Who I am vs Who I'm Meant to Be

An elderly person walked up onto the bus and as he was passing by a bakur who was sitting towards the front the bahor started getting up. He started getting up. The middle-aged man quickly put his hand on his shoulder and pushed him down and said, "Sit, sit, sit, sit. You don't have to get up." He continued walking and again the bakur tried getting up a second time and immediately said, "I'm not as old as you look." And he pushed him down. Pushed him down. Stop. Stop. I'm not as old as as you think I am. It's fine. Sit, sit, sit. This occurred two or three times until the bakur went over to the guy and he told him, "Listen, this is my stop. I have to get off the bus. Can you let go of me?" Many times, I think we're very focused around what society is thinking about us or we're focusing many times thinking that everyone's looking about me. And we end up changing much of who we are based on what society tells us to do. Whether it's the style of the clothing I dress, whether it's the way I talk, the way I think, my religious beliefs, etc., etc. We're very succumb to what we call society and environmental pressure. And as a result of that, it can make you never become who you really are. I one time simra from he said it's not gdai to be mashka to invest all of your life into trying to impress other people because even if one day you really do end up impressing everybody else you might just end up not being impressed with yourself which means that every individual has his capabilities and his strengths and his potential which he knows within himself and if you get succumb to what everybody else to say then you might not end up being who that person is and you might end up being nothing too impressive in actuality. The Kudskar used to say another line that I remember quite well. He say you are such a neb you would tell someone you're such a poor guy that you're not even who you want to be but you're also not who what everybody else wants you to be. You're busy being what you think that everybody else wants you to be because we're very busy assuming that this is what I should be acting or doing or or saying in order just to as we say impress the crowd to make myself look good in front of everybody else. And by doing that by default we end up sometimes faltering away from the not sticking to where the truth should be because we end up focusing in the wrong place. And that's what happened by the mdash. In the end of the day, what happened was and the whole idea of galut that we remain in galut and we say any generation that the it's not built a beta mdash is as if we're still in galut without a beta mdash is because we destroy the beta mikdash ourselves is because we're so busy succumbing ourselves to society to the whims of democracy or to the ideas that come up with every passing frag. I assume we're not holding by the progressive level as of yet. But the more we succumb to it, we don't realize how much we become drowned inside of it. Listen to the words of the Maral heard from is an incredible idea. Water as we know it is represented as society. You see an endless amount of water. It goes on in a plentiful amount of way. Water is always plural. The word mayim is always a plural word. You will never have the singular word for mim. Mim has always been displ because it's always referred to as the whole all all the people in the world or society or what we call peer pressure and everything around it. Interestingly enough, water has no form. It has it has a foundation but it has no form. Meaning anything that you put it in, that's what it turns into. If it's in a cup, if it's in a bowl, if it's in an ocean, if it's just spilled on the ground, then it loses all its form. It always takes on a dynamic, changing, animate form. And the reason is because it has no intrinsic being of itself. It's always part of something else. It doesn't have its own solid background. When someone drowns in the ocean in Hebrew we call it he's from nature a person becomes part of the elements of the ocean when he drowns inside of them and remains there slowly but surely his body decomposes and becomes part of all of the content of the water underneath it. All coral reefs are formed from those idea for many many from that idea of of things that come down and eventually turn into a whole coral as a result of it uh decomposing and becoming part of the elements that are surrounding in the ocean tea. It becomes part of it. That's what society is all about. Society teaches you not to be yourself but to be part of everybody else and just to do what everyone's doing. And if you don't, we give you an instred look and you go into galut. You only you always become part of what what everybody else is like. You know how you survive when you're in the middle of the ocean? There's only one way to survive. You have to float on a boat. A boat which is on the water. That's the only way. You know what a boat is called in Hebrew? An on from an ani himself. You have to have your own individuality. Now, a boat on land is no good. It needs to be part of the water. A person has to be part of society. I'm not talking about being a hermit. Judaism is against being purish. That we don't do. You need to be an onia, a boat which is connected to the water but not drowning in the water. He has its own individuality. His ani the on the anishable the me the individual that stands here but he stands a float on top of the water. That's the of the on the ani. When I have my own self, my own individuality, then I can be part of a society because I know what's right and I do what's right because it's supposed to be done. No less than pinas just now in our parot went ahead and did what was right even though he was being made fun of. We picture that scene as something of drama. There was no drama music in the background and everybody gave him the golden medal when he finished and concluded killing Zenry, but it's not true. They were after him. He needed miracles in order to survive. He was he was on death row. They were trying to get they were trying to kill him and they were making fun of his you come from you come from and this that's why you did this. They were teasing him and he still did it because Pilus knew how to be an ani anah that floats on top of the water. Did you ever think about this idea? Interesting point that's brought down also in the moral over there. The idea of mim water is when do we dve in for it on sukkot is the time that we dove in for water. What do we say in the when we're walking around the we focus on the ani because when you're in water and you're in society it's great but don't drown. Keep yourself on top. Keep the keep your own personality. Make yourself who you are. Give yourself to be a being that stays afloat on top of the water. Hill said he said a very famous statement. If I'm here then everyone's here. Sounds like a very interesting state. What does it mean? You know when he said that during his during during the time of the water influence that's the time when he brought out this idea of remembering to be an to be a self to be an individual and then you will not end up drowning. This is the beauty of sometimes we see a baluva a g of someone who's able to stand alone and you should know in shalom it's very good to know who I am but to realize who she is also to realize who your spouse is also to realize the place they come from and when you both recognize the place that you both come from then you're able to start enjoying each other's company because you start realizing oh this is why we have these differences besides the wild thing about a woman and man which is already more than 180° but even without that the fact that you come from such different backgrounds, such disparent way of thinking because you come from a totally different type of where you come from, when you focus on the parents and where you came and all that, you start appreciating the differences and how far you've come to do that. It's a very good tool for shalom. So instead of focusing on what society is always thinking about you and thinking that everyone's looking you and pushing that guy down and saying, "No, no, don't get up for me." It's start to start focusing on who I am building my capabilities, my potential and make myself the best that I can be as a part of society and then you will really be an asset to the whole entire world and that will be a to bring the the the the beta mikdash because the whole idea of the beta mdash is when everybody works together as a whole. You have 12 each one individual and not the same and each one doing the piece that they need to do. We all are standing in different parts of the globe, but we all focus to the same beta mikdash. We're all aimed toward that same goal that we want to get there. And that's how we have absolute shalom because we're all focused in the same place making the same corbon. The the incense that was in the B mikdash was made of 13 including one that was smelly because all of it is necessary. Yes, those guys that are smelly, they're also part of don't worry about it. We need them also. We got to usher them in each one being their individual reaching their potential and then will be to see the gula. Amen.