209. Learn to Trust G-d's Plan

This week's episode features Amichai Gez, Rabbi and teacher in Brooklyn, NY. Rebbetzin Bat-Chen Grossman is a marriage coach for women in business. Join them in their intruiguing conversation all about Criticism and G-d. 

 

 Welcome to the Connected For Real podcast. I'm Rebbetzin Bat-Chen Grossman, a marriage coach for women in business. And my mission is to bring God's presence into your life, into your marriage and into your business. Let's get started. 

And we are live.  Welcome everyone to the Connected for Real podcast. I'm Rebbetzin Bat-Chen Grossman. I'm a marriage coach for women in business, and today with me is my brother. Amichai Gez Rabbi. Amichai Gez I should be respectful in public. I Hi. Introduce yourself, my father's Rabbi Gez. Ah, yeah.

Introduce yourself and tell us why I love you so much.  Okay. So basically my name's Amichai Gez  uh, 37 years old, married Baruch Hashem to my wonderful wife, Sarah Leah. I have we have five children, Baruch Hashem, three boys, two girls, kings over Queens.  And so far so good. Em, life is good. I uh, went to Yeshiva.  For many years, I even got to learn with your dear husband in Landers in Queens where I learned in the Yeshiva program and then received Semicha there.

Then I went on to learn in kollel in Brooklyn,  for four and a half years or so, and I received Semicha. There. A different topic for family purity. Semicha is rabbinical ordination, I believe. Rabbinic ord. Yeah. Yeah. I was gonna stop you to like, you know, make sure everybody is in the loop.  Sure. Yes. And during the end of my years in kollel, basically after my wife had her second child, Naomi it was kind of time for me to go and now pursue a career.

So the question was, what should I go into? Right? There's a lot of different fields. My undergraduate degree was.  Business management and marketing, which was inspired by my interest in psychology, but also I thought, I wanna make a living. And I, at the time was under the impression that psychologists social workers don't really make a substantial salary that would be able to support an entire family.

So why not become a rebbe right? No.  So then I, I thought to myself, you know what, what is a good combination between psychology and business? And that's how I ended up saying, Hey, marketing, it's all about consumer behavior. Trying to understand the psyche of the customer. What are they interested in, what are they excited to find in a product, what makes a product unique, that somebody would choose that product of a different product?

And it was so exciting and interesting. So I decided to go for marketing. I didn't realize that it was mainly focused on sales, sales courses and things like that. And. I just realized it's a certain point, either you got it, you don't. Do I wanna be a salesman? Did I even have to go to college if I'm gonna go into this field and become a salesman?

You know, it's a big debate. But the point is, after doing a few internships, one in accounting and trying to see if I could, you know, see myself going into accounting that was not for me. I wasn't really excited about that. And shout out to the accountant who actually hired me for three weeks and gave me a chance to have an internship.

And then I actually went and interned by Aish Aish.com. They do outreach work and all that. And I actually updated there find a shul anywhere in the world that you don't have to pay a membership for the high holidays. So we had a whole database and my job was you know, in that department to make sure to update it and make sure that anyone who's an unaffiliated Jew could find a synagogue near them.

That's not gonna charge them any money, and that's gonna have some sort of programming that's gonna accommodate their I guess, level of religiosity.  And it was very exciting. It was a nice program. So I did that for  I think two months over the summer unpaid internship. You know it's funny 'cause the other intern was a Baruch college student that wasn't religious.

And he tells me, oh, you also getting $25 a day for transportation and lunch, you know, bus fair and lunch, train fair, whatever. And I said no. So when I went to the accountant, I'm like,  my hi, you know what's going on? How come he is getting $25 a day and I'm getting nothing? He said, no, no, no. We're trying to bring him closer.

You know, we're trying to,  to help him become religious so therefore we pay him. You're a Yeshiva boy, you know, you don't need it.  So it was very exciting. Yes, they do a lot of wonderful outreach. They're a wonderful organization in many ways. But,  but that was my experience in undergrad. And then I was really, really looking forward to graduating so I could join the Beis Medresh program in Landers, in Queens.

Then I was able to join the semicha program, which is the Rabbinic ordination program. And while I was in that program,  I was, sorry if I'm going a little out of order, but I got married, thank God I had a baby, my oldest son Avraham  who's 13 and a half now.  So that was exciting. But anyway, being that we moved to Brooklyn, 'cause you know, they say you could take the girl outta Brooklyn, but you can't take the Brooklyn outta the girl. 

I wasn't really able to take the girl outta Brooklyn. So we ended up living in Brooklyn and  while we're living in Brooklyn. I found this other kollel that I was able to join. kollel is a learning environment, university, college or whatever that's been a college for married men  that are working. We get a small stipend, you know, for us, you know, starving survival wage just to pay part of our rent so we could continue learning Torah by generous sponsors.

And with that, I continued on my after receiving my first rabbi ordination from the yeshiva Queenslander College for Men,  I went on to learn in this Brooklyn kollel where was BTA  is a big rabbi,  and I learned by him for four years. We did Shabbat, the laws of the Sabbath and its commandments.

Specifics, all the laws of  things that are set aside that we don't use in Shabbat on the Sabbath. And I'm not gonna say tabernacle, you know, that's obvious word. But anyway, I just did  so long story short, after that we did the family purity and it was very exciting.  And then I got the rabbinic ordination for that.

And like I said, at this point, my daughter Naomi, was born in 2014 and it was kind of time to go looking for a higher paying salary. So my wife had graduated from a master's program and special education,  and she also did dual track, regular education, special education. She went on to get licensed in first through  sixth grade and then seventh through 12th.

So she was like fully licensed and all that.  But I  joined the program with a good, good chaver of mine. Rabbi Daniel Gabriela. He was my chavruta for many years. Study partner where we learned y section of the  Han Y is all about the laws of salting meat and making sure to get rid of the blood.

'cause it, the Torah forbids us from eating blood. And it's not just the blood that's on the surface, but also the blood that is absorbed into the meat. So we have to salt it. And the salt does the process of  sucking out, pulling out all the blood that's inside of it. As it says, look at that. The Torah tells us not to eat blood.

Now, who wants to eat blood? And  says,  the Torah is showing you that even though it's such an easy mitzvah, it's something that's so disgusting, so gross, repulsive. You get rewarded for that. So how much more so for the other commandments that we struggle with and that we have to push ourselves to follow them?

How much more so the Torah is showing us the Torah is the Bible by the way. How much God is I know God. Yes. The living Lord of Israel will be rewarding us for keeping his. commandments and Overcoming our challenges. So that was one you guys, sorry, I'm gonna stop you. I'm having so much fun.  My smile is stuck from ear to ear.

I feel like, you know, do you remember at the wedding where you were smiling so hard that your cheeks hurt? So that's what I feel right now. I'm like so proud of my little brother.  No, you know, its really special. You know, our father always talks about having a sense of family and really I thought about it when you asked me to be in the podcast.

Like I said to you, I guess you ran outta guests, you know, but hey, you're the 12th place of podcast for women. So that's a big deal. So obviously I'm, did you see that? I was very Congratulations.  Very proud of you. Yeah. Slowly, slowly, you'll trail to the first place. I'm sure Be'ezrat Hashem, but what I was thinking to myself was sense of family, you know, gotta stop.

The world stops for our siblings and for our family, and we really gotta support each other in whatever we're doing. And I'm very proud of you. So keep it up. And that's why I, I'm here to thank you. Yes. And then of course you know, the Jewish laws of the, the kosher kitchen, not combining the meat and milk we have that as a Chok.   

A how do you describe ho as a, as a rule? Right, without an explanation, right? Something without an explanation. Something that we have to keep to. So there's a lot of intricate laws about a drop of milk or even cooking in the same oven for medium milk at the same time. So ask your local Orthodox rabbi whenever you have a question.

It really helps to learn these laws.  So that's what I learned with my friend, rabbi Gabrielle. And also we learned the laws of forbidden mixtures, kosher, non-kosher, and what renders something kosher or not. And of course, Keilim, you know, what happens with the vessels, the forks and, and spoons and cutlery and and such, and the pots and pans.

What happens and how do you rectify the situation if unfortunately you messed up? So again, we're in time with Elul  there's always a way back, you know,  except for earthen work. You know, Keilim, that those utensils absorb and they do not give off. You'd have to really put them in such a heat that they, they would get destroyed.

So  I guess, you know, you gotta know the laws. But anyway, that was that was the laws that I learned with him. And then he told me, Hey, I'm joining a master's program. Would you like to join me? You know, we could do it together. So. I said, sure, let's look into it. And of course, the very is my friend Rabbi Gavrielov

he's one of the principals in Yeshiva, Darchei Torah in Far Rockaway, and here in New York State.  And he's a wonderful person.  I'm really privileged to call my friend and we've been through a lot and a lot of growth together. So that's how you know what a real good friend is, you know, someone that brings you up.

Yeah. The Gemara says that when it comes to marriage, a person should, nah,  should try to go for a wife that's gonna be on a lower level than him, because that way she'll always look up to him and respect him. But when it comes to a friend, that person should go up a higher level because that friend is always gonna try to pull them up.

So they'll always be inspired to try to keep up with their friend as we know  when a person's jealous of his friends accomplishments and Toral learning and such. It really, really is a good type of jealousy and it encourages a person to work harder and to aspire to become great like their friends.

So just to shout out to all the people out there. Try to get a friend that really brings you up in life and makes you better. Like, I am very fortunate and I learned that for my wife, who's my best friend. Try to always choose your friends wisely. Yeah. You just, you just, you just like made this big.

Everybody's sitting there going, okay, now wait, if his wife is supposed to be a little bit less, but she's his best friend, does she now become more? Now we have a problem.  So the secret is that I didn't really follow that. And I actually married somebody who's, you know, outta my league and Baruch Hashem it worked out, you know, fake it till you make it, you know, I try to be the, the bigger guy, but Baruch Hashem, it's going great. 

Yes,  it happens to be that you have a really awesome wife that we all love. So chat.  Very good. So I will say that I decided to pursue the master's degree because I felt that that would be a good a good foray into my next chapter in life, which would be a career where I could support my family and do something that I'm passionate about.

Because as I'm sure your viewers know, both our parents  are and were teachers for many, many years, and it's kind of like in our DNA and their DNA 'cause they come from families that are very into education and they value that. So it was just so natural for me to just say, you know what? I know I, I majored in, marketing in my undergrad. And I know that there are different ideas of business that I thought I would go into, but education's the way to go and I never regret it. Sometimes I have hard days and I'm like, well, what am I doing here? But I think we all do, so it's very funny. Yeah.  Yeah. So then I, you know,  I graduated from the master's program and  I taught an Yeshiva Flatbush for about seven years, and then I went on to teach in Yeshiva.

I'm an eighth grade rabbi in Queens  in Yeshiva Sharei Tzion  it's a wonderful Bucharian Yeshiva for boys and girls. They have a girls division also, but I'm one of the eighth grader teachers, and in the afternoons I teach high school. So I've taught Berlin Heim different teaching financial literacy and budgeting. 

Teaching governmental law. Currently I'm teaching in a different yeshiva where I'm teaching world history for ninth grade and Jewish history and English for ninth and 10th grade. So it's very exciting.  Look at you.  That's very cool. Yeah. Thank you.  Sure. Should we talk about you now?  Yes. So, okay. Let me tell you guys how this podcast works and we're gonna get into a topic that I think everybody's going to be really fascinated about.

The reason why I brought you here, not because I ran out of guests, but because you are the best guest for this topic, and I think that you have a very deep understanding of the world in a way that a lot of people are inspired. So the way that this podcast works is that we have four pillars. Well, really this started because in my business, the way I work with my clients, with my women, with my friends, is that God is always at the core. Your marriage and your business are the two main things that we focus on, and they have to work together. They can't be fighting each other. And then you are the container. So you hold all these pieces of you and you must take care of yourself in order to be able to be showing up in your marriage and your business for God.

Right? So God, marriage, business, and you are the four pillars. And when I was designing the podcast, I decided to make my life really simple by creating a structure. And the structure is that every month we take one topic and we talk about it from four different angles. So when we talked about money or health, it was god and money you know, money and marriage, money and business money and you, right, or health and so on. So now this month the topic is criticism and it's very easy to find guests for criticism in marriage. 'cause there's so much to say about what to do when your husband's critical or criticism in business.

How do you deal with people saying that you're not good enough or that they would, you know, whatever, criticizing the way you do your business. You know, when people ask for refunds, whatever, it's uncomfortable. And in business you have to deal with it. Those people are easy to find, right? Even criticism.

And you how do you handle criticism? How do we make sure that we don't take it to heart and that we actually see it as growth opportunity? Those are really easy to find, but then you have to find a guest for criticism in God, and you're like is that even a thing? Can you criticize God? What do you do when you think God isn't doing the right thing and something is wrong?

And, you know, so I was like, wait, wait, wait. I know the perfect guy and this is what we're gonna talk about today. Because you know, with your beautiful introduction of your entire journey of how you got here, where your.  So well-rounded with everything that you've learned with marketing, with psychology, with everything, but also the educational and special ed part of it, which means that you could stand in front of a regular class.

But we all know that today, days, like a regular class is just filled with very unfocused children because we all are very affected by everything that's going on these days.  These are real  great skills and also  you have an understanding of Torah and the world in a way that we can really get into this topic and have a really good time.

So what comes up for you when we talk about criticism in God? And then we can get into a little bit more of what's coming up for me.  Very good. Okay. Great questions. Wow. A bit of a loaded question, but you know, this Gamara and Gamara is the Talmud discusses  the  different and laws of  and over there, the gamar brings down towards the end  uh, that has to do with marriage.

Look at that the Gamar says brings down 

what is the person complaining about as he is living. And he is a giver, Alpe shave. He's a person who's alpe shave. He's on his sins. So really there's different ways to learn it out, but the gamar over there brings different opinions. And one of the things that it brings out, he says, ma, like, what is a person gonna complain about?

Hi, like, you're alive.  And  like,  like you overcome your sins. Like  you overcome your sins. So it's a little bit like how can we all criticize Hashem when in reality there's so much that we're not deserving of that Hashem constantly does for us nonstop. And I always think about it. When my kids are not behaving or things like that, and I'm like, oh, maybe I should take away this privilege, that privilege. 

You kind of think about it and suddenly, you know, you stop using. Am I perfect?  I'm not perfect yet. I mean,  we all try to be perfect, but we sort like, you know, once you have your kids and you love them so much, you start realizing, wow, is this how Hashem feels like  we disappoint him? We hurt him. And, and then he just keeps letting us live.

He keeps giving us  our health. He keeps giving us sustenance and he keeps doing so much for us. And it's like my doing up, like, what am I gonna complain about?  You know, the fact that Hashem is constantly there for me doing, for me. Giving to me and providing me I have to learn like Mahu. 

It's a concept in Judaism where we always say. Let's learn to be godly. You know, how do we become godly? How do we have godliness within us? We try to think of how Hashem treats us, and that's how we wanna treat others. And I think that's a very, very big yesod, I, I literally just had this here in my yeshiva.

I teach on Sundays. It's a half a day, you know, but I have to go to work six days a week. That's how it is, as the Torah says. The Torah says you should work for six days and rest on the seventh. So my employers are very, very strict on that and they make sure that we work six days a week. So I did have a test and a boy wrote a very inappropriate four letter word, and he was frustrated.

'cause the last test, he actually got the highest grade in the class and now he came unprepared and he was so upset. So to express his frustration, I guess he felt it would be a. His way of expressing himself again. The boys are 12, 13. They're going through hormonal changes and they're not so fully developed in their executive functioning, and they don't really know how to express themselves.

But the reality is that this boy wrote this word on the test,  and when he brought it up to ask me a question, I just grabbed the test and I said, well, what is this? Like,  this is really hurtful. Like, why would you write that to your rep? You know? And he kind of like started making up excuses and saying, no, it's actually an abbreviation for something else.

You know, this stands for this and this and this letter. And it was just like ridiculous. I told him, listen,  it looks like you pretty much finished your test. It looks like you're upset. I'm gonna put this away. I'm very, very upset and angry right now. I don't want to react out of anger. I don't want that to be my you know. 

The, the natural response. I don't want to penalize you in a way that you're gonna suffer more than you might deserve. I want the punishment to fit the crime. Let me sleep on it.  Let's all relax and tomorrow we'll discuss it. So I think that that's a small win. You know, like you kind of get up and you're like, how can I model to my students, to my children to be more emotionally regulated?

And I know my wife, Sarah Leah, she's always remind me this, that the only way  that we could raise emotionally regulated children or that we could, you know, as teachers teach our students to become emotionally regulated is by ourselves being emotionally regulated by ourselves, being stable by ourselves, being calm, collected.

Cool. And that's something Chananel told me years ago, our brother or  collective brother over here, I don't know,  he's on the podcast. He was a couple of episodes ago. Really. I guess it wasn't published yet. No, it was not. Okay. I don't wanna spoil it, but he told us years ago, he said it's already been spoiled.

You're after him. Ah, okay. Listen, in age order, I guess our little sister Lilach is coming up next, hopefully. Ah, that's a good idea. I didn't even think of inviting her. That's, don't say that. Of course. He thought about it. You're planning it, looking for it. No, actually that was one of my first ever guests and we had a really fun time.

But that was before the podcast went live. It was when I still was doing just live videos. Anyways, so yeah, keep going. So he said that, you know everybody wants to influence others and the word influence in Hebrew is Hashpa'a.  Hashpa'a means influence. But if you look at the root of the word, the root of the word is shefa.

shefa means a bounty, a bonanza. A lot abundance.  Plenty. What? Abundance. Abundance. Thank you. That's the word. Scratching  the cranium over here. Trying to figure out, no, I know because you said it in sort of Spanish, like I know. Where you, what you were thinking.  Oh, wow. Nice. So the abundance that we wanna bring is compared to those kiddish cops, you know, the kiddish cup that we sanctify the Sabbath on when we make kiddush Friday night.

So some people have these like little cups around it. I know we had with our names engraved in it. But there is this, like, they call it the, the kiddish pusher, you know, pitcher like it, it's like the fountain.  And the way it works is that you take the cup and when you finish saying Kiddush, you pour it into the fountain and it spills onto the little cups.

So the little cups represent our children and the people around us. And the big cup is hopefully us that we try to be the bigger person. And what we have to do is we have to overflow.  Fill ourselves with as much coping skills and coping tools for, to manage in life. And only then when we ourselves are filled, can we give others?

And you know, I think it's a little bit of a corruption to the whole concept of self-care is essential and all that, and like be a little selfish and worry about yourself. But the reality is, is yes, I do agree with the concept of not being a martyr and not being this miserable person who's just like, I live for my kids.

I live for my, my spouse. I do so much. Yes, take care of yourself. And once you're emotionally stable and healthy,  then you're able to really do for others. And the famous example given is in the airplane, I'm sure you know this, right? Put on your own mask before assisting children next to you and putting on their masks.

Because if you don't have oxygen. You can't help others, you know, be provided with oxygen. So it's very, very important to have that mindfulness, that growth mindset and the, you know, constant  filling yourself up and making yourself whole. That way you can really give to others always recharge your own battery so that you could give others more power and more support.

  Hey, before we continue the episode, I want to ask you something. Are you ready to get answers from God directly, feel more in love with your husband and more supported than ever? Run the business of your dreams without having to sacrifice any other part of your life? That is exactly what my one-on-one private coaching is for, and I want to invite you, just you and me.

For a free deep dive discovery call, this is a 60 minute free call where I ask you lots of questions and we extract the three main things that are holding you back. I then put together a personalized plan for you where I create a roadmap of recommendations.  With practical steps,  the call is free and so valuable in itself.

So go book yours today. Now back to the show. 

  Yeah. You said it was a small win and I was sitting there going, it's not small, it's gigantic. I can't think of many teachers who are able to keep their cool and say, wait, wait, wait, wait. Something here is really, really, really off, but I can't react right this minute. Right, right. So, I'll be honest with you there's a few stories that come to mind that really develop that way that mode of conduct.

For me, for example, there's a story about a certain, yeshiva that he ran Yeshiva for, you know, teens at risk, and boys. And, you know, that can't come from unfortunately, broken homes. I don't know if we like that concept, but that's what people are referred to. And there's a struggling, dysfunctional family, although they do say that every family's dysfunctional, but these were a little more dysfunctional than the usual.

And there was one boy who got kicked out of every single Yeshiva, that institution, whatever Yeshiva that he was in, he was thrown. And finally he reached this yeshiva. And 10, 15 years down the line, they saw him. They saw that he's one of the,  you know, more serious you know,  kollel l students, rabbi students.

And he's sitting and he's so diligent and he has such beautiful characteristic traits, you know, middot as we say. And he has a wife and children. Just such a,  such, such pleasant ways and yes, pride that he brings to his community and his family and everything. And somebody once came over to him and said,  how did you become such a great person?

And he said, oh, well thank you. Thank you. You know, he's very humble, of course. And he said, when the person, you know, pushed him a little more, he finally acquiesced and said, let me tell you my story. He said, my, my mother died when I was, you know, three, four years old, whatever it was. And my father ended up remarrying and the wife, you know, evil stepmother, unfortunately, and my siblings and this, and the whole situation was terrible.

And I kept going from one Yeshiva to the next.  And finally I got to this of this yeshiva and he said, the name of the yeshiva, the head rabbi, head master, whatever of his institute that he learned in, and.  He said, what happened? Like, how did you change? He's like, my first week there, I was having a hard time adjusting.

It was a dormitory. I, I wasn't getting along with anyone. Nobody liked me and for good reason, they shouldn't like me, you know, I was a very difficult, unpleasant person to be around.  And at a certain point, I got so angry at something that happened  totally unrelated to the rebbi, but in the middle of shiur, I just picked up a desk and I threw it through the window and he shattered the entire window.

And he says at that moment, somebody could have been walking by on the street and, you know, got killed, you know, a desk to the, to the right spot. Could it really put somebody out for a long, long time? Of course. And  he said it was a miracle that nobody was walking by that busy street at that moment. 

But of course, the rabbi kind of looked up, said, what? Let's go, what  are you? Okay. He's like.  And I was getting ready and I was getting defensive, and I was getting, all my survival instincts came into play right away, you know, the, the evolutionary animalistic, you know, survival instincts. And at that point the rabbi looked at me and said, you know, I am so disappointed right now with the way you acted.

I'm so angry, I'm so frustrated.  I'm gonna need at least an hour to calm down before I address this. So Viter, let's go further in the gamara. And he continued teaching the gamara and the,  and the, the commentaries, of course, on the Gamara. And he just continued to shear like, you know, his lesson.  And this boy is just standing.

'cause he has no desk. He, it, something happened to it, right? And the rabbi's just like, you know, there's a chair over there. Maybe you sit down in the corner and when we finish our lesson, we'll regroup, you know,  and at that moment you know.  The mishna says  one of the worst things a judge could do is to delay, delay judgment.

Yes. Thank you. To delay judgment because the person's on pins and needles. What's gonna happen? What's gonna, but here, it wasn't coming from a place of delay in order to torture the, the litigant or the, the accused person you know, the victim here, but rather it was just to make sure that the rebbi gets his bearings in place, that the rebbi looks at it in an objective manner.

Calm, collected, and cool.  And you know, that's one story. The other story is there was a rabbi that he always was rushed to react. And this is the famous watch story, you know. Have you heard it? No, I don't wanna waste your your precious time.  No, I never heard it. The watch and the re decided that that year his kabbalah, this thing, that his New Year's resolution for that year.

Would that he'll work on not reacting when he gets angry for at least 10 minutes. When we grew up, our mother told us always that her grandfather used to tell her, roll your tongue seven times before you respond,  right? Which means like, take like seven seconds to calm down. And  with anger, I mean, we're all prone to anger, some of us more than others, but I know for myself it's very important to kind of take a deep breather, you know, breathe, calm down, and then react later when you're more calm.

And this re said, I'm gonna wait 10 minutes from now on before I react to my anger.  And it was one day during, you know,  the 10 days of repentance between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. And he walks into the yeshiva and as he reaches there, you see somebody's right by the spots that the rabbis usually park.

And he had to circle the block for a few minutes and he finally found the parking, which was a bit of a walk to the yeshiva.  As he reached his classroom, he walked in, it was about eight, nine minutes late, and the kids were getting their siddurim  their prayer books to sit down and pray. And at that moment, the, the morning prayers, the morning services, and at that moment, one of the boys looks and says, re,  re, re,  re. 

And he's like, whoa. Like, you know, of course he's, he's getting so angry right now, and he's feeling his, his  blood rushing. And, and he's like, how dare this boy is chutzpah. How  do you define chutzpah? I mean disrespect, defiance. It's an English word by now. Yeah. Such defiance. How dare this boy tell the rabbi, you know, that I'm late?

You know, he must be signaling to me that I'm late.  And he said, okay. Okay. Moishy, sit down. Sit down. Moses. Moses sit down. And,  and the little Moses sits down and, as he gets his seat, after a few minutes of Rebbi's circulating, he is going up and down the rows, making sure you,  making sure everyone's praying in the chorus, you know, choral reading.

And at that moment  as he passes this boy Moses' desk, Moses goes again,  re, re look,  look re, and re's getting all, you know, frustrated and angry. And then he is like, okay, okay. After, after class. And finally they put away their again  re and he is like, oh my gosh, this guy won't let up. He won't let up. And the re said, okay, the clock restarts new 10 minutes, right?

And new 10 minutes, I gotta, you know, get over my anger. And finally it was break time and this boy runs over to the rabbi. The rabbi didn't even have the chance to tell Moses, stay behind, and he speak with you. You know? Mm-hmm. Moses runs up and he says, rabbi, did you see my new watch?  My, my father got me this watch for my birthday.

Isn't it nice, isn't it a beautiful watch?  And then the rabbi said, oh,  I see. That's what you were trying to tell me. And the rabbi was so happy that he didn't react  and that he took his time and he relaxed. And it teaches us a lot of lessons. One, delay your anger. Two, of course, you should always give people the benefit of the doubt. 

And I try to live by these stories, by these lessons. Right. So let's connect it back to criticism session. Yeah. Yes. So again you know, there is a beautiful story. I'm sorry for awful stories, but I'm a big story guy. There was a fellow who unfortunately got laid off at work and when he lost his job, he was no longer able to pay his bills, certain bills.

So he started keeping it to a minimum. And at a certain point is. Broker called him up and the broker was a life insurance broker, and he told, told him,  lemme ask you a question.  I noticed the last six months you haven't paid your premium your payments on your life insurance policy. I mean, you, your father, you have four children.

You know what's gonna happen to your wife and kids. You're gonna lose the policy. And this is the last chance they just reached out to me from the life insurance company. If you don't pay this month, you're, you're outstanding arrears. You know, you're in arrears, you, you gonna have a steady balance. If you don't pay, you'll lose the policy.

And then you won't be covered.  And he told him, listen I'm really sorry, but I lost my job. It's very uncomfortable, very difficult. And I'm trying to pay for the grocery bills and I'm trying to pay my mortgage. I gotta, you know, keep my family under, under this roof, you know, somehow, so I'm sorry I'm not gonna be a bank.

He's like, you're gonna lose Europe. He's like, okay, it is what? It's, and he lost his coverage.  He thought it was the worst thing. You know, he had a million dollar coverage. In case something happens, his wife and kids are protected.  Too bad, very sad.  And about a year goes by and suddenly the broker calls him up and says, Hey, how you doing?

You know, how's it going? Did you find a job? He's like, yeah, I found a job. And tells him, all right, you know, if you found a job, let me remind you, you have a responsibility. Your wife, kids, I don't mean to be that guy, but there's something called death. It happens to all of us.  There's nothing you can escape in life, except two things, right? 

Death and taxes. 

And this week's parsha. If they run away from the,  this is a perion, what it means that it attacks the bug, whatever it is.  But they say this numerical value of ma.  Uh, Internal revenue, income tax that they come after you. So may Hashem protect us from this terrible curse of the IRS or whatever you guys call it in Israel. 

Yeah. And you know, you can't escape death, so you gotta renew. I can't renew. I'm busy at work, you know, I'm only a few months in. I'm making, finally making some money, making some contacts.  And this broker was relentless. He just kept calling him up and saying, listen, you gotta do it. You gotta do it. And somehow he popped by, visited him at home.

How are you? Just wanted to say hi, check up on you. Here's a babka for shabbos, a bottle of wine. I just wanted to remind you how important it's, and of course, this guy was getting a little annoyed, but you know,  he told him, listen, you gotta, you gotta do it. You gotta do it.  You gotta renew your policy.

So. Finally, after a few attempts and some cajoling this fellow finally gave in  and he tells him, well,  you gotta get a blood test from a phlebotomist. You know, he is gotta come and take blood and we gotta check that there's no preexisting conditions, diseases and everything, and make sure that you're okay.

He's like, okay, okay, let's do it. He said, don't worry, we'll come visit you at home. Everything's fine.  And of course, that happened. They took blood from him and they tried getting him the policy. And at that point, they called him and they said, you should really go to a doctor  as soon as you can because there's something irregular about your blood.

And of course, he goes to the doctor and they find a terrible tumor, cancerous tumor growing inside of his body. And they had to immediately send him for surgery and Baruch Hashem with some rehabilitation, chemo, radiation. He was able to get healed. Now. This is the type of cancer that a person would never know unless they took a blood test and unless, you know, they're being,  screened for it, you know?

And here what he thought was really the worst thing in the world for him, losing his job, not being able to pay his life insurance policy, and losing that policy and then having to renew his policy. That ended up being the biggest blessing for him because it forced him to go do a physical exam and go take a blood test.

And really, you know you could be frustrated with Hashem but  you don't know the whole picture. And it says by Moshe Rabbeinu Moses, our leader the Torah tells us that he turned to SHA and he said, I wanna see your face. I wanna see your glory.  And God responds, you know. You can't see me. You know, you can't see me, but he, I,  you know, I'm the closest.

So I'm the leader of your flock. And you know, I really, well, why can't I see you? And Em says, 

right, you, you, I don't remember the exact words. You could see  my back. You can't see my face. And the gamar tells us that he, he basically saw the knot of the tefillin in the back of the head, of Hashem which is also very not simple because God doesn't have a body and,  you know, but whatever that can ballistically means we don't really understand it.

At least I don't, 'cause I'm not on that level. But the idea is that he was able to see past. The back, not the front. And, you know, it's very, very interesting because they do say that really, achorai also could mean not just my back, but it could also be after me. You could also see, you can only see after panai the front while it's happening.

 What you see that you cannot,  you cannot see, which means the present. We don't really understand why do bad things happen to good people and things like that. We don't really understand God's ways. They're hidden from us. But what we could see is the afterwards, when we come after 120 years or when mashiach comes and the geula,the,the final redemption will happen, then all the, the, the dots of the puzzle are gonna connect and everything's gonna make sense.

So whenever a person's criticizing a Hashem or, or upset at a sham,  you have to realize a Hashem created us with two main limitation space and time, and we're limited to a place. So we don't really see the whole world. We don't see everything. And we're also limited by time. So we don't understand the concept of, you know, let's say four or five generations all at the same time. 

Okay. That could have happened. You know, my wife's grandmother, rah, great-grandmother was a hundred years old when she passed away. That was very exciting. At the Bris of my son, they sat down, they took a picture of five generations. I think with your Shane deal also, we're able to do that. We have five generations, right?

Four of 'em. Yeah, we have four. Four, four. Okay. So you see, it's very rare. We're waiting for Shaindel to move along.  Few years we'll be able to do that. And I will say that, you know, you kind of see your great-great-great grandfather, you and your great-great-great grandchild and put 'em all together in the same room.

It's like, how's that possible? So it doesn't make sense. And that's why when it, when we try to understand Hashem. 

Was the first, there was nobody before hashem. There's no one after.  So we say, how does that make sense? Again, Hashem created us with limitations. We don't understand this, these concepts of time and space limitations. So it's very, very important for us to  accept that hashem is the higher power and that everything Hashem does is for the best.

And even though we don't understand it, this is truly what's best for us.  Right. That's, that's what helps me. They say hindsight is 60, 60 or 2020 or something. 2020 in Israel. 2020 in America.  Right? That's why I messed it up. But yeah, you, you can look back and try to figure out the connections between the things, but even that, we're limited in.

But when you're living it, it's very difficult to really get out of your own situation, out of your own head, out of your own emotions to really see a full picture.  That's right, that's right. When you realize that, and you know, though, the famous example my rabbi used to say over from a vol, VAs  Avenges death, he was killed by the Nazis.

Erman actually said a beautiful thought, Torah thought where, you know, there's like a little keyhole. And back in the day, they used to have the, the keyhole was a little bit bigger and you could, they had bigger keys back then. You could actually see into a room if you peer through the keyhole.

And the story goes that there was one man who saw somebody through the keyhole. There was a person lying down on a bed or whatever it is. And he saw how the person's taking a knife and sticking it into the other individual's chest.  He is just cutting, cutting him open and right away he barged through the doors and knocked him down.

And suddenly he saw there's a doctor and nurses, and this person was a patient that was having heart surgery. And yes, he was cutting out his heart, but he was also healing him and unclogging the arteries that needed to be clogged in order to save this person's life. And here what looks like so something so bad and something terrible like murder and such was really life-saving techniques, you know?

Or you can have a person who's performing CPR and they're doing compressions on an individual, and somebody comes over and starts pushing the guy off and beating him up and saying, what are you doing that's dangerous? You know, if you don't understand these things or, or stabbing him in the, in the trachea over here  to allow the person to breathe.

Like all these medical procedures, they look so. Vicious  and dangerous and painful. But we have to understand that they're really lifesaving and they're really good for you.  And every parent will tell you, you know, when you take your child to get a shot,  I don't know. I know vaccines is a very controversial thing, so I'm not gonna talk about that.

But if the child needs a certain shot or medication every healthy minded parent, even though the child's in pain or uncomfortable or crying, you hold that child, you hug them and you love them, and you tell them, I know that I'm the one who's bringing you to the doctor's office. I'm the one who's giving you this bitter medicine.

 Or, you know,  pinching a shot. But the fact is that if I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't really care for you. So all these difficulties and, and blows that we receive are really for our benefit and for our growth. And you ask anybody who's in you know, fitness, they'll tell you, no pain, no gain. You know, you flex those muscles, you're, you're tearing apart those muscles in order for them to regrow stronger and bigger.

And you'll have more endurance and more strength and stamina.  So you see very clearly that, you know, throughout life, we have to remember that even though it seems to us like it hurts or it's difficult and it is, but the reality is it's the best thing for us. And if we really knew the whole picture, we would be grateful to Hashem for that. 

Yeah.  Yeah. I think wow. Whew.  Another story comes to mind. Yeah. There's a medresh about king Solomon and the, the rabbis, the, the Tenic Rabbis of the Medresh. Medresh is a collection of thoughts from the times of the, the,  what is that? 200, 200 bc we'll ask you, me, I'm sitting there going, I dunno.

We'll ask your dear husband to update us with maybe on the bottom of the screen, right down the Tene period the time period.  But anyway, the me over there brings down the story about King Solomon, that he had a good friend who owned the farm and he would come visit him. And King Solomon was very close with him.

And the prophets about King Solomon, the nave describes how King Solomon knew all the wisdoms of the world. And one of them was the, the,  like Dr. Doolittle, you know, they made all thing, he understood the language of the birds, the language of the animals, and he was able to understand what birds are saying to each other. 

So this one farmer, the friend of shlomo hamelech, told him, could you please teach me the language of the birds? He said, nah, you don't want to know. Trust me, you don't wanna know. Because the birds, they take information,  you know, takes rumors and information from one place to another as the bird flies from place to place.

And you could really gain a lot of intel and information about different places if you really understand what birds are saying.  So after badgering King Solomon for long enough, this farmer finally got a positive response from King Solomon that he, to, he will teach them, but under one condition, you may not reveal to anyone that you know the language of the birds.

And this medresh is very exciting because after some lessons, he was a quick learner and he picked it up. He was able to understand the language of the birds. And this farmer goes back home and one morning he wakes up and he listens to the birds. And he's laughing because, oh my gosh, look at that.

He's having his epiphany moment where he actually understands what the birds are saying and what does he hear the birds saying, oh, it looks like tonight there will be robbers  that are going to visit our little town over here and they're going to ransack the entire town.  And he's like, oh,  great.

So he made a gathering of all the farmers in his neighborhood, in his town, and he said, we gotta get ready. You know, there's,  a lot of robbers and bandits out there, and we want to protect ourselves, so we gotta make a neighborhood watch. Everybody should register. You know, I'm sure in your neighborhood they have that right. 

And no neighborhood watch. Nobody stays up at nights, rotations to make sure to protect the citizen. We,  we have, we have people whose job it is, and also volunteers. But  yeah, we  don't, okay, we don't take turns. We sleep through the night,  should always have restful nights. And and what happens is he actually gets them already and practice.

And what are we gonna do? And ring the bell and make sure that we know that there's bandits. And lo and behold, that night, you know, it was the middle of the night and right when a group of bandits arrived in the town, they started trying to ransack the houses. And suddenly they hear the bells and, oh, oh no. 

And they're coming with their, their knives and swords and pitchforks. And they're saying, don't rob us. Get outta here. Get outta here. We're gonna get the police. We're gonna kill you. And the bandits ran for their lives, and it was such a big victory. And this farmer was so proud of himself that he was able to fight off these bandits.

And he was thoroughly prepared.  And the following morning he's listening to the chirping of the birds. And he's like, Ooh, listen. They know, they know what's going on. And he heard one of the birds saying, you know, very dry, dry, humid day. Very, very hot. And there's obviously gonna be a fire that's gonna spread and it's really gonna wipe out all these houses over here especially this farmer's house, you know,  based on  the weather conditions,  very dry, dry conditions.

And he's like, aha, very good. So you got all his villagers together. The farmers, of course, he prepares them, what do we do in case of fire? Let's have buckets that are filled with water and let's know how to work in unison to put out these fires. And  finally, later that night, of course. The heat caused  the fire and the crew and spread, and his farm was in in house.

We're about to get completely burned down. And everyone was ready. And they rang the bell for, and they announced everybody out and everybody, you know, formed an assembly line and they were able to put out the fire. Very special. He was so happy.  And finally the next morning after being so, so proud of himself, that he really saved  his home from being robbed and saved his home from being burned down. 

He finally heard the birds talking and said, oh,  it looks like the farmer's wife,  he is going to die today.  Yes, that's what we're hearing. That's what it seems. And he is like, how in the world? What? And he ran to  King Solomon to go ask him for advice. And he said, lemme tell you. He told my wife's gonna die.

My wife's gonna die tonight. What do I do? I, how do you know? He said, remember the birds? Oh.  So he tells him.  What happened beforehand. So he told him the whole story with the burglars and the fire,  and he told him, listen, my friend  K  the living Lord of Israel, decided that you are going to suffer the loss of your wife.

And that that was the decree. However, we know that Ani has commit. Somebody who loses his fortune is considered like he is no longer living. And Hashem said, you know what? Instead of the,  you know, terrible decree of your losing your wife, you're gonna lose your money.  And they tried with bandits and they'll come and they'll rob you and they'll ransack all your assets and all your, your property and then you'll be considered, I, me and your wife will get to live.

But of course you went ahead and you fought that. And you did what you did and you used your own efforts to avoid that.  So Hashem said, okay, listen, I'm very merciful. What can I do for him?  Maybe if he has a fire, the fire will burn down his house. He'll suffer an  immeasurable loss. It'll be terrible, but that will be an atonement for, for him, that his wife won't have to die.

And then you took things to your own hat and you did your own preventative measures. And then Aisha said, what's left? What's left? The only thing left is for his wife to die. He said, it's too bad. And of course, it's a very, very big lesson for us that everything Ahi does for our best and that we really, really have no reason to complain.

And I'm sure my brother Chananel.  Who I'm sure your viewers know, the, the immense loss that he had suffered about four months ago with his, the murder of his wife and the, the loss of  his little baby. Their neshamas have Aliyah and may Hashem avenge their blood amen. And you know, the special amazing thing that nobody understands about his reaction to his situation.

Really, really a lot of people are drawing inspiration all over the world and people are saying, wow, look at this guy. Such, such a, a fortitude to deal with such difficulty and such. He should really be the one speaking about this concept. Maybe you touched on it, but the idea is, like he said, I don't wanna give away anything he said, but he did say that when we complain to Hashem for our losses and our suffering,  then we have to first stop and say, wait.

Let me first thank Hashem for everything that's been good to me, that Hashem has bestowed upon me and done for me. And then I'll get to the complaining part. And when a person trains themselves to have that attitude of gratitude and they're constantly thanking Hashem, then by the time it gets to the  complaints, he's like, oh yeah, forget it.

You know, I have so much to be grateful for. How am I gonna complain? You know, it's really all for my best, right?  Yeah.  Yeah. Mike, if you'd like, I'll add another story. I mean, it's up to you.  What do you guys say? Another story. Go for it. Amichai, Your stories are great. Thank you. Thank you. I actually said this recently by the graduation of my dear,  my dear students.

And I spoke about the story with the two merchants that they went to the big city to go and sell their wares and purchase their new wares for the new season.  And as they traveled to the big city, they reached there and suddenly.  They hear a young boy's voice screaming, help, help, I'm drowning.  And they went and they jumped in and they saved this young man. 

And as soon as they saved him, he said, oh, thank you so much. I don't know how to swim. And I fell in and I was running. And suddenly they see royal chariots approaching and they're like, well, what's going on? And of course, these two merchants, Ruben and Shiman, Reuben and Simon they,  okay, the translating thing very seriously.

Listen, you told me, you told me only English. I'm trying my best.  And  the Royal Cha's approach, they say, wow, the soldiers come out the top of officers of the king and they say, you saved the prince. He is the next in line to be the king. You saved the prince. I said, really? Wow. He actually is dressed with nice silk clothing and he doesn't look very royal.

Oh, now, now it makes sense, you know?  And they said, you must come at once.  So the king could express his appreciation, you know, come with us, get in.  And of course, he got in and they go to the palace, and the king right away sets up a whole royal feast for them. And he thanks them, you know, profusely.

Like, wow, he saved my,  my only child, you know, and thank you. And how can I repay you? And thank, they're like, no, no, please nothing. You know, we would've done it for anyone, you know, we didn't know. And he says, no, no, no. I wanna reward you. I wanna give it to you.  And they say, no, no, no. Okay. Finally he says, king comes up with a nice little idea.

And he says, which city are you guys from? And he said, from this and this town.  And he says to them, oh, you're from there. Is that near there? You have room for a package? Small package, you know. Oh, room for a package. Yeah. I guess  we came for business, but if the king needs a favor, we'll do the favor of course. 

And they're kind of looking at each other like, this is weird. You know, we saved his kid life and he needs us to, you know, he has chutzpah such a in decency to ask us for another favor, you know? Okay. It is what it is. And he gives them both, each one a big trunk,  very heavy. And he tells 'em, can you please bring this to this and this address?

Have a contact there if you could please bring it to that town. Okay.  And they're going around their whole trip and they're schlepping along this, you know, pulling this trunk along with them. And they're very, very frustrated. And right before they had to leave.  One of them opened up the trunk. He said, I gotta know what is so heavy about this trunk.

It's, it's just so heavy, I can't do it.  And as soon as he opens it, he sees a beautiful certificate with a letter from the king, and the scroll says, dear Ruben, Ruben, you know, thank you so much for saving my son's life. Please accept  these diamonds and rubies and emerald diamonds and sapphire stones.

And precious, precious, you know gold coins and gold bars and silver as we say in Arabic. All  right? All these wonderful things. And he's like, wow, I'm rich now. You know, like, I'm never gonna have to work another day in my life. I could build a mansion. My, you know, my wife, whatever she needs, this is worth millions and millions of dollars. 

And he's so excited, Ruben, and for this entire travel back that took, you know, a good couple of weeks, he's pulling on that trunk, that suitcase with excitement, and he's got a kick in his step or whatever it's called. And you know, he's so excited, so happy. Meanwhile,  his counterpart, Shimo, he did not open the suitcase and the entire time, his muttering under his breath, I should have let that prince just drown.

Why did I have to save him? I wouldn't have been in this predicament. Ugh, I have to schlep this bag. It's so heavy. And he's sweating and sweating and he is so upset. He's so frustrated. And of course, you know, Shiman reaches his final destination, his home, and when he comes in, he opens the suitcase to try to figure it out.

He realizes it was all such a pleasure and a gift from the king, it was all good for him. It was all a wonderful thing. And of course, I think the moral of the story is very, very clear that, you know, Rubin is a representative of somebody who serves Hashem with joy, and he understands that every single difficulty in his life is really.

An opportunity for growth and a stepping stone to become a greater person and to really, really earn more and more diamonds and treasures that are hidden away for, for him, for when he reaches his final destination, when he gets home, and as will bestow upon him, all these good things. Meanwhile, you know, like we said, the other fellow  Simon, he's the one who, who just you know, he missed out, he missed out on this world and until he reached his final destination, only then did he really realize that he, he had it so good all along and all the troubles were really you know, a benefit to him.

So I think that that really goes hand in hand with making sure not to complain to Hash sham and making sure that no matter how bitter and difficult this, the situation we find ourselves in,  you know, hash Hashem has a greater plan, and we are all actors in this play, and we really have to accept that if we play our role right, we will be rewarded, you know, heavily for it. 

I love this story. I'm so happy you said this story. First of all, I love that they both end up in the end of the journey,  right? Both having  gotten the same reward, reward. Yeah. Because we believe that, you know, everybody is going to eventually be rewarded and  we all have a part in the next world, but the experience is so  different for the two of them, right?

And we see this in real life, right? We see how some people schlep through life. They feel everything is heavy. Anything they have to do as a commandment for God is like, Ugh, I'll do it. 'cause I have to. 'cause I have to do it for my parents 'cause I have to do it for my community 'cause I have to do it.

'cause I'm afraid, you know, a lot of people are working out of fear or out of like obligation and they're draining their energy, they're wasting a lot of their brain space on just suffering,  you know? Yeah. And, and Byron Katie says, suffering is optional. So when you think of it that way, you're like, okay, wait, so it, it's, it's possible to do without, and you're saying yes.

Once you realize, just take a peek. Look at what  good is already here  that I can enjoy. Just even  with my understanding, he's not using up the gold and the silver and the diamonds, but he's already like building on them. You know? That's a Hebrew expression. Exactly. Like, you know. Exactly.  And I once, if you don't mind me adding on to this, I once heard that there was a suicide hotline  that unfortunately, you know, people that suffer, they reach rock bottom and they consider this as a solution for their problems.

They followed.  They did some research, they followed up with some of their callers about five years down the line or or whatnot, 10 years down. And they said to the survivors, of these unfortunate attempts on their lives they asked them, they said, you know, what would you have said to that person that you were calling in that you've attempted, you know, to unlive yourself to, you know, end it all?

What would you have said to that person? And I don't remember the percentage, I don't wanna make it up. They say 84% of statistics are false. And I just made that statistic up, you know, on the spot. So it is what it is. But the majority of the, of the  interviewees all said the same thing. You know, I would've said to this person, right now, you're in this situation right now.

The intensity of the situation is so overwhelming that you are at your last resort and you feel like there's no other way out and therefore you are considering and the get all  but.  Look at me now.  Look at me now look at, look at what you're gonna be in five, 10 years. You're gonna be a, a mother or a father.

You're gonna be happily in a healthy, stable relationship. You're gonna have success in all the fields that you currently don't have. You will have in the future. And if a person realizes like the ring of a i, if it was David,  the ring that he always used to look at and it said, I think it was  this two shall pass  that, that makes sense. 

Whenever he looked at that ring, he would say, oh,  times are difficult right now. This two shall pass. Let me be hopeful. Let me rely on Hashem. And I know that right now it's transient, it's temporary, it's passing. This too shall pass. And God willing, I'm gonna look back at this time and be grateful that I got through it because on the other side of that door. 

There's a wonderful life filled with a lot of rewarding experiences.  That's beautiful. And during times of good, he also would look at this ring and the me, the king, would look at the ring, say, oh, let me not act haughty. Let me not act proud. Let not act, you know, arrogant and not recognize the difficulties that other people have. 

Lemme not be selfish and let me remember that this too shall pass because the world is round, money's round alter. Our mind is sometimes we're up, sometimes we're down, you know, and right now I'm up. Let me savor and do what I can to remain up and to also prepare myself in case I will go down. You know? 

And I think that's a very important thing to remember.  I love it. I love it. You know, when I was thinking of criticism,  especially, you know, towards God  a lot of times.  You know, it just comes out naturally. It's not supposed to be this way, you know, we say it, we say it so naturally as if we can run the world and as if we know better, you know, it's not supposed to be this way.

And the answer is, yeah, it is. You know, because thank God we are not God, but God is God and he knows and he is very well planned and he orchestrates everything to the exact perfect way. You know, you said before, we're not perfect yet, but like thank God we're not perfect because God doesn't need us to be another God.

He needs us to be human. He put us here to be human. And I heard that on one of the beautiful videos somebody sent me and it really stuck with me. My goal is not to be perfect. My goal is to be human and to be relatable and to be. An inspiration just because I am just like everyone else, trying my best, you know, seeing what works, figuring it out.

And I really appreciate having you here, so thank you. Those are wonderful stories. Yeah.  Thank you. Any last words before we part and all the listeners will have to continue listening next time. Yes, I wanna thank you. I hope I didn't talk too much, and then I let you speak as well. Big lessons.

Sometimes you have to you know, the mishna says that the great Rebbi Shimon said the son of Hillel Hazaken. He said

all my days have you know, been living amongst  the wise man.  I never found anything better for a person's body.  Than being quiet. And maybe I spoke a little too much, but my understanding was that that's my role right now. And like we're saying, whatever our role is in life, hopefully we're fulfilling it to the best of our abilities.

And like they say, you know, every person's unique and if somebody was, you know, doing what you're supposed to be doing, then I Hashem, wouldn't need you and you wanna be here. So  I'm hoping that I complete my mission in this world and that I'm able to inspire  at least one listener, or at least inspire myself today. 

Thank you.  Alright. I love you so much. This is so fun. Thank you so much for listening. Don't forget to come back next week for the next episode in the series of this four week series all about criticism. And I'll see you next time. Don't forget to be connected for real.

 And that's it! Thank you for listening to the very end. I would love if you can leave a review and subscribe to the podcast. Those are things that tell the algorithm this is a good podcast and make sure to suggest it to others. Wouldn't it be amazing if more people became more connected for real?  And now take a moment and think of someone who might benefit from this episode. 

Can you share it with them?  I am Robinson Bat chen Grossman from  connectedforreal. com. Thank you so much for listening and don't forget you can be connected for real.