My Personal Evolution toward a More Embodied Experience of Life and Judaism

the [Music] yeshiva.net. So, we are here. Rabbi Wy, thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate your time. My privilege. Thank you for the opportunity and your willingness to to dive into some sensitive topics. This has been a little bit of time in the making and you and I are both in a certain leadership responsibility and role where people are coming to you for guidance. You know, as a rabbi, which has morphed into a lot of their own personal problems and struggles and challenges. Yet we as people each have our own growth work that we need to do. So, I'd love to explore how we can navigate and how we can help mainstream the idea which is my main goal tonight is the idea of self-development that it's not just for those who have gone through these major traumas which you speak about a lot in in your talks these days and but for anyone seeking a more meaningful connected life and maybe get a little personal if possible and if things go well I would love to do this again. Beautiful. May God grace our conversation and may we be channels for uh more light to come into our universe. Heaven knows how much we need it. Yeah, we're in a we're in a time that we definitely need it and that's definitely going to come up. But the first place I would really like to start which I think is a good place to start because I think we're both uh I'd like to consider myself aid and I see that you know as I learned I'm a balu and I've been learning about uh the sacred wisdom of especially listening and watching as I mentioned to you before all your classes trying to understand more about what the real message of the alterba was and you know all the way down to our current Reb. And one of the things I saw and this is this is what I've noticed is that you know there's a there was a point where the alterba had to make a decision where he was was uh you know in a in the fork in the road as you would say where he had to decide whether he was going to go to VNA and then or he could go to Ms. rich where he was going to learn to learn how to do and from my understanding and what I see it wasn't just a choice of learning more Torah or learning how to do the alterb is making a choice about where he's where he sees that he's going to need to pave the road for the next generation and the generations to come which I believe davining represents a shabalev which is this idea of really working on one's heart and I think that was the altar of his message especially in the first chapter of Tanya he he brings it out so nicely with discussing animal consciousness which you talk about a lot in yeshurim about how the primary language of the animal is the emotions and how really he wanted to focus that we should be working on our emotions unfortunately what I've seen today is is that I don't I don't really see a clear defined path of how people are really approaching that. I see there's a talk of but to actually go and say like this is the work for everyone which I believe that book was for all of us that this to strive to be a ben a better person. So the story goes it's a fascinating story that the alter ebba said that he can go to vna and of course that was the home of the great gone of was considered the Lithuanian genius of the generation known as the gone and he said over there I'm going to learn how to learn but he said learning I know already a little bit he said a little bit I know how to learn davening I don't know at all and misri they say you could learn how to davin now we have to understand what that means of course Because alterba says, I know how to learn a little bit. I don't know how to davenin. So obviously you talk about learning and davining on the frequency that alterb experienced learning and dening. And really I think what it really comes down to is that the alterba felt I guess he had an instinct and it's very hard for us to talk about a soul like the alterbas who's you know the magnitude of the soul and the mind is I think beyond uh what anybody could describe in words but nonetheless the little we do understand and comprehend and experience it was ultimately a comprehensive system that he wanted to create that would synthesize the dvening and learning to really become integrated and there should be like a seamless flow of learning and daving. Dvening as you said in trackness is avoid English means the service is the Rebi used to say in the hearts or with the hearts it's the work in the heart and with the heart in other words there's the work inside the heart and is the work in the other parts with the heart that's dven learning of course is awareness of the god's blueprint for lifeb entire purpose or much of his purpose was to create an integration between the two that the learning becomes a dvening and the davining becomes a learning and what that means in practical terms I think is that whatever we learn doesn't just remain up there intellectually analytically we analyze it which is nice but it becomes a dav becomes a becomes an energetic visceral experience that is right the two big words of the alterb for the that Hashem wanted to be embodied literally right in our temple in my heart, my nervous system, my soul, my psyche, my brain and my pinky. So that's the davenining embody a learning and the davining also becomes a learning which means that one's emotions and one's internal life become aligned with the frequency of the divine. That integration is what makes his teachings and more than his teachings living with his teachings so magical. Because you know to say it frankly there's many people that are doing work emotional work and it's magnificent. There's many people that are learning and it's also magnificent. But what often happens is when I do emotional work, I can also get stuck. I can get paralyzed. I know with my own experience, you know, my pain becomes my story and my story becomes my pain. And it's for good reason. This is not to judge anybody really. We all we're all we're all work in progress and we're all trying as you said to become better people. But very often, you know, I can I can get stuck. I can get paralyzed and it's tricky because I'm into emotional healing and you develop a vocabulary of emotional healing. So it camouflages as very progressive and enlightening but I could stay stuck in my own orbit of of judgment towards myself, judgment towards others and ultimately being a victim. So that's where the learning is so powerful because it gives you a template of God's vision for you which is always a vision of infinite greatness. On the other hand, I could be learning all day, living in my head and my brain and even with brilliance, but it's simply not embodied and my emotional life remains very underdeveloped. So that incredible synthesis literally in every aspect of Yiddish that embodied in every one of his teachings and discourses and Tanya and whatever he touched is uh I find in our generation to be oxygen. At least I could speak for myself and for what I try to teach my students. So for sure and and and if this really was the the mission of the altar, if we could say like at that moment where he decided to go to Ms. Rich that he placed an emphasis on let's call it heart work, connecting with Hashem through our emotions, refining the animal consciousness. Yeah. Yeah. I see so many Jewish communities hesitant to embrace the deep emotional development. And what do you think we still have? Like why do you think people still have this hesitancy? Like what barriers are coming up for people preventing them from doing deeper selfwork? I know where I was a very I'm I'm I I tried to be non-judgmental because I get it. It's a painful process. It's facing difficult challenges. And if I have created coping mechanisms that allow me not only to survive but to be productive and to be a good person and to be a good Jew and to serve God in an earnest way. So I can understand tremendous resistance. Number one. Number two, you know, sometimes people who are not so familiar intimately with this work cuz maybe they didn't go through the process so much for whatever reason. Maybe they didn't feel the need. Their children didn't take them down that path. They never had a major struggle or a breakdown in their life. You know, they sometimes could look at it and say, "Oh, it seems selfish. People get narcissistic and self-centered, and it's all about what I'm feeling, what I'm not feeling." You know, part of being a Jew is you're a soldier. You're a servant of Hashem. Wake up in the morning, do what Hashem wants. And they'll even quote lines of Tanya like you mentioned before, right? the rule the the the the brain rules the heart with an arm and fist. So get over your stupid emotions and don't be a crybaby and we all have problems and the previous generations had much more problems than you but they forged ahead boots on the ground they put one foot ahead of another foot. Now all these sentiments I'm saying it a little bit with humor. I understand it and not only that for many generations this has helped people survive and this has even helped people survive in very graceful and dignified ways. So I think we have to be very sensitive to that and uh understand that you know real inner emotional work is very very difficult. It's painful. It's challenging and it's important to know a very deep truth in life. We don't know what we don't know, right? We don't know what we don't know. We really don't know what we don't know. And and this is not a knowledge that's in the brain. It's not computer knowledge. This is not AI. This is not artificial intelligence. This is very very deep inner work of working through emotions. But I think you and I know very well and probably anybody listening or watching knows very well. When you're sitting in the presence of somebody who's involved in this work, you just feel it and know it. It's a different language. There's a different energy that comes from their face. There's a different energy that's going into you. or Carol Young who once said, "We will only change people to the effect to the we will only change people to the point that we're ready to change ourselves." And it radiates. It just radiates. Teachers, mentors, parents, leaders, rabbis, rebas, mashim, educators, principles, therapists, gurus, life coaches, whatever it is, you know, leaders of all stripes and types. Those who are truly truly challenging themselves every day, challenging their ego, their insecurities, their wounds, their their their survival mechanisms, their coping mechanisms, you know, their their instinctive triggers and responses to life, their anger, their jealousy, their fears, and they're really working with it. When they teach you just it's alive it's alive it's not words it's it's alive you suddenly seem in people you see the resurrection of the dead you know I know this with myself I could teach sometimes it's painful for me to say but there were times in my life you know I was detached from my teachings I gave a good class I think you know but it was detached emotionally And and I'm not saying, you know, the messages are sometimes very helpful and people get out of it and it's it's a good thing. You know, it's it's spreading good things, but I completely cannot compare it to when I'm completely when I'm a channel. In other words, when you know my ego gets out of the way, at least as much as I can do at that moment, and the energy comes through in a more transparent fashion, the way it affects people is completely different. It's not anymore with guilt and shame and and and negativity. There's like a a godliness like a divine energy that gets awoken in them. And it's it's never about me or or really about anybody else. It's really about the the frequency of divine energy that we are all privileged to be a channel. And the more we get ourselves out of the way in a very healthy way. We become a channel, the more infinite infinity, the more infinity we channel through us. So uh you know but listen I think every person ultimately needs to discover it from within. So that leads to to a good good layup question because I I heard you say it a couple times now is do you think that someone that people need to go through something in order to make these messages ofidis or you know personal development real like do I need to to face a certain mates or or ghoul or or a certain brokenness or a challenge that is is humbling question very very powerful question very powerful question So here is the truth and here is how we apply the truth. The truth is we are all facing the greatest abandon abandonment wound that anybody can imagine. It's called the soul coming into the body as puts it in hundreds of discourses and he wasn't saying this as poetic fiction but as literally energetic reality. The consciousness of every Jew is literally infinity. It's it's pure infinite oneness and bliss. That rupture, that departure in our own perception where the soul is thrown off a cliff, what he calls me, you know, from the sublimeest of of of mountains of of divine majestic heights into a dark abyss and suddenly boom, the animal soul takes over. and says, "Okay, you got to survive, but you know what? I'll take care of you. I'll take care of you. How do we turn you into a celebrity? How do we turn you into a powerful person? How do we turn you into a respectful guy? How do we turn you into a sadic, into a lovable guy?" Whatever your animal soul, you know, the trajectory it takes by figuring out your strength. And we, by the way, the animal soul is brilliant and clever. And right away, it's adjust. It creates all the neural pathways and all the neurons in the most, you know, you got to give this animal soul credit because it is brilliant. You know, talk about PhDs when you're one week old and already figured out a pathway for life and you just play it out and then you're 40 years old, 30 years old, 50 years old and we're just coping and the animal soul makes adjustments every second of the day so that nobody catches you and you don't even catch yourself. And I may live my entire life not knowing that I'm simply coping and surviving and running away from all the things that I don't even know how to face. So we're all we are all dealing with this no matter what family or circumstances you grew up with. However, and I said this the other day in the class and I was very emotional when I said it. I said I said all those of you who experienced those curve balls that really really derailed the course of your life and has given you tremendous tremendous angst and and and created crisis in your life. And I say I don't say this without empathy. I say this with a lot of love and empathy. But at some moment you're going to be so thankful because it's those traumas that you experienced that woke you up to the true trauma that we are all dealing with and it's called inidus it's called the first symptom which means basically the perception of being abandoned of being in an empty space devoid of God and specifically it's my soul your soul our soul coming into a body and an animal consciousness in a completely new reality where it has to rediscover its relationship with Hashem completely within and from a place of tremendous choice and creativity and courage dealing with so many distractions that are not its fault. Like wow. And when we become aware of this emotionally and energetically and we realize the greatness that we have every moment to make a choice in which world we're going to live am I going to live what alterba calls in the kiper reality where basically I'm living in shells and husks and coverups and blockages and that means every conversation with my wife with my children myself with my friends with my students with my constituents it means when I'm sitting on the couch when I'm making money, when I'm in show, and when I'm serving God, but I'm living in these shells and husks, there's a lack of true authenticity. And I also have a choice to live in the frequency of oneness. Like, wow, how powerful, how powerful. You know, when I started when when when you start feeling these things energetically, it's just it's a different life. So, so that's so that's of course and I 100% am in alignment with what you're saying and I think what you're talking about is the you know the macrocosmic level of we have that abandonment wound but on a microcosmic level when I experience something like that that resembles that wound you know we we reexperience the wound that was originally experienced we have to go through that where where we feel the original trauma leads to the the trauma but playing itself out because we eventually have to work on it. Do I have to go through something to feel that to feel that original abandonment wound to feel that original uh you know soul coming down into the body and feeling the that angst or or that why why why am I here? Why why [Laughter] yeah that's what I ask every day. I'm so I'm not I'm not in a position to answer that question. And the reason is because it's Hashem, the creator of the universe, who designs the path of every individual that their soul needs to become the person that they're supposed to become. So what any person needs, I cannot answer that question. I could just speak from personal experience and so many people I've dealt with and had encounters with and that is that the micro traumas that play themselves out in our life, the massive ones, you know, the huge ones, rape, molestation, horrible abuse, physical, emotional, sexual, whatever, dysfunctional families, abandonment through caregivers, even emotional neglect which may not seem very dramatic but it's very dramatic inside the heart right so when I say massive trauma doesn't necessarily mean it's a headline in the newspaper but it's a headline in my own brain it could be a headline right or traumas that are not even noticeable to the child the child may say I had a perfect life you know I had a perfect upbringing amazing but they suffered stuff and as a result of that they shut down so I think all of us know that there There's probably nobody that if we dig a little deeper has not experienced some rupture in the attachment that they needed some wound. So it's obviously that this is designed, you know, it's not like this random mutation that one person's mother or father didn't know how to be parents. Like everybody at some point is experiencing a wound. Some people in much more dramatic and vivid ways. But let's face it, you're in Costco with your mother as a baby, right? and she goes down to another arm and you woke up and for 3 minutes your mother was not there. Nobody even knows what that baby experienced in those 3 minutes. Nothing happened. This is an unbelievable mother, an amazing mother. This is purely designed from heaven. So I think you know ultimately every single person goes through things in life that if we're going to open ourselves up to it, probably I would say most of us will have to face deeper wounds. And I think the ultimate healing and purpose of that is to really bring us back to the ultimate purpose which is surrendering, you know, all of our need to be separate and our fear around that to the place where we're never abandoned. Exactly how every person reaches that, I'm not in a position to answer that. I can't. And I will say that I've been a follower for a long time of your works. if you know even started from the the tale of two souls like I was listening to it on cassette tapes and you know I've been very early on you know maybe 19 years ago I started listening to your stuff and I noticed that there was a certain point where the message became more relevant I would say and it's interesting what you said you said you know a person has to be willing to acknowledge which I believe that that's where all the first steps of uh really working on my emotions come from is I have to open up my heart. Well, I have to it's called vulnerability in English. And and so there's a there's a point that I've noticed in in what you're saying that your message sort of got more visceral, more real, more authentic, more vulnerable, more about the trauma. So there's two questions to this. Number one is that not the the the world at large doesn't necessarily align to the way you describe. In fact, some people oppose it. I've noticed I've I've talked to people about it. Like I'll say things based on, you know, what I've heard from you, which I completely align to and it feels right to me. And then, you know, they'll come out and say it's sort of changing the message, which is one thing. And then I I want to you know go into a little bit when did that shift for you? Like what happened for you in your life that you felt that you know there's the the message is is speaking to me. It's not just a book. It's not just a concept. Yeah. Excellent question and uh very profound and meaningful and relevant and I could probably talk about this for uh a couple of months but I I I'll just say I see some some key points and that is I always craved this from day one when I was learn I learned and I had the tremendous privilege of growing up at the feet of the of the labba and in his final years I had the merit of being one of the oral scribes known as the kaiserim who would memorize the Reb's talks on Shabas and holidays because there were no recording devices and no AI and we had to memorize it. We got not had to, we got to memorize it and transcribe it. So I really grew up in a very uh I would say uh in the grip in a very tight grip of in terms of education and you know intense education and learning the text and the works and being immersed in it like in a mikvah for many many years and I consider it the great privilege of my life and I always craved the I knew I knew that it must it's all about personal relevance. I I just felt it in my bones and there were also people who shared that with me that it's always about how personal it is. You know the reba once said in a talk he would say this often but once he gave like it was almost like a scream a shout from emotion a talk and he said and that is why the our teachers demanded he said that any touched any idea you touch must be translated into a visceral expression into it must be translated practically what does this mean in my life? How does this touch me? You could learn about Adam and Tik and Rashimu and Caleum and Spirus and and Brumic Mal amazing and if you have a good teaching, you have a good mind and you're spiritually oriented, it's incredible. What's the how does this how does this affect me? So, I always had a craving for this. Unfortunately, I didn't I we didn't have so many teachers who taught this to us and not because they didn't want to. They were good people, but they didn't have the tools. Most of the teachers, they just didn't have the tools. They would teach their information, and it remained detached. I knew something was missing. I knew it. I I felt it in my bones, but I didn't know. I didn't know how to I I I didn't have I didn't have those mentors and teachers for the most part to to give me those tools. And but I was immersed in it and I taught it. And I had to go through my own journey including my own emotional struggles as I got married and started to raise a family and started to experience you know what it means to be immersed in a marriage and a relationship with children and as my children grow grow up and I experienced various struggles in my own personal life and my own emotional life growing up. It really challenged me to go into a deeper place and with the help of some very special people along the path. First and foremost, my soulmate, my wife, who God blessed me with, and some other very, very special people in my life. I got to uncover deeper spaces inside of my own heart. And I have to say it's it's it's it's literally work in progress. It's every day. This is avoid every single day. It's not something we do 20 years ago or 10 years ago, 5 years ago, or even yesterday. It doesn't work that way. It's oxygen. You know a relationship with Hashem is moment. It's right now right now. Right now as we speak the bos says the world is created literally right now. So it it's con it's lit this this work is constant and constant. And then suddenly I realized wow every authentic emotional truth I was touching and was touching me in the deepest place I saw it. It was in terra and I w I it was one day I opened up a mimer and I started to learn it. I learned the mime I started to sob. Suddenly the words were dancing on the page. They weren't printed on the page. They were dancing. I took the words. I was sobbing. I kissed it. I start to kiss it. And I started to fang the alterba. And suddenly I learned this my whole life. And suddenly these were living words. This was energy. He was literally channeling the frequency of of of cosmic oneness, of redemption, of mashiach, of healing, of transformation, of what everyone is desperate for, what everyone is searching for, what everybody is dying for. And even those who are running away from it and opposing it are dying for it even more. They're dying for it even more. even, you know, they're even more desperate for it. And uh yeah, I mean, who's not yearning for for authentic an authentic life? Who's not yearning for an authentic relationship with their spouses, with their children? I mean, there's so much suffering. There's so much anxiety, there's so much pain, there's so many I mean, so most so many families with children who feel so alienated from everything that they were taught. all the or the would have different communities everyone in their own way but so much alienation like is there one person who's not seeking a deeper relationship and I feel even so much part of the resistance it's just really you know it's working for me and and this is just new stuff and it's going to drive us all crazy and it's going to maybe get us the deep end whatever there's a lot there's a lot of fear and a lot of nit a lot of ignorance and sometimes there's judgment and sometimes there's You know, as I told you, people don't know what they don't know. And sometimes, I've learned this in my own life, our deepest, deepest traumas, we repress and suppress for eternity. And whenever anybody goes there, our brilliant psyches have developed a very sophisticated mechanism of saying this is heresy. This is a war on God. This is against the Bsham. This is against the alterba. And I'm not even judging. Like I I really get it. I get it because I do it in my stuff. When things challenge me, what do you think? It's easy for me just to surrender and say, "Yeah, I was just afraid." No, I'm not afraid. So, you know, we're we're all, you know, once we learn about the animal soul, basically, one of the main one of the most beautiful ideas of Tanya is don't be ashamed that you have an animal soul. Get rid of that shame because that was exactly what God wanted from you. The fact that you have an animal soul is not shameful. In fact, it's exactly what you need, right? Once you know that, you could look at the animal soul and say, "Oh, okay. Okay, okay, my dear animal, so this is what you want now. I get it without shame." And then you know what happens? You don't have to go down the rabbit hole. It's like, "Yeah, of course, my animal soul has these coping mechanisms." And it's uh it gets it's get it gets insane. It gets crazy. It it literally gets crazy. I'll tell you I'll tell you something, you know. Um it's interesting. I didn't expect this cuz I do a lot of Zooms. I do a lot of conversations. I do a lot of sharim as you know and uh and but it it was so interesting around 2 or 3 minutes before this conversation started I was standing near my bookcase here and suddenly I felt this anxiety and I felt like I I started to shut down and I'm like this conversation is going nowhere. I don't want to have this. It's it's it's going to be boring. It's going to be dead. It's It's I don't know. I I was just like I I I there was a part of me that was shutting down and was judging it. And basically if I would have gone that direction, the person talking to you now would be a shell of a person. I may still say words because I know the word. I know the words. I can open the filing cabinet and take out the file and preach. But in terms of energy, you would have the shell of a person. what the reb calls kipo literally a shell of a person I was grateful to hashem and my soul which is a part of hashem that I noticed it and you know what I did I didn't judge it I just surrendered I'm like wow you're so scared you're so scared of something I don't know what you're scared of but you're so scared and then I said two chapters of chapter 23 the lord is my shepherd I shall not want even when I go down the valley of the shadow of death I don't have to be afraid that was to comfort my animal soul and then since I knew that this is going to be a discussion about oridus I said also the chapter of the rabbis which is also a very beautiful chapter of this year I I pick I lift up my eyes to you like a servant completely surrendering to the master and I didn't argue with it. I just surrendered to the fact that yeah, there's so much fear. There's so much fear. And I breathed I literally breathed into it. Breathed into it. I felt it in my body. I didn't argue with it cuz it's not an argument. It's an animal soul that's afraid. I don't even know what exactly it was afraid of. You don't look so scary. But whatever. It probably had its stories. I don't know. Whatever. It got triggered. I'm not even judging it. It's like a little puppy. It's a little puppy that gets very scared. Just give it a little hug. Breathe into it. Take its pain seriously, but don't take it so seriously to the extent that you have to change your entire life and become a shell of a person. I embraced it and I'm like, "Now, let me hear what my soul has to say." And my soul is of course you want to be authentic. Who doesn't want to be like, "You don't want to be authentic. You want to be a shell." And boom. So that's what happened. just a few minutes ago. So that's I appreciate you sharing that and I'll say I had my anxieties of uh coming up to this meeting as well and throughout the last week I would say cuz I know it's coming and whenever I know something's coming that I don't know how it's going to go. Yeah. Listen, the animal consciousness remember has ways it figures out the world and it's constantly responding to keep itself safe. It could be you wrote to me before that you want me to ask you questions. So maybe my animal soul had resistance to that like who's interviewing whom could be that was one part of it and probably some other parts I don't it's important to a certain it's important to a certain degree to understand a little bit your mechanism my mechanism our mechanism but ultimately and I think this is the one of the great ideas of Tanya and this one of my mentors showed this to me that alterba does never gets obsessed with what the story of your animal soul is cuz that's not ultimately Huh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I learned this from somebody because somebody asked me when they started to teach Tanya with we learned Tanya said like it looks like he isn't he bypassing he's just like animals all animals oh so clipper kipa kipa kippa you know this person was molested this person was was neglected this person was thrown off a cliff this person was bullied right this person was an orphan this person experienced a crazy divorce this person's mother is is narcissistic this person's father is is whatever like the Tanya doesn't go there. Okay, it's true. Psychology was not developed in the early 1700s. That's true. But alterba's blueprint for life is is is is one one one is unique in history. You know, says I'm I'm giving you the all the answers for all the questions. And I think one of the profoundest one of the profoundest answers to this is and I think it's true is the alterba says I can describe to you 1.1 billion stories right but I want to tell you the core of all of them the core of all of them is you think you're not infinite the core of all your stories is you think that you and Hashem are two separate things and you need to create a substitute for God. We call it a desor and and avoid does not mean worshiping a statue cuz you don't worship statues and I'm not interested in worshiping statues. I'll tell you what a deser does mean. A deser does mean allowing myself to become synonymous with my anxiety, with my jealousy, with my fear, with my insecurity, with my hatred. All these emotions become substitutes for reality. reality is you're a channel of infinity. You're not abandoned. I'm not abandoned. Does my animal soul feel it? No. That's why it's struggling. So that's why the stories are important to a certain degree because they give us validation. They give us clarity. They give us perspective. But really the bottom line is our stories change every 5 minutes. It may have been a text that you wrote. It may have been something else. It may have been a combination of 20 things and subconscious stuff that I don't even know about. And the bottom line is we choose in a very empathetic way where we're going to spend our days and nights and relationships without repressing and without denying and without the need to feel shame that we have crazy coping mechanisms because we all do. Unless you're at sadic and you may be at sadic I'm I'm not there yet and then you don't have coping mechanisms your animal soul and your divine soul are fully aligned and then gavaldic and that's a sadic it's amazing so I think actually what you're describing is is is great but I think that to to our the people listening I think it's really important to understand I mean even in your latest mimer that you gave over you said said the the vert of the the mag which says right where I have to I have to work through all the tim to come back to see that I'm really connected. It's not really two pieces, one piece. So what would it actually look like? What does it actually mean in your opinion to work through my emotions that or my stuckness or my timum or my mates or my anxieties? You're asking a very heavy question. I I I I don't to be honest with you, I don't feel I'm in a position both of knowledge and experience to to say one absolute answer that's applicable to all people in all situations. This is such a personal and intimate path and people have to go through so many different journeys to be able to find their soul. So I need to be extremely respectful of that for myself and for others. But on on a general level I would just say as follows and that is what the maggot is teaching is an incredible teaching. This is a teaching of the mag of misri that's quoted in basilani uh kaf 5725 1965 a that we recently learned before and and this teaching of the mag is so incredible because what he's basically saying is that all the all the concealments and restrictions of god were not in order to hold back. They were to create unity. To create unity, you need to give space for the other person. I cannot connect to you if I overwhelm you or if I dominate you or if you're swallowed up in me. So the a infinity literally condenses itself and filters its light and limits its light and withdraws its light and conceals it light. And on one level it seems like it's God's absence. So the mag is saying no, it's cuz he wants a relationship. He wants a relationship with you. You need to own the relationship. For you to own the relationship, it has to come from you. If it's coming from you, it means you have to work through your blockages and own the relationship and say, "This is who I am." So, every single one of us, not only should we not fear our blockages, that's exactly our journey towards oneness, towards towards the relationship. Now, what exactly does that look like? So, I think that's a spectrum. that that that's literally it it's a spectrum that is so big. What does that look like? So So you know I and I'm I'm curious as someone who's speaking about it and talking about it in all of your teachings is is what is the actual process for us Jewish men to work through our stuff? And I know the spectrum is big, but there are the common struggles that we have. And you know, today we can see there's there's marital struggles, there's marital breakdowns, there's there's people that are numbing themselves, there's people that are are stuck or confused. There's people that have The first thing The first thing I would say is we all need great support systems. Surround yourself with people who you trust, who you love, who will be real with you. people who will challenge you but challenge you because they like you they appreciate respect you I saw a line somewhere when you start respecting yourself you stop spending time with those who don't your life is too pre spend time with people who don't really respect you we all need support systems whether it's in our of course if if if you're lucky enough to have a spouse is amazing but close friends therapists rabbis mentors uh uh coaches, etc., etc. Whatever that looks like for you, males with males, females with females, etc. Sometimes it's family, sometimes it's outside of family. You can do it with family. Sometimes you could do it with family. You know, sometimes you have a brother who's amazing and sometimes a brother-in-law and sometimes an uncle and sometimes not. You know, you got to go, you got to go to others. But we all need a real support. Support system is people with whom you are brutally honest and vulnerable. You can share everything. You can share. You can be open. You can be real. You can cry. You can laugh. You could talk about what happened last night. You could talk about what you were feeling when you came home. You could literally share. We need to be able to share the fact that we're living, you know, behind, you know, behind glass walls. Everybody with bulletproof vests and, you know, smiling at braitzvas and it's it's it's fake news is is is very very torturous. I think that's first and foremost. We must have those people in our lives. The Reb would always say You know says in right we must have mentors and we must have friends like it's you got to pay you got to pay for the friends. Exactly. It's like today the lushian is even stronger. Yeah. You got to acquire I was once I was therapist and there was a very intense conversation and uh the therapist said do you trust me? I'm like no I'm paying you. I'm paying you. How can I trust you? You're not doing this voluntarily. you're not doing this cuz you like me. And the therapist responded and said, "It's true. You're paying me, but I care. It's true. You're paying me, but I care." So, but every person in their life, we must have, you know, are there people in your life one, two, three, with whom, you know, everything is open? You're real. It's just you're vulnerable. You're naked emotionally. I mean, of course, that's number one. Number one. Without that, I'm just living in my own bubble and concocting my relationships from within my own imagination and you know manipulating the world even if it's with good intentions. The second thing I think that we desperately need is we have to find God has gifted our generation with a tremendous amount of healing modalities. It's not a mistake. It didn't happen randomly. You know, everything is by divine providence. The enormous amounts of healing modalities that have been developed over the last few decades are incredible. Find find that which which will help you. And on the flip side, because everything is lum, we have just as much ability to numb, distract, and check and check out. So So, so the the fight of course this little toy could keep me numb. 24 24/7. Literally, I'm in the elevator instead of instead of I can get socially awkward. I'm more shy than people think. So, I'm in the elevator instead of looking around regulated and saying, "Hi, such a nice weather today. What brings you to this hotel?" What do I do? I take out my phone, you know, and I start reading an email. And I even feel like I'm God's gift to humanity cuz I'm answering emails in the elevator. like look how productive I am. I'm not like a schleer wasting time. I'm just running away from my social uh anxiety. Whatever it is, you know, it's so subtle. So, I think I think we could know ourselves so this amazing amazing healing modalities today. And I think everybody who's who's searching for this type of enhancement of life, quality of life and healing, you know, should really really pursue it. And I I this brings me to something else and I know this in my personal life is learning and davining but not learning intellectually. Learning and davening emotionally, energetically together with internal work I find to be lifechanging because literally holds up a blueprint of who you are, who you were, who you will always be. And even if I fall into the abyss and I make mistakes and I make mistakes, it's always like that place where you just come back home, you know, come back home. Um, I once had a very deep emotional experience where I was dealing with my own struggles of disassociation which I struggled with for many years in my life. Emotional disassociation and numbness and like a split between my outer self and my inner self. one of my struggles and which created a lot of anxiety as well and I I I was struggling what is the mechanism to get back like once you know once you're cut like you're cut off from yourself I didn't know how to get back it's almost like when somebody cuts off a part of you like how do you get it back you know how do you reattach those pieces and um again one of my mentors who I did a lot of work with said something very very special to me I just it fell into my head today cuz this was a while ago and I started to cry when I remembered it. They said you this person said you know what you need to do. You know what you need to do? You need to open up a tyra from the alterba quietly silently. Start learning the mimer. Go into the energy. Open yourself up to it. At some point you'll experience it. You you've been there. You know what that is. You know the you know the frequency. And the person said, "And once you're there, you're going to look at yourself and you're going to say my my full name is so the people who know me well call that call me that." So this why is present and then you'll you look at the look of the you look at yourself at your at yourself and you say welcome home and it's so true for each and every one of us like we all need what is the mechanism that will help you welcome yourself back home like bring you back into coherence you know maybe I was manipulative maybe I was exploitative maybe I was trying to charm somebody maybe I was trying to whatever it is to show off to get to to be the celebrity whatever every person in their own way my coping mechanism I got it you know maybe I got angry maybe my kids maybe this pressure financial emotional psychological spiritual blah blah blah blah blah I'm angry at God I'm angrily at the world I'm angry at Biden I'm angry at Natanyao I'm angry at everybody I'm angry at myself etc life is miserable okay my phone doesn't work I lost the keys to my car etc and I'm starving drink and I have the flu. I got it. So I lose myself, right? We all need a mechanism. What is the mechanism that when you go there it's like you could say welcome home and and that's beautiful and I think that's amazing but I actually don't think everyone has that. I don't I don't think every everyone has the ability to say welcome home. And you know what I found and this is this is actually what are you this this is this is this is very interesting. So, so you know, one of the reasons I got into the work myself or working on myself is because I was faced with a maar, a big maar in my life is I I went against all odds and I married a woman with kids and a lot of people told me not to and I put myself in a situation where I was this 25year-old kid and I was like, "Yeah, I can handle this." and my wife's previous husband passed away. And deep down what I didn't even realize but only cuz I I think I think at times eventually what we can do is we can become aware of what the reason that we get into situations like it it becomes revealed to us later as we do work. I was a guy that grew up and I was number two in my family. I wasn't number one. My I had an older brother. He was the perfect child, so to speak. And my father gave him all the attention. I wanted that attention. Show was number two. Where did I find myself in my life? Cuz we're always repeating the same patterns is I was the number two husband. And because I didn't accept being the number two, my father has this famous story. He says that when I was a kid, we were going on um ATV four-wheeler rides, and it was oldest to youngest. So, I hid my brother's shoes so I would get to go first. At a as a three-year-old kid, I was wanting that attention and, you know, living from that place of of wanting to be number one. So, I attracted that in my life and it forced me into some really deep work on myself where I could actually successfully acknowledge and embrace through the work that I had to face that I'm okay being number two. I'm not your first husband. these these kids, these two kids that you came with, they aren't my biological kids. Yeah, I'm going to take them in, but you know, you had a husband before and here's the proof of it. And I had to do some work to to to find that. Now, you know, there's I was just learning something interesting recently. He gives this um idea and he says that there are three levels and you're talk you were talking about anxiety. There's three levels of fear that are really mentioned. Maybe there's more, but the three levels that he discusses are there's there's first there's this idea of yura. And what's the idea of yura in its in its source? Yura is the idea of really having awe for something like seeing how something is in its greatness and I'm in awe. Like people would tell me when they go to the Reba, they were they just had this awe like they wanted to hide behind a a pole. They didn't want to be in in front of the Reb because as as as Eura comes closer, you you feel it more. So it's this it's it's rooted in like this deep awareness of something greater than me is is is in front of me. It's like really meeting God. And that's why it says you're hashem. But then then you go to another level where you say there's this something called which is fear fear of danger and fear of this tangible harm. It's something the media is a recognizable threat and it's actually normal. You you describe it as the animal, you know, telling you when you have to go to the bathroom or not running in the street and and doing something dangerous. But then there's something called amma which is this panic or terror most so most closely related to this idea of this allconsuming and paralyzing thing called anxiety and it's it's often irrational but where we see the beginning of the first place in Torah where amma is mentioned is when by the brisbasar and aim has this it says there was an amma and there was um great darkness. Yeah. And he saw what was coming. And I think what what what what was being said over there is that what the Jews were going to go down into and experience this mitzvah consciousness is they're going to develop anxiety and and so so there's this anxiety and it lives in this and you could see this because when you look at the story of the Jews leaving Mits and you you say this a lot you say the Jew left Mitzim but the Mitsim never left the Jew. So they're by the Yamsuf and we see him in partial bash and we're sitting there and they're right they're right in front of the Yamsuf and no one knows what to do like you just saw all the miracles like what are you doing over here and there's this guy this the from Rustavv was talking about this he said there's a guy named Geran Ben Amminadav and you heard about him and everyone's like no I didn't hear about him well he wanted to go he wanted to cross the sea but he's like what about my family what about this and and he's going back and forth I know. Oh. Oh. Oh. Because the idea is it's just a fake story is nobody nobody remembers Gerson cuz Nakshin was the one that that stepped in. Oh, so so based on that I've had and I had a mentor that taught me this method which I think is very effective is we have to be able to acknowledge this is and and I think you can relate to this as well cuz I listened to your story about how you were 5 years old and you were that was your first public speaking and also the story with the Reb where the Reb said tell me a story and you know I was listening to I was hearing what you're saying is this idea of be Before I face anything, I'm always going to have that anxiety of something that's the unknown because the unknown is alma discussia. It's the water I'm meeting. I don't know what's going to be. I I don't know where this is going to go. I don't know what's going to happen. Sometimes you say it's meeting the subconscious, which people are afraid of. And the first step that I need which are these three C's. The first C is I need to have courage. In order for people to make any change in life, you need to have a sense of courage because the Nakshim wasn't just stepping into the water. He was changing the paradigm of the world. He was saying don't be afraid to go into those unknown waters. I know you have anxiety, but you could still move forward with your anxiety. you can go up to the nose and you got to have courage in life and eventually if you have courage it's going to lead to if you do it enough times but by the way you can't just have courage and say I'm going to try this and try this and mess up and keep on getting bad results you got to work on yourself in the process like for a public speaker you can't just go and say a speech and not get feedback and become a better speaker you got to get better at it so it takes hours it takes time and eventually you develop the second C which is called competency or I become competent at something where I've all of a sudden I know how to do this. I've I've I've gone through these these depths where people they start working on themselves. The first thing is that like they're afraid to go and to do that work and then they have the courage is the first step and then you start doing you become better at it. become more competent and eventually that leads to confidence because once I'm be once I'm competent at something I'm confident that I can just walk into a room and like you were saying that story with Rabbi Steinols. He says you're going to have the filing cabinet and you're going to go to an event and you're just going to be able to say whatever it is cuz it's all there. You don't even need to prepare for it. Yeah. You develop a certain confidence. But the fourth C that people don't really talk about and this is where really everything is summed up is community. And community is you look at the message of what was after the cre was they came together they came as a community and what happened the biggest breakthrough that ever existed in the world. I don't want to plug it in here, but it's it's God broke through to the other side because he saw that his people were together. Courage, competence, competence, confidence, community. Yeah. And community is the hidden one because that speeds up the process. You know, when people have anxiety, what they're worried about is really they don't trust the process. So they're trying to, you know, figure out how I can get back my safety or not be in an unsafe situation. So I need to have safety on the other side of it. community speeds up that process because when I have people that are like-minded individuals that are doing work and breaking through and talking about this work and promoting and and mainstreaming it, it's like, okay, we can we can finally make those breakthroughs much quicker because they made a pretty big breakthrough to have that. It's like they they really need that and and and you know you were saying in in your women's shar you plugged in anoi a lot last week where you were talking about that what's anoi he spoke their language he spoke their language Egyptian pronoun it's as an Egyptian pronoun Egyptian pronoun but here's the other part spoke their language right here's the here's the other part what's mean even like what is It's not a name because it's I. It means I. It's not it's not attached to a name. It's it's the essence. And where you meet the essence of who you are is when you go into your own mitzvah. Where you go into your own real struggles. Cuz that's where you can really let God in. God doesn't want you all sorted out. The only way you can you can have an open heart is when you crack it open. when you're when you're broken, you can't have a an open heart when you feel like you're sorted in life. And everyone has that work. Everyone needs to meet their most writes in that a broken heart means you create a crack so that all the light comes shining in. You know it says inmar. So we translate as a broken heart and sometimes people get the wrong message. It's like break your heart. It's it's open your heart. It's sometimes brokenness that opens our hearts. But it's not about breaking a person's heart. Yeah. Exactly. Go around you don't go around breaking yourself on purpose. Rab say sometimes people think it's like, you know, if you have a whole heart, it's like something, you know, negative. It's of course you want a whole heart. But the broken heart means that the heart is is is open. It's expansive. It's vulnerable. It's it's it's it's it's a receptive it's receptive to energy. It's not protecting itself and and I think I think it's a constant thing like you know like I was saying you know at the beginning when I started doing work on myself that was the narrative today it's managing a life of 10 children which I just had my 10th child masletov wow and and not only that I named this child after my late mother who I was waiting for for a long time six years to be able to you know feel that sense of uh something is is not filling a void but but something's causing me to move forward in my journey can finally move forward where I see your 10th child as a daughter. Yeah. And what did you name her? So my mother my late mother's name was Kche Carmela and we named her Kava Kava Culture Carmela. We're still figuring out what to call her but so it's Kava Adam the daughter of Adam. There you go. Well, my mother was like the the mother, the divine mother. Like she was so good as a mother. So aim a kai aim the mother of all life, the mother of all flesh. She was she was definitely that mother. So that's and that's my challenge now is balance is is today I have to find balance between work and there's an anxiety around that and balance between my bank account and balance between you know being able to go out there and and and and help people and but we're we're constantly dealing with with anxieties that we have to be aware of because we're hitting a mates are that ultimately as you say if we're a channel for infinity in order to become infinity we have to we have to grow because because we have to reveal more of ourselves. If we're stuck in a certain I'm sorted, then we're limiting the ability to be a channel of infinity. One line you said, one line you said which is I think life-changing and the Reb said this in a talk on on my talk last week about was based on that talk of the Reb that the anoi of Hashem and the Anoi of the person which is one the core quint essence you will find only init only in going into mitz and extricating yourself that's where you'll find your If you want to remain in paradise, you want to remain in the consciousness of of of purity and oneness, it's amazing. And that's where we all come from, but that's not where you find your. So, here is whereas not only validates the struggle and not only doesn't demonize the struggle or doesn't make you feel ashamed and embarrassed and stupid and nerdy and you're the only loser, you know, in in Toronto or in Munia or wherever you are. But it's the other way around. It's like this wasn't a mistake. Like yes, the soul comes from unbelievable consciousness, but the which is higher than consciousness because it's the eye which is beyond consciousness because consciousness is also a definition. It's an experience consciousness. So the real you're going to find going into the boundaries, the confinements as you said the mates are the distressful places that we're afraid of. And that's where you find your and I think we all we anybody doing this work you you you you touch this as much as we want to protect ourselves and our children from darkness. I think I know this about myself and you'll tell me about yourself if it's true. You know, and I asked my class the other day, a few a few a few last week and I think most could concur. And that is it was our darkest moments that put us in touch with our deepest essence. Even if while the darkness was happening, we did not know it. But dealing and confronting those darkest moments showed us that that's where you touch your essence. And it's a very painful painful thing to say because it could sound like almost, you know, you're justifying pain. But God forbid nobody justifies pain. You know, it's God's plan. It's not our plan. But it's so true. It's so true. I want to say something because I heard somebody talk about that. I heard a woman talk about this. I I'll just say I agree with you and cuz you said you don't know if I 100% I agree with you. A woman who said something that I just feel it was so it was so painful to hear. She struggled a lot. I mean frankly she was raped as a kid for years by a respected guy in the community whatever. And she desperately needed help desperately. And she was told by people who represent or supposed to represent Judaism that she should just follow the path that she's on, not seek any healing, you know, outside of that inner circle that she's on. Just do the right thing, do God's will, learn Tyra, observe mitzvah, get married, raise a beautiful family with and everything is going to work out. And when she said, "I'm desperate. I'm dying inside. I'm I'm struggling. And they said all the answers are in Tyra. Just continue to learn Tyra. And I just want to say something about that because it takes a very profound and abstract beautiful idea and distorts it and can abuse people. It says that Tyra is the blueprint of the universe. Hashem looked into the Tyra and created the universe. That means there's nothing in the world that doesn't exist in terra because everything is in the blueprint. Everything in the house is in the blueprint and there's nothing in the blueprint that doesn't have ramifications in the real world. It's all one. It's all connected. And that's so true and it's authentic and the more we learn t and the more we work on ourselves the more we see that. But to tell somebody who's struggling emotionally that all the answers exist in title, but you're not giving them the tools, you're not making them feel better. You're not helping their marriage. You're not calming their anxiety. All you're doing is reinforcing their guilt and shame by telling them the fact that you don't see it in terra means you are the problem. So, not only are you not helping them, your words are actually causing them more damage, even if your intentions are good, cuz I'm not saying I'm sure this person's intentions were good. But people have to realize if you are not aware and you're not understanding what people are going through. So, you could say, "I don't know. Speak to somebody else. I don't know. I have to research this more." But to just tell people who are really suffering, you know, we have all the answers. just do what I'm doing and everything will be solved. And they and they tried it. They tried it. They tried it for years and they're suffering. It's just there's something very very off about that. You know, you have to have skin in the game. Like if if you want to be a spiritual leader, no problem. But take responsibility for your words. And if somebody is suffering terribly, don't just throw them under the bus and make them feel more guilty by just preaching to them what you have been told and not really showing up for them. So I I'm saying this because for all those who are struggling for answers and this you mentioned confidence, right? You need the confidence. You need the courage, the competence, the confidence. And you also need to be able to have the courage and the confidence to know that you have a right and an obligation to heal. You don't have to remain stuck for the rest of your life. Now, it's not an easy process and it doesn't happen like this. It's true. But it's your right. You're God's child. You were destined to be royal. Call him. You're a prince. In Z. It says you're a king. You're not just a prince. You're the king himself. People live lives of quiet desperation. And many people remain extremely extremely mediocre. And they just live that life of desperation. But you you you you owe your soul more and you could demand it of yourself. And the people around you should respect that. Not because you're selfish, but because this is your path to selflessness. Cuz the deepest selflessness comes with that other C which is creativity. When we reflect our creator and we become selfless conduits through our ultimate creativity. I'm just saying I think this is very very important point because a lot of people you know suffer. They don't want to be defiant. They're not rebellious. You have the rebellious ones among us. You know, if the rabbi tells them one thing, they do exactly the opposite. Fine. They were born to be defiant. Therapists like to say they have defiant uh disorder, whatever it's called. But you have those of us who are sadikim, who are who are, you know, good good people. They just want to follow the path, and then they're made to feel guilty. And that's that's just not fair. And it shouldn't be that way. Yeah. Listen. And and I think you say that you've said this a bunch recently is he can only take someone as far as you've gone. So that person is speaking from their understanding. We don't see the world the way it is. We see the world the way we are. When someone says it's all in the Tyra, it's like they don't know another path. They haven't explored and they don't even know the pain that you're going through. Nor do they even want to go into trying to understand it because it's too much for them. So it's yeah we need we need good leadership and that's another thing is like how could we how could we really push this out there that people can really feel that working on yourself is mainstream. How can we get the message out there to more people to start exploring? Because I think in in in what I'm I'm seeing and maybe you'll tell me and I would like to know your opinion in the in the next 5 to 10 years like what do you see as the biggest challenge for the next generation? Because generations are happening much faster these days by the way. Every 5 years the world is drastically changing and we are constantly having to look at new different types of challenges. Yeah. I'll tell you anyone if we're talking about the world of the andas it's hard to deny that there's not a single discourse of the alterb and that a single discourse of the and not a single chapter in that in some form or fashion speaks about our power and ability to be able to develop a deep emotional intimate relationship with our self with Hashem and with others. The word as I heard many times from Khan is a cover up for the truth. The alterba wasn't about intellectualism. He was about the idea that the emotions should be so powerful and so wholesome and so developed and so mature because they were processed through they're not just impulsive instinctive feel-good emotions. You know, you heard a good song or a good story and you had a good clip from Rabbi Y and you inspired for seven and a half minutes until the next cheese danish or until the next depressing clip. It's emotions that grew from from your subconscious to your kayak to your curiosity to your ability to comprehend and das which is self-awareness and personal integration and being in a regulated parasympathetic nervous system so that your emotions are alive and full and developed. But it's all about it's all about like you said now to deny this there's not a single which is the basis of all that's all about energetic experience emotionally of in the way that your physical heart expands. Your physical heart experiences experiences the oneness. It's called bliss. It's called tugabanug. Of course, there's so many different levels. And we also can't deny the truth that we have not given this to our students. I went through the whole system. I don't remember one teacher who said, "Boys, close your eyes. Relax. What does love of Hashem feel like in your heart? What does love feel like? And if a teacher would have done this, you know what would have happened? Yeah. We would have diagnosed him as a mish even though he would just be doing what the mimer says. His integration feel it. Who was he talking to? Oh, the old generations. The old generations. They they they they us robots. Zombies. Just keep it in the brain. Just behead yourself. Separate the head from the body like Asov. Boom. You're good to go. Do the right thing. Have your head in the right thing. Your heart doesn't exist. You know what? It's not working for anybody. There's so much anxiety. There's so much disassociation. Give me real Judaism. Then the Reb comes along and says, "We're living in the time of gula." The whole says, "What's gula?" The experience of God in the most visceral real way. lives in my body. The Reb used to quote the Reb Marash that when Msiah comes the soul will get its nurture from the body. The body will be so aligned with divine energy then is going to become a student of the body. So that's Gula and the Reb says living with Gula. This is it. This is it. If these are not the techniques, the approach, the hashkafa, the vel that we're breathing, radiating, teaching, we're missing, we're missing out on on on the moment, on the experience. And we're missing out on a whole generation, an entire generation that's going offline. And how are they going offline? By going online this way. Instead of going online to the frequency of the divine, they're going online to the frequency of YouTube. YouTube is connecting them as long as they're listening to Yerum. Okay. So, if they're YouTube on Rabbi Y Jacobson's channel, we'll forgive them. But uh but so this is extremely important. I'm not judging anybody. I also struggle with this. We don't know the techniques. Many of us don't know. So, well, but okay, we do have the latest and the greatest healing modalities. I was sharing the morning. Yeah, we started a pur. Yeah. Okay. I know. I I I I listened to it this morning. Oh, amazing mime. Wow. Toyo tick. Incredible. Beautiful stuff. Incredible. Why the soul needs the animal soul? We need the animal soul. We need the animal soul and and you know what animal soul has the sparks of toyo. I really want to know what is what are what are we that are going to be listening to this because a lot of people we're into working on ourselves. What do we need to know for the next gen? It's called God of rau it's not new age this is called Judaism we're taking what does that mean I once heard from theb he said as follows why is it that when your wellsp springsings will be spread msiah will come it's a reward like quit oh you do something for me I'll do something for you so theb says no that is msiah that is mashiach that's the frequency of redemption When's consciousness saturates your nervous system, my nervous system, the world's nervous system, and even President Trump's nervous system, we're gone. We're good. We're good to go. You're good. That's redemption. So, that is what gula looks like. That is literally what Gula looks like. Energetically experiencing the BMP's teachings. This is no joke. And I believe that entire youth is searching for this. I speak to a lot of lot of young people, a lot of young people. And I see the moment I go into this frequency, they're all in AD, AD, all diagnosed AD, ADHD, DD, attention deficit, hey donuts, PDE, dyslexia, all the good diagnosis that we have today for 90% of our kids or 70%, 80%. You talk this language for real. They're in. They're all there. Oh, wow. Wow. I like this God. I like this God. I like this rabbi. I like this Judaism. Stop selling me a Judaism of gullos. Stop selling me a Judaism of trauma. Stop selling your Judaism of guilt and shame of doing this because of this and doing this for this because you're going to get a and God is going to reward you and God is going to punish you and it's not nice and it's a and you're going to go to Gan and you're not going to go to you have to give this one and that one nas and you're disappointing the community. Come on. I think kids what they need more from us especially for the next generation is you're saying you're speaking the language of emotions is because you've started the process at some point of of diving into working on yourself and working on your emotions to be able to what what kids really need to be okay in my opinion and what we're doing a disservice today is they need to learn from us they need emotional resilience they need to learn how we can face things and overcome them and handle them. I think it's the work of escafia and even as haba to some extent when we can transform. We used to be angry people and now we're no longer angry people like we work when you give a child safety and attachment that they feel secure and safe and seen and ensural resilience because emotional resilience comes from emotional regulation. not from uh bypassing your nervous system but by regulating your nervous system. If not, you just become an angry mishuga chaotic person. And I think emotional regulation comes from internalizing safety and teaching children how to deal with their emotions, with their contradictions, with their paradoxes, with their ups and downs, without shaming themselves, without guilting themselves. Literally teaching them about their souls and their animal souls is so precious. I was talking to a principal in a yeshiva. He's been a principal for 25 years. He's a good guy. And you know what happened over these 25 years? He also reinvented himself as good principles should do every few months and every few years and good rabbis should do and good therapists should do and good husbands and wives should do, right? We reinvent ourselves and everyone and everybody everybody including ourselves. So I asked the principal what was the difference between 25 years ago and now and he says 25 years ago the boys used to come to learn information. They wanted to learn. And he says today, nobody comes to your yeshiva to learn anything because they have more information accessible to them 5 in away from their bed more than you'll teach them in 15 years in this institution. And most of them know a lot of things better than their teachers. And even if they don't, in a few minutes they could find out. And uh that's not what they come for unless you have a really brilliant teacher who can teach them ways of thinking. And he says those are very rare. So I said, "So what do they come for?" He says, "They come for safety. They come for emotional safety and regulation and to find out who they are and to love themselves." And he says, "If I'm not giving that to them, I am completely betraying them." You know, now this doesn't mean our school shouldn't give information. But it means that the basis of all the information is connection, safety, attachment, belonging. God and the system are not here to get me. On the contrary, you know, to really be able to feel celebrated on every level of existence. Yeah. Listen, okay. And I I I want to respect your time. I appreciate it. And I want to say like this. Yeah. I hope that that people can tune in and listen to this discussion. I hope that people benefit from this. It's it's my wish. And you know, one thing that I've realized is that when people come to and experience, let's say, a workshop, which we've been running, we're about to run our 75th workshop, and we've had 1,800 men come through it. It's a it's a it's a powerful experience, but not everyone's ready for a workshop, and not everyone's ready to spend that kind of money to go to a workshop. And what I want to do and I was speaking to my partner Nakman and we were talking about this idea that what we want to do is is I want to actually go out and give people a mini course just so they can get acquainted with the work where we take our most practical tool that people can use to practice and help work through triggers. It's a very practical tool. I I I believe you know of it. And the second thing is that after they go through that course if they wanted to book some time with us just to have some time. We're going to make our calendars open just to be able to to have people reach out to us almost like a hotline. Hey, you want to talk about what's going on? You want a path? If we can direct you somewhere, we're going to open open ourselves up for that. We need so many resources of of of people who are providing, you know, safe healing work. So So we're we're making ourselves available for that. And we're also going to and we've already got some engagements. We're going on a road show this year where we're going to go to any Jewish institution that wants to hear what we have to say create an evening event. It's totally free. It's on us. We're going to even find our way there. We just want to educate the world right now. And part of this initiative that we're talking right now is because you know I think as as people in the field that really believe so much into mental health and what the we see what the world needs because we're hearing you know from very intimate details people are coming to us and talking to us and opening up is that we need to collaborate and spread the message as much as possible. Exactly. There we go. The real the real is aligning the divine soul with the animal soul. That's what all healing is. When healing is divorced from the essence of yadeshkite, we lose the essence of yadeshkite and we also lose the essence of healing. And we have seen both. We have seen people whose healing was not about aligning their souls. And there's something lacking. There's something tragic about that. even though they meant well and we have seen people whose yiddish is also not about aligning their souls. My friend has this famous line is there's healers and there's realers. Today there's a big distinction because healers they're going to make you feel good. You're going to go to them. They're going to have a good experience, a nice trip and whatever feel good afterwards. But a realer is someone who goes home and integrates it and could sit down with his wife and have a cup of tea and enjoy the presence of his kids and play Lego and so on and so forth. So it's it's it's really it's really about taking it at home. It's really about giving our family and our loved ones what they really deserve, becoming better versions of ourel. And that's what we're that's what we're trying to do. The next generation, it's all about presence. The greatest the greatest spiritual masters in our tradition. You know where you saw it? You saw it in how present they were to everything they did to every person they meant met and to every experience that they were involved in. There was never, you know, in an hour I become alive. You know, in an hour I'm going to get excited. Now I'm just talking to some boring guy like let's get this over with. You know, now I'm just playing Monopoly with my kid. Like I'm just, you know, whatever. I just have to be home, you know? That's that that's that's that's disassociation from life. That's kipa energy. That's survival mechanism. I'm just trying to survive. I'm not alive. If I'm alive, I'm aligned. If I'm aligned, I'm in tuned. If I'm in tuned, I'm a channel. And if I'm a channel, everything is happening right now. It's like God is flowing the infinite energy through right now. We running like, huh? Duh. It's right here right now. If it's through a cup of coffee that may be alignment in all your ways the once said an amazing thing you know the says in all your ways you should know him. So he said is from the word which means know him but it also means which means intimacy. So in all your ways you can experience intimacy with Hashem. So that means if I'm playing Monopoly with my child or Jango or chess or whatever it is or I'm having a cup of tea with my wife, if there is a mindset, a consciousness of oneness, of connection, of presence, of vulnerability, of being in a relationship because you want to really connect, that is the au with Hashem. That's that's intimacy with Hashem. And the first step is going to be always if I can't do that then there's always going to be something for me to look at and ask myself well why that's the first step of all work and that's the first step of of heading in that direction. So yeah, and there's a lot of anxiety. I know sometimes I'll do something that I think is necessary for my child. And there's a thought in my brain, you know, you're wasting your time. This is unproductive. This not what you should be doing. It's terrible anxiety. And it's literally anxiety that takes one away, takes me away, takes anybody away from presence. And it sometimes uses religious arguments like you know balyra you should be learning you should be whatever teaching learning preparing doing something productive what are you doing this for and it's literally the anxiety of always trying to control things staying small staying narrow staying in control rather than being open vulnerable present not knowing what's going to happen the next minute and surrendering to what your mission is right now with the tools that you have according to your understanding what God wants from you right now. And that's uh it's it's it's just it's it's it's literally a much better way to live. It's much more expensive and it's vulnerable. It's giving up control cuz we never know what happens the next moment. You know, I would tell everybody, you know, your wife walks into the room, your husband walks into the room, the animal soul tightens up, get ready. You know, especially if there's if there's an argu if it's an argumentative couple, like get ready. you know, she's going to attack, you're going to attack. Like, just get ready. You know, we start bracing ourselves. You know, the divine soul is like, I don't know, just be open. Like, be vulnerable. There's no expectations. I don't have to control anything. I don't know what's going to happen. Like you said, I don't know where the conversation is going to go. It's like, just be present. Like, just feel the other person. Be spontaneous and and without guilt and without shame. And that's what it looks like. That's what life looks like. And you know, I I know I struggle with this. I'm talking about this with excitement because I struggle with this. This is of this this takes work. It takes work to to to let go. The hardest work the hardest work is simply to let go of the work and just just be the hardest work without without opinions and judgments and and so on and so forth. You know, like after a conversation like this, like in a previous reincarnation of mine, you know, I would regurgitate things. That's what the animal soul loves doing. It regurgit loves regurgitating. It even thinks it's a kosher way of living because kosher kosher animals regurgitate. But it's true. It's a kosher animal, but it's an animal. Yeah, exactly. Animals regurgitate. I once had a mentor said, "You finished the speech. Done. Done. It's over. Everybody heard what God wanted them to hear." You want to learn a lesson for the future? No problem. Learn a lesson for the future. But if you're going back and regurgitating, check that out because that anxiety is is something else. It's not about objective selfwork, you know. It's it's about shame. Alreb writes in Tanya chapter 26 one of the most beautiful ideas. He says you're feeling guilty. Make an appointment with the guilt. An appointment. Thursday night 9:30 we're going to spend 20 minutes with the guilt. No problem. But before 9:30, don't show up. After 9:50, bye. The guilt doesn't like that. The guilt wants to sit there 24/7. Make an appointment. You have something productive to say. 9:30, I'm going to listen to you. Tell me everything I said that was ridiculous and I'm going to learn how to do it better next time. 9:50. Bye-bye. 20 minute zoom. We're done. Reb's advice. But the guilt doesn't like that because it's not about that. It's about crushing you. It's about destroying you. It's about telling you you're a failure. So that's what we have to learn. or we where are we going to live you know which world are we going to live in take care my dear God bless you in your sacred work of helping people find their and find God's init as we go out of mit and you as well and keep on doing what you're doing I I'll just end with I was dvening on chabas and I was thinking about our upcoming meeting that we're going to have and I this I was during musaf. I just burst out. I was thinking about you during musaf. Why mus y? Who knows? And and I felt like just this overwhelming gratitude of the amazing my momm and the classes that you give over that have literally transformed my life. And I just bursted out crying and I was so grateful. I'm grateful to be in your presence and for you to give me the space and to talk and to have this conversation. and uh hopefully people will be impacted by it and that's my thank you that means that means the world to me and I'm grateful that I have the privilege of being a channel for the wisdom of the and the alterb and all the and the throughidas because it's uh what should I say that we could be channels for this I wanted to say wisdom but it's not just wisdom it's for it's for the ultimate the sacred mission. It's for the the ultimate truth of everything. The ultimate truth for which we're all here. This class is brought to you by the yeshiva.net. Please help us continue the classes. Make even a small contribution at ww.theshiva.net/donate.