Lech Lecha: "Go To Yourself" - Personal Fulfillment through Overcoming Life's Tests

In this episode, we are learning the Nesivos Shalom on Parshat Lech Lecha!

If you want to follow along inside, it is in the Nesivos Shalom on page sameach bet (62). You can find a pdf of the piece here.

Thank you to this week’s generous sponsors!

This week’s episode is sponsored l’ilui nishmas Hillel ben Yoel Yaakov, as well as my grandmother, Tzipporah bas Chaim Dov HaLevi.

This week’s episode is sponsored by my sister and brother-in-law l’ilui nishmas our grandmother, Tzipporah bas Chaim Dov HaLevi, Morah Cecile Stein. In her words: "Hashem and His Torah, family, and education were three of the things that made our Bubby the happiest."

If you would like to sponsor an episode of the podcast, please email Rabbi Charnoff at rabbicharnoff@gmail.com.

Transcript

Rabbi Charnoff 0:07

Hello everyone. This is Rabbi Robbie Chernoff and you are listening to the Hasid for Life podcast, the podcast where we learn a deep Hasidic insight every single week and explore how it can lead us to a more meaningful, vibrant, and spiritually uplifted life. In this week's episode, we will be learning that is shalom. If you would like to follow along inside, you can go to the show notes for a link to A PDF, but feel free to just sit back, listen, and enjoy the ride. Thank you so much to this week's generous sponsors. This week's episode is sponsored by a dear Tam Lima, her cousin, as well as Lima, my grandmother, RA ba, who passed away over sko. It's also sponsored by my wonderful sister and brother-in-law, Lilo Ishma, our grandmother, Vy Morris. Cecil Stein. In her words, Hashem is Torah, family and education. Three of the things that made our boob the happiest. Thank you so much to both of our sponsors and remember that your sponsorships are what make this podcast happen. If you would like to sponsor an episode of the podcast, please email rabbi chernoff@gmail.com or see the show notes for more details. Alright, with that, let's jump into Parsha. We are in on par. In the first piece on page, Sam says to Avra to leave his land and his birthplace and the house of his father to the land. that I Hashem will show him. Says so. The notes in Vy through the says that there are two times in the stories of A, where we have the words, the command, the very unique command of, and says Vy. I don't know which of the two is more beloved. Before the first or the second. From that which it says, I will go to Ria. It seems that the second is more beloved than the first. What does this mean? What are the two s that are being referenced here in the mi? I think he's gonna explain it in the text here. Let's see what he says and if final I'll open it up. What this means is he's explaining the MI that there were two tests by Nu, which had the term this command, this unique command of, and Rebi Levy is not sure which one is more beloved than the other. I Is it this test, the test of God telling Avram to leave behind his homeland and to go to this land that I will show you? Or what's the second one? Ni by the aa. It also says, if you look at the end of Parsha er, the next parsha. It says when he sends him off to Shakti son, it also uses the, this is astonishing. This is crazy. How could you even compare the two tests at all? Who's promised that he's going to continue Abraham, who has no children his entire life, who waits for 10 years with Saara to have a kid who finally is promised finally gets Yitz. That is told that Yk and Yitz, you're telling me that there's any base of comparison whatsoever to go start walking and I'll tell you when to stop. Really? How could he ask such a question? It's beyond understanding the adea. It's even harder to imagine a person who has children. It's even harder to imagine. Sacrificing one's own child than giving up your own life If given a choice between the two, you ask any parents, ask any parent. If they see somebody holding up a gun to their kid has to show'em. They will jump in front of the bullet. No questions asked. Your life versus your kid's life. It's you. And yet you're asking the question, which was a bigger ne scion. Well, I don't understand. You're rugby lavy. What is he trying to tell us? And especially since what it says in the, that there's this progression in the suk of like slowly easing him in and also raising the, the, the stakes. Each time with each phrase God says to Abraham, take your son, your unique son, the one that you love, y to building up to the fact that it's y says who said to a Abraham by the A, he said the words, the child, which you love when he said, when God said the words which you love, to a Abraham, that, that Abraham became enlivened and encompassed with. The whole Ava that there was in the world, which he had for his son and the love for his son of. And then he said, and how can we even begin to understand the greatness of such a test? And if so, the how? Could you ask which ones more beloved? It should obviously be the oc. We also have to explain, which has so, so many interpretations. The first words said to the first Jew are so packed with meaning. What is go to you? Go for you, go for your benefits. What does this, this, this meaning of this? So we have to understand in the words. So Rashi on the spot explains the words, go for yourself, meaning go for your benefits. Meaning when Rashi here the first time appears, Rashi here defines LE as go for yourself and for your benefits. And that's his definition of le. He doesn't comment, it seems by by the aa. So we would assume that we would carry over rashi's definition in the first that it should be true of all S. So if Rashi's understanding of Laika here is go for your benefit, how do we apply? Go for your benefits to the aa. What benefit was there? Tobra and cadence clock. How do we understand that? Good. So we have the questions. Let's go on to the next paragraph. It says the name of that says, one of the greatest ISTs. Who ever lived that from the time of Adam Ha. No. Two people are similar. Every single person is unique from Adam Ion all the way until today, and no person can fix what's on someone else to fix. It's an incredible concept. Doesn't need anything or anyone. And everything that a Q Bku does and everything that a Q Bku creates, he creates with a purpose. Created you. You are unique. Regardless of whatever hangups you have, whatever self-esteem issues you may have, however low you may think of yourself, you are totally and completely unique. There never was anyone like you, and there never will be anyone like you. You are totally unique in the history of humanity. And not only that, not only are you unique, but you are unique in that you have a specific purpose. You were brought into this world to do something, to fix something, to change something in this world, and bring this world one step closer to completion, one step closer to perfection, one step closer to a perfected world if you want, and that's why you're here. It's something which only you can do. By definition only you can do it. Aakash. Boko created you unique with your unique capacities, your strengths, your weaknesses, your interests, your distractions, your challenges, all of that constellation of factors that defines who you are is what makes unique and makes you therefore uniquely suited to fulfill the goal that you are meant to do. And no one else can do it. No one else can do it. And there can be times in our lives where we think to ourselves, there can be times in our lives. What's the point? Maybe for some of us, it's why are we even bother getting outta bed in the morning? What am I really contributing to the world? I don't have a job. Uh, I don't have anything to do. I'm not, my purpose is I'm job searching, or I'm college hunting, or I'm applying to medical schools, or I'm applying to law schools. Or I'm going and I, and I'm, or even I'm in a job, I get up and I do my work and I sit down and I make my widgets, and who cares? What do I really matter? I show up tohu, but soda, hundreds of other people. I'm part of dominion, but so are dozens of other people. I go to the kiddish, but everybody else would rather there be more food anyway. What's my purpose? What's my point? Why isn't bother getting outta bed? Ne it's an incredibly, incredibly powerful concept. A who says you think you're not special? I created you. You're gonna go against me. I say you're special. I say you're unique. And to deny that you are unique and specialist to deny me. You think that you have no reason to get outta bed. I woke you up. I gave your soul back to you this morning. I believe in you. I gave you a job, and I believe that you can fulfill it. That's one of the layers of meaning and reflection and contemplation and meditation that we should have. We wake up in the morning, we say Ani every morning. I thank you that you returned my soul to me with great mercy, but it's those last two words, those last two words that start our day. Some of us may misunderstand it to mean tremendous in you. No, that's not what we're saying. It's not. It's Rabbi, how much faith you have, what faith does God have? How much faith you God have in me? If you took that precious soul and you chose to give it back to me this morning. It's because you have a job for me, a unique job that only I can fulfill. Only today. You gave it to me and you have faith in me that I am going to fulfill that job. God gave me a job. God has a purpose for my existence. God has something he needs me to do, so to speak. There is nobody in the world like me, and there's nobody who can do what I can do. You wake up and you hear those words reverberate as you say them. Hopefully slowly and with kavana in the morning, you supercharge your day when you realize that you've been awoken to divine purpose and not just to the generic divine purpose as part of CLA Israel to the unique divine purpose that belongs to you and only you, no matter how lost you may feel at certain times in life. No matter how aimless you may feel at certain times in life, no matter how repetitive things may feel or seem at certain times in life, AK who is saying every single day, you have a purpose, you have a goal, get up and do it because I need you to only, you can. Only you have the constellation of personality traits and cohos and powers and capacities that can get this thing done. That's how we start the day. That's what it means to be a Jew. That's what the Ariza is saying. There's no two Jews who have ever been alike from creation, and every single one has their own goal, their own purpose, their own thing they need to fix. He goes on and explains, we're at the top of the second column. Every single person has their own goal, their own purpose, their own destiny. Which they have to fix in their lifetime. And included in this is the unique thing which I have to fix. My thing that I need to fix organizes things in such a way that all of the circumstances and all of the necessary conditions that I need to do that are in front of me in order to do it. The whole circumstances of my life are organized to set me up, to be able to go forth and succeed at fixing that which he has defined for me, made my destiny to fix, to fulfill my destiny in this world. All of the conditions of life that a person has in physicality and in spirituality for good and for bad, they were all given to a person based on what they need to fix in this world. It's only through these conditions, through these circumstances, that I can actually reach my destiny, ham. And without them, I couldn't fix what I needed to fix. And since every single one of us has a different purpose, a different goal, a different destiny, a different thing we need to fix. Therefore, every one of our conditions are different. For one person, their circumstances may be more easy, and for somebody else it might be more difficult or challenging. And in a general sense, we can see it with our own eyes that every person has their own unique circumstances of their life, where their life is taking them, that's different from everybody else's. What he's saying here is incredibly deep. What he's saying here is that jealousy, as we knew it is, is a farce. There's no reason to be jealous. To think for a second. I think about myself and I know that there are certain things that I'm good at and there are certain things that I'm bad at. There are certain mitzvahs that I'm great at and neba. There are certain mitzvahs that are such a challenge for me, and I'm constantly failing at, and I'm constantly struggling with, there's certain character traits that I have that are amazing, but neba, I have such some character traits that are awful. No matter how hard I work, it's so hard to overcome these character flaws. And there are, sometimes I look at somebody else, I say, oh, I wish I could have it like them. The work ethic they have, the life circumstances they have, or they just said, great in the stock market, how much money they came into, or I look at this, this person, they're just, they're so sweet. They're so kind, they're so calm, they're so giving, they're so wonderful. This person, like they always managed to make the right choices. I'm so jealous. This person found the perfect, they, they, they've only been dated. They, they married the first person they met, they they dated. They got it so easy. This person has, they decided they wanted to have kids and suddenly they have 10 kids and I'm struggling to have one. So many things. We look at other people and we wish that it was easier. We wish that it was better. We wish that we were better. And it's a farce. It's a farce. If we understand that each one of us is totally unique and that a karaj Boku gives each one of us the internal capacities, strengths, challenges, difficulties, gives each one of us externally, different opportunities, different paths that are in front of us, different ways that life takes us. Certain lives seem on the outside more simple and easier, and certain lives seem on the outside more complicated and difficult. There is nobody else to look at. If I understand that God created me and he created me with a purpose. A purpose that only I can fulfill, and that he is guiding me with his strong and loving hand. Guiding me through life to complete that, which I am here to do, and I understand therefore that everything that I have, every character traits, every character, f flop, every shekel I have and every shekel that I've lost, every occurrence in my life that I've cried and laughed and celebrated, and that I've cried tears of bitterness, everything has been brought my way to help me complete exactly what I need to do in my life. I have everything I need. It's the depth of what it means. Ashu Ashe, who is truly rich, a person who's happy with this lot, not because that person is able to say, okay, I can. If I have what I have, I can be happy with what I have. That's very nice. It's a nice musser. It's so much deeper than that. Hir. Who is truly rich, one who's happy with his lots because he realizes that he has everything he needs and nothing that he doesn't. And if you really internalize that, you understand that I have everything that I need, and S if a were to give me any of the things that I don't have and that I wish I had, I'd never be able to fulfill my goal because I'd be distracted. They'd take away from me. If I was just a little bit smarter, I'd outsmart myself from what I have to accomplish. If I was just a little bit more good looking, a little bit prettier i'd, I'd end up with the wrong person and my whole life would go in the wrong direction. I'd get the wrong attention, I'd be unable to handle it. I don't know, whatever the age issue may be, I had a little bit more money. I'd buy the wrong thing. It's like, it's like imagine. Imagine a carpenter. It takes out a toolbox to begin a job. And then imagine that somebody came along and said, hold on one second. And they took the carpenters well worn lifelong toolbox away and gave him an upgraded toolbox with everything he could ever need in any situation possible. And it was six times the size. Ironically, he'd mess up the job because he knows his tools and he's learned how to use them and everything that he has in his toolbox. He's designed carefully and put exactly where he needs and knows exactly what it's for. And ne he looks at the shiny new tool and is so excited to use it. And then three months later, the pipe underneath your house bursts and your house is flooded because he used the fastest, the fancy special tool that he didn't know how to use. Right. And he was never meant to have, and it didn't work. Instead of fixing, you could break all the things in life we wish we had. It only would distract us and harm us from completing that which we need to complete to frame it, reframe it in the positive. We have exactly what we need. Gifted to us by Q individually, packs with love. Every single one of our toolboxes, it's called our Shama. He packs it with all its unique T, and he gives it a kiss and he hands it to us when we're born and it has everything we actually need to do. Everything we actually need to do. And I can't for a second give up a single one of those tools. Everything I have is precious and meaningful, and I am great at certain things and everything I don't have. I never need it, and it's a gift from Akash Bojo that I don't have it'cause it would distract me or mess me up in completing that, which a Kash Bojo wants me to complete. It's a beautiful, deep, empowering way to understand who I am, why it's so important to understand who I am, what my capacities are, what my strengths are, what my weaknesses are. How do I utilize and harness everything that a Q bur who has given me in order to complete that goal and to look at everything else that everybody has and be happy for them because they have what they need also. And I don't need or want any of it. I have exactly what I need to do, exactly what I need to do internally and externally, and how Akash Burko made me, and in all of the circumstances that he brings upon me in my lifetime. He goes on and he says, and that's because every single one of us has our own unique Taki. We have our own unique goal. And we have all of the conditions that we need in order to fulfill it. The, and even the most difficult and challenging circumstances that we go through, who they're all things to help us get to where we need to get to because Rah Evil does not come down from Shamayim. And it's all for the good of man in order that we should be able to fix that, which is sha to us. That which is necessary for us sha that through this we're able to grasp our goal, our purpose in this world, every single life circumstance that comes along our way And every single one of us on our own level has difficulties and challenges, and there's a certain level, and it's fine, and it's human, and it's normal that we say, why me? Why do I have to go through this? Why did I get rejected from graduate school? Why can't I find my bahar? Why did I get laid off from work? Why did I get yelled at by my boss? Why does my kids seem to be going off to Derek? Why, why, Why am I living through a war? Why is this going off in the middle of the night? Why? Why is life have to be so hard? And the answer is, look at that challenge and embrace it. It's a very famous word, and it's certainly not mine that it's so beautiful that in Hebrew, the word for why is llama. Why did something happen? But it's also Lima to where is it going? We spend so much time in our lives lamenting and looking at the past and asking why did something happen? Sometimes we're angry at God, sometimes we personalize it. What did I and I, I must have done something so bad. I'm such a, I'm such a sinner. I deserve it. I'm such a horrible person. Whatever the looking back is looking back's not always so healthy. It's good to learn from the past, but only a little bit. We're jumping ahead of parsha, but my, everyone's told me at a time in my life in Shana Olive when I was looking at the past and lamenting over the past, I was crying in his house, and it's from next week's par. He said, Robbie, I wanna tell you something. There was somebody else who once looked back, who looked back, the wife of Lotte, the wife of Lotte, looked back and she turned to a pillar of salt. He said, why salt? Of all things, like it's such a strange thing. She turns to a pillar of salt. Why salt? He said, I'll tell you why. The past is a very powerful thing and the past is very beautiful and we need to take from the past a little bit like salt. You take salt and you add a little bit of salt to a dish. It brings out all of the flavor. But if you've ever experienced and don't lie, you all have, where you've over salted a dish, the whole thing is ruined. Too much salt and it's done. He said, that's lot's wife. She was living back in stone. She couldn't let stone go. She over salted her life by looking at the past and she turns to a pillar of salt and he told me, he said, yeah, yeah, all the things you're saying are true, but you gotta take only a little bit of the past. You don't, you don't deny the past, you don't reject the past, you don't suppress the past. You take a little bit of the past to add a little bit of flavor to the present and then you let it go. We don't obsess over the llamas, but honestly. I think we'd all do a little bit better to obsess a little bit more over the lama. Where is it going? Wow. I, I, this is the craziest thing that happened to me. Why did I get sick? Why did I get injured? Why did this person in my family going through this, why am I going through this? Why is my child suffering this way? Why can't I get the job? Why can't I get to the school? All the things in our life, all these things in our lives, and they're real, and they're challenging, they're very real. But to take a step back on a clear hask vantage point and say, oh, but if this is happening, a kahu is bringing it this way. Kahu is bringing it here. And if a K Bhu is bringing it to me, it needs to be for a reason. Where is this meant to take me? It's a deeper question. It's a question that propels you forward through challenge, through difficulty, all the difficulties that all of us have uniquely in all of our unique lives. Every single one of us. Bku gives us challenging things. And the question is, Lima, where is this all going? How is this related to my relationship to AK Bku? Why is God and it is God? Why is God bringing this my way? What is he trying to teach me? Where is he trying to bring me? What is the purpose here? Because everything God does, he does with love and purpose. Purpose. Kahu brings all these things our way, Lima. Where is the Kahu taking us?'cause everything he does, he does in this world for us, to us, but for us to bring us to where we need to get to in this lifetime. We have a goal to accomplish. And Ako is helping us get there in all of our challenges, in all of our life circumstances. We have to have a moon unchallenging times. We have to remember it's all from him. And that's what allows us to forge forward, to go forward with strength. With strength, with conviction, with power, and with the ability to accomplish and change ourselves and change the world. next paragraph. And these things are particularly relevant when it comes to spiritual things. When it comes to the nature and the traits and the qualities of our soul, each one of us has our own new capacities in our soul. Every one of us is unique individual. We have our constellation of personality traits of things that we love and things that we don't love, of things we're good at, and things that we're not good at, of things that are easy for us in character traits that are great in character traits that are challenging every single one of us. And there are people who are born with more positive and easier character traits, and there are those who neba suffer from more challenging character traits. They're more easily enraged, they're more easily come to jealousy. They're more easily come to hatred. Somebody who's more easily angered or is more easily drawn by desire or ego, like any of these other bad top of the next page, to understand that they're all there intentionally built them into us. They're all there to help me do that, which I need to do in this world. The, and not just, it's not just our good tar character traits that bring us to our destiny, that bring us to accomplish our goals. So to our negative inclinations. So to our negative mitos, they're there to help us become better, to struggle against them shale by overcoming them, um, and breaking those negative me dose. That's purpose in this world and equal to the amount of effort that we put in. That's what we get out. And if who is telling us you're here to grow, you're not here to be, you're here to become, you're here to fix, then the challenges that are there allow us that growth, allow us to overcome. The only way, the only way you grow is by continuing to push. And if we had nothing to push against, we would never become. Everything we have is a gift. The good and the bad, the easy and the challenging. Everything is a gift. Next paragraph, the the, and again, so too, all of the challenges and all of the tests that AK, who puts us through in our lifetimes, all of the tests. There are those that shaim are brought through very difficult tests. The gal Laham, like we've been discussing up until now, but now he's it in the text that with some people in life, some of us, we go through such difficult tests from a Kaddish, ku that yeah, there can be times that we get angry with a Kaddish ku and we go against, we question, is there really any God who's guiding all of this, who's bringing me all of these tests, these difficult tests that I seemingly can't overcome? It costs me so to think such a thing. But that's, we've, we've been in those places, so many of us, we've been in those places where it seems like K enough, whatcha doing? Are you even doing this? What's the point? There's no way. But the truth is that all the tests of life that a Jew goes through, re every single one of them, and now we're starting to come back a little bit to ov All of them are, they're all for your benefit. They're all for your good. Everything that comes our way in life is a gift from it's all for our benefit and for our good. Like Rashi define, they're getting me to fulfill my purpose. By overcoming those tests, then I can get to the fixing of the world that I need to do and my purpose in being in this world. Says, what does it mean to feel, be a full and complete? The way you're a full and complete is, is what brings you to the, at the exact same time, to the exact same place, with the exact same temptation and you overcome. That's a full Alva. And what kind of craziness is that? I failed the last time at that time in that place with that desire. That was where I fell. What are you doing? Schlepping me back to the exact same situation. You wanna just like sit there and laugh and I'm gonna fall again. I don't understand. But the truth is, yes, RA who brought you there and only RA could have brought you there to that exact same time, to the exact same place with the exact same Tiva for your benefit, for your good, to give you the chance to fix it. I says, no, no, no, you messed up. Last time you fell. You fell and you sinned and you got far from me. And all I want you to do is be close to me. So I'm gonna bring you right back to that same place at the same time, at the same Tiva. I'm gonna bring you there'cause I have faith in you. I have faith in you. This time you're gonna overcome and you're gonna get back to me. You're gonna get close to me. Sha that by overcoming that test y, you'll be able to fix that, which you broke, where you reached the level of being mam Chuva. And with all of this background, now we can come back to a nu. So what's going on with Anu? What's going on with this? With this question of re levy? Who wants to understand which is the bigger, so let's see how it all fits in. This is the meaning of go from your land, from your birthplace, from your father's household, go to you. What does that mean? Everything we've been saying in this piece until now, it's a lifelong journey of going to yourself. Go to you. Go to your goal, your destiny, what you specifically were meant to accomplish in this world. Go to the fixing that your soul needs to accomplish. Mat, what you need to fix in this. That is the main goal of a Jew are the first words to the first Jew, and therefore, they are the first and primary words to every single Jew for all time. They're the paradigmatic words that are stated at the beginning of the lifetime of every single Jew, me, you, and everybody else. And they spend your whole life figuring out who you are, why Burg will put you here, and what you meant to accomplish. And go do it. Go to your goal. Go to your destiny. Says, frightening what the says. Frightening in the names of, in the name of the Tous AVOs says to not me, the Tous AVOs. It's very intense, but it's very deep. He says, you can be a Jew. You can be a Jew who spans your whole life living in the base Med Rush. You go and run to the base. Me you're born and you're named in the base mes and you grew up in the base mere and you have your bar bat mitzvah in the base mes. And when you get married you demand, you're never gonna leave the base mere. And they set up APA in the base. Me and you get married in the base mere and you name your kids in the base mes and you give them their Mila in the base Meris. And you grow old in the base and you have your spi after 120 in the base. Me, you spent your whole life doing a escha and Luny, you never left. And you get up to Shama. This is what he's saying here. You get up to Shama after 120 and a kale says new. What did you accomplish in your life? You say, what are you talking about? I was born into the base meds. I lived in the base meds. My whole life was in the base mere. All I did was learn in Dovan. And I goes book and says Nu. And you say, I don't understand. What more could you possibly have wanted? And he looks at you and he says, my dear Jew, I had such plans for you. Did you ever ask yourself? Why I put you in this world. You spent your whole life doing the easiest thing of a v Hashem. That which for you, you knew was gonna be, it was a guaranteed win where you wouldn't have to think, who am I? What am I, what are my strengths? What are I say, what do I have to accomplish? I had things I needed you to do. Your destiny wasn't the base. Me, every j every ju have to learn, but every Jew has a destiny. I had a destiny for you, and you shirked your responsibility because you wanted to make sure you were selfish. You wanted to make sure that you got a old haba, but I had things I needed you to do. In Al, that's what he's saying right here, black on white. We have to do the introspection to figure out who we are, why we're here. Again, every Jew has a vin and every Jew has a to learn. Not every Jew has a to become a KLO guy. Not every Jew has a to, you know, be part of the GPA s program. Not every Jew, there's select few people. And if it's not who you are, you need to figure out are I actually one of those people or not? And if you are, God help you. If you leave the base me rush, your whole life should be in the base me rush. But if you're not, a Kash is a job for you. It's not just checking boxes, it's getting to the depth of who am I and living my life to its fullest. As a K who attended, that's what he's gonna hold me accountable to, accountable for after 120. And that's what he's saying here. Abraham, and this is what a saying to Abraham that this is also not just for Abraham, but for all of Israel. We all have the genes of Abraham in us. We all come from Anu, and it's saying, being said to every single one of us, go to yourself to get to the thing that you need to fix that's unique to you. Ham, you edit, that's special for you. Every single one of us has to leave behind our land and our birthplace and our father's household, meaning all of the things that are ingrained within us while we're born and while we grow up nature and nurture, we need to sift through all of that. A who built in my nature tremendous things, positive things, wonderful things, but also negative things. I learned such amazing things from my parents' house, in my case, both of my parents' houses, right? I learned incredible things. I became who I am from everything I learned from my mother's house, everything I learned from my father's house. But there are also things that aren't tni or may not be the way that I'm supposed to live. That I live for those houses, all of us. It's true for every single one of us to look inside. I'm not an automatic product of my nature and my nurture. I'm expected to express the divine plan that a Kash Bojo planted within me. That's my to sift away all of the chaff, all of the dirt, and to express fully that witch hako, ingrained designed within me to live my life as it was meant to be to its fullest, to fulfill God's purpose for me in this world. Because the roots of all of our capacities, all of our natural capacities come from these three things. There are certain things whose roots are from the S, right? Three stages. There are certain things that come from my s from my land. There's certain things that, again, I was born in America, so certain things that are American that are ingrained within me, which I might not even be aware of because that's the culture that I came from and I'm high of to go and search and inside and see what things do. In what way do I see the world through the lens of being an American and what of those things do not. Align with Torah. Do not align with my goals, not align with what a Q with objective truth. And I have to excise them and it's hard, but I have to remove them. There are certain things that are uniquely New York and Lord knows that there are many things that are New York inside that need to be removed. Right? Exci, that New York side of myself, for all of us, wherever we come from, there are the negative sides of the place that we come from. Those things which are closer to us and more deeply ingrained than us because they're from the place of our, they're from our birthplace. And there's also, there are those things which extend from our, be from the, the house that we grew up in. Al that through the, the tremendous ways in which our parents raised us. There are also negative things that can come in. And in addition to all of the wonderful things that we've all gotten from our parents, there are negative things that also come in or things that, even if they're good, are not relevant to the way I need to live my life to fulfill my purpose and the purpose that God has for me. And I have to be able to let that go with love, but to let it go. Go. And that's what's being said. Yes, you have a beautiful Ts and a beautiful mo, and a beautiful, beautiful. But you have to forge the path that who wanted you to walk to get to your fixing. To get to your goal, to your purpose, you have to leave all of the negative character traits behind all the things that are either negative or not shy for you. From your s then and only then, if you're able to let go of all of that, then you'll be able to get to get to, to the land that I will show you to the proper fixing of everything you need to fix in this world. Let's do one more paragraph just to see. Hopefully we'll bring it back, bring it together. In terms of the test of Abraham, he says re so through this, with all of his background, we can now answer. We can now understand that, which Vy said, I don't know which one is more beloved. More beloved, oh, is the more beloved. How could you answer a question? What was Rabbi Levy linking into? Not the question of is more difficult or is the a more difficult in a vacuum, in a limited scope. He's saying that there's two totally different ways in which Haq who brings us tests in our lives. There is the continuous, endless fight the day in and day in struggles of go away, of leave behind your a. Hay leaving the inclinations and the built-in traits that you have that are part of your, the daily work to become one inch better than yesterday in everything that you are inside, this is a lifelong challenge. Every single moment, every single step that you take test, every single step is a challenge. There's constantly things pulling at us, and we always need to fight in the war against those IHAs, against those negative mitos, against those things that are ingrained inside of us. And there are things to come along in our life tests like the adea. Nobody's arguing. Obviously on the surface the A is the more challenging tests, but it's a test in the moment. It's these huge explosive tests that we go through that are so much harder, so much more immediately painful in the moment, but then pass in the times when our yha just attacks us in a way that it's not normal for it to be attacking us and says, the me is asking, which one is more beloved before? Is it the continuous fight, the daily struggle to improve myself? To leave behind my, to leave behind my negative character traits, to leave behind my negative inclinations, to leave behind my negative worldviews, to transform who I am from the inside out, which is a daily process, which I go through for my entire life. Azar, I don't understand exactly what he was quoting from in terms of aara, but again, this continuous battle against Zahar, this continuous battle against our negative character traits. Oh, or is it the test? Like the test of the eda? Because on the one hand they're only for a moment, I have to go through it for a day, a week, A couple of weeks. Okay. And then it passes. It's not, it's not a lifelong test. I'm not chugging this my whole life, but on the other hand, whoa, those two weeks, those two weeks are really heavy. Those two weeks are really rough. But those are times that they give my whole life and focus. My whole being on overcoming that challenge, it's a whole different ballgame. Get to a place where I'm giving my whole life to you, God, because this, this challenge is so overwhelming that I need to focus all of my mind and all of my heart and all of my soul to staying connected to you and understanding where I'm supposed to go as I'm traversing this incredibly difficult path as I'm going through this incredibly challenging moment of my life. And there's nothing like this. There's no test like this before. But the most important thing to understand, it doesn't matter which one is morally more difficult. It's important to understand that both on this in different ways, they're very different, but they're equally challenging in very, very different ways. But to understand that all of them together are what take me on the path of my life and bring me to my ultimate goal. The lifelong struggles against the things that are built into me that I need to overcome, and those flash in the pan moments, those moments that momish overturn my life to be able to overcome them and to be able to get through them to get back to those daily struggles. Both of them are tremendous. Both of them are challenging, and both of them are key ingredients that allow us to get to the ultimate goal of being able to fix in the world that which we were meant to fix. Life is not simple. That's not a kish. Life is not simple. We can't change necessarily our life. The main thing that we have disclosed to be able to change is the perspective that we have on what occurs to us in that life. Kamara tells us a very, very powerful line, which I think is often not understood fully enough. We translate that as everything is in the hands of heaven, except for fear of heaven. I think it's so much deeper than that. I'm sure it's deeper than that. Al. There's layers and layers to al ha what they said. Everything comes from everything you are comes from ak. Everything you experience comes from a, all the challenges that you have in your life come from ak. There's one thing and one thing alone that you truly have control over to see. It's your choice. How much you see heaven on earth in that life that you're leading. How much do you see God in those challenges? How much do you see God in the constellation of who you are inside? How much you see godliness in heaven, in you, and on earth and in your life? That's up to you. That's up to us, goes through 10 tests and through those 10 tests, he teaches us how much he loves a qd bku, and that in and of itself is the whole point more than the test themselves and more than understanding their details, we can understand and learn from Anu that it's through tests that we come to love a Kash Bku. We feel his guiding hand in our life, that we see that he's bringing us somewhere that we re reinforce in ourselves. The Una that I am created totally unique and that I have a purpose that no one else has. And a k in his loving hand, even in ways that are challenging, is bringing me to be able to complete that purpose. BMI should be beha, to be able to ignite our avnu, to hear the call of Made to the first Jew, and therefore to every Jew for all time. Go to yourself. Figure out who you are. Get over your hangups. Get over your insecurities. Get over yourself. Doubt. What are, are you amazing at? What incredible character traits do you have? Get over your ego. Where do you fail? What are you not good at? Not the way you beat yourself up, but just be honest with yourself. In what ways am I amazing? In what ways am I less amazing? In what ways am I meant to strive and succeed? What ways am I made to avoid? What ways am I made to overcome and to be honest with myself, with who I am and get closer and closer to who I am to be able to therefore walk down that road of life that God has paved for me to complete what that which he wants me to complete in this world, to bring the world to a closer place of tikun, to a more Tuan, a more fixed place. And Amir Hashem. Through that we should all fix what we all need to fix in this world. Each putting one more of those stones in that future based to build it, put the stone in that only I can put in, And through that Emir bring about the. Thank you so much for tuning into this week's episode. 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