Street Farbrengen Episode 120 - I Choose

A phone call while checking the stock market. A meeting while answering texts. Learning while thinking about business. Davening while the mind goes everywhere else.

We tell ourselves it's multitasking. But maybe we’re not doing more. Maybe we’re choosing less.

In this episode, Reuven and Zacharia take on one of the most ordinary struggles of modern life: focus. But the conversation quickly moves deeper. From boring meetings to Chitas, from machshavos zaros in davening to Sefiras HaOmer,  to David Goggins,  and from  the Rebbe’s total presence in yechidus — the question becomes sharper:

Which part of me is actually showing up?

Maybe the first step toward focus is not discipline. Maybe it’s honesty.
 Not “I have to.”
 Not “I should.”
 But the simple, radical words:

I choose.

Because when the inner desire — the pnimiyus haratzon — is present, even the details stop being boring. And when it isn’t, even holy things can become background noise.

What would change tomorrow if, before every call, every meeting, every seder, every moment of davening, we stopped and said:
 I choose to be here.

Transcript

Pulled In Every Direction

SPEAKER_05 0:00

We had an interesting conversation this morning, and what came out is that it seems that everybody is pulled in multiple directions, even while they're involved in their work and business. And I was thinking that's not the ideal state. And I don't feel like that's what we should be doing. And I know I do it all the time. I want to strategize with you, Ruven, and figure out how to get out of that.

The Simple Move: Say "I Choose"

SPEAKER_04 0:52

That we asked um does multitask while he's on the phone with people and so forth. Well, I thought that he'd be more focused, and that that would be the indicator reason why he was so successful. So it's interesting, you know, because it says in Hasidis that Dvarim Batalim frivolous activities and frivolous words in other words, but fizz frivolous activities are the source to Mahshavazaras while you're dovining. Right? They're the source of not being able to concentrate. So the strategy to be focused is very simple. Stop not choosing what you're doing.

SPEAKER_05 1:46

I mean, why would you say you're not choosing what you're doing? You're doing it. What does that mean?

SPEAKER_04 1:51

You're not no, you're not choosing.

SPEAKER_05 1:54

What do you mean?

SPEAKER_04 1:55

The guy, do you think you think the guy says to himself, I'm speaking to Sam on the other line, and we have this big deal happening, and I choose to watch what's going on? We'll make it really sophisticated. I choose to watch what's going on in the stock market. You think that's what he does? He says, I choose. No, he's just saying he's just doing called habit. So let me ask you. During the day, do you ever say to yourself the words, I choose to do this?

SPEAKER_05 2:31

I guess not.

SPEAKER_04 2:32

Okay, but that's your strategy.

SPEAKER_05 2:34

I mean, but you I plan my day.

SPEAKER_04 2:37

I don't care about your schedule calls, I do these things. That's in the morning. I'm talking about Bishas Maïsa when you're doing all these things. And by the way, when you sat down and planned, you chose to plan it.

SPEAKER_05 2:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 2:51

Okay. But when you pick up the phone, you choose to call. Yeah. So it sounds a little bit cumbersome, maybe, and it sounds a little bit um infantile, but it's not. It's putting you in a space of I choose to do this. Not that I have to, not that I should. It's Torah. Well, as I say, the Sateayamaschayam Vesa Toy Vesam Mavas Vesa Ra. Uva karta bakhayam, choose in life. So, ask the question. It's a very simple question. What do you mean choose in life? Who's what what fool is going to choose in death? And the answer gives is choose the higher road. I'm saying it in the vernacular, choose the higher road in what you're doing. Don't look at the lower aspect of it.

SPEAKER_05 3:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 3:44

And the higher road and the lower aspect also includes the individual involved. Which part of you is doing this? So you may not be cognizant of which part of you is doing this, which already is suspect that you're going to be um a prisoner of all the other parts. Because you haven't identified which parts you're coming from.

SPEAKER_05 4:11

So you're uh but but let's just take this a little more simply. A person multitasks, and let's call call it really what it is. They distract themselves, they numb themselves.

SPEAKER_04 4:24

They're distracted.

SPEAKER_05 4:26

No, but they're they're purposely numbers.

SPEAKER_04 4:28

No, if I'm listening, did the opposite of what I just said, and you wanted to argue with what I just said. You said they distracting themselves. They don't choose to distract themselves.

SPEAKER_05 4:41

When when you're okay, they don't choose to distract themselves.

SPEAKER_04 4:45

Do you choose to think about all the ridiculousness that you think of while you're divining? No. Okay, thank you.

Bored Meetings And False Productivity

SPEAKER_05 4:51

But that's why I'm saying let's let's qualify this for a second. I'm sitting in a speak for yourself, by the way.

SPEAKER_04 4:56

Let's not talk about it.

SPEAKER_05 4:56

I just said I'm sitting, I just said I. I'm sitting in an extremely boring meeting. Okay, that even though I need to be a part of because it's relevant to the deal that I'm making, because I'm a deal maker, and I need to know what's going on and need to know what both sides are.

SPEAKER_04 5:13

Donald Trump is scared of you. Yeah, go on.

SPEAKER_05 5:16

One day soon. But uh you can distract me. I'm just kidding. The so I'm I'm I'm needing to be involved in the meeting, but I'm so bored about the details of what's going on that the only way I'm gonna be able to get through it is by numbing myself through a fidget distraction type thing. Well, I don't buy that. And I think that's the majority of the.

SPEAKER_04 5:46

I think that's your narration writer giving up shot on what you do. I don't buy that. First of all, if you're if you're at I don't buy it. Wait, you're right. I only way I can get through is to numb myself. Really? Is this like going to the dentist?

SPEAKER_05 6:02

Sometimes it feels like that.

SPEAKER_04 6:03

Well, why are you at that meeting?

SPEAKER_05 6:04

I mean, again, you sometimes have to go to meetings and do things. I'm sorry, Reuben, you may not have this experience in your life based off of you being the CEO of your company and doing what you want with it, but I'm saying, like, sometimes you have to be a part of boring meetings. It's just a part of life.

SPEAKER_04 6:18

Why don't you make choose to make it not boring? Why don't you choose to put it on track? Maybe it's boring because everybody else is multitasking. How do you know?

SPEAKER_05 6:28

I don't understand what you're suggesting here, Ruven. The meeting is needing to happen in order to get the details of whatever is needing to be shared. And you don't need to hear the details?

SPEAKER_03 6:38

I could hear, I can know the details while doing the other thing. Yeah, then you're not knowing them. What does that mean? What do you mean? What does it mean?

SPEAKER_04 6:45

You're focused, not a hundred percent on them. You may miss a point. God if I can do success is in the details, and biologically and scientifically, it has come to the fore and to the light of realization that you can't do both and still be fully functional.

SPEAKER_05 7:10

Well, I can't argue that because you're just saying that that's just been a proven thing.

SPEAKER_04 7:14

They've shown it.

SPEAKER_05 7:16

Yeah, maybe you could put a source material in the Okay, we'll put a source material. But fine. Okay, so that so you're just saying that there's no way that I can grab it. It's not the same.

SPEAKER_03 7:28

How could you think it's the same?

Chitas, Davening, And Wandering Thoughts

SPEAKER_04 7:31

By the way, don't talk about boring meetings. Why don't we talk about um having to do chitas?

SPEAKER_05 7:41

Well, what when my mind wanders when I'm doing chitas, yeah, I'm not being bifurcated, I'm not getting I'm not doing anything else while I am sure. I'm thinking of other things, I'm getting thinking. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 7:55

You're thinking about other things. But I have wait, so now based on the chasidis that you have learned as you originally asked the question this evening, what's the strategy not to have your mind wander while you do while you're learning, uh teach learning or reading or ploppling, as we called it in my day, your chitas?

SPEAKER_05 8:20

I don't know. I I was asking you for strategies.

SPEAKER_04 8:23

I I can't I told you the strategy, choose.

SPEAKER_05 8:26

So you're saying I should choose the chitas?

SPEAKER_04 8:28

Yeah, you don't choose the chitas, you say you have to.

SPEAKER_05 8:32

So you're saying anything that goes into the have to, shoulds, and that's when you're going to be distractable? Is that your point?

SPEAKER_04 8:41

100%. And I asked the question which you didn't want to answer. Which part of you is at the meeting? Your toes, your nose, your me dois, your sechel, your cabalus oil, which part of your ten uh Esokehas and Fish is there? You know, it's really interesting because I was thinking about this. Probably one of the most iconic boring meetings, so to speak, for for Aschidim during the year is counting the omer.

SPEAKER_05 9:28

I never thought of it like that, but okay.

SPEAKER_04 9:30

You look how they say it, nobody very few people know what the hell's going on. Tonight is uh Yeshab Anetzach. Okay, I know what maybe a netzach is, but you know, well, let's get to next week. Hoy She Bah. I think is Langbomer, right? Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_02 9:50

Hoy Shebahoid. And you know, and you're excited about counting the Omer. So there's choices in that.

SPEAKER_04 10:02

You didn't learn about it, I didn't think about it. I don't even I mean there's different ways to approach it. So maybe you're not fully engaged in everything you do in life, but you want to know a strategy, where does it come from to be focused?

SPEAKER_02 10:22

Where does it come from?

SPEAKER_04 10:24

You think that this meeting that you're bored at is not going to be the pivotal point of your the success of making the deal. But if you were facing a moment that you thought was, would you be distracted?

SPEAKER_05 10:47

I I have a hard time answering the question honestly, but I do understand your point that yes, I would probably put everything else down and focus entirely.

SPEAKER_04 10:59

Why?

SPEAKER_05 11:00

Because I because that pivotal moment would need all of my attention.

Oinig, Ratzon, And Getting Back Flow

SPEAKER_04 11:04

No, but that I'm asking you which part of you, not yours. You're trying to tell me this is a sachel calculation? That you actually think about it, you don't think about it. It's obvious that this moment is very important. It's not sachel, dick. But it touches the reason why you're in this process to begin with. Doesn't it? You think the meeting that's boring doesn't. Right?

SPEAKER_05 11:32

I guess I guess so, yes.

SPEAKER_04 11:34

So what did we just recently learn?

SPEAKER_02 11:37

We learned that the way we were learning from the Rebbe the he was touching on the idea of Yanika Hakitsoinim.

SPEAKER_04 11:53

Right. What's Yanika Sakitsonyim? We're gonna say in our example that you just gave that we had a great idea. We brought a team together to talk about this great idea, but we're at a boring meeting. Things it's a waste of time. And usually at these kind of boring meetings, let's just play the game here and script it out. There's some um less than exciting uh individual who thinks it's not boring and talks and talks and talks and wastes your time. Yeah. Okay. That's unique schedzonia. In other words, he wouldn't be there if it wasn't for your great idea that you came up with, right? Otherwise, you wouldn't have the meeting. Yeah. Okay, because I don't mean to say your idea was to have the meeting. I'm saying the idea of whatever the project is. Okay. That's unique schedzonia. Okay. So you're sitting alone uh on one of your hikes up in the mountains here in Pristine Bucolic Um Pomona, and you come up with a great idea, and that cascades into now you're three months later at a boring meeting. So where was that, where is that ratsoinig of the idea that you came up at the moment that you came up with that idea on the mountaintop of your hike, where is it during the meeting?

SPEAKER_05 13:21

Not being remembered or focused.

SPEAKER_04 13:23

Okay, it's not there. Your oinig is not there, correct? And your ratzen is not there. Yes. Okay, bingo. So when your oinig is there and your muratsun is there, you're not gonna allow for this individual to waste your time. And probably he won't even be hired. Even or if he's needed, you won't invite him to the meeting, to the meeting. So the bottom line is that what it says, we learned, Panemius Ha Ratsoin, which is oinig, when the oinig is nimshak into your daily living, everything is in a state of flow.

SPEAKER_02 14:06

As you called it. You don't allow it to go elsewhere. It won't happen.

SPEAKER_05 14:14

Okay. It won't happen.

SPEAKER_04 14:18

Yeah, you won't let it. Now, I I am I suggesting that to you that I live that way? No, I don't live that way.

SPEAKER_05 14:26

It's an idea.

SPEAKER_04 14:27

By the way, I'm not bored at Street Fu Bringer because I show up with a Panemis uh rat sun for it. Yeah, me too. Okay, so you I mean sometimes at Street Footburn you have some guy who's like boring at a meeting, but you know that's why you say Lakhayam. Yeah, I'm only kidding. So um that's the answer.

SPEAKER_05 14:50

Uh-huh. So the strategy, yeah. Okay. So that seems that seems like a big a voida. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 14:59

Wow, okay. It's a big voidaan. No, no, no. I I everything we've discussed is a big voida, otherwise it would be boring.

SPEAKER_05 15:06

Yeah, true.

SPEAKER_04 15:07

Um maybe it's boring anyways, but the isn't that the going back to the clarion call of Koyahnissen?

SPEAKER_05 15:15

How so?

SPEAKER_04 15:17

The Rebbe says you're in a gullus pinemi. Which means your Panemius is not there in a voidus of shit.

SPEAKER_06 15:26

Oh wow.

unknown 15:28

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 15:29

Yeah. So if your Panemius was there, then you're saying then anywhere that so if your Panemius is there, you'd be involved.

SPEAKER_04 15:38

You wouldn't need the rabbit to go and move his arms in the air and say admasa.

SPEAKER_05 15:42

Uh-huh. It'd be coming from you. It'd be it'd be self-motivated. So it'd be okay. It's not even it's it's who you are. It's who you are coming from your core.

SPEAKER_04 15:52

Core.

SPEAKER_05 15:52

Your energy flows, you know, your flow flow goes where your energy flows. What? What's the line that do like?

SPEAKER_04 16:00

No. Energy flows where your focus. Where the focus goes, the energy flows.

SPEAKER_05 16:05

Yeah. Okay. Okay, so I have to focus.

SPEAKER_04 16:10

And you're saying no, that that's not the right way to say it.

SPEAKER_05 16:15

No, you're right. It's not the right way of saying it. But but going back to What's the right way to say it?

SPEAKER_04 16:19

I have to identify and choose my Panemia Saratzai, basically.

David Goggins And The Pain Goal Link

SPEAKER_05 16:27

Which means that you have to know your Panemius Haratsai. That's probably the first step, is know what you're really wanting to accomplish. And then having that before. I just saw a clip.

SPEAKER_04 16:39

I just saw a clip from this guy. I don't know if I know you've heard of him, but a lot of people may not have heard of him. His name is David Goggins. He's a mashugana. Total mashugana. In that it was this like 300, I read his book. He has like this 300-pound body that decided he was going to go into the SEALs, who are notorious for like, I don't know, 80% of the people fail in the first few weeks of SEALs training, right? They're really monsters, right? Look it up if you if the ones who are with us tonight, if you don't know who the SEALs are. And this guy went from 300 pounds and I think he tried two or three times to become a SEAL and eventually did. And his branding, if you wish, he's famous for, is that he can have 103 fever. His he he could he could have um fractured um, I don't know, kneecaps, and he is going to go and do his daily run. And he says, if I am in pain, it doesn't matter. Okay, so I saw this clip today about him talking about how if you're really into what you're into, life is gonna make it painful to get to where you want to go. It's just the way it is. You gotta put out and we don't we have a mission that says it? Fumsara agra. According to the pain is we we say in the gym, the gain, according to the pain is the reward. Now why would a guy want to go through life feeling pain? Because he's totally tapped into what his objective is, and it means so much to him that the objective gives him oinig. And maybe that's the pshat based on the mind we're learning, maybe that's the pshat, by the way, which is the context of what we were learning this morning, is you know, and purim, you don't know the difference between the curse of Haman, right, and the blessing of Mordechai. You don't know the difference between the oinig of your objective and the pain that it takes to get there.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

Well, okay.

SPEAKER_04 19:09

Now I'm gonna like maybe press the stop button and go cry because I don't know if I really have that compelling objective.

SPEAKER_05 19:25

So yeah, so coming up with the objective is definitely probably first step.

SPEAKER_04 19:29

But what do you mean coming up with it? Don't you have a soul? Don't we have a soul?

SPEAKER_05 19:34

I mean, I'm saying your specific mission statement idea of what drives you to I'm not saying in generalities, I'm saying your specific I know.

SPEAKER_04 19:46

Don't I have a soul?

SPEAKER_05 19:47

Yeah, I I got I I think so. But the but but before before we continue, actually, I mean you may want to continue on that, but go back to your example about Devar uh Batalim and your Makshavazaras. Connect connect it to that.

SPEAKER_04 20:03

Now you understand it. Devarin Batalin means you are not you are spending time not focused on your objective. So your mind is trained to just go um like like a like like a self-driving car with doesn't know where it wants to go now.

SPEAKER_05 20:25

So then you're not able to focus on your dominant because that's just where you're just the state that you're in beforehand and afterwards. Yeah. Okay, wow.

SPEAKER_04 20:35

We we have a we have a tendency to say, I want to show up and be there already, right? So I want to go up to I want to go to the gym, and since I can only pick up 2.5 pound barbells, that all the guys are doing the grunt work with 150 pounds, I ain't coming back. Or how come I can't do it? So therefore goodbye, see you later. We're s we we we're which is part of our situation that we're talking about, that we're distracted because that's a distraction. So you're not gonna come to Duven and concentrate on holy things if you can't concentrate while you're on the phone doing business. So do the work there, at least train your brain there.

Train Focus In Daily Business

SPEAKER_05 21:29

Yeah. I mean, since we had the conversation this morning, I tried very hard today to uh to focus, and it was it was challenging, but there was already obvious shifts of me of my presence and being there that uh that were noticeable pretty immediately. The effect, obviously we we'll see in the future, but the the the experience itself was enough to Convince me we needed to talk about it tonight and and figure out a a proper strategy for me to uh integrate this as part of my uh daily avoida routine.

SPEAKER_04 22:12

Sounds wonderful.

SPEAKER_05 22:15

Okay, so this is this is our new Haklata and our new follow-up. I'm I'm schlepping you into this, Ruven, I know you didn't say that you want to do it, but uh but this is I'll I'll I'll decide whether I choose to be part of it. Good. Good. Okay, so then we'll see how that goes because this is this is now taking I guess that Koach Nisan's sicha as well as the focus of when you're learning in the morning and then eventually davening, and you're saying that it all really actually starts with later on in the day with your with what you're involved in and what you're focused on during business during your uh the majority of the time. And and it really does make sense because you we just came out of the idea of uh Kadoshim where it's like you have an obligation to be holy. It's like okay, we already knew you had Torah and mitzvahs so the holiness that Hashem is subsc uh subscribing, Hasidus explains, is during the day when you don't have the obligations of doing Torah and mitzvahs. It's how do you carry yourself? How do you act? What's your intention? So I guess I could see how this now all fits together.

SPEAKER_04 23:27

Yeah, I guess so. Um by the way, when someone's talking with you, not at a meeting, do you listen to every word they say?

SPEAKER_05 23:43

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 23:44

You do?

SPEAKER_05 23:45

I try to, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:46

You try to, but when you're on business listening to the meeting of the boring meeting, you're watching the let's say this the stock market, that's okay. So I don't know if I believe your answer.

SPEAKER_05 23:59

I I'm saying I don't I would like to be present when I'm talking one-on-one. That's what you would like to No, when I'm talking one-on-one is different when there's like a group meeting. But okay, fine, whatever. I hear your point. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:09

Okay, so um, I mean, I do it all the time. I'm not really listening to him. I'm listening to where I'm what I'm gonna ex um what I'm gonna respond to him. Right? You're saying that's a simple thing. That's also multitasking. What's what's my objective? My objective is not to listen to you. Right? Technically, in other words. So now the question becomes it seems so simple and human to say choose what you what you want to do, right? And yet we're saying, oh that's really a big avoider. To know what you want to do.

SPEAKER_05 24:55

Um it's an acceptance. It's a it's a it's honestly an acceptance of what the life you have is not always the life you choose.

SPEAKER_04 25:03

Well, now now wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. First of all, I don't know how you jumped there. But besides that. You're right. Well, I don't know. Today I was about to say, you know, if you want to be a woman, you can't be a woman, but today they think that they can that you can. Um But the the issue is not whether the life you choose is always up to you. Of course there's things that happen to you that you didn't choose, but you can choose how you respond to them.

Presence As A Rebbe-Level Skill

SPEAKER_05 25:35

Exactly. I was thinking one of the things you said this morning in our little group session when we were talking to the couple of people about this, was that you asked what was the most what's the most well-known um Nikuta of Yahidis that everybody mentions was the Rebbe's focus and presence with the other person in the room. So I guess he wasn't thinking about what he was gonna say. He was just with you and then responded.

SPEAKER_04 26:04

And that's and he wasn't thinking about the Gemara that he knows, right? The Altare Rebbe was able to says was able to know go through the whole shast going from one side of the room to the other. Um the Rebbe's tapped into all these stories, I heard this amazing story last week of the Rebbe uh um knowing something very unimportant happening in somebody's life. And he knew about it. The guy was in Swas and the Rebbe was in in uh in 770.

SPEAKER_02 26:39

So the Rebbe is choosing choosing fully to be there. It's not only that he's totally there for you in Yachidas, but he's choosing to be meaning to say not to be elsewhere. Um which is a beautiful thing, but what why don't we learn from that?

SPEAKER_04 27:08

I'm gonna start Oh no, I'm just I was that was like a philosophical rhetorical question.

SPEAKER_03 27:14

Um, I don't even know I don't even know if it's challenging if you've never tried it. I tried it today. It was pretty tough.

SPEAKER_04 27:25

But you tried it. Now are you gonna do it tomorrow? That's my point. No, and what I'm saying is most people don't are probably like just not cognizant of the whole concept.

SPEAKER_02 27:38

But thank god for a street.

SPEAKER_04 27:40

Though we though we mention what we did about spirusomer, that is exactly what spirosomer is all about is what we're talking about.

SPEAKER_02 27:54

What is the technical reason for spirosomer?

SPEAKER_01 27:58

Do you know?

SPEAKER_05 28:00

So we there's a mitzvah to count.

SPEAKER_04 28:02

I know it's a mitzvah. What is the whatever the the like Sefer Hinoch says? What is the reason behind it? What is the ton behind it?

SPEAKER_05 28:12

I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 28:12

You don't know? To count seven full weeks. For what reason? What are you counting days for? Why don't you count tambus?

SPEAKER_05 28:18

Why don't you count uh counting from Pesak from Mitsuyas Mitzarayan to Matantora?

SPEAKER_04 28:23

Thank you. You're counting the days to reach Matantara. How many days are we closer or have we passed to get to Matantira? So what's the choice, the oinig choice, and the choice of focus according to that of what Sri Soimir is? Matantara. Matantira.

SPEAKER_02 28:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 28:51

So is that what you think of when you after you say Shemana Asra, and there's the uh the kadesh when you can do it tomorrow.

SPEAKER_05 29:03

Oh could you do the same thing with Mashiach?

SPEAKER_04 29:08

That you're what same thing?

SPEAKER_05 29:10

You're you're counting, so to speak, towards Gaulah, Mashiach, towards the future, your death.

SPEAKER_04 29:17

No, I don't think you're counting towards the future because it's open-ended. Could happen this second, can happen later.

SPEAKER_05 29:26

So how do you apply it to the idea that your focus is this your objective?

SPEAKER_04 29:31

Yeah, your your objective and goal is mashiach and gaula, and so therefore No, no, I mean no, my objective and goal is living in Gula at the moment.

SPEAKER_05 29:43

Okay, so how does that switch from what you were saying?

SPEAKER_04 29:47

Switch what?

SPEAKER_05 29:48

I'm saying, Sphere Soomer, you're counting towards going to Matantara. So how would you apply it to the idea of Mashiach and Gula?

Mashiach, Identity, And Radical Honesty

SPEAKER_04 29:59

I'm not gonna say it's applied in the way of counting. It's applied in the way of objective, of oinig, of choice. That's what we spoke about last week. I don't think we got the idea of a cross because I think either it's boring to most people, or they don't want to talk about it one or the other, and that is being in a synagogue where I am, they don't say it, but basically the idea of the Rebbe's statements about Mashiach are kind of like silently winked at. Okay, being nice. Okay. Okay. You know, and I came to the the conclusion eventually uh recently that I don't fault or blame them per se.

SPEAKER_05 30:58

That's nice of you, okay.

SPEAKER_04 31:00

Maybe I should blame myself that they don't feel that way because I should be doing something, but that's a different discussion. Okay. But that's you know, it's not their rebe. They don't have that kind of Bitachin and Amuna in the Rebbe that said it because they're focused on other Rebbe's. Sure. Or there was a discussion today in Shul in multiple Rebbe's. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 31:27

But what about us Lebabajas?

SPEAKER_04 31:33

Do we we want to be chasidim of the Rebbe? We want to, meaning to say that the Rebbe's our Rebbe. Okay. He laid out the game plan of how to be a chassid in the sense of this nekud that we're talking about now about Mashik.

SPEAKER_03 31:51

Right?

SPEAKER_04 31:53

I'm not even getting into who's Mashik. I'm just saying living in G'ula now. You know, and uh and we said last time we met, maybe you should choose a different Rebbe. We have total free choice to choose a different Rebbe. Somebody came to me today, actually, and Shul was very I've heard this before, thrown at me, but it doesn't stick. You Labavachers only learn Chabad Chasidis. You know, I said to the guy, you know what? You're like the Christian who comes to me and says, you only learn the Old Testament. Now, I don't mean to say equate the other side of the equation, but of the mushal. What do you mean? Yeah, that's what I learned. That's what our goal is, was is to personify what Chaban Khasidis demands and teaches and sculpts, and there's a lot of stuff out there, and you need to sift through it over and over and over again to get anywhere. So why would I distract myself with something else? I'm not making a statement about you.

SPEAKER_06 33:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 33:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 33:05

Your goal and objective.

SPEAKER_04 33:06

Right.

SPEAKER_03 33:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 33:07

And your identity.

SPEAKER_03 33:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 33:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 33:10

And I have no problem.

SPEAKER_04 33:12

You know, it's funny. There's a very special lobavacher kid that comes to the minion. I'm not going to give names. And there's a guy who comes, uh, you know, 25-year-old guy who comes to the minion, and he doesn't dress like a lobavatcher, he doesn't act like a lobavacher, um, but he calls himself a chabadnik. And this 13-year-old kid is having this argument with him, and he goes over to the shelf, happens to be my shelf, my little corner over there, and he pulls out a Dvaram Malchus of the Vaikra Bamidbar and Dvarim, a whole um what would you call it? A whole book of Dvar Malchus of all those parshes. He walks over to the guy and he hands him the book and he says, If you're a Chabad Khasid, you read this. I was very impressed with him because his father doesn't read it. Um and I thought it was so interesting that he said that. And you know, maybe this is like a call of the chauffeur moment. Maybe this is like a deep breathing move moment that we shouldn't be doing. Because I'm actually saying, you know what? If you're finding that Labavich doesn't give you, so to speak, uh a reason to choose, as we're talking in context of what we're talking about, so go so go look somewhere else. I don't need you there to defend the Rebbe. Yes and defend Khaziz. Now I know that if you go to the average guy, that's not what he's gonna tell you. Yeah. I'm not trying to be provocative. I just, if that's what you really feel, if you really feel that you need to go to Umman and have a magical moment of blessing, then go. But it's not the avoida of Chabad.

SPEAKER_05 35:13

Yeah, understood.

SPEAKER_04 35:14

And if you want to dance at two chasans, you could try, but why don't you just be honest? I'd rather you be honest. Me personally, I think you I'd rather you be honest than that. Let's start with honesty. What?

SPEAKER_05 35:27

I said let's start with honesty. That's a good place to start.

unknown 35:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 35:32

Well, you're only shooting yourself in the foot. Yeah, no, yeah. Nobody else. Yeah. No, I understand. Fool like a fool. I understand that if you have seven kids and they're all in Lababich schools, you're gonna say, I want to go get pick myself up and go to Uman or become a Zionist and carry an Israeli flag on my backpack, and the kids are going where they're going to, and that may be a little problematic for you. You're right. You dug yourself a little hole or something.

SPEAKER_02 36:02

But um that's a different discussion, but just in general concept, go for it. Why not? Where's the person in this whole quest of things?

SPEAKER_01 36:17

Really? How come we don't, you know? It's um it's an avoider.

SPEAKER_04 36:27

So what's our conclusion tonight, Zachariah?

SPEAKER_05 36:30

I already told you before. What's that? I'm gonna start implementing this. This is my new Haklata. What's the word this referred to? To to being present, having my stated objective, choosing to do what I'm what I'm doing anyway, and uh and and starting to uh starting to hopefully see that translated into a real focus and are you naked and dominate.