Leadership and Psychology in the Torah: Nitzavim, Defeating Death with Jason Wasser, LMFT

So the theme in a very broad sense is actually more about what's not being discussed in this portion than what is being discussed in this portion. And as we're getting closer and closer to the end of the Parsha, I mean the end of the Five Books of Moses, one of the things that we know is how Moses had his punishment and how he was, right, like he couldn't get into the Land of Israel. So it's a really interesting duality of like you have one of the greatest leaders in history not be able to get the full reward for what he accomplished. And he in fact had to die outside of the land of Israel. But one of the things that is most consistent with Moshe's legacy, with Moses's legacy, is the idea of the covenant, of the, of the Brit, of the, um, the covenant that we had with Ten Commandments and with God, and how that's something that we focus on more than we focus on actually his death. And there's commentaries that say the last couple paragraphs of, of the, the Five Books was written with Moses's tears. Some say that Joshua uh, took over of the net, you know, the, the actual writing of it, whatever it is. Even though it was— Moses already knew the ending, so to speak, of how it was going to be finishing up. He knew when his death was coming. But it's interesting that in cultural context, what is the Egyptian culture today most known for in history, right? Think about it. In history, what are they most known for?

Historically.

And what do we go see when we want to learn about Egyptian history? What are we most likely to go find? The pyramids, no? Pyramids, right? The pyramids in Egypt. But if you're going anywhere in the world and you want to learn about Egyptian history and you go to a museum, what are you most likely to—

the mummies.

A mummy. Yeah, so you got a mummy. Everything in Egyptian history, in Egyptian mythology, was so focused on life and death that they made death a continuation of life, which is why they prepared the bodies in such a way that no matter what would happen, that they can have this instinct, whatever, like whether they come back to life or, you know, what we would call tekhiat ha'metim. Right, and, and all that stuff of resurrection of the dead. But the idea that Jewish history, at least within the span of the Five Books of Moses, talks more about what's going on in our day-to-day obligations and lifestyle than it does about death, which is radically juxtaposed with the culture in which they escape from. So everybody have that? Everybody have that concept, right? What were the— that the pyramids were built for what reason?

To preserve the mummies.

To preserve the mummies. There were mausoleums, there were giant mausoleums to be monuments. We existed, we're not going anywhere, we live here, our, our, our great leaders live here. And what's the— what do we know about where Moses is?

What do you mean?

Where's Moses's mausoleum? Where's Moses's pyramid? He doesn't have one.

Yeah, because we don't want to worship idols. We don't want to worship our own people as idols and make them godlike. That's the whole entire concept of Judaism, right? Well, not—

I mean, we do have other— no, but we do have other—

Joseph didn't have a— because he was the second in charge?

No, I mean, we have other grave sites, right? So we—

no, but Joseph was not in a pyramid, and like, they didn't be— they didn't— he was, right? And then they took him out.

Well, he was part of building. Yeah, he was one of— I mean, previous, because that's where, you know, I'm assuming that the storehouses that they were talking about were some level of pyramids, right, where they were keeping all the food pre-slavery, pre the 400 years that we were slaves.

So yeah, but I remember that Joseph was in a pyramid. They took, they took, they took him out and they, they took him away. I mean, with everybody.

Yeah, they took his bones, right? They took his, they took his bones with him, right, as it says. So this idea that, right, we have this focus on— we have a fixation on life, not a fixation on death. In other words, if our whole entire focus was only for what's going to be in the world to come, even though in Jewish culture, Jewish literature, or Jewish culture, let's just say that we have a focus on olam haba, the next world, the world to come, but at least from the Five Books of Moses, from the Torah's perspective, it was only hinted at. It wasn't directly spoken.

Didn't Jason— didn't they also, like, for the pharaohs, didn't they put like all kinds of jewelry and riches and goods, like, yeah, all this stuff for them in preparation? Yeah, for the afterlife, right, right, right.

In case they're hungry, right? So yeah, and, and one of the biggest books, right, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, right, this Egyptian-Tibetan Book of the Dead, which was an original text, that it was— that the afterlife was real, that life was only a preparation for death. Meanwhile, in Judaism, our contract, our association to reality is the covenant, is the Brit, is the Ten Commandments, is Moshe, right? Is, is through everything that when Moshe led us through everything in that regards. To, here's what we have to do in order to— for the sanctity of life, for your life to count, you need to be involved in something in this community, in engaging this world. So it's just a really interesting paradigm that our focus is not really on mortality. We talk about what to do when you're around around bodies once they're being buried, as far as if you're a priest and if you have spiritual, right, kedusha, right, of how to sanctify yourself if you've been exposed to a body. But, and the laws definitely come later on, but, you know, all the ideas of like, you know, all these things. But the idea is like 99% of what we're doing throughout the Five Books of Moses is about what do you do while you're alive. And our focus is on the living and living in an engaged meaningful, proactive, and community-based civilization, right? So the focus was on civilization. The focus wasn't, let's do all this as a practice run for the next world. In other words, if that were true, then why bother putting any effort in fighting for the sake of heaven, right? Doing things for the sake of heaven, doing mitzvot, doing commandments, doing positive deeds, doing healthy things, connecting with other people. Because like, whatever, I'll see you, I'll see you in 120 years, we'll hang out then. And like, well, we're gonna spend the rest of eternity with you. I don't need to, I don't need to do anything now. Like, I'll eat, I'll sleep, I'll do whatever I want, but I don't need to leave the world a better place because this world doesn't count. So there's a massive, massive, massive juxtaposition in the phenomena of what we saw as a Jewish community, as an Israelite community at that time, compared to what was the culture going on around us in the world. And that we became the sustained protest, Rabbi Sacks says, of this worldview. And it's really interesting. So if you go back to, um, I'm going to read this. Ernest Becker in the classic book, uh, well, according to him, it's a classic book. The Denial of Death argues that the fear of our own mortality has been one of the driving forces of civilization. It's what led the ancient world to enslave masses, turning them into giant labor forces so they can build monumental buildings that would stand as long as time itself. In other words, we don't know what we have to offer the world except for after what, when we're gone. So we better build something for people to remember us by in our, in our afterlife. So we're going to use you to build monuments so people can look at, know what we did in our afterlife. It's kind of weird, right? Kind of messed up.

So I have a question, please. Okay. Like, you know how Jews believe in like mysticism, you know, like we do, there are part of us that believe in reincarnation.

100%.

Yeah.

But we believe in— did they believe in that at that point?

So we— there was hints throughout the Five Books of Moses, but it wasn't a focus. That there's nothing of really anything explicitly in the Five Books of Moses about the world to come. They did believe in tekhiyet ha'metim, right, the resurrection of the dead. There are 6 references to it in the paragraph of the Silent Prayer. But these ideas are actually pretty much absent from the Five Books of Moses. And it's as much about what the Five Books of Moses doesn't say compared to other religions which said all of these things about it. It really wasn't really until like much later that these references started coming in. But if you go into, um, you know, this idea of fear and fear of death and having this love-hate relationship with it and immortality and the Fountain of Youth, right? All these things throughout history that mythology and all these cultures are trying to obtain the eternal life. Because there's a fear of death versus an embracing of life. And I think that's kind of what, what, what the hint is, is that Judaism is focusing on the embracing of life, not the fear of death. And, and, and, and to take it a step further, now why are we talking about this in this parasha?

Sorry, that I think because we're getting closer and closer to Moshe. Yeah, but it's not about this passage in particular, right?

Well, the idea that, um, where he's, he's talking more about the human-divine encounter, that why wasn't— we're getting close to that— why hasn't there been any major specific talks about what happens once we die? Why is the only singular focus been on what we need to do while we're living? Especially as we know that at a certain point Moshe is not going to go into the land of Israel. We're— there's a foreshadowing of a few, you know, we're gonna have a funeral at a certain point. We know he's not— we know we were promised to enter the land of Israel, and we know our leader, our guide, is not going with us. So we know at some point this is going to happen.

Why not? He focused about life in all this, this section of the Deuteronomy, because he has focus on the loss, and then he focused on the blessings, and then he focused on the— on all the things in the legacy of the land. He never focused on his death, only on the legacy.

Right, that's the point. It's like, why is it so— why isn't it, right? If this— if we're a new philosophy, a new theology in the world, and all these other theologies that exist in the world have such an insane focus on the afterlife, and and monuments and, you know, big massive proof that we were here and we existed. And in fact, not only that, we didn't like build stuff along the way. You know, we had to build like these little altars along the way, but they were usually like these little tiny little rock formations that like nature can knock down after we did, you know, with these little, you know, along the way. But like, we also had a tabernacle that wasn't a permanent tabernacle. We didn't build a new structure everywhere we went. It was a temporary dwelling. Which is the biggest message to show that everything we're doing is really for this world, but this world is temporary, but we got to take our stuff with us. We gotta, we gotta move on to the next point. We gotta go move on to the next stage of life. Life will evolve. Life will happen. And here's how you handle it. Here's how you deal with it. So it's really interesting. So Freud talks about this love-hate relationship, this duality. And he calls one side of this Thanatos. And if you're a Marvel Comics person, what's the guy in The Avengers who tried to destroy the world with the snap of his finger, right? Thanos, right? Thanatos is here, right? Thanatos, the death instinct, and Thanos was the—

right?

So interesting where that comes from. And said that, right, it was one of the two driving forces of life, the other one being eros, which is love and eros, right, erotic connection, emotion. So we became this, this, this, this protest. And this is why no one knows where Moses is buried, so that he can't become a place of pilgrimage, he can't become a place of worship. And On the other hand, you have the Egyptian society, which really doesn't exist in the way that it did then, right? No one in Egypt right now is praying to all of these different— praying to the bird and praying to the tree and praying to the stone and praying to the— right, like they did then. So they basically have these mausoleums that represent theology that's dead. And one of the things that we know is like why every day— like, you know, we talked about like when Moses would go visit, uh, Pharaoh, and one of the times he was— that he was bathing in the river is because he would do that once a day, and that's when he would go to the bathroom because he was a god and gods don't go to the bathroom. Pretty interesting, right?

I think focusing on death, it means focusing on you, and this, this world is not about us. That's what I think.

I think it's very much about us. Quite the contrary. I think it's very much about us having a— have— being part of the covenant. It's very much about our legacy. It's very much about the fact that our legacy—

but our legacy is not about us, it's about other people. Get it? Because if you—

It's about being present.

But not with yourself, with your ego. If you build an altar for your grave, you are impersonalizing the mission of you.

Well, we do do that. We do have an altar at our grave. We have a tombstone.

Well, a tombstone, but it's not like a pyramid. Or like, I mean, we don't talk about that. We make it very simple, very humble.

Right, but most religions at this point don't necessarily.

I mean, you have these still mausoleums mausoleum-type setups, you know, above-ground burial situations.

But that's not— I wouldn't call those necessarily like mausoleums. I mean, some places still do that, and some cultures still do that. We have these above-ground things, you know. Listen, you have it in, you know, if you go to some of the old Jewish cemeteries in Europe, for sure they have these big things where multiple people in the family were buried under this, you know, I don't want like, you know, a structure, but it's one family under the structure. So it was like the family plot, but there's this built-up thing. If you go to the grave, the cemetery where the Lubavitcher Rebbe is, there's a bunch of those in Queens. So, you know, there's all— it's not that this— it's not— but it's not a mausoleum. There's a structure. There's a difference between being a housing of a family gravesite. It's not like when you go to New Orleans, right? In New Orleans, they have a bunch of those. But the reason why they built those is because anytime it flooded, all the graves would come up and pop up out of the ground, right? That's a different thing because, right, the land—

right. Yeah, but that's why there are laws between, you know, for the graves, and then you cannot build it as you want. They have— you have a law that, that, that say that have to keep it very simple and very, you know, right, right.

But, but I want to go much more macro on this, is that the idea of our of our experience is very much about what we're doing while we're alive, because our legacy— if you think about this, like, well, we want to connect with our ancestors, right? But the only way that our future generations is going to connect to our ancestors is through us. We're the conduit. So unless we have this active engagement through life, the future generations won't continue to have that conduit through us to the previous generations. And what I think he's hinting at, or basically not really hinting out, basically saying straight up, is that our responsibility is to be that next link in the chain, which is that whole phrase, lidor vador, right? From generation to generation.

Exactly. But But again, I mean, we are the link. I mean, Moshe also, he didn't have the legacy with his kids. He didn't give the legacy to his kids because he was not allowed to do that. So it was not about him. Like again, he understood that. He understood that it was not about him.

Right, but we're not talking about Moshe right now. We're talking about us.

Well, us, I'm saying the same thing. I mean, it's not about only us as ourselves, Ego thing. You don't want to make it like an ego. You know, concentrate on yourself. It's yourself that you use it as a link to drive a message or a mission. Otherwise it doesn't make sense.

Maybe. I don't know. I'm not even getting anywhere near ego yet. I'm just saying that our active engagement has to be committed to something. And part of that commitment is how we bring value into the world, where we stand for something, whatever it is. But by us committing to a specific path, that is the next link in the chain. I'm not looking at it from a place of ego. I'm looking at that we are important and we should know we are important and we should know that we matter and we should know that what we need to do is necessity and that we should know We have to have a healthy ego. It's not that we should completely get rid of every single aspect of the ego. We should work on getting rid of our negative self, part of our ego, right? But the, but the part of us that has this idea of like, what I'm doing actually matters. What I'm doing actually is important. What I'm doing is actually not only mattering to me, hopefully it'll matter to someone else and hopefully it'll matter to the next generation too, is a very, very, very different perspective because it's about what's happening right now. It's about fully being present. Present, not worrying about what's going to happen after 120 years. That's a very, very different shift than this afterlife-focused-based theology. Even though we talk about tehiyat ha'metim, the resurrection of the dead in a Messianic era, even though we have this concept of olam haba, whatever the heck that means, this world to come once we're no longer here based on, you know, and wherever we go based on merits and stuff like that. But 99% of, of practical Judaism has nothing to do with that. It's about what are you doing today to be part of the community? What are you doing today to be proactive? What are you doing today to bring more positivity in the world? What are you doing today to be holy, right? To bring more holiness into the world? You not someone else. You, you are obligated. Each person is obligated every day to remember as if they left out of Egypt. Why? Because you matter. And if you think you don't, then you have something wrong with that perspective, and you need to kind of figure out why is it that you don't feel like you matter. So it's actually the opposite of somebody who's saying that we shouldn't have ego about it. In fact, I'm saying you sure as heck should have ego.

No, no, I'm saying that you should have ego, but people tend to confuse because if you Like Moshe, how Moshe was humble if he was a leader? Like, he was humble, but doesn't mean that he didn't have a character. He used to have a very strong character, in fact. But he was very aware that he was the leader, and the leader for— I mean, he was very aware about his mission. That's why he was so humble. Right.

But we're not talking about Moshe right now. We're talking about us. So I know you keep going back to Moshe.

Yeah, because you mentioned—

but what I'm talking about is us specifically, that if we— it's not that, like, right, that God gave the Mo— the— God gave the Torah to the Israelites, and God gave the Torah to the Israelites through Moshe. But we also have the paradigm that we also had to make that covenant with God directly, not through intermediaries, that we had to We had to accept it, right, at Har Sinai, at Mount Sinai, na'aseh v'nishmah, we will do this. And our obligation is to renew, as we're going to start, right, the new year is starting soon and we're renegotiating. Shavuot is part of that, right? Reaccepting the Torah right on Mount Sinai, Shavuot, and then completing the reading of the Torah at Simchat Torah and all that time throughout the rest of the year is really about our consistent recommitment to this process because we do matter. We are necessary. And if you've done— if you're lacking in that belief of your necessity, you're missing out on life in the present. And that you might— the worry is that you might drift off and be like, no, no, I'm good because I'm already promised this afterworld, like all these other theologies promised. So I don't have to do all this stuff today. That's ego. Ego is not— ego is saying, I don't have to do this now. I'm good. I'm already promised an afterlife. I'm already promised a world to come. I'm already promised to be resurrected from the dead, which is very Egyptian in that mindset, as opposed to, holy crap, today I have to get up and rededicate myself. Holy crap, I matter. Holy crap, I gotta really re— I gotta re-up my game every single day because I'm needed and necessary. In order for this to be part of our life. And that's really what I think they're offering is like, in a way, we're defeating death by focusing on life. We're re-sanctifying the covenant every single day. And that's so different than this focus on a theology that's only about, we're doing this only to get married in the world to come. And we get a lot, there's a lot of that that gets lost in Judaism. And that like, you know, you have to do this because you're going to get married and in the world to come and when you die, right? All these things are just building up for that. Well, that's not Jewish. That's a very not Jewish philosophy that somehow started creeping into our culture and saying like, nope, I'm going to do this mitzvah so I can get merit for the world to come. Mm, should do it because this is what's tying you to the generations before you. That's what they did, and you're the next part of the chain of the legacy. And because of that, you should do that, not because you're trying to accrue points, rollover minutes for when you die.

Yeah, but I think also there are many sectors in the Jewish religion that many people focus on that side. You say that we don't focus, but there are many—

No, I said there are many who do.

And I disagree totally with that because like in my group of women, there were many women that were like in that, like they heard about, and then they were like, they were scared about doing things because it was fed by fear. So I'm against totally that because they say that you're going to miss the train and if you don't do this, you're going to miss the train. So what train?

So that's the fearism. Judaism is not a fear-based religion. And if we're engaging—

I know, but there are rabbis that do that.

Like, okay, well, unfortunately, they're missing out on this type of class, and they should be coming to this type of class as opposed to somebody who's going to be—

No, I hate it.

I hate it. Completely, right? So, so good. Tell them that there's other classes out there that, that— and if they want something that's gonna be a little bit lighter on their soul and not make them go to sleep petrified that if they don't do the right thing, they're gonna get stung by lightning. Then, you know, there's other, there's other aspects of Judaism or other ways of interpreting Judaism because it's all an interpretation anyway. And we're just taking a guess. I'm taking a guess, you know, I'm putting my money on it for now. I'm what I'm doing. But, you know, I don't know if I'm right. I just know that this is what I know and this is what I was raised in and this is what I've been studying. And I've studied other stuff and I incorporate other stuff from other philosophies to help me understand better where I'm coming from, from this approach. And sometimes other philosophies have way better language to explain it than we do. So I borrow that to bring it into the context of here, but I'm just taking a guess. I don't know. I don't know 100% without, with absolute certainty that at the end of the day, that what I'm reading and what I'm told and what I'm guided is going to happen. I'm hedging my bets, right? I believe it enough. I believe that there's value enough. For me as far as a community, as far as peoplehood, as far as finding, feeling at home somewhere versus wandering and not really having a home. I also believe in humanity, you know, that we also self-segregate ourselves way too much as well out of fear, out of fear of intermarriage, out of fear of antisemitism, all these other things. And yet, you know, the people who I have in my life that are not part of our culture, part of our religion, happen to be really wonderful, welcome, warm people and don't care that we practice differently and really don't even think about it. We are the ones who think about it. We're the ones who, right, it's kind of like all of these people in the, in the rabbinic world who spend all this time talking about what all these people who are not observant do. But guess what? All the people who are not observant or who practice differently or pray differently or live a different lifestyle or date or marry differently than a normative perspective, don't spend any damn time caring about what those people say and aren't sitting there talking about, you know what, I'm doing this just to piss off that rabbi. But yet the rabbis on this side are so concerned about what all these other people are doing and spending so much time, effort, and energy on saying what they're doing is wrong. But guess what? On the other side of the fence, they don't give a crap. They're not spending and wasting their time on that. So it's kind of in the same vein, the way that all these other things are focused on death and what true Judaism is, is focusing on life right now in the present, being active, engaged. And I think I call— and that Judaism is dead Judaism. I really do believe fundamentally that approach to Judaism is the fear-based. You're gonna be punished is a Greek mythology Zeus-based. If you do this, you will be punished, and if you don't do this, you will be punished.

And if you will miss the train, they tell you they will miss the train, the boat.

You're gonna miss the train. Yeah, and God, you do it once, you're screwed unless you do teshuvah, and then you, you, you start catching up and you do all these extra things. And you have, you know, it's like, it's like you get, if you put down the right word, the letters, you, you, you get multiple points playing Scrabble. But if you don't play the right words, you lose points.

Jason, I have a question about the present that you do.

Yeah.

Right?

Go for it.

Today it's my name, it's not iPad 5 like last time.

Haha, what's up?

So the question is, it sounds reasonable, but it makes me, it's kind of hard to imagine a certain personality that is not satisfied with what he's doing and how we are not understanding our significance.

Yeah.

I'm thinking like in present, in location in my life that I didn't feel so important, but I ended up did do things that are important. But during those years, I didn't feel that important.

And right. And what would you always prefer to feel?

That I'm engaged and I'm needed and motivated.

Yeah, but a lot of times we wait for an invitation to do that, and I think that's kind of what's coming out of this thing. Don't wait for death for you to matter. Show up somewhere today, somewhere someone needs you. And I'm not talking about like go rescue people. I'm not talking about that. I'm not talking about from an unhealthy perspective. But there's something that you can do today, right now, between now and the time you go to sleep, that will connect you in some way, shape, or form that's meaningful to you in a healthy way to your legacy, to your culture, to your heritage, that will allow you to feel part of this chain, whatever it is. It just has to matter to you. And even if no one knows you're doing it, we assume that there's something watching, right?

We are watching.

Right. Well, I'm sorry if we are not, right? But if you do, it's the right, the Or En Sof, the infinite light, God.

Right?

So we're saying like, well, if no one sees me doing these good things, it doesn't count.

It doesn't count.

But it does. If you feel good about it, you feel connected. It's, it's allowing you to feel part of this covenant. You should feel good about it, right? This, this whole idea of like We should be involved in Jewish life, but don't enjoy it too much because we're really just saving it up. It's really just the hors d'oeuvres and the appetizers. Don't eat too much because we have to save it for the next world to come. It doesn't, doesn't make sense to me because then we miss out on all of the beauty of what is that is right in front of us right now. And God created the world for us to sanctify all that straight up? So either we're here to utilize it and use it or here to say, well, we know that he created all these things but we're going to keep it over there because it's just a test for us to really say that like, you know, no, I'm really good. I don't need to be involved in any of this because I got my rewards coming just because—my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-whatevers I signed this covenant with God at Mount Sinai and I'm good, which is the ultimate. I would actually even say those that believe the other way is the ultimate entitlement. It's totally lazy. It's I'm doing it because I want to get the payment down the road versus I'm doing this because I'm repaying. And it's lazy. I think it's, ah, well, You know.

What do you think about the people that focus— I mean, we believe in Mashiach and the Messianic years. What do you think about the people that get more obsessed with the Mashiach than normal? I don't care. It's their life. No, I mean the movement. Why?

I'm not talking— It's inconsequential to me. It either A, will happen, or B, it won't.

It's the only two options. No, I know, but I mean in the terms that you're saying right now, like, like you're focusing on the Messianic years more than you're focusing on the now.

If it's working, if it's genuinely, authentically, healthily working for them, okay. But we should only be doing things that are genuinely, authentically, healthily working for us. We shouldn't have to suffer through a process of getting closer to God. And it's the God of our understanding. It's the relationship that we have with God, which is— which is between Adam and the Makom, right? There's the— the Ten Commandments are split into two categories: between a person and Makom, the place, God, right, which is a metaphorical term for God, and bein adam lechavero, between man and their fellow human. That's it. How do you treat— what is your relationship with God? What is your relationship to other humans? Get good on that. Get good on that. You got an entire lifetime to work on that stuff. I don't need to worry about it. The messianic era is going to come whether I— if I do these things and that's part of the accounting, great. And if I do these things and it doesn't show up, great.

So Jason Wasser, yeah, kind of a couple of things on what you said, um, a few comments ago. I think I like the, uh, this sentence that I've heard over the years and I never paid attention to it. It's you and your God or me and my God. And when we say that, I don't think we really pay attention to that because we are accustomed to saying God. But when we say you and our God and your God, it's a singular relationship between what your understanding is, between how you perceive God and what your relationship is to your God. So in Judaism, I will say that he is my God, that she is my God, that it's my God because—

Well, God is genderless. That's the great thing. God is not a male and God is not a female.

Me and my God is the way that I view the approach, my divine God. And so I will honor my God, right? And I will honor myself in my image of how I anticipate my God wants my journey to be, right? And the other part of it goes back a little further to what you were saying about our journey. And the concept of self, right? So we are living, it's, you know, all of these different things that are happening in society, whether it's 5,000 years ago, 4,000 years ago, 2,000 years ago, however it was happening, the idea of sanctifying ourselves, perhaps the Western perspective might be it's for the self. What we do right now, we honor ourselves. Ourselves. We, right, we're created—

if we truly believe that we're b'tzelem Elokim, we're created in God's image, and yet we don't take ourselves seriously and our value seriously, we are defaming God. Very simple. So yes, you're 100% correct. And I want to take what you're saying, Marguerite, and add another thing to it. So in the, in the, in the silent prayer, in the Amidah that we write, that we, we do 3 times a day, the traditional liturgy says Elokei Avraham, Elokei Yitzchak, Elokei Yaakov— the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. It doesn't say Elokei Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov— the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It says Elokei Avraham the God of Abraham, Eloke Yitzchak, the Eloke Yaakov. The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, which is to imply that each one of the forefathers and their partners had a very specific relationship with God according to their dynamic with God. And that's why the wording— and we know in Judaism we're very anal about our wording and what means and why we say this and why this letter is missing and why we have this, right? We're, we're massive with linguistics. And why it doesn't say the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as opposed to they all had this same dynamic relationship, and if, if it was like that for them, so therefore it must be like that for us. It's saying no, no. Some of you are going to have an Abraham-God relationship, and some of you are going to have a Yitzchak-God relationship, and some of you are going to have a Jacob-God relationship, and some of you're going to have a Joseph-God relationship, and some of you're going to have a— well, right, or Abraham and a Sarah relationship, right? Whatever it is, but it's going to be your relationship as it's uplifting to you, not one size fits all. And that's the true essence of Judaism, is that we have entryways, which is why we also, you know, at one side, like, when we talk about, like, all these things, like, we don't— if you go through any other, other Bibles, like, they don't say their prophet screwed up on something. Judaism says, and Moses didn't listen to God and got punished. We're not whitewashing the fact that these were human beings who had very holy qualities, which I do believe all of us have that same capability and possibility as well. And by the way, they screwed up. So yes, we have ego, and yes, we need to work on our ego, but yes, we also need to realize that these are the people we came from— flawed leaders who were aware that they needed to work on themselves, who consistently day after day showed up and recommitted themselves despite the fact that they knew that either they came from someplace that wasn't acceptable and they transformed themselves. Abraham came from, right, Eber, he came from the other side of the river. And accepted, right? He accepted the idea of one God, right? He grew up, he grew up in a different, he grew up on the other side of the tracks, metaphorically, or the other side of the river. The very straight says that, right? And yet we tell these stories about ourselves that what we do doesn't matter. And when we always go back to the theme of leadership, is that if we're all truly leaders, and yes, we need to have a healthy ego. If I didn't have an ego, we wouldn't be sitting here on a Wednesday night consistently every week since the pandemic started, correct? If I said, ah, I have to come up with something creative every week. I'm not really, I don't have the time. People really don't want to listen to me. Who am I? I'm not really that smart. I don't really represent a specific community. I don't have a pulpit. I don't have this. I don't have that. I'm just a therapist. Doesn't matter how many years I worked in the Jewish community as a professional Jew. Why would it? All these things. You don't need any of that. You don't need a robe. You don't need a crown. You don't need a rabbinic ordination. You don't need to have a certain pedigree. You don't need to have a certain education. You just got to show up and decide that the chapter of the story that you want to write is going to be written by you. One of my clients this afternoon, we were talking about how they can pivot. Their industry was completely, you know, they work in catering and I was talking about different things that are going on that they can pivot to and maybe they can bring it to their corporation and stuff like that. And I said, well, what about the idea of like you creating some type of like passive income on the side? And like, what can you, you know, you were in the military. And then you became an executive chef and you've catered these really high-end things and you've catered for the Olympics. What would it be like if you created like the 50 things that I learned, just bullet pointed for me? What are the 50 things you've learned from the military to culinary art school to catering, to catering for the Olympics, to catering for big corporate events, to catering for a major hotel chain that they will never teach you anywhere else? And then he goes to me, oh, that's so funny. Like, that's one of the ideas in my books. I'm like, where's the— have you written it down? He's like, no, it's in my head. I'm like, then it's just ideas. If it's in your head, it's just an idea. There's no substance to it, and no one else is going to benefit from it when it's stuck in your head. So you have to have a healthy ego. You have to say He's like, yeah, but who's gonna want to hear it? I'm like, I don't know, what happens if you call the title everything, absolutely everything that they will completely never teach you in the best culinary art schools, I learned from my time in the military. Oh my, who's not gonna want to buy that? Everything you need to be the best chef in the world, I learned from being in the military. It's a pretty catchy title. And all you need is 12 bullet points because no one's going to want to read a book that's 45 chapters long. 12 chapters, 10 if you're pushing it.

You have to have a healthy ego to be a leader, but sometimes it's very difficult to, to get into the line that, that you don't want to over Well, I'm curious why you keep going back to the negative aspects of it. Because, because it's hard because when you are a leader, people criticize. Hold on. Hold on.

It's hard for who? For leaders.

For who? For who? For leaders.

Is it? I don't know. I can't speak for anybody else but myself and I would challenge—

I'm talking about myself. Okay.

Well, well then say for me, don't say for, right?

For me. Well, but in general, because I've studied and I see the challenges and I know other leaders too. So I'm talking about general. So, but you want to talk about myself, myself included, it's hard to like, to say, okay, I know that I have these qualities and I know that I can do it and I focus on the mission and I know that I can be a leader and I can do a change that will impact other people. For X and Y reason. It doesn't matter, the reason for each of the leaders are different maybe. But then you want to do the job good and you don't want to, or I don't want to focus on me only, like on my ideas only. So how can you measure the healthy ego, or let's say the boundaries between?

Very simple. By creating space for other people to step up and become leaders too by not dictating, controlling, and absorbing the vacuum of all the air in that vacuum. And one of the— I don't know, somebody was it— someone messaged me the other day. I don't know who it was. And someone— oh, it was some, uh, whatever, someone who was on one of the classes last week who's also whatever, they're in the therapy world. And I can't remember whether it was a Tuesday, it must have been the Tuesday night class last week. And she's like, I can't believe how many times you were dead silent for 3 minutes at a time after you shared an idea.

Can you repeat? I didn't understand. That's what I'm saying.

They criticize you, right? Like, she was criticizing you.

It wasn't the criticism, it was a compliment.

Quite the opposite. I create— I allowed space for everybody else in the room to take the opportunity to share. I shut up. And sometimes, and this is the exact point of this Parsha, is that, and I'm going to read it verbatim. Only now reaching this Parsha can we begin to get a great sense of the vast, world-changing project at the heart of the divine-human interaction that took place in the lifetime of Moses and the birth of the Jews/Hebrews/Israelites as a nation. To understand it, recall the famous remark of Sherlock Holmes: "I draw your attention," he said to Dr. Watson, "to the curious incident of the dog at night." 'But the dog did nothing at night,' said Watson. 'That,' said Holmes, 'is the curious incident.' Sometimes to know what a book is about, you need to focus on what it does not say, not just on what it does. And I'm offering that true leadership is when to shut the hell up and let other people step up. And the people who are yabbing away and saying, "This is exactly definitively what it means, and if you don't believe this, you are wrong, and you're going to go off the path of sinners and wayward Jews if you don't follow my dictates and my command," are exactly the death of Judaism. They might be revered in certain circles, but they're gloom and dooms. I'm gonna throw firebolts from the— from my, my speaking podium if you don't agree with me and follow these dictates. Me, on the other hand, I'm like, great, you don't agree with me, that's awesome, let's talk about it. In fact, even more so, I would prefer people who don't agree with me to be part of this class Because then there's different viewpoints being shared, which hopefully will benefit someone, will hopefully will give an answer to someone who's been struggling with specific answer. But they'll also see how someone who has different views handles someone who has different views. And if they can't handle someone who has different views, that's sure as hell not leadership.

We agree to disagree.

It's bigger than that. I think that's a cop-out. I think "we agree to disagree" is a cop-out, to be honest with you. That line I think is weak. I'm not saying that that's your belief, right? But I'm saying that like, but I believe, I believe that that line, "we agree to disagree," in other words, you're an effing idiot and I just don't agree with you and you're entitled to be an idiot. I know. That's what it is. But that's what, but that's really— No, but that's really in your opinion.

No, I don't think it's in my opinion.

If you have an opinion and I have, well, I agree to disagree. I don't have to agree with you, but you know, that's your opinion.

Yeah, but I don't think the people who say that really truly respect the other person's opinion.

You don't think? Unless those people are Ray Dalio. Right. I think that's the point of the phrase.

We agree to disagree, because otherwise you can, you know. Yeah. Many, many, there are some people that believe it, there are some people that no, but it's not an easy way to go out. It's just to say, okay, I agree to disagree.

Maybe. Well, so let's see, let's hear what some other people say about that then. So Margarita, I know you shared some stuff before, so I don't know, Razel, Sophia, Sarah, Erez, Eitan, Smadar, I don't even, Smadar, who are you? You're not on video. Darren, get your—

I feel there's a language barrier, so I don't know what to say about it. Which part?

Agree to disagree? Agree to disagree is, You're beseder, I'm beseder. My beseder might be better than your beseder, but if yours is right, it's okay.

I've already discovered since coming here from Israel sentences that we thought are English are used differently here. So for me, that means this conversation is getting nowhere.

Let's choose to end it. Right. And Whoever says that first wins.

If you take it as a win and you show the other party it's a win, then you're disrespecting.

Well, I think it's implied. Let's just agree to disagree. No one ever says like, you know what, you have a lot of valid points. I don't necessarily agree with the fundamental basis of where you're starting from,, but I can understand why if you're starting there, why that would make sense. So can we agree that we're starting from different places and that do you, can you understand the value and where I'm starting from and why that would make sense too?

I understand how rough the sentence is. So you need to use it rarely and only with the right person. Right.

But that's really the higher level of what that is. And I have friends like that that are completely on the other side of political values that I can, that we can communicate at that level. It's like, oh crap. Yeah, that totally is a valid perspective based on everything you've gone through in your life and where you're starting your assumption from. I always go back to what's the least, the most basic assumption where you're starting that, that, that perspective from. Because everything is based on an assumption about something. The assumption here is that in the Egyptian world, death was more important than life. And the assumption that Judaism, at least in this, you know, that Rabbi Sacks is trying to teach us in this Parsha, the assumption is, is that no, life is more important than death, and we focus more on the death side of things and what will happen after in the resurrection and Olam Haba, and then we're missing out on a major thing. It's still an assumption. 'Cause we're still all assuming that all of this is factual and true and that this is really how we, that our religion is so to speak more right, authentic. I don't know. I don't know if, I don't know if I even, if I believe that we're more right than other people. I have this great quote that like God shows up to people in the specific clothing and in the specific package with the specific languaging in order for that group of people to actually actually obtain their spirituality and holiness in this world. So in other words, many people will say either I'm right and you're wrong, my holiness and spirituality is better than yours. And in fact, the way that I perceive it based on what I have experienced and what I now understand is that God must have shown up to them in a very different way, in a way that will allow them to see and right, to— for them to engage God in the way that God wants to be engaged through a very different set of clothing that at their level, at their frequency, they can relate to God. Our frequency is through the Torah. Another religion's frequency to connect to God is through that perspective of whatever that philosophy or theology is for them. And we need them to be the best version of them 'cause we don't believe in proselytization, which is the difference between us and all these other religions, right? Other religions don't believe, especially Christianity doesn't believe that we, that if the Jews were the best Jews and we were the best Christians, we let them do, we supported them in being the best. And in return, they can support us for being the best. Oh my God, this will be great. But we in Judaism be like, listen, you go do you, boo. Go do your thing. Do the best at it. Let us be, we'll do our thing. We'll be the best at that. And we'll see you on the tennis court. And I think that's really at the end of the day, when it comes back down to leadership, it's the stuff that's not being said. It's the sometimes just, it really is, it's just shut up. It's just shut up, leave space for other people to think, leave space for other people to show up. I was at a workshop once and for the couple days of the workshop, it was over 2 weekends and it was a Thursday night, a Friday, all day Friday afternoon and Friday night and all day Saturday. And by the second week, like every time that you would go in and you would have a certain amount of silence and whatever it would And then the facilitator would get up on the stage and they would start the morning thing. And the second to last day— bye, Sarah— and the second to last day, after they did their breathing meditation, no one went on the stage. The leader did not. The facilitator wasn't on the stage.

A minute.

2 minutes, 3 minutes, 4 minutes, 5 minutes, literally 7 minutes. And we're all kind of like looking around waiting. And the facilitator was standing behind all of us in the room. How did that problem get solved? What do you think? Someone jumped in. Someone stood up, got on the stage and did their share. They shared their— because it was assumed that you shouldn't do that, but that was never stated that you shouldn't. And it took a leader to get up there. Because what wasn't said was whatever you do in the morning, don't get up on that stage before the speaker gets up and starts his facilitation so you can do your share about what you had an aha about. Imagine how we do that in our everyday life. If that was a room of 100 people, it took 7 minutes for someone to have the audacity to get up there and be like, I'm gonna get up. I'm gonna risk being wrong. But no one also said that I can't do this. So it's the subtlety is what was not ever told that we can't do. Because there was a lot of rules of what you can and can't do during the weekend. That wasn't one of them.

The concept in the book of Leaders Eat Last is literally what this is. So, you know, there's the concept, leaders eat last. You go into a room, there's a bunch of people, or it's a company corporate lunch, you do not touch your meal until every single person that you manage, that you are responsible for, got their meal, you're giving them space to do, to break bread with each other. You're giving them space to explore ideas with each other, to describe their meals, and to break away from whatever it is that you were doing at work. This is their hour to kind of mingle.

You eat well. To create community. And yet, in all these other places that are pomp and circumstance and ceremony, that you have to wait for the a true leader to pick up their fork first and eat before everybody else can then follow suit. That's false. I don't know. That's not— that's right. I agree with you. Simon Sinek, right?

I believe so.

I'm trying to remember. So yeah, I think it's Simon's last book. Yeah. I think it was one of his last books. So it's, you know, it's really interesting that like, It's going out of your way. So I was playing tennis before with my siblings in Aventura at their courts, and there was a dad and a son playing tennis next to us at the court, and somehow we started engaging between the other end. I'm looking at his racket. I'm like, "Is that the so-and-so racket?" And he's like, "Oh yeah, it actually is." He's like, "I don't know. It's my wife's racket. Someone gave it to her as a gift." I'm like, Oh my gosh, I've actually been doing research on that tennis racket for the last couple of days. That is the number one top sold racket in the world right now and has all this cool science behind it. It's like the most technologically advanced. He's like, well, like whatever. And at the end of us playing, like it turns out they just moved from New York and we started playing Jewish geography and he needed some connections with like, where do I go for the holidays and what am I doing? What's open, what's not open and this and that. We have friends in common and I just got to tell— I'm like, "Listen, here's my number, whatever you need, I'll connect you with whoever, whatever resources you want and put you in the right—" but all I had to do was say, "Hey, is that the Wilson Clash tennis racket you're playing with?" because that was ego. He's like, literally, we moved down here this past month. We know no one in the building. We know no one in the neighborhood. Some of our other friends are moving down here as well. We know where the kosher restaurants are. We don't know where do you live, huh?

And the point, you're right next to me, right?

So they ask very specific questions, like, great, I know exactly where to point you to, and I know exactly where not to point you to because I asked, what exactly are you looking for and what exactly are you not looking for in a synagogue? And I said, "Here's where you absolutely, completely do not want to go. And here's where you might enjoy, right, according to me. Go check them out anyway." But like, he's like, "No, no, that sounds pretty accurate." I'm like, "But we have to ask questions. Leaders ask questions. Leaders don't just assume." 90% of my questions with my client, like I try to hope, I try to majority of my time with my client is me asking questions, not me sharing information. Help me under, and I always have these like, I like a loop of like prerequisite statements, pre-starter statements. So help me understand this, or what would it be like if we change those words? Fill me in a little bit more about what, why you said that specifically or what that means for you, right? I have all these, I'm constantly trying to drill Deeper and deeper. And if that happened, then what? Okay. So, so that's now happening. And then what would happen because of that? Okay, great. So then you're doing that. And what would be on the other side of that? Like, and like, it's like, they must be driving them nuts, but I'm, I'm trying to pull something out of them that they already have the answer to, not me telling them, because I don't know what their true answer is, but they know somewhere in there, but they just have to be asked the right questions. I don't say, "So this is what you're feeling." And I even say, I caught myself today, I asked my clients, "Is there a part of you that's afraid?" And I said, "I apologize. I don't want to assume that fear is the feeling that you're feeling, but the way that I can best ask this question to you," and feel free to substitute any word, "if you're even feeling it or worrying about it at all, is there any fear?" about X, Y, and Z. And the best word I can come up with right now is fear. But again, I don't want to put words on you or even imply that you are feeling that and assume that you are. What's— when you're navigating the scenario, what comes up for you, if at all? And I caught myself because maybe nothing is coming up for you. And now I'm like, but you should be feeling something. There's something wrong with you if you're not feeling something, right? That's not creating space for someone to step up. To own their experience, to own their story, to own their legacy, to own their connection. And that's this week's Parsha. So, promise to keep it shorter tonight. It's been about an hour. Sophia, any thoughts? Not today. Okay. Razel?

Darren?

Just stunned. Still stunned. What about?

Every word.

Which one threw you? Stucking it in. No questions. Okay. All right.

Thank you for your time.

Sure. Erez. Yes? Any thoughts? Last thing, I wasn't listening, focused. No worries, I'm glad you're here though. Alright, Michelle, before Michelle falls asleep. Michelle beat me in tennis yesterday. Did you know? You let me win. Huh?

You let me win. That's a win.

Was it yesterday? Two days ago. Two days ago. Yeah. Yeah. Feels like yesterday. Avi. Avi's here tonight. Yeah, he's not here. Not his twin. Is this stuff useful for y'all? Right? Those of you who are like, ah, you know, I mean, I appreciate you hanging out, but like, I want you to get something that's useful and tangible. What, you know, I want— I'm hoping that there's some aha somewhere in there for you, and if there isn't, tell me so I can come from a different approach. Just want to make sure our time is valuable. I know our time is valuable. I want to make sure that by you honoring to spend the time here, that you're getting something specific for yourself out of this. So, all right, if you are not registered for the K-Space, uh,