We're not crazy, abusive parents." There's a lot of confusion. There's a lot of pain. There's a lot of anger. There's a lot of frustration. There's a lot of resentment. I would say there's also a lot of ignorance. There's a lot of judgmentalism. You know, some are saying it's all the fault of the society today and the mental health professionals and rabbis or spiritual leaders or activists and who contribute to the toxicity of encouraging and reinforcing the mental health crisis. In other words, what about going back to good old disciplinarian measures where we don't take our emotions so seriously and we just tell our children, learn from me, be a soldier, put one foot ahead of another foot and march on to the promised land and everything will work out. Some of you are smiling cuz you're well familiar with this approach. And, you know, I think it's in this area it's so important to be humble and open. There is room to discuss. There's a lot of room to discuss, you know, the the boundaries that are blurred between being empathetic to emotions and losing all definitions of right and wrong, constructive and destructive, the need to be able to be in control of my thoughts and my words and my actions. So, there is a lot of room for that. But, I think I think that many of us have tried that. We have tried, you know, putting down our fist, saying this is how it is and hoping that everything will turn out wonderful. But, it doesn't work that way very often. And I don't think anybody here is on just for voluntary reasons, cuz you have nothing to do, and you decide that this is what you want to think about. I think Ahavas Chinam was founded, as many other organizations, because of a real real situation. Because of reality. I could try to fight reality, but at some point I have to embrace reality, not fight it. And the reality is that so many people are struggling. And many of us don't know what to do with it. And I want to discuss a few issues with this. The first element has to do with shame, stigma. This is a big one. Shame and stigma is based on the idea that we have developed a culture, and I'm going to be saying this with God's grace, without any judgment, because to judgment is on me, just like anybody else. It's not about judgment. This is really about identifying, identifying truth in a compassionate and humble way. But, we often grow up in cultures and communities, and I'm talking about all different types of communities and all different types of cultures, even within the Jewish world, and within the Jewish Orthodox world, and within the Jewish ultra-Orthodox world. And I know that the demographics are very very diverse, and that's wonderful. So, this is not about one community, or one movement, or one group. This is really about a general trend that affects us all. And that is that we we like to feel that nachas, success, means that we create perfect families, or at least close to perfect families. As I always say, we want to hatch them, match them, and dispatch them. Give birth, put them on the conveyor belt of a Jewish education, right? Three years later is an upsherinish, a few years later is a bar mitzvah, bas mitzvah, a few years later hopefully you can walk them down to the chuppah and ask them to give nachas with a new generation coming and now you become a zayden and a bubba. I'm saying this of course a little bit the tongue in cheek and humor, but you get the point. And sometimes it works that way, you know, those kids who follow the trajectory of our systems and they do it well and they do indeed bring us to a lot of joy and happiness and it's very special and it's very beautiful. And just because a child likes the system and works through the system, we shouldn't discriminate against them and not give them all their needs, right? Al pi shaloisha is oich Yisroel and even a kid who's not driving you meshuga deserves all the attention and all the attachment and all the empathy like every other child who is driving you a little crazy. So we have to remember that. Very, very important not to neglect that child who's just waking up in the morning and going to yeshiva and going to school just because he or she has not rebelled. But the fact remains that so many of the youth are not in that. They're not following that path. And whatever the reason may be, there may be mental challenges, emotional challenges, spiritual challenges, social challenges, psychological challenges, challenges within the house, challenges within themselves. Challenges that come from their nature, challenges that come from nurture. Challenges that are connected with parenting, challenges that are maybe connected to epigenetics, things we have inherited through all generations before us and maybe a combination of so many factors. And it's all coming together now in a very, very intense and I think an unpress, at least from what I know, very unprecedented and certainly in terms of the quantity and also in terms of the quality. And the shame and the stigma becomes so profound, you know? You're embarrassing the family and what are the shadchanim going to say? And what if I can't get my other daughters into the right seminary? And what if I can't get my sons into the right Yeshiva and generally what are my neighbors going to think about us? And what do my parents think about us, the grandparents and my uncles and aunts and next week we have a cousin and a shower and a mitzvah and is she going to come? Is he going to come? They're not going to come. And generally if we start talking about all these things like you know what was we have a crazy family like we have mental illness in our family. We have depression in our family. We have psychosis in our family. We have bipolar in our family. We have schizophrenia in our family. We have acute depression in our family. We have a lot of anxiety in our family. We have somebody who shalom tried to do the worst in our family all in our family. And I'm like uh I'm a prominent guy in my community in Israel, you know. I've been learning in college I don't know for 23 years. I'm considered a Thomas Hachem and my wife is like a decus and you know the biggest ballas in the whole neighborhood and I'm just giving one example but there are millions and millions of examples. You get the point. And I think there comes a moment in life where we all have to look very very deeply into ourselves and say goodbye to the ego of shame and stigma. Because you have to choose the safety of your children the well-being of your loved ones or the external egotistical validation that comes from people thinking not knowing thinking that we are this most beautiful family. And I want to say it's not easy. And I don't judge people who can do it because it's a hard journey. It's really really you know I have to tell you this moment it touched me so deeply. So go I did an interview with Rabbi Shimon Russell who wrote the book Raising a Loving Family a very good book very special book. And we did a three-hour interview maybe some of you have watched it about you know why my child hates religion why my child hates Judaism how to bring out the best in your children, how to create attachment and safety. And he shared a very, very personal experience. It touched me so deeply. He was in Lakewood. He lived in Lakewood for more than 30 years, learned in Kyle and became a therapist there. Classic, you know, Gateshead graduate, Lakewood finance, he would say Lithuanian Kyle bent Torah Thomas Hachem young man following through, you know, the Lakewood system, Torah and more Torah and Yira Shamayim, you know, Torah and fear of heaven and a Jewish religious household on the most the most optimal level. And Baruch Hashem, God blessed him and his wife with eight children. And as he put it, six of them six of them or seven of them struggled deeply, deeply with Judaism and fell out of the system. And he said one Friday night he was sitting at the table, grouchy, angry, upset. None of the children were following the system. You know, sit at the table, let's sing beautiful songs. Mommy made the most delicious fish and soup and chicken and dessert, kavod. Let's share something on the parsha. Let's share something you learned this week in Mishnayos. Let's have an interesting conversation about Torah, about Yiddishkeit, about life, about the family. I don't know, maybe about Purim, about Pesach, whatever it is. And none of this was happening. Instead, there was confrontation and negative energy and darkness and anger and alienation and no interest at all in Shabbos and the holiness of Shabbos and the beauty of Shabbos and the transcendence of Shabbos. And he was very, very upset. This was not the Shabbos table we imagine, we dream of, we envision, we anticipate, we hope for. And he finishes benching and he's going up to the second floor I guess to retire. And he's really upset at his kids. He's really upset, you know, they're ruining his life. And Rabbi Russell said, his daughter let's put it this way, wasn't dressed, you know, in the most uh religious uniform. And was rebellious. Turned to him as he's going up and she passed him in the hallway. She turned to him and he said, she said words that changed his life. She said to him, "Tati it doesn't look like this Judaism thing is working out too well for you." Mhm? And hit him. It was like a lightning bolt. Doesn't look like this Judaism thing is working out too well for you. You seem so miserable. And this was it jolted him. Because she was honest. She like, "You're miserable." You're a miserable person. And at that moment, he said he had to make a choice and he transformed his life. From being a slave to the society around him. You know what happened? He became a servant of God. It's a shift that happens deep in your heart, deep in your soul. Nobody has to see it. But you know it and heaven knows it. It's a very deep shift. It's ask not what my children can do for me. Ask I ask what I can do for my children. It's not only what Hashem can do for me, it's what I can do for Hashem. It's to quote Mordecai's words to Esther Hamalka. Mi yodea im le'et kazot higat lamalchut. Esther was rebelling against Mordecai's message. Esther was defiant for good reason. It's not that she was an always a defiant person, she was not. I don't know if she had, you know, oppositional defiant oppositional disorder. Or oppositional defiant disorder, ODD. But Esther said, Mordecai, your suggestion doesn't make sense. You want me to go into a king, to my husband, without permission. He hasn't been interested in me for 30 days. You walk in without permission, you come up with a head shorter. For what? Maybe I can rescue a people that I am now estranged from. I'll remain in the palace. Hopefully, I'll stay alive. But if I go in, everybody dies. There was a very, very deep, deep resistance in Esther's words. But Mordecai says something. And it persuades her to go. And after everything he says, don't think you're going to be saved. If you don't do anything and you're passive, we will be saved anyway. You and your father's house will be lost. But then he says, who knows if this is not the reason you were chosen as the queen, as the first lady of the Persian Empire. What's the meaning? Who knows? Me or they? Like, maybe. Yeah, maybe not. You should say, I know. We know. Divine providence has brought you here for this moment. And one of the profound explanations is Mordecai was answering a very deep question. Esther was like, how did I end up in this mess? I'm a regular Jewish girl, you know, valedictorian of Bais Yaakov. Or valedictorian of Bnei Zion, of Bais Rochel, of Bais Chana, of Bruriah, of Shulamith, of Neve, or whatever school. I'm I'm I'm a great girl. I had a future building a beautiful Jewish home with a beautiful Shabbos table, with a Yom Tov, with I'll put him This is before putting him with a Pesach, with a Shavuos, with a Sukkos. How did I end up with this alcoholic, with this drunkard who killed his first wife, Vashti? A Persian monarch who's not Jewish. Why? How? And Mordecai says, me or they? Some things transcend us. They transcend knowledge. Me or they? Unless cuz I say God knows was not a statement of ambivalence and doubt. It was a statement of I don't know. Some things transcend us. our intellectual ability to grasp them and control them. Your mission in life is beyond what I or even you can really understand intellectually. Don't try to mathematically make sense of oh, it makes sense based on the trajectory of my life that I ended up in the palace. Some things are what we say in the morning or my knowing girl Lena. What is girl Lena? Our lot our girl is a girl. A girl seems random. Why did you win the girl and I lost the girl? Why did this goat get chosen to go here and this goat there? It's a girl. It's a lot. It's like a random mistake. But we know it's not random. It comes from a place that's higher than our logic and intellect cuz logic and intellect are also creations. This is what Mordecai was telling us to that's why Purim is called poor. Poor means the girl a lot just like Yom Kippur. Yom Kippurim Yom Kippur is like Purim cuz Purim was also the the lot. Everyone has a different journey. One goat goes here, one goat goes there. How do you know exactly what your mission is? How do you know what is right and what's wrong? How do you know what a perfect family looks like? How do you know what a perfect job is table or say there of Pesach looks like? How do you know what a beautiful home looks like? I don't. You know what I do know? I do know this. It's not a mistake that these are my children. Hashem has given these children to me. He didn't make a mistake. It means that these parents are best equipped to be able to be the most powerful force of healing for these children and for themselves. It's not a mistake. You say yeah, but why am I dealing with this and why is my neighbor not dealing with this? And why does my sister have it so easy? And why does my brother have it so easy? And why is my sister making her 14th wedding? I don't know and within twice. And I'm still struggling with so much. I don't know me I day and least cuz I say get the most but one thing I do know. And that is I have to stop asking what everybody is going to do for me to make me look good. And say this is really not about my ego. Now it's time to tune into my soul's calling, my soul's mission. Ma Hashem Malach K'Shoyn Yimayimoch. What does God want from you? And it's not what he wants from me. It's not what he wants from you and from you. Is this something I can always grasp and understand exactly the meaning and the purpose and how it's going to work out? No. It's a state of me ad d'lo yada. But this is These are the moments that open our hearts to infinity. They allow us not to be stuck in arrogance or narcissism or shallowness or superficiality or egotism. This is the moments when we actually become free. We are liberated. We become emancipated cuz I'm not here to impress anybody. I'm not a people's pleaser anymore. I'm not here to look good to you or to you or to you. I'm not about that. It becomes a moment of authenticity and therefore becomes a moment of vulnerability. My dearest friends, these are choices we each have to make. Am Are you going to live from a place of authenticity and vulnerability? Or am I going to live from a place of cover-ups and arrogance? Not because I'm an arrogant person who wants to live in cover-ups, but simply those are my coping mechanisms. Those are my survival skills. I get it. I don't want to be vulnerable. I want to be respected. I want to have a stand. I want to be chashuv. You want to be I get it. I understand. I want my kids to look like they're playing the part. They can get dressed up once a year. My kids are dressed up all year like Purim, but maybe Purim is the only real day. You know, other days of the year we think those are the normal days. Purim is like, you know, the strange day, ad d'lo yada. Right? The other days of the year we know who everybody is. I know who you are, you know who I am. I have control, I have a schedule, everything is planned. And Purim is the day, you know, where chaos reigns. Maybe it's the other way around. All the other days we're dressing up, trying to make believe we know who everybody is and that we're in control. Purim is the authentic day. Adloyada, give it up. Let it go. The freedom of letting go, letting go, letting go for real. I don't have to control anybody. I could relinquish control. I don't have to play God. I'm not God. I'm a channel for Hashem. When you let go of the need to be God and you can be a channel for God, you're a free person. You know why? Cuz you have all the power without all the responsibility. Listen to what I'm telling you. You have all the power without all the responsibility. You have all the power cuz you're Hashem's shliach. The messenger carries and possesses the properties of the one who sent him. You're a shliach of Hashem for these people. You are their father, you are their mother, you're a brother, you're a sister, you're a relative, you're a friend, you're a therapist, you're a teacher, you're a mentor, you're a guide, you're a rebbe, whatever it is. And you are a shliach for yourself, for your own soul. And as a result of that, I have the divine power that I need to be able to show up. But I don't have to take responsibility. It's not personal. It's not personal. And that's how we let go of stigmas. We need open conversations. Let me Let me Let me try to be honest with you. I think I'm trying to be honest the whole time. You know, I feel that sometimes so many of our conversations in our communities are so saturated with cover-ups, with inauthenticity. People are sick of it. You will have to choose which which team you're going to be in. Are you going to be those Are you going to be from those who help us find a solution? Or those who continue to wallow kvetching and sighing about how terrible all of our youth are and how spoiled we are and narcissistic and confused and all these parents who are enabling these meshugana kids to go crazy. They themselves are just completely confused. You're going to be part of the problem or you're going to be part of the solution. We want authentic conversation. We want real conversation. There's nothing as liberating as being authentic and vulnerable. You know why? I don't have to carry the burden of trying to protect my vulnerability, trying to protect my humaness, trying to be what I am not. And our kids are so sensitive today to truth. They are done with cover-ups. They are done with religion that feeds toxicity. Religion that has so much corruption and politics, so many ego games, so many cover-ups. They're done with it. They don't want a God that is toxic. They don't want a God that is based on lies. They don't want a religion that can't deal with real authenticity and creates these models of perfection that are maybe realistic for some people but completely alienating for others. This requires a conversation where we could be truly open and real and vulnerable. And one day I'm going to tell this to you. You will look at those children who made you struggle most and thank them. Cuz you will say El Hanar has his polarity. Till you don't reach that point, know that there's still a lot of work. And still you're looking for another child. Couldn't you be like your brother? Couldn't you be like your cousin? Couldn't you be like me? You're not in the game. You're disconnected. And I say this without judgment, trust me. With a lot of compassion, but you're not you're not connected. Only when like Hannah, you could look at your child and say he's pal LT. It's for this child that I prayed. I can't thank you enough, and I can't thank Hashem enough for giving you to me. You are my pride. You are my joy. When I see you, my heart swells with love. Now you guys are thinking, "Rabbi, why why which planet are you living in?" Do you know my child? Do I get an applause for that? Which planet are you living in? And I say to you, "I'm living on planet Earth, and I know the struggle. We're all in the same boat. But this is our work. Very often, our work with our children is not work with them. It's work with ourselves. How godly are you? How well am I dealing with my trauma, with my coping mechanisms? How much am I connected to my own true self? And this is where I come to another, I think, very very important point. And this has to do with inner work. Inner work. When we are watching in our communities, in our children, in ourselves, you may be you may be you may be listening, and you're going through these struggles. What is the most difficult thing that happens? The most difficult thing that happens is that it's very very easy to project our problems on others, to blame others, or to get very angry and resentful and lose the plot. And this is where we need to learn how to regulate ourselves. The real work of being there for people who are struggling is do we know how to truly truly be aligned in ourselves? Because all I can give you is me. I can't give you anything else. All I can give you is my authenticity, my blood, my heart, my soul, my truth, my light. I can't give you anything else. I can't control you. I don't want to control you. I can't manipulate you. I don't want to manipulate you. I can't exploit you. I could, but I don't want to. I also can't at the end of the day let's come back to want me, but I I I don't want to. What I want to give you is I want to give you my truth. I want to give you my neshama. I want to give you my soul. For this I have to have a relationship with my soul. So, let's talk about parents and children for a moment or teachers and and students. Educators and and disciples. Whatever the relationship, parents and children are obviously the most intense and intimate relationship in terms of connection, but this is true of all relationships, husbands and wives. When my child is behaving a certain way or going down a certain path and I'm being very very triggered and I'm now living in a place of despair or guilt or shame or fear or a lot of anger and resentment or so much anxiety. The real work here is not to change my child. The real work here is to change me, to change myself. This is where I and you, we all I need to develop tools, find tools to be able to make our soul our best friend. To be able to find calmness inside of ourselves. To be able to deal with our own mental challenges, our own inner struggles. And here's the truth. We all develop coping mechanisms at a very, very young age, and those coping mechanisms help us survive. But many of those coping mechanisms become terrible distractions as we get older. They may undermine our marriages. They may undermine our relationships with our children. Most importantly, they undermine our relationships with our own truth. I don't know my own truth cuz I'm living with a coping mechanism, and it proved successful for many years, 50 years. Maybe I disassociated emotionally, and it did well for me cuz I couldn't deal with my emotions. Maybe I became very aggressive. Maybe I became very meek and passive. Maybe I became the ultimate people pleaser. Maybe I'm dealing with constant anxiety, constant guilt, constant shame, constant anger, constant resentment. These are things I need to be able to work on, deal with. Am I ready for my other way out? Am I ready to let go of my coping mechanisms, of my egotistical structures, and develop new neural pathways that are based on mystery, infinity. Can I open Can I open myself up every single day to my inner divine soul, which is a chelek elokai mima'l? It's a derivative of infinite consciousness. It's a fragment of the divine. It transcends abuse. It transcends illness. It transcends any flaw. The soul is always filled with confidence and joy and oneness and promise. It's full of curiosity and compassion, creativity and courage, love and connection. It's a derivative of the divine. It's infinite. It's not afraid. It's not afraid of authenticity. It's not afraid of vulnerability. That is its staple. It is authentic because it's divine. Hashem Elokeinu emes. And it's full of joy and strength. Oiz vechedva bemkomo. it says in tell them we say it every morning. There was confidence and joy in his space. In that space of mine. I am a derivative of Elokus, of godliness, of Ein Sof. I am a manifestation of Hashem in this world. Or to put it in very deep, deep spiritual, Kabbalistic, and Hasidic terms, basically This is a famous expression of one of the great masters. An neshama is Elokus nasa nivra. A soul is the way Hashem, Hashem's infinite light becomes embodied in you and in me. When I go to that place, there is so much love. There is so much truth. There is so much connection. But I have other voices. Those are the coping mechanisms. We call it my animal consciousness, my animal soul. The voices of my body trying to survive and my nervous system may not have regulation. The more we, you and I, work on this, the more we become the most honest people, the best version of ourselves, the more we learn how to regulate our nervous system, the more we create a link between the mind and the body. Because the language that connects the mind to the body is the nervous system. But if I never learned how to regulate it, if I never learned how to listen to the language of the body, you can be inspired and hear a great speech today by Rabbi YY Jacobson and by our great psychiatrists and therapists and psychologists and life coaches and pedagogues and brilliant orators and guides. And it's great and you go home or you're already home probably. And you say, "You know what? Tonight I'm going to respond differently." Tomorrow morning I'm going to respond differently. I know what to do. And let me tell you friends, doesn't work. You know why? Because she comes into the kitchen, he comes into the kitchen, they say something and you're triggered. My your body feels unsafe. Your body feels unsafe. And there is a reason for it. Because it's triggering something inside of you that is very very deep and it's not about your child, it's about you. Those of us who realize that are on the way of tremendous tremendous healing and redemption. Because now I can take responsibility. This doesn't mean what my child is doing is right or wrong. We're not talking about that. It's we're talking about our reactions, our triggers. Can I identify the triggers inside my own soul and work on them? Because when I can show up with my divinity, with my godliness to my child, to the struggles of my child, everything is different. My child won't feel my anger. My child won't feel my judgment. My child won't feel the need for me to control their life. What my child will feel is unconditional love. Unconditional attachment. Unconditional connection. And then that will allow them to heal. Because when I believe in them, they'll be able to believe in them. But I can only believe in them is if I have a relationship with me, if I believe in me. And I'm not talking now philosophy. This is not another lecture that Rabbi YY is giving. I'm now talking about the visceral knowledge and experience. When you feel that, when you connect with that, you radiate it. And when you radiate it, the people around you also change. There's an insight I once shared. I saw it somewhere and it touched me so deeply. You know, at Pesach, we have this custom that we take the afikoman and we hide it. It's called yachatz. We break the matzah and then we hide the matzah and who finds it? Our children go and find it. And they are the ones who may hide it and then they'll retrieve it and reveal it to us and then they want an afikoman prize. And sometimes parents get really upset, you know, why did you steal my afikoman? Bring it to me. And they negotiate and then when your children are satisfied, they will give you the afikoman. Mazel tov, we can continue the seder. And there's a deep message here. The deep message is what we hide, our children are going to reveal. We all have our afikomans. They're called safun. Safun means it's hidden. What we hide, our children are going to expose. They're going to reveal. Now, I have may I may have hidden it for 50 years very successfully. I may have suppressed it or repressed it to a point that it was completely below the surface and I had no knowledge of what is going on. I was so detached and so disconnected. So, even though I was living in active active active trauma, I have no awareness of anything and I'm just following things by rote. And those of us who are successful people know that our trauma can create a story of success, but we are living in a survival state. We are living with coping mechanisms that paralyze us and debilitate us and take away our emotions and our bliss of life. Life was not supposed to be made to live in misery and agony. You weren't supposed to be fighting with your kids and fighting with your spouse and hating God and hating the world. That's not how life was supposed to be designed. I know we're living in galas. We're living in exile. There's a lot a lot of pain. But now we want to prepare for a redemption. We want to prepare for a transformed state. And the transformation begins inside of me. So, things that I hide, my children bring to the fore. It's called afikoman. And when my child holds up that afikoman and says, "Hey tati, look. Look." And suddenly I get to see some of my demons. Some of my coping mechanisms, some of my skeletons, some of my ghosts, some of my most painful things. My instincts say, "Run away. Run away. Run away. Run away." Just smile and make believe nothing is happening, but I am angry. And others have this voice, "Fight. Attack. Scream at your kids. This is chutzpah. This is disrespectful. Everything I did to you, how dare you speak to me this way?" Sorry, you were triggered. Now, I am the three-year-old. My child is nine and I'm three. My child is 16, and I'm two. Or you could do something else. You could look at the afikoman. You can hug your child and say, "Thank you. Thank you for this gift." Come, let's continue the seder, and now we could both say together, "L'shana haba'ah b'Yerushalayim." Next year, this year in Jerusalem. In other words, we can together go and celebrate our redemption because I I didn't run away from my afikoman. I embraced my afikoman. And let me just tell you, it's not always easy. There are voices in our animal consciousness and our body that are very, very scared. Remember, and here is a truth about life. It says in Sefarim that marriage is a second birth, meaning the soul comes into the body once, and then when we get married, it's like the soul rebirth reborn again in this relationship with your spouse. The other day in a shiur, I explained what that means, at least one of the aspects of what I think it means. And that is every neshama comes down to this world with a special mission, with a special tikkun. Mi ya'idiam laze kaze I say got l'malkhus. Everyone has a light to bring to the world. Every one of us. The Mishna says, "Everyone is supposed to say, 'For me, the world was created.'" Hayav adam l'omar bishvili nivra olam. It's not a narcissistic statement. It's the supreme Jewish perspective on life. There is something at stake in the universe that only you and you and you and you and me can fix and repair. And no one else before you or living after you will ever be able to do this. This is your mission that is exclusive to you. Bishvili nivra olam. And every single one of us has that. And that includes fixing things and repairing things and confronting things and subduing darkness and transforming darkness. And it's based on your mission that you have your parents and your circumstances and your mental challenges. This is not a mistake. It's not a tragedy. It's a journey. Me, I day, I don't understand it. You don't understand it. We don't have to understand it. We Let me tell you something. The deepest things in life we can't understand, we don't have to understand, we don't want to understand. I'm going to say it again cuz this is precious. I heard it from the Rebbe. The deepest things in life we can't understand, we don't have to understand, we don't want to understand. Are you going to do reduce the relationship between a mother and a baby and a child to an intellectual mathematical game? Oh, yeah, you know, that I'm responsible for the baby cuz legally there's no other guardian and I'm the guardian and if I'm responsible that if I'm going to nurse you in the middle of the night. It's true, but it's much beyond that. The deepest truths about ourselves are intrinsic in our DNA beyond my hand, beyond logic. Our mission is rooted in Adonai Adonai. The less logical we are about it, the more we could be open to it. And therefore everyone has a mission and we sometimes have to fix things. And if I don't fix things, when I get married, it's my soul coming down again because my wife will probably challenge me and bring up those stuff to give me an opportunity to heal what I didn't heal yet. And your husband the same thing. This doesn't mean every marriage you should stick through. Sometimes it's too abusive, it's too unbearable. He's not ready to be fixed or she's not ready to be fixed. But if you're both ready, what I didn't do before my marriage, I have an opportunity now in my marriage to heal through my relationship with my spouse. Because what happens very often in marriages, his trauma triggers her trauma. Her trauma triggers his trauma. If they both get entangled in their own trauma, they start killing each other because they're meant for each other and their traumas are killing each other. But, if her trauma triggers his empathy and his trauma triggers her empathy, now their souls connect and together they can help each other confront their own traumas. That's an incredible opportunity. This is what makes marriages blissful, my friends. Now, sometimes we don't do it in our marriages, so God gives us a third opportunity. It's called our children. Our children will trigger all of our traumas, I guarantee you. I got an applause for that, too, by the way. Our children will trigger all of our traumas. If not number one, number two. If not number two, number three. Usually each one will trigger another trauma. Each one will trigger another one. If you have Baruch Hashem seven children, you probably have seven serious traumas to deal. If you have 12 children, okay, good luck. But we're all dealing with something and when we can confront our Af Kayin and embrace it, it's incredible. It's incredible. I'm going to tell you something else, my friends. I have another 10 minutes and I'm going to go to questions. I'm going to I want to I want to tell you really two things. One is a personal experience that gives me a lot of strength. And this personal experience I think is a prelude to perspective. And the personal experience happened when I was a child. I was a child. I grew up in Brooklyn, New York. You could probably hear from my accent. I didn't grow up in Mississippi. I didn't grow up in Atlanta. I grew up in Brooklyn, New York. In a neighborhood called the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, where we always worked on integration between different types of communities. One year it was Arab Pesach it was Pesach at night. First night of Pesach. The Lubavitcher Rebbe who lived in the neighborhood would give matzah after my gift to a few people. His secretaries, people who worked in his office, people who worked in his home, helped out with his helped out in the house. People who helped out his brother-in-law. Just people close in the office, you know, in the Chabad headquarters. My father had a interesting relationship with the Rebbe. So he was also invited to get matzah. And the Rebbe after my gift before going home to the seder would give all these people a piece of matzah. The adults he would give a whole matzah. Their children he would give a broken piece of the matzah. It's usually not hard to open a pound of matzah shmurah matzah and most of it is broken. So he didn't have a problem finding broken pieces and then the adults he would give a whole matzah and wish everybody a kosher and freilichen Pesach. As a kid I went with my father every year the first night of Pesach to get matzah from the Rebbe. It was a very special privilege. The Rebbe's face I remember he was standing at the door was shining like a malach Elokim. And I walked by. I was a little kid. And the Rebbe took turned around to the pound of matzah to the you know the brown box with the matzah and there's no broken piece. Usually he would find a broken piece and give it to me because I was a kid. So he started to lift the matzah to look for a broken piece and he lifted the second one the third one fourth. He lifted up every matzah in the box. I don't know some miracle there were no broken matzahs in that box. I never saw that before after. Usually it's full of broken matzahs. It's hard to find a whole matzah. And he finished and I was standing there waiting. And there was no broken matzah. So the Rebbe I remember he took he took both of his hands one on top of the matzahs one on bottom. He held them you know with with with you know with with subtlety and then he turned over the whole pile of matzah upside down and again he started to look through. So it was literally from bottom up now cuz he turned it around and started to look through again looking for a broken piece. At this point, I have to be honest and confess I was thinking to myself, "Lubavitcher Rebbe, nothing will happen if you give me a whole matzah. I promise you. If you don't tell, I don't tell. Just give me a whole matzah. Let's call it a night." I'm waiting there it looked like eternity. It was very special to be in his holy presence but like it was like getting a little like just give me a whole matzah. What's going to happen? A kid is going to get a whole matzah. What do you think I'm going to do, you know? I'll sell it on eBay? I didn't say anything. I was just standing. The Rebbe finished the pile again. There was no broken matzah. I saw that he was hesitating to break the matzah. I understood he didn't want to break a matzah. I get it. It's not the afikoman. He didn't. And he started to walk away to go look for another box of matzah to find a broken piece of matzah to get me. And on the way as he started to step away I saw I don't know what he was thinking but it looked like he decided not to and he came back. And I think a little begrudgingly or so it seemed to me uh eyes of a little kid he took the matzah, I think the second one and he broke it and he gave me the broken piece and he said a kosher and a freilichen Pesach. I didn't think about the story. I didn't even remember it. Years and years later the story came back to me. I was sitting in dealing one night an email came to me such a broken situation, such brokenness. Such suffering, such anguish. And a part of me I guess felt so overwhelmed and so distraught and so confused. I I didn't understand what is happening, why is this happening and how am I falling into this parsha? Like what am I supposed to do here? Do I have any knowledge or wisdom? That that can really help the situation. It was just very very painful and very difficult to deal with. And one story and another story I get a get quite a few letters from quite many letters from people of all demographics with horrendous stories. Horrendous stories of of abuse of dysfunctionality of difficult challenges and situations, especially in the field of mental health. And it's hard. And the story came to me. And I had this vision visual feeling. Why would the Rebbe not give me a whole matzah? What's the big deal? I was a kid, okay. So one part of me said maybe this was a blessing to find my second half. And to know that I'm not a whole, I still have to find my second half. And it was a special blessing cuz indeed God has blessed me with a second half that is beyond what anyone can ask for. L'shana tovah u'metukah. But then I thought there's also also something else. Maybe the Rebbe felt that part of my journey would be talking and meeting people with a lot of brokenness. And in his own inimitable way he was telling me, "Yosef Yitzchak, don't be afraid of brokenness. Don't be afraid of the broken matzahs around you. Don't be afraid. Don't duck. Don't shrink. Don't evade your gaze. Don't close your eyes. Don't become apathetic and indifferent. Don't become cynical and cold. Don't become detached and judgmental. Instead, when you learn to embrace the broken matzah in your own heart, you'll be able to embrace broken matzahs in other hearts. Here is a broken matzah, and remember that Yachatz the ultimate mitzvah of matzah we do on the broken matzah, on the prusa lechem oni. Because redemption happens when we are ready to face all of our broken places. Redemption happens when you and I could look at adversity, steer at adversity in the eyes, and not be afraid. Where I could look at my adversity and instead of experiencing the shame and the guilt and the overwhelming anxiety, I can hear all those voices of guilt and shame and fear with compassion, but not back off from looking at my adversity as dark as the devil may seem, and it may feel like it's swallowing me up alive, and I want to run to China, I want to run to Antarctica. I want to disassociate. There's a lion in the room, I cannot confront all these lions. There's more than one lion sometimes. And the Rebbe said, "Don't be afraid of the broken matzah. Behind your brokenness, you will find your wholeness. Under the brokenness, you will always find infinite light. It is such intense light that it couldn't be revealed in any other form, but only through this brokenness. And if you can hold on to this broken matzah, and show other people how they can hold on to the broken matzah, we'll be able to say l'shana haba'ah b'Yerushalayim. And this is what I've tried to be This is what I try to do. I try to do it with myself. It's not always easy. And I try to do this with loved ones and try to do it with people I come into contact. And it's what I'm sharing with you today. There's a lot of brokenness. There's a lot of pain. But let me tell you something. Behind every broken matzah, there is the promise of redemption. And there's a reason for this. Nothing in the world, not nature and not nurture, not genetics and not even what happens in the uterus, not epigenetics, and not all of the circumstances and events and experiences we go through in life, even when we're talking about bullying, even when we're talking about sexual abuse, even when we're talking about emotional neglect, even when we're talking about all forms of emotional pain and anguish. Things I'm articulating and things I'm not articulating because either I can't or because I don't know. But deeper than all of this stands the soul of every single one of our children and every single one of our brothers and sisters and us ourselves, you and you and you, which is a chelek elokei' mima'al mamash. It's a derivative of divine infinite consciousness. We are ultimately infinite consciousness having a finite experience. Yes, I can get swallowed up into that finite and sometimes painful experience. But our work is with compassion and empathy and support to always find the avnei chein. To always find those cherished gems, those pearls, those diamonds, glittering divine diamonds at the core of every single heart that are always always intact. Nothing can destroy them. Nothing can even tarnish them and compromise them. I am in awe when I watch people who have been through so much in their lives including such abuse that is unfathomable and that I happen to have intimate knowledge about. And then I look at them and I'm expecting to see a broken, devastated vessel that is hopeless. For a good reason. After everything you have been through, look at you. You should be broken and yet I see a light. I see a soul that experiences the pain. And I say to them, don't you realize all the pain you're experiencing is because your soul was intact and your soul saw it all happen and your soul is a witness. And your soul knows that it should protest all the lies and all the stupidity and all the atrocities and all the cover-ups. And that's why I know you're intact. It's the greatest proof of the divine core at the heart of each and every one of us. If we were really just random mutations susceptible to forces outside of us, then those of us who experienced hardship and abuse should be broken, hopeless vessels. But because at the core we are divine, so we're invincible. No one can snuff out the flight of your soul. Nobody can extinguish, nobody can dampen, nobody can eclipse, nobody can compromise the infinite expansiveness of your soul embodied in you. What we need help is access. We need help to access that inner soul to be able to communicate with our brain, with our nervous system, with our body, to be able to embody our light. But never doubt that light. Never ever doubt that core. That is why you have pain. That is why you know what happened. That is why you know how wrong it is what happened. That is the sign that that sense of truthfulness inside of you nobody can ever take away. Believe in it. Hold on to it. Embrace it because it's much more powerful than everything that's broken in us. And don't be afraid of the broken places inside of you and inside of others. Let's support each other. Let's hold each other's hands. Let's cry on each other's shoulders because then we'll also be able to laugh on each other's shoulders and dance to the end of love. Thank you. Mhm. Thank you so much, Rabbi Jacobson, for the absolutely inspiring and really powerful reflections and talk about the concepts of mental health and concepts of mental health challenges and switching the way we can greet that experience. It was really um so powerful and so appreciated. So, thank you again. Thank you for this question. Baruch Hashem. So, we have a couple of questions um and I'm going to combine a couple of them because they they cover a similar theme. So, the first question that I'm going that was raised um through some of the people who are participating here is how do we find shidduchim for adult children with mental health diagnoses on medications? Most medical shidduchim groups are not accepting mental health patients and concurrently there was an individual um themselves that said that they are um single and have a diagnosis of bipolar and would like to get married very much and are really struggling with navigating the uh shidduch the shidduch system. And when do you bring this up and how do you navigate this? Love to hear your thoughts on it. Yeah. And this is a question for me, right? Yes. Cuz I know you have someone else answering questions. That's why I'm asking. Yes, but I think this is something from a rabbinical point of view. Yeah, yeah. Okay, wow. This is this is this is a painful but very very real question and there's a few parts. So, let me just uh say what I think. The first element is uh You know, when we speak about mental illness, it's important to understand that uh there are those of us who struggle mentally. If we identify the problem and we identify our challenge with honesty and without covering it up and without running away, I just want to say this at the outset. There are so There are so many healing opportunities today to enhance our life significantly. I know personally many individuals and I'm and I'm not I'm not a mental health professional, not a medical professional. So, I'm saying this, you know, with a lot of humility and without any conclusive uh authoritative scientific facts, but just from conversations with quite many professionals and patients. It's just so important to know that people who are ready to take responsibility for their challenges today, there is an unbelievable opportunity today that God has given our generation for healing modalities. Um I've done interviews with really, really, you know, serious doctors in the mental health field who even said that today there is a huge literature suggesting that there are profound links between mental illness and trauma. Unlike we always thought about mental illness that it's basically you just have a chemical imbalance, you know, a boy is born with a hole in the heart or with diabetes and you have a mental illness. But, if it's associated and connected to trauma, this means that it's so much connected to our emotional well-being and our attachment and connection. So, it's just important to understand this and there are even those professionals who are suggesting different models of healing today outside of the regular medication route, which may may not, but may prove very, very an unbelievably helpful for trauma healing and therefore perhaps for different issues connected with what we call mental illness. And especially the area of plant medicines, vitamins, vitamin somatic therapy, exercising, uh daily schedules that are consistent with a lifestyle of mental health and alignment. I'm just throwing this out because I think it's important for people to realize how much hope and how much potentiality there is today for incredible healing even in those areas that we thought it's just this is the decree and this is how it's supposed to be and this is how you're going to die. The best is you can just manage it to be the avid but there's a lot more today. Number one. Number two, in terms of a shidduch, I think this is where we really need to reach a very deep place of trust in ourselves. In other words, and I'm not a superstitious type of guy so I don't want this to sound superstitious but I'll tell you what I mean. What I mean is is this. If I am comfortable with my mental challenges and my mental shlichus, my me idea, then ultimately I will attract that. People will be more comfortable with me. And therefore, I will find the I hopefully I can hope much more to find the right person for me. In other words, if you can really accept yourself, other people will accept you as well. Obviously, you have to find the right shidduch. Obviously, we all know that just like there are many boys struggling, there are many girls struggling and I think that we don't we're not looking for the perfect person. We're looking for a person who's confronting their own things and they're they're ready to create space for another person confronting their things and if there's willpower, real willpower, what do I mean willpower? I mean there's goodwill and courage on both sides to be able each of us to deal with our issues and sometimes these can be the most powerful marriages. Now, we don't want to be deceptive in any way or form or fashion. I was at a Nefesh conference. Nefesh is like a group of religious psychologists and Reb Dovid Cohen shlita, he was one of the prominent rabbonim in America. Reb Dovid Cohen was there and they asked him this question and he said that he feels that at the fourth date, third, fourth, if around the fourth date, that's when people should be having these conversations about serious mental challenges cuz he feels sometimes the first three times it wouldn't be fair because there's no there's no chemistry at all. It's just like you have a problem. Okay, next. And afterwards it's not fair cuz sometimes people invest a lot and then you may not be ready for this. But he felt that after a few dates where there's where there's enough connection that you really see the qualities of this person, then a person should say, you know, this is what I'm dealing with. This is what I'm struggling with. And then the other person could make a decision. But I'm going to say again, I think the real deepest issue is there has to be a lot of trust. If God made me and he's invested in me and he gave me my soul and he gave me my body, my challenges are not a source of shame. My challenges are a source of pride because this is my mission. Esther wasn't ashamed that she was busy with a non-Jew in the palace doing what he wanted because me and they are this was her mission. Each of us was sent down a certain path. If this is my path, I'm not ashamed of it. I will accept it. I will embrace it. I'm not going to deal with stigmas. And you know what? You're going to attract people who are like-minded. You're going to attract people who are also honest and also authentic. Let's remember a lot of people in our community are struggling. Shh. Shh shh shh shh shh shh. Not our family, but it's all a joke. It's a lie. Everybody's struggling. There's mental illness everywhere. There are serious challenges every year. Trust me. Yeah, I know what's going on a little bit because I have I have a little access and people are open with me because they don't have to sign their names and their emails. We're all struggling. We're all challenged. So when you're comfortable with it, you will attract people who are authentic and honest and with a lot of faith and a lot of trust and a lot of inner self-love and acceptance with God's grace you'll find the right person. And it's And if we're both committed to the path of healing, you can have an unbelievable relationship. But you have to take responsibility for your challenges and not throw it under the rug. Thank you so much. Uh next question is for Dr. Ari Woll. And the question is this, how does society view mental and physical health differently? And do you think the two should be addressed in the same manner? Why or why not? And the second part of the question is should there be any caution when sharing that information with an employer the same way you would maybe share physical information? That's an excellent question. Um you know mental health and physical health are very similar. Um but also very different. So you know I think you know that in many ways you can look at mental health like physical difficulties. If a person is ill you know you often say it's like if someone has a flu often it's hard to to do things and to to function well. Uh people with mental illness often find themselves in the same position where it's difficult to manage and to function. Um but I think it's important to realize that um mental health often looks like it's like it's more like it's deeper than physical difficulties. For example, people often think that there's something wrong with them because they have a mental illness. Something wrong with them because they have depression. Getting back to what Rabbi Jacobson was referring to about shidduchim you know I think it's important that people don't define themselves by their illness. People don't define themselves by their mental health crisis or diagnosis. Um when someone has a broken leg they don't say how am I going to find a shidduch because I broke my leg. You know you know people are who they are. People are personalities. People are very special in many ways. And a person that has a mental illness, who has depression or anxiety, for example, doesn't make them different. Doesn't make them not a special person. And I think it's very important that people realize that when getting into shidduchim, thinking about shidduchim, thinking about um functioning in life, and doing things in their life. Uh so I think that's a very important just concept of how to of how to view um of how to view mental illness. Um Um the second question Um I forgot the second question. Do you want to remind me of the question? Sorry. Second question is just similarly how one may disclose to an employer because there might be time needed to take off because of a physical ailment, how does that apply to a mental illness? You know, it it it's Yeah, I don't know Yeah, I think it's important to understand that employers don't have to know everything about you. Um and I think although, you know, people have all kinds of different struggles. Uh people have physical struggles, people have bad days, people have all kinds of struggles, and I don't think employers need to understand um uh details about why a person can't show up for work or have some difficulties. I think the important thing is that people try their best, uh people try to do what's right, um and um and people have to be as honest as they need to be, but not you know, people don't have to divulge things that are very personal and and and very very personal to them. Thank you so much, Dr. Wall. Um Rabbi Jacobson, if I could ask you a further question, and I'm going to also take two questions that are uh uh, could be extrapolated one from the next. Um, is there a truth self? An authentic self? If one feels that his authentic self is counter to Torah, how do we manage that? Do we encourage the person's perception of their truth self? And I think this really goes into the second question of somebody's mentioning, how do we deal with fearing the choices our children are making, especially when it's against our values and what we believe in? Wow, both brilliant questions. Excellent questions. Um, Okay, let me address the first question first. Uh, what if my authentic self is completely contrary to the Torah way of life, to Torah's values? My authentic self is telling me things that are exact opposite everything Yiddishkeit or somethings Yiddishkeit says. Which one do I embrace? Do I suppress Do I repress myself and embrace Torah, or do I say to the Torah, "Bye-bye. You can go somewhere else. This is not for me." Excellent question. Let me tell you how I see what Torah is. The very famous expression in the Medrish that when, uh, when, uh, God, God created the world, he used a blueprint, like every good, uh, contractor. You know, there's a blueprint that you follow that the architect has drawn. And the blueprint was Torah. The Zohar says, "Kudsha Brichu istakal b'Oraisa u'bara ol'ma." He looked into the Torah and created the world. What's the meaning of that? Well, he needs a blueprint? He didn't know what to do? He's like the contractor I have here in the house. Like, what? Even today's contractors barely use blueprints. That's why our houses look the way they do. So, God had to use a blueprint? The answer, of course, is that what this is really saying is that the design of the human brain and the design of the universe is a reflection of Torah. So, if I'm finding an inherent contradiction between my authenticity and the Torah, Either I'm not being honest enough with myself or the Torah that has been fed to me is a very, very distorted Torah. In other words, when we find our I think this is one of the most important, important core ideas of the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah and Hasidus. Like there's a whole safer Tanya that's based on this core. If you know your authentic self, your authentic self is a reflection of the ultimate divine consciousness, which means in simple words, that the authentic self is filled with infinite love and attachment and connection. The the the the core of the self is full of of holiness and authenticity. And all of Torah is basically trying to cultivate a life of auth- authenticity and love and holiness and attachment. I may be living with a distorted version of Judaism. That's true. And you know what? I may need to be able to detox. One of the most devastating things I heard from a young man was he told me he can't keep Shabbos because he was sexually abused in shul every Friday night because on Shabbos the shul was empty. Everybody went home. And that's when the predator pred- predator used the unique energy of Shabbos to do the unthinkable. So he says, "For me Shabbos is is is Gehenna. It's It's abuse." So, yeah. For him Shabbos equals devastation, emotional murder. And we have to respect that with compassion. We must respect that with compassion. But is that what Shabbos is? The whole idea of Shabbos is the exact opposite. Shabbos is the time that we detox from technology and we bond with our spouses and our children and ourselves in the most intimate way for 26 hours. That That is Shabbos. So I think it's extremely important to understand this. If Judaism is in defiance with your authentic self, I will maintain, at least this is my deep conviction, and I think with quite with some life experience as well, and and a feeling for what pain looks like, I would say patience and compassion. Find out more about who you really are, and find out more about what Judaism really, really is. And now, I'm not saying that there's no mitzvah that may be difficult for me at the moment, but ultimately every mitzvah in Judaism is here to flex the muscles of our soul, never to destroy our authenticity. If you could find me a mitzvah that destroys people's authenticity, I will tell you, either you don't understand the mitzvah, you don't understand yourself. And if we're teaching such mitzvahs, then we need a lot of help. And we're distorting Judaism. This brings us to the second question. Your children may be making choices that are very, very painful for you. And there is a need to grieve and to cry. But here is the deal. Very often, very often, much of these choices, their drifting away from their parents, has to do with a very, very deep pain and trauma inside themselves. Okay? I'm just going to give one very simple example that doesn't approve true about every case, but just one example and illustration that is very authentic for many situations. If my child, or me, I went through 10 years in school, and I was not a success story. I saw myself as a loser. Not because the teachers or principals were abusive, they were not. But because, you know, I looked at myself, I compared myself with the five top kids in the class, and I felt like a loser. So, for 10 years, this relationship with my school has caused me intense pain and an intense feeling that I am not good enough. I am worthless. When I get older, I may want to disassociate from this source of pain, and anything connected with school, with Torah, with God who put me into this system causes me a tremendous sense of inner inner anguish. The worst thing my parents can do is scream at me, rebuke me, shame me further, which only means I will go further away from your dish guide. They're intensifying the trauma that Judaism caused me. And this is not blaming anybody. This is just understanding diagnosing the pain. What the parents can do best for this child is become closer. Become more attached. This starts healing the wounds of the child. The child says, "Mhm, my from father is not on the team that's causing me so much pain. He's actually causing me delight. So I have a problem. My from father puts on to fill in. He davens. He learns. Hey, I thought Judaism is the source of trauma and abuse. So now this cognitive dissonance. My father is so loving. My mother is so loving. What's going on here?" And you know what? This is the beginning of healing. So when your children are making bad choices and destructive choices, be very very careful not to damage the attachment, not to damage the relationship. It's the relationship that is usually the remedy. The relationship is the tool for healing. That connection is more powerful than anything else. Don't let go of that connection. Don't. Abandoning that connection is abandoning the future of your child, God forbid. It's painful. You need a support system. You need to get rid of your ego. You need to have a good marriage. And you need to be able to have compassion for all the voices inside of you that have been struggling. But find your courage in your soul. Remember you're a servant of God and connect deeper with your child. Don't run away. Thank you so much. And think it's you really touched on a point that's so sensitive and very applicable to so many people. And It's hard. Because we think if we scream at them and we just tell them, "You don't do this in this house. You In this house you wear a keeper. In this house you get dressed with sneez." You think your 17-year-old daughter doesn't know how you dress in your house. You think your son doesn't know what your values are. They've been in your house for 15 years. They know everything. They've heard this lecture 20,000 times. They know everything. This is not an issue of knowledge. This is an issue of inner inner pain. And the greatest remedy for pain is attachment. Now, I know this is hard. This is hard. It's difficult, especially with other kids. This is one of those me ideas. What's my mission? But everyone is dealing with this today. I mean, I can't say everyone, but an enormous amount of families, perfect families, beautiful families, BEST FAMILIES IN ISRAEL, best families in Be Shemesh, Beit Shemesh, Beit Tali Leed, and Bnei Brak, and Mea Shearim, even Mea Shearim, and even Batei Ungarin. And Monsey, and Lakewood, and Boro Park, and Williamsburg, and Monsey, and Crown Heights, and Golders Green, and Stamford Hill, and everywhere else in the world. So, welcome to the club. And now it's time to open our hearts and not to make decisions from anger and resentment and ego or insecurity, but make decisions based on really, really what these children need more than anything else. And I'm also going to say get advice from people who are experienced with these children. Do not get advice from people who don't have a lot of experience with these children cuz they might mean well, but they might give you horrific advice. I really appreciate that perspective because very often what in crisis people are really looking in every direction and whatever sometimes the most accessible and available might not be the most effective. And as you're saying, could even be destructive. Um I have one quick question. If we could just really this would be a 1 to 2 minute answer, cuz we need to wrap up, but I think it really touches on the core of Avne Cain's mission, because Avne Cain, when we work with families, it's not only for the individual who is going through the mental health crisis, we really look at the whole family and whole family system. And the whole family that nobody exists in a vacuum. And so the final question for Rabbi Jacobson would be, what else can or should our communities be doing to help those who are suffering with mental health challenges or even their families? What could we do more and better as a community to create a cohesive support system? Excellent. I would say three things that we can all do immediately. First of all, it's teachers, parents, educators, principals educating themselves about this. Educating themselves in a very, very serious way, understanding the struggles of what of what people go through. If I'm a parent today or a teacher, a rebbe, a rosh yeshiva, a menahel, menaheles, mechanech, mechaneches, whatever is, mashgiach, mashpia, any age, and I am not keenly aware of the inner state of a child, and how important emotional attunement is and attachment and connection and safety is, I'm not allowed to parent and I'm not allowed to educate. I will make horrible mistakes, not because I'm a bad guy, but simply because I'm clueless. We all are We have a duty to educate ourselves, especially if you're in the field of education. The first I was talking to a principal of a huge mesivta in Chicago. You know, he's there for more than a few decades, and he he he told me an epiphany that he had and I I was grateful to hear this epiphany, but this is such a foundation. Every boy who walks into your classroom, every girl who walks into your classroom and walks into your house, the prerequisite is safety, safety, safety, safety. Are they feeling safe? If they feel safe emotionally and physically, they can be regulated. If they could be regulated, they can absorb things with their prefrontal cortex, not with their amygdala. If they can absorb things with their prefrontal cortex, they can grow to become healthy human beings and beautiful people and Jews. If they are sitting in my shul, in my base medrish, in my seminary, in my school, in my cheder, in my Talmud Torah, in my bet sefer, my tichon, whatever it is, and they're not feeling safety, they're feeling judged, they're defensive, the principal is about to punish them, the teacher is angry today, there's no education. Old education is skin-deep and superficial. So, we all need we all we owe it to ourselves, just like I have to know the curriculum, just like I have to prepare the Gemara I'm teaching, the Chumash I'm teaching, the Mishnayos I'm teaching, the grammar, the math, the biology, the science, whatever it is I'm teaching, before all that, prepare something else. Will every kid feel safe in my classroom? Will every child feel safe in my house? That is a different skill set. That's not IQ, that's EQ. But it's equally important and between you and me, it's much more important than academics. Much more important. I mean, academics are important, we we cherish academics, we're the people of the book, but emotional safety is more important. If you give me a choice, my kid could go through eight years of elementary school and feel emotionally safe, even if the learning, you know, won't be in the highest level, or the learning will be on the highest level, they will be emotionally unsafe. I know what I'm going to choose. Of course, I want both. I'm a Jew. I want the cake. I want to eat it, too. But, we all know what we have. I think that's number one. I think number two is Number two, this is very, very important, is our ability to have conversations in a free and open way, to create support systems. Parents shouldn't feel alone. Parents feel so alone. There's nobody to talk to. Who am I going to talk to another person who's going to think, "Oh, this is the crazy family. Oh, I wonder what meshugas is happening over there. Why are their kids so sick?" This If that's happening, there's no support. We need all need to get rid of the stigma. Everyone, trust me, everybody is dealing with something today. I'm laughing. I'm not It's not funny. My point is we're all struggling. I'm struggling. You're struggling. We need to be vulnerable and authentic. If we could talk about it, create an environment of safety. Mothers can talk to each other. Fathers can talk to each other. Siblings can talk. I think creating support systems other is it you have, you know. We have support systems for cancer patients. We have support systems for for other physical illnesses. And it's amazing all the bigger items when it comes to mental illness. There's so much silence. There's so much stigma. And I understand why. I'm not judging it. There's a lot a lot of shame here. A lot a lot of embarrassment. But, so many people are struggling. We don't have to be embarrassed from each other. So, let's create those groups. Every community should have such groups. Groups where people could meet. They could be Zoom. They could be WhatsApps. They could be conversations. Those should be references. You know, professionals. I found an amazing doctor in England. I found somebody who microdoses with an amazing I'm just saying with an amazing remedy or a vitamin or it's it's helpful also to have the pressure on one person to find all the help in the world. And they get that one doctor who's an encyclopedia. It's very rare. It's very, very rare. But, with a support system, you know, you can also get different perspectives. It would be so, so helpful to people. The third thing I think we can do, and this has to do with uh I think very much of us, you know, I think with what we do individually. I think what we can each do with ourselves is be able to reach a deeper place of acceptance. A deeper place of acceptance is stop fighting the your child. Stop fighting the state of being of your child. Embrace it. Because the more we fight it, I think, the more we don't allow healing to happen. It's like I'm going to make my kid normal. I'm going to make you fit in. You don't fit in. You don't fit in. There is neurodiversity. You're neurodivergent. I'm also neurodivergent. If you haven't realized. You're neurodivergent. The question is what we do with our diversity. Can we make space for it? Can we trust it? Can we believe that God has a mission for us, or we're just the losers of society, the dregs of society? The more I can accept other people with real dignity and grace, I can make a space of safety for them. When I create a space of safety for them, there is much more opportunity for healing. I would say even that many mental challenges at the core is a lack of safety. It's a trauma that caused me to go crazy in order to be able to survive. If you me, your father, your mother, your therapist, your friend cannot be afraid of your outbursts and stay there with you in that space without judgment and without me going crazy, we can sometimes recreate those same initial challenges that caused the trauma and help the person confront them with more ease and dignity. That's why our sages say that real teshuvah is going back to the same place, the same time, the same woman, I say Malcolm, I say man, I say Isha and redoing it differently. Kabbalah Kabbalah I can take you back to that space of chaos and show you we can be here with you and hold hands. That is so healing. So, this has to do with a very internal work that I think we are we are challenged today to do. And that is really go to a place of a very, very deep calm acceptance that comes from empowerment and strength. This class is brought to you by the yeshiva.net. Please help us continue the classes. Make even a small contribution at www.theyeshiva.net/donate.