This Chanukah, Make A Breakthrough in Your Life. Powerful.

The scene is in Vienna in 1917. It's my 1917 in Vienna. There was a lady over there that was living in an apartment, a small shabby apartment, not much of an income at all. And her name was Sar. Maybe some people have heard of her. pre-war Europe, like I said, in Vienna. She used to go periodically to a shul that was quite close to where she lived over there in Vienna. And the name of the RV there was Rafales. Now, this Rafales was a polished speaker. He was extremely dynamic. He was vibrant. He was full of vigor when he spoke. And people enjoyed very much his sharim. And he spoke very much like I said with a passion that people really uh connected and understood his way of speaking which by the way at that time period was not the biggest thing. this these days it's a um these days it's a quite a lot of speakers and we have very good speakers back then it wasn't one of the bigger things and she used to go always to his shabas sh which was around time she used to go to the shir where he would say something about the para she would sit by herself more or less in the nashim at the time when he was busy giving the share she always enjoyed how much as we say token how which uh it was full of a lot of substance. There was a lot of nice ideas there. So now we are like I said in 1917 during Kaneka time it was during the days of Khaneka and he's started to discuss the surprisingly enough and he started speaking about the incredible impetus of this person named Matiahu after giving a background of what was going on during the time. He said there was a tremendous amount of problems over there in Erit Israel. We were a vassal country. We were underneath the opaces of Greek that the Greece the Greeks that they were telling us more or less what to do. The pressures were incredibly high from them that they were pushing us from outside pressure not to be able to do everything that we were interested in doing per se. They didn't tell us uh they never wanted to kill anybody. That wasn't their interest at all. But they definitely tried to stop learning Torah. They definitely tried to stop keeping Shabbat, keeping brea certain things that show strong discrepancies or differences between the Jews and the They were pushing and giving us a lot of outside pressure in order to do it. In the beginning, the pressure was mild, so it didn't affect us so much. But then the pressure got stronger and stronger. kind of like in this country with the inaugurate putting people in the trying to pull people out of yeshivas and put them in the army. You understand? It started getting stronger and stronger trying to enforce [gasps] what they were doing. Now, of course, through all of this, there were what we know as the mitavim in English, the Helenists. And the Hellenists were there taking sides, of course, with the Ivanim, with the Greeks. And they were the inside power that was there to cause a lot of havoc amongst us, bringing us almost to a brink of civil war, more or less. They helped them to go ahead and do certain things such as they were putting up idols of Zeus in every village. all over the country in order that people should know who Kuan the real god is so to speak and as they said they were pushing more and more uh the boundaries. Finally, this person Matiyahu, which many people picture him as some big brute with a lot of, you know, biceps and a guy wearing armor and all that. He was a very, very elderly man. He was no youngster at all. A big a very patient and calm person. That's the truth. No experience in the battlefield. And he was b basically a yoshv. He was basically a yv, a person who sat and was calm. But he said, "That's it. I can't take anymore. He realized as we say the expression goes he realized that he had to go ahead and take an initiative. He realized that nobody else is taking initiative. People were looking in a very passive type of way. And he realized in this vacuum in this kalal that was waiting to be filled he was the one that needed to be to fill it. This was in 166 B.CE. 166 before the common era as they say. And therefore he took a sword and some you know rugged armor and he screamed out the famous expression that Moshu Rabenu said also at the time of the mil who is to Hashem with me. And with that he went ahead and took his five sons and he went and slaughtered many of the mitim, many of the Helenists that were pushing the plans of the Greeks and any of the any of the uh extensive parts of the Greeks that were here any type of uh Greek people that were around that were there in order to push putting up the idols and things like that. They went ahead and they quickly killed them. Now obviously you understand Antious was not very pleased with what he heard and he went ahead and he sent an army of 50,000 people to go ahead and wipe out these little nomads. I'll finish them up in one licking one one fell swoop. They were able to get together. By the way, everybody knows this. It wasn't only his five sons. Had an army of about 6,000 people. A whopping 6,000 people. Can they get at least 50,000, could be even more um people? And we're talking about hand-to-h hand comment. We're not even talking about with bullets. And as we know, using, as I say, guerilla warfare and kind of getting around, they were able to literally get rid of all of them until the rest were cut. They were ran back to their homeland with their tail between the legs. They were able to swipe them up and finish. This went back and forth about two, three times. It wasn't one uh one run by the way. But they were able to hashem succeed said this palish when he was speaking out this story. Why did they succeed? Because they had a passion. They had a drive. They had a mission. They knew what they were here for. And they realized they were doing rats on Hashem. And they realized this is what was supposed to be done. And they went ahead and did it with all their impetus, with all their strength, with everything that they knew they were supposed to do. And they were victorious. And that is why we light the candles on these days as a remembrance to that incredible yah that incredible initiative that they took in order to be able to succeed. He didn't finish here though. When the ro finished this part of the drasha he continued his sum the end of the drussa and he said very very powerful world power powerful words that penetrated into the heart of this sar sher. There was an old young lady sitting in the back in the back over there and he started saying raai the situation over here and especially in Kkow is very bad. The girls are being sent to universities they're being sent away to a that is what we're not used to. Instead of them being raised in the homes as they were used to by their mothers alara to kesh they're being sent out into the world of the haskcala the enlightenment movement as we know and they are learning all other different modern types of ideas many of them actually became sort of they were learning about Catholicism about about all about the the other religions they learned many different languages being Polish and Russian etc. They learned to be extremely worldly, as we said, learning how to be a little bit more modernish, as we say. They learned about what theater was about, going to the opera, right? They learned about these exciting things, which for us is not so exciting anymore, but anyways, that's what they were busy doing. Part of the reason that this occurred, by the way, is because there were strong zerot that you could not send your children to. They didn't want sending children to um to Jewish to Jewish places. They were not interested in that. So the Jews kind of figured out a way to make what we call it like a 50/50. What they did is they in order to save the boys that they could continue going and learning Torah in the sent out into the universities and that's where they were sending them. But it kind of worked because yes, the Greeks left them alone with the boys, but not the Greeks, I'm sorry, the the the mixed stories up, but the uh even though they stopped the Polish stopped bothering them about that, but they didn't stop bothering them about about the girls and the girls ended up getting, if I could say, sacrificed. They kind of had to give them up. And obviously, as we well understood, if we're talking about a crisis in our days, back then it was really bad. There was no shidim to be had. The girls if anything they were going to intermar if anything and even if there was some type of marriages that occurred we're talking about who were going ahead and learning and these were girls who were out in the open exposed to the world looking for mades ways of hanging out and going to the theater with their husbands and not necessarily having someone who's going to quote unquote as they say waste their times in the base midr that's not what they were looking for. So even if they ended up getting married somehow they were divorced within a year. It didn't last. Many girls were runaways. Many girls were rebellious to their parents. It wasn't going well. The matzv was serious and the rabbon knew it was a serious matzah but they were kind of as they say up in arms. They wasn't so clear about what to do. And therefore that's how this rabbi ended up the speech saying went ahead and took an initiative. He did something we have to do something also. He didn't give a plan. He didn't give an answer and he really himself in a place of if I could say use didn't know exactly what to do but at least he as I say threw it out to the crowd as sometimes speeches do about the situation or the problem that we are in and that's how he ended his speech. So surprise surprise, this lady in the back which he didn't even know she was back in the Nshim and listening to this whole entire uh speech hearing in his voice the tremendous tremors, the heaviness, the horror, the pain that was going through this rabbi's expressions as he was speaking about this, she saw the tears in his eyes and she said, "If Matiao can do it, then I can do it also." You're never too old to be able to make a change, to be able to make some type of turnover. and she realized that no no I have to do something about this in this case isa okay he had to make sure to go ahead and do something about it she realized that it was absolutely necessary and therefore as we all know she took an incredible initiative she did something which we're just push used to we just know what it's about so for us it doesn't sound like a big no novelty some big kouch that occurred but she started a schooling classes is for girls in a public class with a teacher on the front. Something that was completely taboo, unheard of in Judaism. We always had an idea of we always know that the idea of a woman was always basically at home growing up by her mother. She learned everything she needed to know. And that's how it was for generations and decades and centuries and millennia. It was just that's the way it's been. and she started this incredible novelty, this that we call the Behak of Movement. That was the incredible revolution that she did. Now, let's get it straight just before you know, it wasn't easy for her to do this. Just so you know, not all of the Rabanim Dava agreed to her. There were some rabbanim that were dka very against such as the satarov, the moon, they say even the closeni wasn't so pro this idea. They thought it was extremely dangerous to be able to start congregating all these women and girls together and having women teachers. They didn't think it was such a good idea. However, there were many I'll say the majority I'm not going to I'll say and not only in numbers but also in greatness that backed her up and pushed her and said go for it. You should do it and go to the end. The strongest of them was the was very behind it. He says incredible idea. Please do it. I'm behind you every step of the way. any information or rabbitical advice you need I'm here the grebi was very much she was a bel this and her her also the beli was behind it etc etc etc I don't think you have to hear it the whole entire history but the idea behind it is that she realized learning fromahu this idea as [clears throat] we say it's never too late to be able to go ahead and just like mata was able to take a very rigorous and difficult situation and to make a turnover and to make something that we are going to celebrate next week. He was able to do such a thing. So too did the same thing. Nobody knew this woman's name. And I assure you a million% you would have never heard of this woman's name ever. The second I said her name, everybody knew what I'm talking about, right? Everybody knows her name. No one would have ever heard her name. She was a little quiet woman. That's it on the side in her back in a little hut that she nobody even heard of her. But she went ahead and took an initiative and she started to make an incredible turnover darkness just like in which the mitzvah is done at night time. It's one of the only besides the pes that we do at night time to light candles at night. We do it we it's supposed to be beneath tent in a lower space where the gar says the is not there's no special. It's a it's a normal weekday so to speak. We don't make big differences. is the dominating is basically the same few small alterations but it's basically the same but the idea behind it is when a situation looks bleak when it looks dark I'm still going to go ahead and do something about it even though I don't see someone else taking the initiative said and he was an old man he died within a year of the war a year from when he started he didn't survive not because he got killed he was just part of an old age that's it Yehuda took over within a year less than a year just to show you what we're talking about. We're talking about a man who went with his sword in one hand and a cane in the other. Right? I'm saying it was not that it wasn't simple. And so too, Sarah did the same thing. She was a retired woman. She wasn't looking for work in this, but she went ahead and she did what needed to be done because it needed to be done. And that's what she did. And this incredible phenomenon started with a little living room with 25 girls inside of it where she herself taught them. And within 15 years, 15 years, it turned to 40,000 girls. 25 girls to 40,000. An incredible success. No question. One of the biggest successes in probably Jewish history, especially the 20th century, but one of the biggest successes that existed during that time period. She had 20 MDOT. She had 20 already uh big schools or campuses that she had. And by the time she passed away in 1935, literally 16 17 years after she started the whole thing, this whole thing was the last 16 years of her life. When she passed away, she already started an empire. An empire which I don't have to tell you, we're quite familiar with, still lasting till this day. She created the Bud. She saved every family that existed because like I told you, there was no shidim. And when there's no shidim, there's no children. And things were not going well. There's a great rash of Ariel Malin. He got married at 45 years old. 45 years old. Why? Because there was no there was no girls around. There wasn't such a great person who was an incredible genius wasn't able to to find a [clears throat] person until she was able to uh do this accomplishment. From here we see something and this is an accur that I want to mention. If we take a message out from the quality or the the bigness of Kaneka when we go and light those candles it's to remember that yes we also I believe when we were younger and this applies to all of us had those dreams. Didn't we always have those aspirations that we always thought things would look like this? I have a feeling that my house would look in a certain type of scenario. The kids would be in a certain scenario and well that one kid isn't exactly what I expected but that's how it came out or the other kid. All right, say that one's at least 50/50, right? How many people, you know, when I was younger, what they used to teach you is, okay, you have to think about things to talk about in sometimes you can get stuck on a what he's supposed to talk about can get stale. So, one of the things you talk about is okay, so what would you think on a shabas table? What would you like the shabas table to look to look if it's the same? You know, it's the same, right? If one person's talking about a TV set and the other person not, so you're probably on the same page, right? Now, you got to see what do you want your shab to look like. Oh, you know, everyone thinks about the kids sitting so so aesthetically the little boy with his tie, right? And the girls in their shabas dresses and delivering detra and we periodically stop for a beautiful zmer in between each one and everyone's all hunky dory, right? That's great. That works on it doesn't work in marriage. That's the problem. Then the next step comes and you have children and suddenly you know in the middle of Haba's drush or story or whatever it is here they are jumping on the table and you're like stop and talking in the middle and going on couches and this and that etc etc. This does not happen in our house. I'm just saying my wife is smiling here. No, no, don't worry. Only half of this happens in our house and uh you know until you're able to spit out some type of zemer and this and then you're the only the table doesn't necessarily look like uh you would have specifically expected for it to happen or should I get into I'm afraid to say the spouse. We always pictured our spouse to be a certain XYZ, a certain type of mold that we expected. And of course, when you're going in that this is the goal, finally you marry. Oh, that husband that you expected that it would be like that and that's what it looks like. And then you get married and suddenly well things are not exactly what you expected. All those expectations all those things that paradigm of the house of what you expected to look like whether it's the shalomay or the kinuk or the scenario was happen things have changed that bubble is bursted and of course I don't want you know this is also this is a more difficult one of course financial stability most of us assume that we don't even think about it especially as young girls getting married you just assume yeah you know money's made this how somehow it comes until now it's been on the table right now mommy and daddy always supplied. So why should things change and suddenly especially in our day and age it doesn't seem as simple. It becomes a lot more difficult and you're trying to just kind of grope with the situation to be able to make ends meet and you're not finding that you're there in the same place that you expected. Many things that we expected suddenly take a turn for I won't say the worst but a turn for a different direction. Okay, that's what happens many times as a result of that. Many people feel like they're just dragging their feet. I feel maybe unfulfilled, unaccomplished, periodically, if I could say disappointments or even depressions, melancholy. Sometimes you feel like things are just not the way I wish they would have been. And you find yourself incredibly not connected to life, if I could say. And there's nothing to do. I'm just an elderly person. I'm too old for this. I've already, you know, life is life. This is what fed me and this is the situation. I am what I am. I'm not going to make any massive drastic changes in my life. How am I going to be able to do anything? This is just the way it is. So I one time saw a beautiful idea and that is the word herel. Herel means uh regulation of doing something regularly, right? When we do something with a herel is when we do something on a consistent basis, we do it again and again and again. ute it's from lush what word tell me huhine >> a routine right when you do [clears throat] thing out of a routine so then it comes I said that anyways herel is always there to be able to teach you a routine now routines are good I'm not against it however it comes from the lion of regel a regiel when you walk change you don't think about it you walk automatically your regs kind of take you to where they're supposed to take you and you don't think about which foot is coming first or second. It's an automatic response. It's a good thing routines, but it's a bad thing also because it can really take away from the self-confidence and the self-esteem of a person because this is just who I am. I've already fallen into a rut. I've already fallen to a certain type of scenario and I'm not going to be able to make a change. It's incredibly dangerous because we've already gotten used to a certain scenario and you know what? you end up losing your real potential. The potential we have, and this is very important, is till the day we die. Not till the day we turn 20 or 25 or when we're busy deciding who we're going to marry or who which job we're going to take on. He took a job. That's not what it's about. It's the potential of a person is till the day he is I don't mean to be a thing descriptive, but six feet under. Okay? Till that day, a person's potential is still instilled in them and you could take on the world. It is endless. It's very funny. Adamarish, the first man, we don't know anything about him. We don't know what color his eyes are. I can't tell you how tall he was. I can't even tell you if he was farty or Ashkanazi. I can't tell you. I don't know. I mean, he didn't have a father, so I guess that kind of takes the cake for that. But bear, how how dark was his skin? No idea. don't know anything. There's only one description, one description. This father of fathers, this is our father of everyone. The Torah tells us about this man. He was eliminating numbered. Futner says this, everything else has a limit. Even the sky, so to speak, has a limit. We know when the end of the galaxy gets to. It's long. I'm not saying it's small, it's big. And we even know how deep the ocean is. I don't know how many fish are in the sea, and I have no idea. But there's a certain amount of number of fish in the sea. As great as they are and as many as there is. Everything has a limit. There's one thing that is infinite in this world that is limitless in this world and that is our potentials, our capabilities. The amount of change that we can affect in ourselves or maybe in other people I would say the world but I don't want to start getting scare you off right at least in ourselves or in the people around us how much we're able to actually affect other people. And as a clal says as the rule says and we might be familiar with this expression it's never too late. You are never too late. Stop thinking that I'm a certain age and I can't make a change. I just got finished telling you Mati was no young snapper. He was no young pupil and neither was Sar. She died 15 years after this whole event. Shidka died not not very old. She died in her mid-50s. But [clears throat] in the end of the day they did it even at a age which was unbecoming to start making a revolution. Mosha Rabenu. You heard of Mosh Rabenu? No one heard about him for 80 years. He started his career at 80. Could you imagine that? I'm sure he had a few whites in his beard. He wasn't a young whippers snapper. Rabi, you'll say 40s young, depends on how old you are, but the kids are 40 years old. Didn't just make a revolution. He turned his whole life around from olive bays to I don't have to tell you the story of we're all familiar. But he made a massive turnaround at that age. Yagavinu only went started shidukum at 63. He only got married at another 14 plus 7 years. You understand? So we're talking about another 20 years later, 83 years old. The man is getting getting married. Okay, I'm just saying people can make turnovers at any age, at any time with any capabilities. Sometimes it has to be in ourselves and sometimes it could be on the people around us. They asked the Ponovich once about the incredible accomplishments which he had and he had an incredible amount of accomplishments and he said, "If I only had a little bit more time, I only did 10% of what I wanted." He built all of Yeah. It's all there because of him. And he said that he only did 10% of what he expected because these were the builders of our society. And it's not good to think of it as, well, they were great people. I'm not that. No, no. Everybody has it within them to be able to make a change. Like I said, I'm not going to start telling you to change the world cuz I'm not going to exaggerate. I'm not going to give you a polish speech about going ahead and starting a mess movement. I understand. But at least yourself or the surroundings around you, you can do it. You're able to do [clears throat] because we all have it within our capabilities. As we all know, there's a gland within us known as the adrenaline gland. I'm sure we're quite familiar. It's in our blood. And in this gland, we've had incredible stories of people that like a car that one time fell on the leg of a child of a child. And the man who was uh there by the car with the jack up. He had the jack up and Phil and his child doing it was actually able to pick up the car, the whole entire car in order to get her leg out of it. Because the adrenaline is not something new that comes in our body. It's not some pill that you take. It's there. It's just when something gets you to pull it out, to pull yourself up to get there. When you take responsibility, when you realize there's an initiative here, when there's something I have to do, when you take a idea that I'm on a mission, you'll do it. You'll get there. You'll be able to get there. And you'll be able to do I'll say the impossible, but obviously we're limited, but to a certain extent, you could do things and you can go, if you don't mind me saying the expression, where no man has gone before. Okay? You're able to get to a place where other people have not been able to actually get there. should never we should never hear of such things but I've seen it a number of times and I have a feeling maybe many of us have have someone is diagnosed with a serious serious diagnosis a difficult one and it doesn't look good okay the chances are low the statistics are lowman what happens to that person's mindset suddenly he realizes all the years that I spent in the past is what we call he of I really been wasting my time focusing on how to make the extra buck like someone one time told me no one on his deathbed ever started crying about that he didn't spend more hours in the office right I don't think more people I could have spent another day in the office it's not it or the amount of things that he chased or the amount of frustrations that he had or the people or the guy that he was irritated about that takes his parking spot suddenly when he gets to that spot of being diagnosed He starts realizing what we call the purpose of life or why I'm here or where why he's here rather why where he's going or what's happening to him. He didn't hear any shirim. He didn't come to this shir. He didn't come to He didn't take a pill. He didn't read a book. He didn't do anything. What changed? The answer is it was all up here all the time. The answers to all his questions were always here in his brain. It always existed. He just needed something to bring it out. Cuz the potential, the capabilities are there. If a person just puts his mind to it. When we take it and we t change our focus and we really try to focus it and put in the right place then you should know that in the end of the day you'll be able to get there. It's all a matter of a mind frame of where you're looking to it. It takes a certain initiative in order to be able to do it. I want to tell you a piece from Shim incredible is a beautiful say for Maya right in the beginning of parash a very small piece he says something uh very beautiful which is exactly what we're talking about here he says Yehuda which is coming soon right now in this coming parot Yehuda goes up to Ysef in the previous parha he speaks very very nicely when he finds out that binyamin is rigged was rigged and he was going to be taken to He said, "What can I say? I feel bad. How am I going to get out of this? What can we say? You're correct. I will make myself into a slave for you. I will go ahead and give myself." He coerced himself. He gave in to himself to Ysef to Ysef who at that point was an emperor. And he gave and kind of, you know, was speaking extremely politely, nicely. And suddenly right when you start parash theim get very strong. It says the words that he speak he spoke to him as Rashi points in a very stern strong affirmative and even threatening way. He was ready to chop off Yseph's head. He didn't know it was his brother obviously. He was ready to go. He was going to go to war. He warned his brothers. He said, "Get ready. I'm going to blow this guy to pieces. I'm going to finish him off." Even though we understand he's dealing with the biggest country, the most powerful country in the world, but he said, "I'm going to do it." Rabb asks from his rebi brady, he says, "I don't understand what happened. In the beginning, he's being such a sweetie pie. So nice. Let's work it out. I'll try to be nice. I'll be an e to you." And suddenly he changed gears. What happened? Why did he change gears? He said, "You know what happened when the big he said, "I'll be your e." But then Ysef said, "No, no, no. I'll take binyam and you guys all go home. I just want binyam. That's it. I just want binyam." And then he realized one second I took an arv I took uh collateral. I said that I'm going to be the one that is responsible for my little brother. I'm going to take him and I told Yakov I told my father that there is nothing to do. I'm taking care of him and he's coming home. When he remembered that arvoot when he remembered that commitment that he made when he remembered that that gave him all the strength in the world. Suddenly his muscles flexed. Suddenly, he was reaching for a sword and he said, "I'm going to take down this whole country over my dead body. It's not going to happen." He went ahead and made sure that I'm going to be able to go ahead and succeed because if I made a promise to my father, it's going to happen. I'm not going to let any type of regression. I'm not going to have any type of compromises. Forget about it. In the words of Schwab, if I could read it to you inside, beautiful words, just one sentence, it was aroused in his heart a new strength that he didn't have before. An incredible strength which he previously did not have. And that's how he was capable and not scared to speak about the greatest and strongest emperor in the whole entire world. didn't scare him a because he knew this is what needed to be done. This is what happened. We see from here that a person decides his own fate. We make our own decisions about what's going to be happen. It's going to happen in our life. It's not to be a follower. Now, we could be a follower. It's good. It's also, you know, meet of a female also. You should be you should always go after your husband to what I mean to a certain extent. What I mean to say is sometimes we should take life into our hands and not let the life into our own hands and not let life take advantage of us. Real succeeders, the real people who ever succeeded in life, the people who ever succeeded in life were the ones who were initiators and not necessarily followers. When we think about two big, there was a guy named Noah. He's a big sadic. The Torah says it's a good guy. He's a lot bigger of a tadic than any of us in this room. But there was another guy named I shouldn't say guy, another big person named Ramavinu. A Ramavinu. If you go to most people in the world who weren't completely completely Amoratim and ask them if they heard of a person named of Ramavino, I think most people would have heard of Abraham. Most people have heard of him. He was a to many people in the world and the greatest nation, the Jews that existed, the people that are going to see the Messiah. And of course we understand that of Ramlavinu is our leading uh dream. That's the person we're focused on. That is the person that you've learned about in school and everybody knows the whole entire world knows about this person. Noah I don't know how much he made it to the front page. He's known but [screaming] so not so much. Only people who know a little bit of history might know about him or people who are into not so known and he doesn't get too much recognition. Do you think of yourself as Ben Noah or Bat Noah? No. Ben maybe by the go but we don't relate to him. What happened? What's the difference between of Ramino and Noah? One slight difference. [clears throat] Noak was a follower. He did what he was told. He was a good man. He was a good man. We're not talking about Rashim. I'm not going there. He did whatever he was told. Hashem told him build. He built. Hashem said go in. Go in. Take your family. No problem. He did whatever he was done and he saved no one. He saved his family but he saved no one. The whole place went down. The whole place collapsed. The whole place flooded. Araminu saved the world. Araminu was the purpose of the world. The darian how he was alra. The whole world was created and his purpose is because of a rau. You know why? What was the difference? Cuz he was an initiator. He took what we call yuzma. He went ahead and took a initi initiative. He had a mission. He realized something was true and he fought for it tooth and nail. He fought for it with all his life and he went ahead and said, "If this is what needs to be done, I'm going to do it." He had a strong conviction that he decided and he made sure that I'm going to make the right steps to do it at all at all costs. Whatever it takes in order to do it, but I'll make sure that it's done. And that commitment is is that's what gives sustenance to a person. That's how a person is able to succeed. That's how a person is able to go ahead and make a difference. You understand? It's a very very important idea. important lesson which I think we have to take from Matia we have to take from Sar Shaneer we have to take from Araminu we have to take from all these greats but we don't have to look to the great people to do it because it's something that we could do ourselves I'll give you a few examples how we can apply it to our own lives also you're having a certain amount of issues with the of your children you see that something's going wrong so isn't it time maybe to go ahead to listen to take that law into your own hand to see what I can do to be able to make a change. Maybe there's things I'm actually doing wrong to actually counsel. And I see big differences between people like that and that. There's some people who just bicker and they'll complain. They'll usually blame the schools. They might blame Israel. They'll blame the system if it's whatever system religious status of system you're in. They'll sit and bicker about it and complain instead of taking the law into your own hands and see what I can do about it. Maybe I'm doing something wrong. maybe in the situation I'm in, I'm able to go ahead and do it. Like I said, if it means counseling, if it means going to Shir, there is no lack of that we have out there. You find the right person that speaks to you and you go ahead and try to do something about it. On a very, very similar note, if a person is having issues with shalom and yes, I could believe it's the spouse. I believe it. I'll take it. I'll go for it. I'll go with that cl that card. It's the spouse's fault. It's not mine. But it doesn't mean that if you don't make a few changes about yourself or start alternating alternating trying to do certain things that you can do and then of course hopefully your spouse will follow suit with you. Amen. Right? So if you're able to do that so then you might find that there's changes instead of just saying look what Hashem gave me. What did I get or right? instead of just rolling your eyes and complaining and bickering and being upset about the situation that I got stuck in and how this happened to me and why and what and if and I can't and of course we know in our day and age people usually push the ejected button in order to get out of this bad situation. So I understand I'm not saying everybody has their own personal situation. Their you can never get personal about each person's situation. Obviously everyone has their own scenario but at least a person has to know to take on their own responsibility. It's my it's my initiative. I realize I have to do something. And now I'm talking about something very personal. Again I'm not talking about changing the world. Not saying to run for president. I'm just talking about going ahead and doing something that I can go ahead to change my life. because you don't realize how freeing it is, how how what a what a feeling of exhilaration it is when a person's in control of his life and life is not in control of you. And the only way you can do that is when you make your own free choices. You don't let life drag you by the feet and make the decisions for you. You go ahead and see the situation for what it is and you make those decisions in your life. Sometimes it means understanding this is situation and as we say like it and lump it okay if I can say and you take it in for what it's worth because if it's something you can change not everything we could change if a person is again I don't even like saying this example but something in health we understand that it's not something you could change we can only do but if it's something that is within my reach then you go ahead and reach out and do something about it to try to make and take the initiative for something that I'm able to do. We find sometimes I'm going into again you know whatever some people they find themselves stuck if I could say in I'll give you another example which I know sometimes people come here and they find that they don't have very many friends no one's inviting us for Shabbat I understand I understand the situation in America it's easier sometimes people have more time over here people are very busy a B houses are a teeny bit smaller than they are in America a little bit more than a teeny bit and therefore it's hard to invite people over sometimes or schedules don't let people have a certain amount of children etc etc etc. There are reasons why things don't always work out the same as uh where we came from. But if you want to make a change and it's something that is very important to you. So why don't you start inviting people over? Then you start inviting people. You take the initiative. Make the difference. Even though it's frustrating, I'm inviting them. They didn't give him. It's like the person who gives and he didn't get back. I'm never send again. Doesn't send it. I sent him two years in a row. Forget it. He's not my friend anyways. Right. What was it? That's what we do. That's the purpose of that. We do it because we're doing it to send the initiative to be able to do something to make the kesher to make the to make the uh the bond and that's it. You do it for what you need to you need to do. So a person who wants to do that and I I've seen it a couple times over here. I've seen people who come and they just can sit and bicker and complain about situations as opposed to others that take the initiative and it works. I'm telling you it works. Suddenly they find that they're also being invited sometimes. Suddenly they find they have people to call, people to be in touch with or whatever. They suddenly find that things are different. Okay, that's another one. I'll take another example. Again, I don't know if you know everybody has their own situations and it could be I'm speaking to the camera, nobody in this room also. You should just know. But in the end of the day, there are certain situations where you hear about people fighting that like I said before, they feel unfulfilled, unaccomplished. I don't know what I'm doing with my life. And you know, one of the reasons why is because we have this device called an iPhone. Maybe you've heard of it before. It's something that people just get on and they watch from clip to clip to clip to clip to clip. I just it's an incredible phenomenon. I thank Hashem every day. I don't have one of those. People on the phone get mad at me for not having one of those. But it's like an incredible thing. You just don't end with it. And then when it gets to social media, oh boy, that's incredible. You get to compare yourself with the whole entire world. So much fun, right? You get to see if your husband is on the same level as someone else's husband. You're able to speak to other people, see everyone else's fantastic and and and fantastic life and how things are so hunky dory for them as opposed to you. It just goes and goes and suddenly you find that they're stuck on this device that they can't pull themselves away from. That should not be that way because the answer is I can make a decision to make a change. If I wanted to stop, I can stop. You can't blame it on devices. Don't blame it on the industry. Don't blame it on the person who introduced you the iPhone. I don't care who it is. You can go ahead and make a change. If a person wants to do it, you take the law into your own hands and you do something about it. Ideally, I would say to throw it in the swimming pool. If you're not going to listen to me about that, but say to at least there are even apps which someone told me recently. Besides filters, which I'm sure women need less, but there are certain type of apps which let you use the phone for a certain amount of times after an hour, an hour and a half shuts off and you can't use it anymore. What a prom. There are some good things about it. They make sure that you can't use it for too extensive amount of time. Why not? That sounds like a great idea. I don't see why not. It seems totally that someone should do but the answer is you have to take initiative. No one's going to tell you what to do. You have to take the yuzma in order to make that change in order to be able to do it. When a person does it and a person wants to do it, it'll get done. Trust me, it'll get done. Anything you want. Optimism brings success. And that is the way that a person is able to succeed. [sighs and gasps] if he wants to go ahead and change his mind frame. There are people who are consistent consistent what we call in in Hebrew niran a person who's a complainer a bicker always doing that you should know and I'm sure you have experience with this. Have you ever had a relationship with a person who's a smiley happy go-lucky person and another person who tends to complain every time you do it they come with a growl and a face and a type of this. Who do you usually [clears throat] want to hang out with? And I hope the other one is not your spouse. So you're going to tell me not him, right? And right, who do you usually? You usually want to hang out with a person who's a little bit more on the positive side. So that's time to start making the change about yourself. If you find and catch yourself complaining, we never smell it out, by the way, until you look at it. You can record yourself. Turn on record it. You won't realize how many times you do it. You have to stand up and make a difference. You can do it. And it's possible. I'll tell you truth. I'll tell you about myself already. So we used to eat in a cafeteria which was extremely crowded. Now it's 30,000 times more crowded than my time. But at the same time, it was very much if you had a seat, which for the first shift, the second shift didn't have a seat, but you had to wait a long time. It was a real pain in the neck. So having a seat was like what do you call me? Like a real uh a real claim to fame. Okay. So I had a seat. So you come and there's exactly the amount of food that you need. There's six people at a table. There's six pieces of food at the table. You understand? So that's how that's how much the table every time. exact specific amount. So sometimes people who didn't have a seat and didn't want to wake for second shift because they wanted to go to sleep, they would come to a table, they would snatch a piece, okay? Especially if it was chicken date. They would take a piece and go eat at a different table. You understand the because you come, you only see five pieces. You have no idea who did it cuz the guy's not sitting there. And then the people at the table at the other table are sitting saying, "Hey, you're eating our chicken." Say, "No, no, it's not from you. Don't worry. You have six pieces. It's fine. You're good." Right? You would tell them. And this guy, this guy came out on top. So this would happen. I don't know why my my my table was infested with these types of people, unfortunately. And I was not the quickest person to come down. I would come down a little bit later and I would always come down and guess what? There was no food. Oops. Right. No, no, it's okay. Anyways, right. You come down and it was it was a little bit frustrating. So, I remember after once or twice I start, you know, I used to come and like complain. I was so frustrated. Why are people like that? Isn't that Geneva? and this and I would do that consistently maybe two three four five times until a friend of mine he was a good friend of mine I I claim him for this cuz I actually think I it helped me afterwards he said he called me by my name he said why do you always complain why do you have to complain about okay so that's it that's just the situation why do you have to complain about it he said you're always every time you come down you complain I actually wanted to knock him out that's the truth but I actually listened to him said you know what you're right he's right he's right why do they have to sit and listen to me bicker every second about the fact that there's some Ghana who goes and takes it. It's just annoying. So next time I came and took his piece. Don't worry about it. That's what I did. Anyways, so that's um that's a that's that's a situation a person can make a change. That's I'm just saying that's how I know that a person can do it cuz it really did help me a lot. I tried to learn to improve myself to a certain extent. I'm still not perfect, but to be able to be able to get to a situation where you're not always on um not always not always following but going ahead and taking initiative sed that is really the which I wanted to learn you know I one time saw from and I'm going to finish here I one time saw from a person who um he is a therapist very much and he was writing one of his books he said a very interesting words I like reading about what therapists go through when they're going through you know when they're doing. He said you have two different types of people all the time that come. He said you have the first category of people which he he refers to as reporters. Reporters like people who come and tell you the news, you know, they come and tell you that the weather is going to be like this and this. They come and tell me, well, this week this happened and that happened and this happened and this occurred and that occurred and this occurred. All right, it was good. It was not good. It was okay. It was in the middle, back, forth, whatever. And that's it. And he tries to get them to speak out why, who, what did you do, and this? And it doesn't work. Doesn't get so much peace. He says, "Those are the people that are the followers. Those are the people that are impossible to change cuz they're sitting there and waiting for the therapist to change them." We all know that's not going to happen. But he said, "Then there's what he calls the poem, the workers, the people that come and they come and they give a report. They give a a do they go ahead and report what happened and what they did. Not just what happened during the week. I did like this. I was able to do like this. I was able to react like this. I was able to do this. Whatever problems he had with and all these things that he was having issues with, he would go ahead and report what I did. The therapist would report to him what he needs to do. And he would come back the next week and say, "Well, I succeeded once and failed three times." And he would able to do that. He said, "That guy, I got him clean within 3 months. I was able to clean him up because he was so active and dynamic about his own initiative. what I need to do by myself instead of just being a follower and taking over. So he was a actually able to make a difference of what it needs to do. And this is really the difference between the people who succeed and he writes over there these words I never bumped in in in my life to someone who was that was properly successful that he was just a person that was m that he was a reactor only the person that knew how to be a person who knew how to take initiative. Those are the people that are the real successful people in life. And you know what? It's not just success. It's just enjoyable because you have life. You're behind the steering wheel. You're able to be in control of your life. Things not everybody tells you what to do. And I'm telling you this one of the reasons amongst the many why we live in a very depressive society. And yes, many people are getting depressed and feel because they're out of control. Nothing is in our control. started with computers, moved on to internet, that nothing's out, everything is in the hands of the internet, moved on to AI. That's really out of our control. No, so just someone just showed me a report recently that they said the world is coming to an end. Finished. AI is going to take over the world. You can't even kill it anymore if you wanted to. Even if you want to turn it off, he knows how to put himself back on. Always like a good movie that I saw, right? [snorts] Like the old movies from the past. And he says it's the the AI. It's not just that he's taking over the world, but it's that no one is an initiator. No, no one is doing anything on their own. We're just big followers of what it is. And worst and the funniest thing of all, and I'm from LA cuz it started over there. It's already started in LA and I've seen videos of it and I know it's going to become everywhere soon, is there's these cars that are self-driving, meaning we really aren't behind at the steering wheel anymore. We're not by the steering wheel anymore. You can't control anything, even your own car. But in whatever he speed he wants to go to, you go, that's it. You can't do anything when you're in such a situation that's depressing. It's upsetting. You're not in control. Everything people are in control of you and you're not in control of yourself. And that is a real point of being what we call out of despair. And therefore, a person has to know that it's up to us and we have to take our own initiatives. And yes, with everything around us will be able to make a change. I'll end with a story that I heard from Noah Weinberg. I said one of his books. Beautiful story. And he said this is one of the big impetuses if I'm speaking about people that made changes of nober oh boy he was the man he was the one who started also a revolution of bali chuva he wasn't by himself he had a few others together but we all know that the whole bal chuba movement was a novelty it was unheard of but something that people didn't even know about and he was able to do an incredible thing because of his mission he said you know where my drive was where was his drive where was noinberg's drive isn't that big question to know listen to this he said he one time bumped bumped into a young adult, I think in his early 20s or something like that, and he saw he was so happy, always be in glee, always smiling, always giving slaps on the backs to friends and always positive and everything that was happening, never bothered him. And he said and he sat him down in his office and he said, "I I got to talk to you. Where'd you get the where's the recipe for this? Can you explain to me where you got this from?" So, you know what he told him? Listen to this. It's a true story straight from Hinberg. He said, "When I was 11 years old, I was riding my bike. I was riding and crossing the street and there was some type of it was wet or something on the street and I slipped on the street. I slipped and fell off my bike on the street. I was there lying on the street and I wanted to get out of the way but I saw coming at me at terrible speed a truck. A real truck was coming at a very quick speed. I quickly tried to scurry out of the way out of the way of this truck that was coming at me head first and he said I was able to succeed 80%. One leg was left behind and got completely disconnected. I had to completely I completely this person you never use on first person this person got run over on his leg by this truck. Kisa's leg in front of him completely disconnected, blood all over the place. The patella, the ambulances came, they stopped the bleeding for profusion and he was extremely depressed. He was very upset. He said, "I'm the person is 11 years old and this is it. He's going to now have to live for the rest of his life with one leg." And he said as he was in the ambulance, he was very depressed about it and he was a little upset. But then he said to himself, "One second. So now I never say the word I. He never has a leg. And also I'm going to have a be depressed. Also I'm going to have a bad matz of I'm going to have a very bad emotional standard the rest of my life. Am I going to be just a guy who's always depressed about my situation? Being depressed and being upset is not going to bring back his leg. He's speaking in reflexive about himself. Is not going to bring back his leg. He says, and he said, I decided then and there, listen to this, an 11-year-old boy. I am not going to I'm going word for word, I'm not going to waste my life with depressions and being upset and doing that. I'm going to make sure that whatever situation hits me, I'm going to be very happy and positive about it. His the whole thing went so fast his parents were not able to come to there. They came to see him in the hospital. He said both his parents came there. They were standing on top of their son balling in tears as we all understand. They were completely they didn't know what to do with themselves. They were so upset and saying, "Oh, but they were very very upset about the situation." And you know what he said to them? He said, "You should know I've already gotten I've already adapted to the situation, to the idea. I've already adapted. It's time for you guys to start getting used to it also." That's what he told his parents. It's time for you guys to start getting used to also. And he spoke out to Noah. He said, "I always see my friends and other people. They get a bad score on the test, they're upset. They miss a bus, they get upset. Someone embarrass them in front of other people, they're upset. They're depressed. They can't handle it for 2 days. Nothing budges me. I'm totally in it. I'm totally okay. I'm 10 steps ahead of them." He says, "I'm in a much better place than them because nothing makes me upset. I'm so with it. I'm so happy with my whole situation." And if you think about it this way, he thinks about his whole life as a present. And really, really, if you think about it that way, then you'll start appreciating your life also because his whole life was a present. He was being hit by a truck. He saved himself 80% should never happen. We should never hear of such things. But he saw his whole life as a present and therefore he treated everything that happened to him like a bonus. This is what we learn from our greats. This is what we learn from the the miracle of Khan. And this is what we have in mind a little bit when we light the lights. We're celebrating a victory, a victory of light within darkness. When situations are dangerous and things or or things are bleak and it doesn't look like I'm in control, we light a match, we take a we light a match, we take a candle, and then we start lighting those kanukia lights and saying, "No, I can put light even in the situation. Even in the middle of the night, even when things don't look good, I'm in charge. I'm in charge of my life and I'm the one who's going to make those decisions and that will be able to make a a change in our life at any age. Not to insinuate anyone's elderly but just to say at any age we are then we'll be able to get there. Okay.