Street Farbrengen # 131 "Why Do many Frum Jews Look So Tired?"

Why do so many sincere, mitzvah-observant Jews look like they're carrying the world?

That's the question this episode refuses to let go of — and it leads somewhere unexpected. Working from a striking maamar of the Frierdiker Rebbe, the conversation reframes simcha not as a mood you're supposed to perform, but as the very condition that lets you perceive what a mitzvah is actually doing. Put on tefillin without simcha,  and the Ohr Ein Sof you're drawing down remains hidden — not because it isn't there, but because you're not holding the space for it to be begiloi, revealed.

To get there, the conversation takes a hard left into the Heisenberg uncertainty principle — the double-slit experiment, the strange way observation collapses possibility into something fixed — and uses it as a lens on religious life itself: are we measuring and evaluating our avodah so hard that we've collapsed all the wonder out of it? Along the way: the Kohen Gadol's paradox on Yom Kippur, a hard conversation about a friend who lost his job again, and an honest reckoning with why "being real" and "talking Chassidus" so often feel like they're pulling in opposite directions.

The core provocation: maybe the goal was never to feel the light. Maybe it's learning to stay basimcha inside the not-seeing.

Transcript

Why So Many Faces Look Sad

SPEAKER_05 0:00

Sakari, I want to discuss something with you that's been bothering me for a very long time. I don't really express it very often, uh if ever, but I'm gonna be forthright today. Is it why are most I'm gonna say most, why are so many Orthodox Jews so depressed looking I can see from the look on your face that you're wondering why all of a sudden I'm giving such a drastic evaluation. So I I was teaching a mimer, actually, from the Frida Kareba, and he said it's a very famous Mimer concept. It's it's it's the idea that it says in the Pasuk and Yeshaya, Simcha Bashem, Simcha Hashem, that humble people add joy in God. And the question he asked, which is so perfect for our generation, is humbleness is the opposite of simcha. Humbleness is you don't express yourself because you consider yourself unimportant, you put yourself on the side, you you're or as some of the new nomenclature today is you have an ego death, and therefore you're going to be quiet and uh and and grin and bear it, basically.

SPEAKER_02 1:56

Sure.

SPEAKER_05 1:56

And simcha is his spashtus,

Humility Versus Joy In Practice

SPEAKER_05 1:58

simcha is parit together, simcha is you become talkative, simcha become out there, and he's asking the question how can to be a navim, people who are an who are humble, add simcha? That's the question.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

Well, it says add simcha to a shem. It doesn't say that they're doesn't matter. They're still a state.

SPEAKER_05 2:17

Okay, so that's my question, sir. I'm not asking why do Orthodox Jews don't enjoy their paysach programs. I'm saying that's exact that's exactly what we're talking about. And in terror and mitzvahs, most Orthodox Jews, especially as you move from the left center to the right center, right, are very, very filled with mitzvahs all day long. They're churning out mitzvahs. They are with Hashem. So why do your faces look like my daughter likes to call it? I think she thinks it's me. RBF. And if you don't know what that is, I'm not gonna say it. So um, and I've noticed that for many years. Someone once told me it's a New York thing. Right? You go on a subway and but Well, what was the Friedrich Rebis answer? The answer actually is is astounding. And it's to a certain degree changed my life when I must seem leaf to it. First of all, he discounts the idea of a Nevis being sheafless. Right? Humbleness is not low self-esteem. What is basically humbleness? There's something greater than me, and that greatness makes me humble. So it's in it's in response and reaction to what God is, not my performance, not my inadequacies, etc. etc. The Rebis quotes often but says in Shukunurach that before you dove and listen up, guys who are listening in, before you dove in, you're supposed to think about Rebu Miskel, Vashla Sa'adam, the upliftedness, the wondrousness of God, and the we'll call it the mundaneness of man. Okay, first of all, when was the last time you thought about that before you dove in? But you don't have to answer that. So the Rebbe says, why does it not say the other way around? Think about the lowness of man, and then Ron Muskel. And he gives this idea that the great the humbleness is based on the greatness of God, not on your intrinsic nothingness, let's say. But the Frida Garebbe says in this mimer is something that to me I'm gonna tell you is what was astounding to me.

Mitzvot Draw Down Infinite Light

SPEAKER_05 5:00

He says, when you do a mitzvah, and us Chasidic people who learn in Chabad, all of the Schasidhs know the wording. When you do a mitzvah, you're Nimshach or Einsof. Your Nimshach, the infinite light. Okay. That's a whole other discussion, which we can have a fun conversation about. So he says, Your Nim, this is what he says in the Mimera, your Nimshach, you draw it down, but you don't see it unless you're Basimcha. And what does that mean? Do you think when you put on Tfillin'? This is my the way I I gave it over and the way I understood it, when I put on Tfillin, and I'm about to as this all these new uh Facebook posts, we're rapping tfillin today. So when you're rapping tfilin, which is a better terminology than laying tfilin, because you know, um but dal. So when you're rapping tfilin, do you think to yourself that you're meeting God, that you're giving the Abish to Simcha? Because you're giving him a place for him to flow into. I'm I'm using the word flow, you know, um for lack of better terms at the moment. When you do, then the Hamshaka of Oran Sov is Begilloy. That's what he says.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

What do you mean by begilly?

SPEAKER_05 6:38

You meaning Okay, so it's an excellent question. And if you if I beg your indulgence, I'm gonna give you a crazy explanation.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

I'm ready.

SPEAKER_05 6:58

You ready? Okay.

The Observer Effect And Spiritual Reality

SPEAKER_05 6:59

You familiar with the Heisenberg principle? I am, but you could just Okay. So the Heisenberg principle is based on an experiment they did in the thing 20s or 30s, where in Einstein's time, where if you can imagine it, they took light and they show sh they they they projected the light at a wall that had two slits. Think of it as an equal sign, right? The the lines of the equal sign are are open, those two slits. And they had a photo, a wall with photosynthesis material or whatever that is, I don't even know, at the uh behind it. So if you shine this light through the two slits, what would you show up? What should show up on the back? Like two slits right? Okay. What they found, which they couldn't explain and still can't, by the way, ultimately. This is quantum physics, and they can't explain it. And that's one of the things that Einstein called spooky spookiness, is that when no one was watching, no one was evaluating to measure the light and whether it was gonna hit and how it was gonna hit the back wall, it did not display as two splits slits. Only when someone was watching.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 8:29

Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

The observing, yeah. The observing created the two splits.

SPEAKER_05 8:34

You didn't create the two splits. There's two slits, you created you no, so this is what's called the wave function that is light's machle is in in in the mechleikis, it's an argument in science, is or different opinions. Is and I'm not a bucky in this, is light a wave or a particle. A wave or a particle. So if it's a particle, then you'll see two splits. The particles go through the slit and you hit the back, and you'll get two slits. But if it's a wave, so depending on which part of the trough or the what's the opposite of the trough, the hill or the top, goes when this when the wave comes, when the light comes through the slit, it'll go in all directions. But what's it got to do with someone sitting there? But that's the phenomena they found. And there's different opinions and screaming and yelling about it, but apparently no one really knows why. But it has been proven as a phenomenon. I happen to be researching this for the uh upcoming new film we're doing, and I thought like this, let's go back to the Tfillin. When I sit there and put on Tfillin and see a leather box, okay, I've been commanded, but I see a leather box and with leather straps, which I saw yesterday, and I don't expect it to be any different today, right?

SPEAKER_02 10:05

Sure.

SPEAKER_05 10:06

And you ask the question well, what do you mean, bigloy? So what do you think you would mean if it was bigly? Would I see the band, would I hear the band playing, right? Would I hear music, there are bells on a hill, would I see grand lights? Whatever your imagination is based on your evaluation, you don't see. That's like the guy looking at the experiment. When you don't evaluate, and you don't lock yourself into preconceived states that you've been in, and your basimcha, that even though you don't see it, it's in your kishkas, it's in your heart and your soul that that's what's going on. I'm doing God's will and his. This is God. That's what Al-Tarabba says, basically, a mitzvah is when you're willing not to evaluate it and measure it, and you're basimcha because of that, you'll have a gillo. Where's the gila not in your eyes? Because that's part of the evaluation. Your evaluation is I should be able to see it. And you think that I'll be able to see something abnormal and something totally out of this world. And I'm still thinking about the bus I gotta catch. So I don't think that when I put on fillin', I'm gonna see anything different. And you don't. That's the way I understood that, Maimar. You're meeting God for crying out loud.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 11:47

Okay, and so therefore, and therefore I think that the average dude has no concept of this in his life, practically, and he feels the weight of performance obligation. And you know, if I can be so bold and so crass, he's like so much pressure on the male that he can't perform. So much pressure on this guy to meet his bills, to fulfill the mitzvahs. He's never good, he's been told he's never gonna be good, and therefore he walks around with no animation on his face.

SPEAKER_01 12:35

Uh-huh. Okay.

Seriousness Without Losing Simcha

SPEAKER_01 12:37

I think that's definitely one storyline of the.

SPEAKER_05 12:44

I'm really just put a pointing the pointing the camera at me.

SPEAKER_01 12:46

No, I I I I got that. I'm not really blaming anybody for well other than the fact that people are so I mean I I've I've had a disc I actually had a discussion relatively recently about the idea that like being a husset is serious business. So you look serious because a voida is serious, and the things that you're learning is serious, and you're you're being misboyne and is serious.

SPEAKER_05 13:11

So like you're you're having a simcha that is uh one of the properties of measurement that's creating the as they call it the collapse of the wave function, and now you're getting particles. Look at the Yahweh. Frida Garebbe said the Rebbe said that the Frida Garebba looks serious and he's Besimcha. And I look Basimcha and I'm very serious. He actually said more than that. He said he said he said about himself on Moreshkara.

SPEAKER_01 13:44

And so how do you fit that into what you're saying?

SPEAKER_05 13:46

What I'm fitting into that is you can't go by by that mitzvah's chassidis is serious, therefore you should look.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

Not therefore you should look, therefore you look serious, because it's not a good thing. Life is serious business too. Let's do serious things too. Let's define our topic. Please, and that's why because I'm I'm a person who we're gonna dig out the sub.

SPEAKER_05 14:12

I mean, isn't doesn't it say you're supposed to be do a symbiote simcha?

SPEAKER_01 14:17

Yeah, there's so many. I mean, yeah, because cinema called the Frelex. Okay, the Frelex. Okay, so why is everyone walking around? No, no, I've I've had I've had the same question for a long time.

SPEAKER_05 14:31

But I I do we're we're more concerned of you and me. By the way, people say the same thing about me.

SPEAKER_01 14:36

Okay, people say the opposite. People say I smile all the time, and so therefore they don't think. How come you can't be serious? Yeah, I'm not serious, whatever. But I I've I well I don't know about recently, but throughout my life I've heard that many times. And and the idea that um a person who smiles all the time is also typically seen as either dumb or naive or childlike, and like they can't, you know, uh there's no way that he could be smiling. Yeah, like he he can't be actually optimistic or positive all the time if he like was with it.

SPEAKER_05 15:15

Oh my god, I'm remembering when I was in Vancouver, first meeting Chabad, there was a guy there who became a Baltchuva to Chabad, and his brother was a uh of a different kind of horse, so to speak. And he had some emotional mental issues, and they put him in, they put him on a ward. And they gave some, this is in the old days, I guess, they gave him a severe lockup because they think he they thought he was having a breakdown because he kept saying there was a lot of light, and it was like Yutes Kislev or something, and he kept telling them there's a lot of light, and they figured that he was like the poor guy. Yeah, then the rabbi came in and set them straight.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

Anyways, um but you you hear what I'm saying, and and I've gotten I I've heard this sentiment for I understand.

SPEAKER_05 16:13

Well, you know, where I I I I can we can point without pointing fingers to a lot of areas in town where there's a lot of smiling faces, but it's frivolity. So what you're talking about is Khasidim don't look frivolous.

SPEAKER_00 16:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 16:33

Right. But it's interesting because it's reminding to me of a time where somebody asked the Rebbe, I th I don't remember it was uh either it was a journalist or a I somehow remembering from the Navy, but I don't don't I'm not sure, so I don't want to say the wrong thing. And he said, Everybody looks so simple in the room, referring to where the Bachram were learning. They all look simple. They weren't smiling necessarily, but they look simple. And the Rebbe says, no, no, it's not that they're simple, is they're not conflicted. They are totally one and comfortable with themselves because they're in Yiddishkite comfortable. So they don't have conflicts, they don't have deep philosophical issues that are gnawing at their at their uh at their ma on their mind, other than maybe what is a Telus, but you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

So um so okay, but back to what I was saying before that the the um the the idea that Hasidis and Avoida and your job and everything is serious business. And so therefore you have to look serious, and if you're smiling and happy and um seemingly carefree, then you're not understanding what your mission is. So what what's let's start with that question and response.

SPEAKER_05 18:09

Okay, so again, we're not talking about looking for f frivolousness. No, no, no, not at all. Okay, so that's the whole maybe the whole point or a point aspect of this mimer. And that is he says, a naivis. So let's tie it together because we didn't. So why is a nevis connected humbleness connected to Simcha with the idea of bringing down the orange sof? Okay, because you're willing to feel and stand in a place where you are that there's something totally above you, beyond you, a pella, like the Rebbe says in the Aleph In Kaula in the second Sikha. There's a Pella. The Twilin are not just a static box of dead cow with nice writing inside, and it's a Pella, and I'm willing. That's and I'm and I'm gonna connect to that. Yeah, that's a serious mission. But you know, let's go I it's coming up for me like this. You're a musician, you're of rem freed. Everybody listening knows of freed. So you're Avram Freed and you're gonna perform in Israel in front of ten thousand people. Is that serious business? Yeah. Okay. Is he Bas Simcha when he gets out on that stage? I mean within. I'm not talking about what the crowd thinks.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

I would assume so.

SPEAKER_05 19:53

You would assume so. So what's why should it be any different with us? So seriousness does not mean cancel simcha. That is well, maybe that's the crux of the matter that we're having a hard time with this whole Mashiach stuff that the Rebbe opened up a Pandora box with. How can I be serious about Mashiach when I know who I am, anyways? Right? And and since I know who I am, if I'm really gonna get serious about Mashiach, then I better get serious looking because I have to kind of fight and ignore who I really am, which is just, you know, an American guy.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 20:47

But and that's a valid question. How can I be Bisimcha? I mean that's the issue. How can I be Bisimcha about something that I don't see and I demand to see it? How can I be Bisimcha about something that's happening that I'm it goes over my head? And and and not evaluate with the paradigms that we all have and say, oh, so nothing's happening.

SPEAKER_01 21:17

It does seem pretty impossible. Impossible, or if you attempt it, you would look delusional or at a time.

SPEAKER_05 21:27

Why would you look waiting? Because you're happy. You don't have to be sitting there with a chesha huge grin on your face like an idiot.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

No, I'm saying even like the simple believing of the words of Chasidis, you've told me many times on here, and I don't think it's okay, it's not exactly the same, but it's just like you sound like such a baltchuva. Because even though what you're saying is a hundred percent true, and I'm quoting whatever I'm quoting in Chasidis, and I understand how reality works according to. you know, that Mimer or Tanya or Sika or whatever that I'm getting it from, that the believing of it in in how I'm relating to it is very Balchuva like. And I always took that to mean it's just like, oh yeah, because like I actually like try to believe stuff. Like I don't I don't well believing it is one thing. Thinking you're experiencing it is I never I usually never claim that I'm experiencing

Making Chassidus Words Feel Real

SPEAKER_01 22:23

it. I'm saying even the lush that I use of Defensel Kis Nevisha Bahamas. I remember I I speak I obviously at my shool or I used to speak obviously I speak at my shoul every every week or I used to I know you're an Adam Gavra that you for sure wherever you go you're asked to speak but go on actual after all you you're the one of the co-hosts of Street for bringing so I remember when I was starting out like nine years ago and I was speaking every week and I you know was for bringing and for speaking and you know doing the whole thing and I remember uh you know people would I would ask for it also but people would also just give me criticisms to help me uh and critiques to uh help me improve my my speaking abilities and they were like you can't use and by the way this was these were like all come on people but they're like you can't use like Hasidic terminology like you like we lose you the moment you say atmos or the moment I don't remember what word they quoted but they were like it's it's and I'm like well why don't we like talk about how to make those words real for you and like relate to it like that's actually the point of my speeches I'm usually trying to like actually make it practical and they were like no no no but you just it it doesn't matter you lose us you lose the crowd when you say gilly or you say hotsuas or matias or whatever it is and here like that's I've been I live with those terms in order to redefine them and make them practical for it to be used. Like I thought that was the whole point but it turns out I was naive or ballchuvi or stupid I don't know one one or the other okay then what do you mean then what?

SPEAKER_05 24:13

So what'd you do?

SPEAKER_01 24:15

I changed it and tried to sneak it in there versus making it uh the the focal point.

SPEAKER_05 24:23

Right I hear you um you know this kind of bumps up against a different discussion and that is how come Chabad people have that problem but not breast love people.

SPEAKER_01 24:36

I I don't know if they don't have that problems I know. So then I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 24:42

Because breast love emphasis on simcha but I'm not quite sure they know what their simcha about it's not on this deep level that all the Friday Kareb is talking about and Chabad doesn't have the so to speak the framework simcha of of breast love and therefore they're left with this intellectual system that they don't want to hear the words Nefish Alakis and Nefish Bahamas and I think it's just intellectual. You know this week I had an experience I spoke I I I broke a rule and I spoke in front of a bunch of Lebavichers here in the great city of Muncie and there was about 30 of them and I thought it was being open and vulnerable and there was this psychologist in the in the crowd and at the end he goes Ruvain it was a very nice intellectual presentation that's the biggest insult that somebody can say to you but I don't hear anything real and I looked at him I was shocked actually because you want to know because I started off my my presentation telling them what I spoke to uh I I told you a few weeks ago that I was journaling I didn't say journaling by the way I said I write notes to myself journaling is too 60ish even though it says Kane Lichhachaver. You know that word. Okay your pen is your friend and the Friedrich Rebbe kept a journal from the time he was like nine or something. Anyways so I was journaling and I came up with this thought Ruvain when you were 18 years old and you gave up the how should we say the tastiness of Oilumhaza to a certainly to a large degree and became broom for all the idealism that you had in your heart and your soul today could you turn to that 18 year old I wasn't even in college that 18 year old hitchhiking boy and say to him I lived up to your idealistic um venture no is does that is that like being real I think so okay so he guys says I'm totally not real and I asked him I said you want me to cry? You want me to talk about my trauma? What do you want me to do? I don't understand I like I pushed back on him. And then he said well how did you get there? No I th I don't know if he was goading me in order to bring it out for the rest of the crowd and the other thing is you can't let out all of your vulnerability on people who are not ready to to hear it right save that for Street for bringing anyway right no I mean sometimes people are uncomfortable if you're too vulnerable and your vulner your vulnerability is freaking them out right so it's a little bit narcissistic so to speak but so in front of this group and I had that experience that they all looked beaten beat beat down actually it was it was an old men's group so they look beaten they look beat down and I thought to myself you know you're not supposed to watch movies but thank God for Clint Eastwood what why because Clint Eastwood just produced a movie at 95 years old and they asked him how do you do it he says I don't let the old man in so you know and then so all I'm saying is so why should somebody at 50 look like he's 90? I mean in terms of his energy what's going on with us and I know there's a lot of pressures and I know that there's a lot of anxiety and all and parnasa problems and shalombias problems and whatever else you want to throw on the on the on the pyre of gallus but can you walk in can you sit first of all if you don't learn chasilis there's nothing to talk about. You're automatically depressed person. I don't care how much Torah you learn you may be simchandic about the sechel that you have but ultimately you're gonna be walking around with a he with your head hung low um but in most of the cases not all but so you learn can you can't you isolate walking in and just think about it I the you do you believe in God?

SPEAKER_00 29:41

Is that why you're doing Torah mitzvah is God real for me yes for I don't know for well why else would they do it?

SPEAKER_05 29:52

I don't know I don't know and this God says I'm right with you when you the mitzvah is me.

SPEAKER_01 30:04

So you're saying do people believe that do people believe well do they if they lunar I know what you're saying I'm just saying there's a I don't know if it's a ignorance or if it's a lack of like it's too unbelievable to believe.

SPEAKER_05 30:19

I I said something on Friday night last week I also talk sometimes in my synagogue synagogue. I hate that term um but it's not because of Street forbidden because nobody knows about it. I keep it quiet. So I talk about them too often so I what I said I I it was interesting actually to me it was very interesting I was it was like a moment of the sun coming out behind the clouds I said over a vort I think I said in the name of the altar but I think afterwards I reflected that it was really I think from the Mittlarebba that I saw it. It could be that it came from the the altar rebba he says if you dova and you're not Basimcha, you didn't do chuva so if you take we're learning now in Khitas in Tanya right a ziva schei to get rid of the sin and your macabal al-haba and you accept the future you're not going to do it anymore. That's chuva and and you could be sitting by the way in the mourning the fact you're not gonna be able to have your cheesecake anymore right or your cheeseburger but you're doing chuva. Okay but he says if you're not simcha you didn't do chuva. Why? Because you're one with God now chuva is about God it's not about whatever the cheeseburger you were eating. Okay so I gave that over and one of the things I picked up over the last few weeks in the Kuty Terra I said and you may be wondering I said to the crowd like come on come on right I said you have a godly soul right it says that you believe you have a godly soul you believe you're one with God somewhere deep down inside you believe you're God's only child like the Balshemtav is quoted as saying right second paragraph Tanya Kai me mom do you believe all that and you say yeah but I don't feel it see it experience it so leave me alone right yeah what is chuva the the the Al T Rebbe says in one of the memoriam chuva is you accept that's the way you should be feeling not should with a stick that should be your natural state of affairs and I crying because I'm not being my natural self that's the crying part of Juba okay so I'm still I guess I'm still hung up on still that line you said that the Friday looks serious but is really Basimica so maybe that's what everybody is and we're just stupid and how we are he didn't look depressed.

SPEAKER_01 33:21

He didn't look like he had no energy on his face so you're really defining it as like the lack of lack of highest not right so you don't mean real seriousness you mean like when a person takes themselves too seriously that also looks I don't know the contemporaries when babe Ruth walks up to the plate is he serious or laughing?

SPEAKER_05 33:45

He's serious. Okay is he happy to be there? I'd assume so yes I would assume so is his face look like he's elsewhere? No he's present he's present present he's fully there yeah I got that so you have to be present and then the Tfillin what the middle Friedrich Reb is saying the Tfillin become present and it becomes a gilly and becomes begill and gilloy means and to answer your question I think the answer is it's begiloi bifnim inside you. No one else sees it happening you don't have to be dancing and clapping but you're saying you have that awareness yeah and that's is that the Aleph and Tagola that's definitely on the Pella level.

SPEAKER_01 34:40

No even the shalom I think that's probably what it's referring to it's it's the gilly within of self of self uh you either believe this whole thing or don't you know what I I will have more respect for the guy who says I don't believe it I mean I don't know if I have more respect for that button more honesty okay fine but um yes his his performance I got it okay so then the I'm trying to think if my idea about this or expectation for this has changed based off of what you've told told me now I have to think about it.

SPEAKER_05 35:27

You know we're learning um in our Kharusa in Basilagani where the Rebbe says a formidable idea that's connected to this and the Rebbe writes that is that the right way to say it the Rebbe writes Basilagani Maimer the uh wrote down what he said okay the Rebbe writes that he gives the mushal of the Koin Godol and Yom Kippur that the entire picture of Yom Kippur which is the highest day of the year the apex is a complete paradox complete set of contradictions on one hand the Koin Godol is separate from the whole everybody and he's going into the Holy of Holies he can't have one foreign thought he's really tapped in but he has to have a wife right and all that entails two opposites it's a day like any other day but you can't eat or drink. Even though it's a regular day one of the 365 doesn't it's not taken out of the calendar it's part of the calendar and then of course in space in t in in in Makem is the R and was not made made up of the measurements of the room it's also Nim nam nim nois it's a the the power of having two opposites so in case somebody was thinking okay I'm gonna look at the Tvillin and I'm gonna say that I believe that the Orange Soph is being nimshach into this tv by my mitzvah I'm drawing it down into the world and I'm willing to say I don't see it I'm willing to understand that I don't feel it but I really believe it's there and therefore I'm Basimcha. Okay is there a side of you that expects the tfilin to become um take a backseat to some ethereal moment no okay then where's the meaning of the Orient soap with the tefillin the twilin was there before I had Simcha.

SPEAKER_01 37:50

Okay but you're now with it now you're present with it.

SPEAKER_05 37:52

Oh you're saying it's me now have a gilly with it what's the gilloi I'm I'm talking about before the formula kicks in I'm talking about the person who's the evaluator of the is it is it particles or is it a wave so what I'm saying is you have to hold cup from both sides don't expect that it don't say even though the goshmias of the Tvulin doesn't collapse and go away I believe that the Abishta is being nimshak in this paratfilin right that's an evaluation comes very much biased by your where you're holding right I will believe that there's something happening but all I see is goshmias. And I would expect it not to be seen but I get it because the Torah says that it's really happening. Yeah no but the Rebbe is saying that the whole idea of the Koengadl mashal is everything is paradoxical mitzh are paradoxical they're totally physical and they're being nimsikh something that has no limitations are you willing to hold that paradox so you're never thinking that it should go away as a physical object are you thinking that all of my problems I walk into the base madrash in the morning and I have a big meeting in the afternoon and may close my business or keep it open and I'm gonna dove in normal or am I going to say if and I'm gonna meditate and do whatever it says you know all this Hasidic stuff if Hashem would work with me and he gives me the money today when I keep my business going okay I get it. Then I'll have what to dove in with but till now right now I'm in a state of worry. What's davening got to do with it I can dove in for it but I'm still in a total state of worry and of doubt it's an understandable place to

Parnasa Stress And Anger At God

SPEAKER_05 40:04

be in. Yeah what happens if you apply paradox you're not pretending you're not worried you don't ignore the worry you you almost include it in your in your experience exactly okay I hear that you know and that that becomes um you become the RN somebody came to me this week and I was like almost in tears he had a job uh he didn't have a job for a long time and then he was offered a trial job to see what you know and he did well but they decided they couldn't figure out how to fit the job into the project so he lost his job and he goes wow I'm so angry at God why are you angry at God? He said because he teases me I said he plays with you like a cat with a with a ball of yarn right he says yeah like a mouse says yeah I'm really and he was really seriously angry and giving up I hear that yeah you you can relate to that too we all can we all can so what do you say to a guy like that right nothing it's like it's the same halakh as you don't make someone who's got their close relative lying dead in front of them and you go up to them and say don't worry it's gonna be okay. Yeah right so what are you gonna tell this guy but he's mourning his Parnasa death yeah don't try to comfort someone when they're dead in front of them right um that's where I think about the Chasidim of Russia that that you have these of course very f they're Yhidim but you have these incredible um fairy tale characters who would dove in for hours in Russia which had no future to their lives technically and they weren't naive. How do they hold cup from both so I think that one of the pla reasons why so many going back to my original thoughts that so many Orthodox Jews are walk around looking bent and beaten because they expect this dichotomy they don't think they're holding up to their expectations God has abandoned them. I saw an interesting because their Parnasa is not meeting the needs of their school their Skarlimud which I get I saw an interesting article on on anash.org actually by Rabashkin and he says what happened to us that we don't tell our kids that sometimes you suffer because it's your fault and he didn't say woke but you're basically being woke and saying everything's okay. Tell them the truth yeah tell tell your average person you deserved it but it's halacha. If you see things going wrong Pashpaj Bhamasaf look into what you've been up to I you don't think that's people's default is that they blame themselves for a lot but they're very self critical I don't know I I hear your point so now no so the question no so the question is is since they're it is tough so they are self critical and they You know b they do blame themselves. So why how do you expect to be Basimcha?

SPEAKER_01 44:11

Yeah. So what did you tell this guy?

SPEAKER_05 44:18

Nothing wise except for one thing. I can't get into these 'cause I don't want anyone to know who he was, but is. But I said, did you have do you have other options? He goes, yes. I I said, okay. Did they materialize yet? No, I'm waiting. I say, so how do you know this is uh how do you know that Davis should abandon you? Why maybe you're abandoning Hashem? This is in the Soyun, you're telling me, and I don't want tests, and that I said, you know, I we didn't have time to go into the whole Pshat and the Khassidis about what a test is and so forth. I know that's your favorite subject, but um well it is, it's your favorite mimer. You told me that. But um you know, whatever, it's a long story what I told him. But the I didn't take a long time to say it, but I don't want to go down that road.

SPEAKER_01 45:20

Okay, but it's tough, it it's extremely tough. I mean, I uh it's not the same thing, but and it's not grin and barrent, by the way. No, I it it but it goes down to it it comes down to like you were saying before, it's like okay, well, what do you believe? Do you do you actually believe this stuff? Do you actually like hold by what it says, or is it just theory? Is it a nice platitude? Is it nice is it for you know other people who are holding at higher levels? Is this what it's referring to? Meaning like this, if this guy truly believed that he was gonna get a job, that Hashem was gonna take care of him in the end, and like you know, the Rebbe said to people, like, how'd you make it up until this point? Like, you were helped and it worked, whatever it is, and use that knowledge of proof that you were taken care of to know that you're gonna continue to be Yeah, but he he'll tell you that he's being taken care of in a way that he always loses his job. I I again we could go into the details for this. I don't know who this guy is, but the the point is like okay, if you're gonna be taken care of regardless, are you gonna are you gonna do it with Minucha? Are you gonna get there with manuka, or are you gonna get there through stress? Meaning, is your stress actually gonna help the situation? Or like, do you might as well just try to figure out how to have manuka in the knowledge that you know that you're ultimately gonna get there anyway?

SPEAKER_05 46:47

Well, I don't know what you mean by having a menu, because it sounds it I could make it uh an idea that grin and bear it. Be comfortable with the fact that you have no pronouns. Yeah. No.

SPEAKER_01 47:03

Why should I be comfortable that I don't have any pronouns? It's not that you're comfortable with the actual reality, but the the fact that you are doing everything you can.

SPEAKER_05 47:14

Well, first of all, that's a big question with a capital B, but go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 47:17

I don't think that's what this guy was saying. This guy wasn't saying that he wasn't trying. I'm saying you No, I'm not talking about what he was saying. No, I yeah, I I got that point. But my my my thought behind it is like, okay, you're going to get to your goal eventually. How do you want to get there?

SPEAKER_05 47:35

Like how and in what so in this case, I don't want to be played with.

SPEAKER_01 47:39

Yeah, but it's not up to him.

SPEAKER_05 47:42

No, but that was this article. You're being played with because you deserve it because you are playing with God. That's what he basically was advocating. Yeah. And he was saying that we talk about all these nice things and so on and so forth. Um, and you know, like the bumper sticker, God loves you. And uh this guy's saying he doesn't love me.

SPEAKER_01 48:04

Yeah, I mean, you you your favorite example of the Holocaust, you know. Did they have bumper stickers back then? Hashem loves me, as you know, you know, they were they were gonna get killed, and either people went in crying.

SPEAKER_05 48:19

There's nothing on the there's nothing on the walls to say, don't worry, God loves you.

SPEAKER_01 48:22

Yeah, like that's I'm saying, like, but but the people who marched in, there were those who marched in crying and depressed or whatever, and there were other people who were singing. I mean believers.

SPEAKER_05 48:33

So how did you by the way it's a little nuts, but okay. Um I was there. I was there. Gimbal Thomas. I still remember sitting on the corner by the light on Kingston and and uh Easton Parkway, and on the women's section, you know, the the balcony of the women's section, outside I'm talking about, were people singing and dancing. They're not going to see this as a bad event.

SPEAKER_01 49:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 49:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 49:07

So I don't know what to yeah. I don't know if I've I would equate it to what I just said, but fine.

SPEAKER_05 49:12

Why?

SPEAKER_01 49:13

Uh okay, whatever. I I'm I I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 49:16

Conceptually, it's the same.

SPEAKER_01 49:18

Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 49:19

I'm going to be happy with the situation that it is.

SPEAKER_01 49:24

If that's what they were doing?

SPEAKER_05 49:26

Okay, if that's what they were doing. You can argue they weren't, but um and they were in a state of uh denial, but I don't think they were in a state of denial. But in the sense of, you know, they knew what they were there for. But who knows? You know, we can't uh but um all I'm saying is is that that's the koyach of the paradox. You're not saying it doesn't suck, but you're basimcha because you're still with God. But it sucks. Yeah, I understand. It's got me as dick filling. I understand. So are you gonna evaluate it according you know, and it's interesting because the Gemara says anything measured is not a caliph or bracha. Brachas, mice, all this good stuff, the bracha has to be unmeasured. It's straight out of this, I mean, this principle. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:32

And you know.

SPEAKER_05 50:39

So when the guy walking down the street looks like he's got a ton of rocks on his back, obviously he can't handle the paradox. It's either way. I didn't say the Bobaj, I said orthodox Jews. Oh, okay. I I may include are are Lebavajers Orthodox? Oh, okay, good. Closest thing. Closest thing to our midst, is right. Um so what's that gotta do with you and me?

SPEAKER_04 51:16

Where do we each of us do this?

SPEAKER_05 51:23

And how fast do we give up because of it? Right. Um You know, I'm thinking, you're talking about Balchova before, but you take a guy, I don't know about now, because now the world's a different place, but when I was coming back to Yiddishkite, I wasn't coming back to it, I never had it, but um we heard these concepts, and it was so different than what we had been taught, and so different from what we expected, the concepts that it was already uplifting. The guy who's born in Crown Heights on uh on uh President Street or whatever, and he's heard these concepts and has never ever seen in his life anything close to it, he dis he dismisses the concepts to begin with, right? Now comes the uh wide-eyed, bushy-tailed BT into Crown Heights, etc. etc. And what's his eventual experience? Similar.

SPEAKER_04 52:35

Probably.

SPEAKER_05 52:36

Yeah. So how is so that's totally

Koitzer Ruach And Moving Fast In Exile

SPEAKER_05 52:45

normal now? So is that our state? Is that what it means when Moisha Rubinu came to the in says they couldn't listen to him, but Koitzeruch? Yeah.

unknown 52:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 52:55

Koitzer ruch, I can't breathe, I can't catch my breath. I can't, it's not only breath, because ruch also means I can't listen to you tell me all this religious stuff. I really can't. What better time? You know what it's interesting. I'm just gonna say like this. One of the s one of the positives the Hazal tell us is that they abush to burn the building. The bricks and the mortar, so to speak, but not the bodies, yeah. What?

SPEAKER_01 53:35

Not the people, not the bodies.

SPEAKER_05 53:36

Not the people, right. Not the ones who are the viewers. They they abish the took the wrath, as they call it, on bricks and mortar mortar. But not on the people. In other words, you have to be able to separate between the particle and the wave. And when you're not holding from uh the place you should be holding from, everything becomes particle-like. Very structured, very limited, easy to break down. And the whole maybe the whole three weeks is and you think about the whole three weeks is about speed, right? Because the three weeks are corresponding to the almonds that um sprout the quickest of all plants, as it says. And that's also Birchus Koihanim. The authorib explains, going Lamila Meseli Stoshlis. And you know what? I saw something from the morale. Morale says that um when it describes the uh the um what are they called? The um medwives in in Mitsraim, it says, and when they and and Pyro said, What are you doing? You're not killing them. So they they answer they say, they're like animals, they're quick. Right? They're the women, they give birth quick. And uh the morale explains that that alacrity is the opposite of gullus. You have to be able to handle paradoxes.