Street Farbrengen Episode 101 - Yud-Tes Kislev a moment or a checkbox?

In this episode, we take on a quiet but uncomfortable question: what does it mean when our relationship with G-d becomes transactional—show up, punch in, punch out, move on? Through a raw, sometimes tense conversation, we explore the Frierdiker Rebbe’s piercing claim that the root of all negative traits is not sin, but comfort with mediocrity. Not doing less—but being okay with less. From there, the discussion turns inward: discipline not as willpower or productivity, but as confronting the inner narratives that allow us to settle, excuse, and delay. Drawing on Tanya, lived Chassidic experience, and sharp critique of checkbox Judaism and spiritual optics, this episode challenges the idea that growth is about doing more. It argues instead that real avodah begins when we stop negotiating with ourselves—and realize that Yud-Tes Kislev isn’t something you attend, but something you enter. And if you missed it? The door is still open. Today.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

We spoke last time we met regarding transactional relationships in particular with God.

SPEAKER_04 0:12

And I'm curious whether or not your test Kislev for you and for me was transactional.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

What do you mean by a transactional relationship for your Teska Sliv?

SPEAKER_04 0:58

A transactional relationship with your Teska means you showed up. You went on the assembly line, you checked out, and you had a transactional relationship.

SPEAKER_02 1:19

And now let's move on. Okay, then yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:24

Then yes what?

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Yes, that's what it was for me this year.

SPEAKER_04 1:28

Really? Yeah. And last year it wasn't? Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Yeah, I mean you're asking a more general question, which is is everything that you do transactional versus just being present. I don't know if I'm willing or happy. It's just I feel like the default if you don't I don't know if it's preparation. I don't know if it's fully involve yourself. I don't know if I mean how is yours, Ruven? Are you defending yourself or something?

SPEAKER_04 2:04

No. So how could you say you you were I don't know if I wasn't willing or not? If you didn't do whatever these things that you're mentioning, the preparation of this or that, that's all going to be up to you. Anyways, how was mine? Yeah. Mine was a little odd, but um I I thought it was quite an interesting U test Kysle for me. I had to I was for bragging somewhere for a group of small group of people. And that was so I wasn't part of the whole um hoo-haw stuff that went on here. I was all good, but I wasn't part of it because I was elsewhere.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

Does that make you feel like you show up better because you're contributing instead of being just a passive consumer?

SPEAKER_04 2:50

No. No. I'm glad that I was able and I was asked to do such a thing, but no. That's not, as you'll see in a second, that's not um my thing anymore. What does that mean? Um you can say the same thing, you know, when you're asked to do something, you go on Schlicha, you go on the, you know, I don't know, Mitzvah Hanukkah or whatever and coming up. It also could be transactional.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

Of course. Right.

SPEAKER_04 3:23

So it's better than not showing up, but yeah. So I I go I don't know if we mentioned this last time we met Zaharya, but I came across a really interesting statement from the previous Rebbe.

SPEAKER_02 3:40

Um the Rayat. And the re uh the right uh the the previous Rebbe says that the root of all negative traits come from the we'll put it in modern terms, the headspace of being satisfied with mediocrity. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 4:14

So that's why I take umbrage to what you said. So transactional relationship is based on mediocrity. And he defines what mediocrity is. He says mediocrity means I get by with the bare minimum or even not the bare minimum, I get by with the minimum because that's a minimum. And I don't need to move to a higher level. And he gives the example of being Mahadr in a mitzvah, but it's across the board. Um other places from what I'm refer uh referencing, the Frida Kare says it's a Friedden mitzik. You're happy with where you're at. Yeah. Okay. And he says that's the character that's the source of all negative character traits. Okay. Okay, so and transactional relationship is exactly based on that. That's like the guy who comes to work, gets paid twelve dollars an hour, and says, I'll come here, I'll do the bare minimum I want to get paid. Yeah. Okay. And I was thinking about that. We were learning about it before your teskusiv, and I was thinking about your test kiss, and I was thinking, am I gonna make the same decisions that I made last year? Very generalized things, even if it's not generalized, even if specific, like I'm gonna learn this, this, and this, I'm gonna learn more, I'm gonna dive in better, I'm gonna learn this, I'm gonna I'm gonna go through this book or that book and all the good stuff that usually Hasim talk about. And I realized that as important as those decisions are to that I'm going to perform and move into a place of doing more, it doesn't happen unless I make decisions about my internal world that runs all those activities.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 6:27

And I came to the hachlata, I'm gonna share it with you, that for the next at least 30 days, my focus is on discipline.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

Okay, how does discipline tied to what you're just saying?

SPEAKER_04 6:45

Very simple. If I'm not disciplined, I can make all the decisions I want. I'm gonna learn more, I'm gonna do more, I'm gonna first of all, there's a rule. If it's not scheduled, it ain't gonna happen. Number two is uh that means there's no sidebars with um scrolling emails, um whatever that would that would interrupt the flow of the goal that I set.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

Okay, and what's the goal that you set? Because the goal that you set just now that you said was discipline, but discipline to what? Because you're talking about everything you're saying sounds great, but could also be completely an in-offen of um transactional.

SPEAKER_04 7:30

What do you think? Discipline, I uh I'm gonna sit there and think discipline, discipline, discipline. Obviously, it's about things I decided that I'm gonna do.

SPEAKER_00 7:37

No, I understand, but the the bigger question that you're starting with, which is that you're trying to get out of a transactional minimal transactional relationship does not include who I am.

SPEAKER_04 7:54

So no, you're wrong. It's not transactional.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

Okay, but then going back to the Frida Kareba statement, you're saying that you're you're you're now not settling for mediocrity because you're now going to be disciplined in your decisions to take on things.

SPEAKER_04 8:17

Not discipline.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 8:20

Discipline fulfilling my butt but you don't understand.

SPEAKER_02 8:24

Maybe not.

SPEAKER_04 8:25

Uh maybe, yes. You're thinking discipline means the things I decided I'm going to do.

SPEAKER_02 8:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:37

Okay. Those things are on the table, whatever they are. But that's not what discipline means to get to do the things that I decided to do. That's willpower, that's um getting over the problem of having not done them in the past, let's say. We're talking about taking a dive into the self to understand and to touch and to live the place of undiscipline and then move to the place of discipline.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 9:09

So describe that more. So so let me explain it in a way that you would um see right away. Something that I've been speaking about recently to a number of people um in the show that I go to. The Al Terebbe in the first half of the first Paragapitania delineates and dispenses, in a sense, with the titles of Tsadik, Bainani, and Russia as a evaluation and a title that you wear around your neck on your reward and punishment level of performance. And then what does he do? You're saying after he defines it? After he dispense he dispenses of it. Because what does he do after he defines what it is? You remember?

SPEAKER_00 10:07

Then he starts describing what your actual ability to accomplish is and how to go about doing it.

SPEAKER_04 10:15

What does that mean? He goes and dispenses of the titled Sadik, Russia, and Bainani to mean a definition of a person valuated by Skarnish of performance like you would an employee at the end of the year. And then he moves to let's understand what it is I'll pe soid, basically, in Shara Kadusha, and he brings that every person has two nishamas. Okay. So he talks now about the person. He talks now about the internal workings of you. And that's the difference between transactional and not. Transactional is reward and punishment.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

Okay. So transactional is reward and punishment based off of the definition of what uh whatever. Okay, you're you're saying like that doesn't matter, but I'm trying to I'm trying to understand what it is.

SPEAKER_04 11:28

Transactional means I'm gonna pass the test and get rewarded.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Okay, and then who you are is a who you are is who you are.

SPEAKER_02 11:40

Who am I internally? Where's my world?

SPEAKER_04 11:46

So comes the Fedic Rebbe in that mimer, for example, and says, All negative traits come from your internal belief system that minimum, or I'll call it mediocrity, is okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:04

Because you're now not coming from a place of who you are.

SPEAKER_04 12:07

No, you're def that is who you are when you say that.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

No, well, it's not who you are, it's who you're saying.

SPEAKER_04 12:16

No, I'm not giving the the explanation. I'm not talking about Yhidish Benefish and everything else. I am saying that when the Alfrieda Karepa is saying you make a decision that I will put up with mediocrity for myself, that is who you are at the moment. What are you talking about? That is my okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:35

I didn't know if you were saying in a theoretical who you are, but okay, fine. You clarified. I got it, I got what you're saying.

SPEAKER_04 12:41

Theoretical is transactional. What does that mean? It means it means I have a good theory. Okay, yeah, so that's so I'm saying to you that I realized that more important, or not so much more important, first comes my decision to be disciplined and work on what's not happening on the discipline level, discipline level, what's not happening in the follow-through, in order to do the things that I decided I'm gonna do more of. Every cluster does knows the things we're supposed to do more of. Learn more, Davenmouth. I got that.

SPEAKER_00 13:20

But that's why I was saying you could all you could do all those things in a way of just being a better function, um, a better transactional relationship, like more not me, because I won't do it because I'm not disciplined. Okay, but I'm saying that you're saying that's not a good thing anyway. If you're doing it because you want to have a better transactional relationship, and by the way, that is when when I think of when a person makes a hochlata, that's usually what how they're making the haklata. That's where it's coming from. I feel like I'm being mediocre in this particular area.

SPEAKER_04 13:55

In this particular area, but not about themselves. Not about themselves, therefore their actual that's what I said before, their actual decision to do more is transactional with themselves.

SPEAKER_02 14:06

Uh-huh. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

So you're so you're you're saying so so the decision the decision really wasn't about being disciplined.

SPEAKER_04 14:18

Of course it was.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

And I don't think so.

SPEAKER_04 14:21

You're telling me what I decided? I'm sorry. I guess that sounds stupid. I didn't have a baby girl, and he argued with me for 10 minutes that I did have one. Now I don't know what you're talking about. That was before that was after I left college. What does that mean? What does it mean? That's what happened. Now you're telling me, well, you did decide this. Don't tell me when I decided.

SPEAKER_00 14:46

I don't understand that story, but it sounds ridiculous. Okay. And you're saying I sound dirt ridiculous. I got that. But uh no, I'm I'm still first of all, you could you could not know what your decision was properly in context of what we're discussing right now, because we haven't discussed it yet.

SPEAKER_04 15:04

But and I'm not saying that we're going to.

SPEAKER_00 15:07

Uh my my point is that the decision to be disciplined was after already the actual main decision. The main decision that came from a place of I don't want this to be transactional. I don't want this to be um with mediocrity. I want my decision to be coming from a place of who am I in a in a deeper sense.

SPEAKER_04 15:33

It's not coming from a decision of who am I, it's working on who am I.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

Okay, yeah. No, that's right.

SPEAKER_04 15:40

Stop philosophizing.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

I'm sorry. I'm just trying to understand what you're saying.

SPEAKER_04 15:46

Yeah, but I don't understand what you don't understand. Okay, okay. Well I identified that whatever I decide to do more of or better is not gonna happen until I change my inner self. And the most important thing when it comes to all these things that I know very well, what I'm supposed to do more of is not gonna happen unless I take on what discipline means, by the way. Discipline is just a word. There's a whole pot of chulin to go into the getting discipline for me. Yeah, like what none of your business. Like what? Yeah. Well, that's what caught first my my my uh mind was so in wonder of is that the what the referee criter says. Oh, it's okay if I don't do this. Oh, it's okay if I don't stick to my schedule. Oh, it's okay because last night I was tired, or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 16:51

Whatever my narrative is inside myself, I have to I have to own up under that umbrella of I embraced mediocrity isn't a criteria.

SPEAKER_04 17:08

And by the way for me anymore. And by the way, the next three days, next two days were extremely difficult for me. Because you took this on? Yeah, because I realized it was being mediocre.

SPEAKER_00 17:20

You're saying how mediocre or how content you were with I I saw the pattern.

SPEAKER_04 17:25

Uh-huh. And sometimes the pattern won. And sometimes I did. Do you think I'm gonna change instantly like that? Maybe. No, it doesn't maybe. Maybe in the world of psychedelics you'd think you changed that instantly. Habits don't change so easily. Mindset doesn't change so easily. Usually. Unless you ever have a miraculous moment or something. Yeah. I mean And that was so that's the whole Mayra Atatitsava. Even the ones that came from Russia and had Messrs Nefish for weeks and months and years comes to America, and the Rebbe's talking about them being the same, going back to we'll call it uh mediocrity. So you expect me to change overnight? I don't expect that. That itself is a mediocre statement. It's not real.

SPEAKER_02 18:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 18:15

And by the way, using even the excuse of I won't change overnight is also a mediocre statement. It's this uh I'm saying the word mediocre. The Friedakareb is saying that actually says even more. He said calls it laziness. He brings up Pasid permissionly. Laziness means I don't have to do more. You go higher, you don't go lower in Kadusha. Yekel Mikhail Al Khail, the Rebbe, was the cornerstone of the idea of whatever you did so far isn't enough. Not because he's judging what you did, because you never stop going greater.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

So if you're satisfied with where you're holding, then that's the opposite. Then it's the opposite. Okay. I actually think I really understand that. We actually uh discussed last time for briefly that um that there were those who after Gimmel Thomas went quote unquote back to the basics, and you made a statement that that's not possible. That you can't you can't go back to there are no basics, is actually the phrase that you used, and then you said those who think that they're going back to the basics aren't even doing the basics.

SPEAKER_04 19:36

Well, the whole statement really means if you if you if uh uh at least on the surface, we were doing all this messianic hoopla. And now we're gonna do the regular Hasidic stuff that Hasidim were doing for male for for de for centuries.

SPEAKER_02 19:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:57

Okay. Two mistakes. And that is that the assumption of the hoopla of Mashiach precluded doing the basics. Yeah. Okay. So they're full of crap. Yes, that statement. Yes. Okay, so it's it's and and it's couched in in we have to start in kindergarten again.

SPEAKER_02 20:22

Yeah. And that was the second one. What do you mean?

SPEAKER_00 20:28

You said there were two uh false assumptions.

SPEAKER_04 20:31

One Well, one of them is the I said it. One of them is that with Mashiach was precluded being the doing the basics. And then the second one is that they think that we have to go back to basics and forget the hoopla, so to speak.

SPEAKER_00 20:48

Yeah. And I I'm I'm connecting it now to what you just what what we what you were just saying. Let's go back to the mediocrity and the ability to stay in a transactional meaning let me let's put it a different way. Mashiach doesn't allow for mediocrity and doesn't allow for transactional. Meaning the who you are has to be so unbelievably defined and strong to be able to actually be coming from that place, like making decisions from that place and real okay, but that is what Hasidis is.

SPEAKER_04 21:26

That's what I'm saying. The whole concept of saying going back to basics is such a canard.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

Yeah. I hear that now. I I understand that a lot better now.

SPEAKER_04 21:35

I was astounded when they said that. And and you know why they said that? Because they think that Schlichus precluded Davenin like a chussid.

SPEAKER_02 21:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:49

Okay. Now it brings me to another thing that I just saw, and I asked a bunch of friends what they thought about it. I went on the holy uh website of Chabad online and C O Live. Oh, CO. And they had a picture of some guy, I don't even know who he is, lighting the menorah with the title of He brought both sides of the Isle Together in Congress to light the menorah. And I'm scratching my head because I thought that Hanukkah didn't start yet. And they're and I'm sure that and I'm sure that they didn't say a bracha. I mean, he's not that big an MR, it's whoever this guy is. But why are you lighting a menorah a week before Hanukkah? It's for only one reason. And you ain't going back to basics when you do it. You are lighting that menorah because it's a photo opportunity, it's a PR opportunity, and it you I don't know, you get more uh what do they call it? You get more um favors and exchange of favors, which favors, which is a political way of horse trading, and now you're feeling un unbelievable that you got all these people together and you got your picture. I'm not sure he's like this, but I'm saying it sarcastically. He's got his picture on COL Live and maybe even on The Hill, the magazine, all about what's going on in Washington at any given day. And I'm gonna say to you that that's not, in my opinion, the role of Chabad.

SPEAKER_02 23:23

Okay, because you know what?

SPEAKER_04 23:26

Someone told me today in Shul Bashkakha Pratt that he we were making fun of the movie The Matrix, whatever the reason is, if you know the movie. Yeah. And some guy said, Yeah, but Aisha Tura, I think it was Ash Torah, so one of the Kirov organizations shows the movie, the Makarov people. That to me is what this guy was doing by lighting the menorah in Congress a week before Hanukkah.

SPEAKER_00 23:49

What's the equivalent?

SPEAKER_04 23:50

It's what's the equivalent? You're telling me that the matrix is going to bring about the objective of this Kirub organization. And this guy thinks he's spreading Chasidis, etc., by lighting the menorah a week before.

SPEAKER_02 24:08

Uh-huh. That's not your job.

SPEAKER_04 24:12

It's not your schlikas to be a politician. Politicians are liars. Why are you in the midst of the liars? You want to light the menorah, you say we're lighting the menorah on the first night of Hanukkah. Come or don't come. See you later, alligator. Okay. No, there may be other circumstances. I'm just talking now that's as a hairabbah of voida for you and me who sit on the sidelines, irrelevant in the process of schlich.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

I could picture that's what somebody would say. What are you doing? Whatever. But okay. Okay. I hear that.

SPEAKER_04 24:49

And what is the job of a what is a chussid? That's the question. You want to go to the con low and lowest common denominator? Then when I was learning this piece on the Vidikarabit, I was learning with a Russian. And he told me that all his friends, he the way he he understood it is all his friends that he knows that are like him, you know, the Russian, there's now keeping the older guy keeping Shabbos, blah blah blah, they're fruit. He says they they all eat and drink chalavak.

SPEAKER_02 25:20

It's allowed. Is that the chasid? Obviously not.

SPEAKER_04 25:25

Obviously not, but is so what is a chosid? What is your test kislab all about? Okay, so go and and you and I've said it many times. Don't approach chassid in the proper way being a chosid, being a labaviture in the proper way. It is like choking on straw. What do you mean? It's like suffocating, and there's lots of people suffering. Living a life of a chasid, meaning on the outside, dressing like a chasid, and uh, I don't know, telling your kids they have to make sure to come with Shabbos Mavorkim this week, come and say tahilim, and if you don't say tahilim, I don't know, you get all upset. There's people like that, and they ostracize their kids, and blah blah blah blah bless. The labavitra equivalent, you didn't wear white socks and the ballet shoes of the other chassidim, and now and now you're not being a chassid. That's what it's all about. We're back to this idea of strategy and mission.

SPEAKER_00 26:31

Yeah. I was thinking about more back to the idea of checking boxes versus being real and authentic. That's kind of an interesting question.

SPEAKER_02 26:40

In Chabad, I think the cultural um ethos is you need to be a chosid to be from. They're synonymous. And I'm gonna tell you they're not synonymous.

SPEAKER_04 26:59

You wanna go be a modern orthodox person? Be a modern orthodox person. Right? What happens to all these groups they had? They were all freaked out a number of years ago with the uh the call of the chauffeur and all what's happening now with the uh with the ayahuasca weekends. Guy comes back home and he says, I realize I'm really not living up to the ideal of myself. He throws his hat away, throws his kapatta away, and maybe he throws his wife away. It's happening. Yeah. Okay. From some spiritual Bubba myces that he had some kind of epiphany. But the real truth is he was living a lie, he take a lie. But why is that happening? Because we think that if you don't wear if you don't wear the kapata, let's say for this guy, then I'm not from.

SPEAKER_02 27:49

Yeah. Right? Which is Bubba misus. Actually my Baba probably wouldn't even say that. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:05

Okay, so so since I didn't have a um your tescous leaf as I should have.

SPEAKER_04 28:16

Oh, you should all over yourself?

SPEAKER_00 28:18

Yeah. Well now I definitely feel like I'm shooting all over myself based off of what I uh what I'm hearing how how much you took it seriously in changing your discipline schedule.

SPEAKER_04 28:35

Your discipline My internal mechanisms of your internal mechanisms of discipline. Of everything, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:43

So, okay, so I I I missed it. I passed the time. I still had a nice good test kiss lift for bringing it just whatever. What are you trying to tell me? Um uh whatever. Whatever I'm trying to tell you what happened already. It's irrelevant. What do I do now? Well, what do I do? What what what should I do now? Like I could I could obviously do what do you want to do? What did you come up with the should business? Well, I mean, I I was thinking just in terms of you you you called you called it out, you know. I was comfortable with the the mediocrity of going to forbrang in. I even forbranged myself. I didn't talk about it.

SPEAKER_04 29:25

I talked about me.

SPEAKER_00 29:26

I know, I'm saying when I how I felt, I'm I was admitting it. I was being vulnerable and and uh and honest that that's how I felt this Yotez Kislev. Even though again I did I did a lot of good stuff, but it was transactional, and I know deep down it was, and I definitely did.

SPEAKER_04 29:42

Are you happy with that?

SPEAKER_00 29:43

No. Okay, so then change it.

SPEAKER_04 29:46

That's the whole point is Yutez Kislev, what we opened up with. Yutes Kislev in a way of transaction is I showed up, it's gone, see you later. Non-transactional is even now if I didn't do what I was supposed to, what I could have done, or whatever you want to say it on UTS Kislev, I can do it today. That is what Yutez Kislev is all about. Chasidis is all about breaking your boundaries. It's like, you know, it's it's it's uh it's the whole mahus of everything.

SPEAKER_00 30:18

Okay, good.

SPEAKER_04 30:19

So I don't have to wait until next year. No, you don't have to wait until your Tes Kislev next year. You don't have to wait even to Hanukkah. You can do it right now, right today. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:28

Um, yeah.tv.