True Freedom - Getting out of Egypt.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Hello everyone and welcome to Influencer Mindset Podcast. Today we are here again with Dr. Yehiel Harari, um, an author who wrote 11 books with amazing, uh, thriving YouTube channel and, uh, really a speaker that, uh, all around the world people already know. And appreciate you. And, uh, today since we are so close to the Passover and we always have this theme of getting out of Egypt—

I lost you a little bit, right?

Okay, so now the live— the live has started. So, uh, So hello everyone again. We are here with Dr. Rakhil Arari. As everybody knows or don't know, Dr. Rakhil Arari is an author and a speaker all around the world. He has a record of already 11 books that he wrote. I'm sure it's going to be more coming from him. And a great YouTube channel. Great. Going to share with us today some fundamental concept of freedom and coming out of Egypt, we are nearing the holiday of Passover. That what's going on there, the Israelites, so to say, are coming out of Egypt. And in Egypt, they received the Torah, and then they become a nation, and then there is a whole thing about slavery and becoming free. And we know that the Torah doesn't really speak about the body, speaks more about the Soul. And it's really an opening, almost window in time for us to really get out of all the barriers, all the obstacles that stand in our way. And we want Dr. Echil Harari to elaborate more about the whole concept of freedom and Passover and how can we utilize it, how can we use this holiday, this Seder, and all of this to really come out free from this, from this experience.

Wonderful. Thank you very much for the introduction.

You're welcome.

You know, freedom, it's a negative term. I need freedom from something. It's like I'm, I'm so busy, I'm full of stress, children, so I, I need a vacation, I need to go out. I need freedom from something. So the right term in Hebrew, it's liberty. Liberty, it's a positive term. It's not a freedom from something. I don't need to get out of something in order to discover my inner liberty. What is it? What is it? Liberty? What are we talking about? Liberty? What closes us? What are the barriers? What, you know, think about the Israelites, the people of Israel before getting out of Egypt, they were slaves. And after that, they continued to be slaves. They got out of Egypt, they accepted the Torah, but then they were still slaves. They weren't free people most of the time. So what is this liberty and what is— Baal Sefarachinu, the author of the education book, very important book, wrote that one of the most fundamental ideas in Judaism It's Exodus, it's getting out of Egypt. What are we talking about? What is this liberty? So before you understand why you need liberty, you need to understand what are the barriers that you have in your life. What blocks you? And what blocks you is you yourself. Especially what blocks me, it's my self-feeling of ego. Ego, it's a Freudian term, but in Judaism, it's like In the Jewish thought, it's like my existence, my existence, it's me. It's like I am feeling myself, and when I feel myself, it's a barrier. Why? It's a very— it limits me because I cannot be a part of something that is infinite, a part of something that is huger than I. Because can I do that? Stop thinking about yourself, start thinking about what you need to do. So getting out of Egypt Maimonides says you have every day, every, every month, every time to think about every generation. You have to think about the idea of Exodus, of getting out of Egypt. The Alter Rebbe, the founder of the Chabad movement, wrote that every day you have to start your day, every day you have to think about, can I get this liberty? Can I get out of Egypt? It's not enough. So what is getting out of Egypt is knowing, you know, let's start with example, and then from this example we would be able to understand what we're talking about. Liberty. Think about a person that has— I won't use a psychological term— think about a person that has problems with concentrating. It's like very hard for him to concentrate, and his thoughts are running all over the place, and he's trying to handle them, and he cannot pick himself up because he's too confused. And the thoughts are never the problem. The problem are the emotions that that pushes the thought, that they are the engine to the thoughts. So the main problem are his emotions. So we have, because of those thoughts that run without barriers, he cannot control them. So he's being controlled by undesirable negative emotions. And now he is all— and when your thoughts are going all over, there is no way that you won't be sick, mentally ill in a way. Why? Because you are being controlled emotionally. So think about a person like that. And all of, you know, it's all of us knows this, this kind of feeling. We know what happens when my, my thoughts are running without me able to navigate them. But there are those people that have it, you know, suffer in, in specific time in their life, suffer more. So think about a person like that or a child like that. That for 2 hours he succeeded to concentrate, to learn something, to be in the right place, not to be in all places, not to have so many channels open. Think about a person like that. He felt freedom— not freedom, he felt liberty. Liberty from what? Liberty from all those ideas, all those thoughts that trying to catch him and trying to tell him, think about what they told about you and what they think about you and what happened to you yesterday and what you the trauma that you have been through. Now is, is, is liberty is being— is the feeling of being out of yourself, concentrating in something. And now you feel that nothing is closing you. Liberty, we think that they have to throw out of me things. The opposite is the right. When I am committed to something, to something, when I allow myself to be committed Only then I feel the liberty, but committed, not external commitment. External commitment, it's like I have to do things. Internal commitment, that now I allow myself to be only here and to be concentrated in this moment. And, um, and when I feel this moment, it's like I, I'm enjoying a special unity with the moment, myself, my inner self. And the Divine that is creating this special moment. So I have something like the Maimonides said, something like a 3D interaction. And this 3D interaction, it's where you feel your real self. Your real self is where you do not— where I am not myself. You know, people are going in the world, and Viktor Frankl did— people understood Viktor Frankl in the wrong way. They are walking in the world and they ask themselves What is my life meaning? Am I doing things right? Am I meaningful enough? And they kill themselves. Why? Because they always think about themselves. And being meaningful is being influencer is not about yourself. Whenever it's about yourself, you won't be an influencer because you want to receive, you want to get, because you are in the middle and you are doing things in order to accept. That people will appreciate you, that people will like you. And this is the opposite of liberty. Liberty is the place where I do not need anything, and I can discover this place only when I contemplate. No, I'm— uh, Aristo— Aristo English, you said? Aristo said like that concentrating, learning something, reading, it's a bit like a death, like dying. Why? Because in the minute that you are— think about a good book that you read. You're reading the book and now you need nothing. If you need, you know, some accommodation, something to eat, something to drink, so the book is not good enough. When the book is really good, say to yourself, I don't need anything else, leave me alone. The only thing that I want is, is to read the book. So this is a kind of liberty. And that's what happened in, you know, every day you should contemplate on this idea.

Yeah. Of meditation, the whole idea of meditation, it's another word to focus. When you are able to focus your energy on something, it's a form of meditation. That's why focus is, uh, it's so important.

It's, it's, uh, so I think there is, there is a subtle distinction between meditation and the Hebrew word of itbonanut, contemplation. What, and what is this word?

Yeah, yeah, there is a difference. There is a difference. Meditation is more like a focus. It's mostly about focus. But hitbonanut, which means contemplation, it's like you to stand on the side and look at yourself and like, you know, just—

That's the idea. Like you caught the idea. The idea is that you have your thoughts. You can, you know, you can step aside and look at your thoughts and say to yourself, okay, I am not your thoughts. And let them run. And it's like you disconnect yourself from your thoughts. That's the proof that you are not your thoughts, because you can look at your thoughts and you say, wow, I'm thinking those things. And one of the worst things that a person can do to himself is to rematch, to think that he is his thoughts, because all those crazy thoughts that you have, they are not yours. You know, you have to disengage from them. So this is one thing, but, but it's bonanot contemplation. Jewish contemplation is something else. It's using my thought. It's not looking at my thoughts from, from a different perspective. It's using my thoughts as a garment to my inner self. Because instead of letting my thoughts running all the way, so I'm now using my thoughts to contemplate, to use them, to direct them to one direction. And then they serve me. It's like I use this tool in order to serve me. And when I use this tool, it's like I have another tool in order to reveal my inner self. You cannot reveal your inner self if you don't have something to contemplate on. And one of the greatest philosophers of the last generation, Popper, said, you know, he used to call his students and tell them, look, what do you see? What do you want us to see? It's like when you don't have a pic, when you don't direct us to something, I see nothing. I don't know what to direct my, my, my contemplation at. So only then, so he said to them, you see, you can relate yourself only when you have something to, to relate to, only when you decided where to focus yourself. You can read a book and you get nothing from the book, but if you, if you came to the book with a question, you will find your answer in this book if it's, it's the right book. So let's summarize what we said. Freedom— we are not talking about freedom. Freedom, you know, in the freedom, take a vacation, and, uh, and, and, and vacation usually mostly won't do the job. It's not enough because when you have— when you find the liberty point in yourself, the liber— let's call him the, the The— it's only, it's only, you know, an insight of liberty in your life. You need nothing. You don't need vacation. The opposite, you don't need the vacation. You need to do more. You want to create more. You know, the Lubavitcher Rabbi never took a vacation, and they asked him, why? Take a vacation, enjoy your life a little bit. And he said the reason was, if I'll take a vacation, I want— I have so many things to do and I won't complete them. But this wasn't the right vacation, the right reason. The right reason was, I think, and you know, from my perspective, it's that when you're revealing your inner liberty, you don't need a vacation because you're doing exactly what you want and what you are connected to. And whatever you're doing, you, it's like, it's like, oh, I have to do that. When you have to do that, so take a vacation in order to, you know, to refresh yourself. No, you don't need a vacation because I don't have to do that. I want to do that. I'm connecting my inner self to every moment in this reality. And like, the Jews were slaves, the Israelites were slaves, and the process of getting out of Egypt was the process of somebody send them, you know, somebody, the Creator, send them like a rope and tell them, okay, You can see yourself differently. You can understand yourself differently. It's not about your— only about your new Tesla. You need a new Tesla, okay, but it's not about the new Tesla. It's about revealing the inner self, the inner, the inner liberty, the place where you have no barriers at all. Where you have no barriers? When you are not dealing with yourself. The, the greatest barriers that we have is the, the, the, the feeling of me. What about me? I am— I want to accept my ego is the huge barrier that we have from really influencing, because then I switch everything and everything is about myself.

So this is really the Egypt that we need to get out of. It's that sense of me, of I, of what I'm getting, you know, all this calculation that people are constantly doing about profit loss, whether it is financially, emotionally, timely, you know. So this is the Egypt, what you say, Hasidic spiritual perspective that we need to come out— going to come out of, and we are coming out of during this Passover.

I lost your last sentence because of the—

okay, so, so I'm saying that, that when we are, you know, celebrating Passover and next week going to be sitting at the seder and we're going to, you know, read the Haggadah and literally, you know, talk about— so I'm sure there's going to be many, many people, Jews or not Jews, that going to be sitting at that seder you know, and thinking, you know what, what am I doing? Meal here until they bring— it takes so long. What's going on? And the food looks weird. But anyways, what am I getting out of here from a point of view, you know? Because this is what we want to do here. We want to give people the tools to become better influencers and influence the world in a beautiful way, you know, because this is why we're I mean, this is what we sent you. So beautiful analogy, beautiful describe the Egypt as pretty much that sense of like me, that it's, it's pretty much the barrier. We are able to put that on the side, we can reach the epiphany and the real freedom, so to say, because we're not looking freedom Like in an American term, you know what I'm saying? Like, because in America they love that word. They talk about freedom, freedom, you know.

You know, I met— before we'll get into the point— I met a friend of mine who is a very successful businessman, and he said— I told him, why do you work so hard and, and why do you do so many things? And he said tell you the truth, I really want to, to retire at the age of 50 or something like that. He said 55. And ask him, why, why, why do you want to retire at the age of 50? It's like, you know, you're doing so many things, so why do you want to hurry up and retire? It's, it's like a contradiction. If you're doing a thing and you enjoy them, why, why do you want to retire? And he said, because I hate what I'm doing, so I want to do enough money in order to stop doing what I have to do. And it's like— and I thought to myself, it's like, it's such a misery that whatever you're doing is in order not to do it anymore, instead of, you know, of, of trying to find—

most people, you know, I mean, I could say about myself, I spent years, you know, just chasing, uh, things to— for the wrong And I think that, you know, intention is everything. When you have the intention, you're saying, why am I doing this? Why, you know, I want to be a human being or a better influencer on the world. And it's really not about yourself. And as long as it is about yourself, you're not really there. You got a long way to really get out of that place to start influencing, because influencing is really— it's never really about us.

It's about what I bring to the world, why I was born from the beginning. So let's get into the Laila Seder, the night of— how would you call it in English? The night of—

there is the translation, you know, the night of order, because seder, it means order. So there is some kind of order going on in that night.

There is a certain order. You know, there are few interpretations what is the night of Passover. One of it is that don't think, you know, the, the, the Oli Ari said, you look at the world and you think that the, the bad people, bad things are controlling the world. You think there is no justice in the world. Why do you think there is no justice? Because things are happening to you. And you say, why it happened to me? And you know what kills people is that they think that there is no justice. No, because you think there is no justice, you have to manipulate, you have to, you know, to take things that does not belong to you. A bit— when you know there is justice in the world, there is order in the world, you know that you will accept exactly what belongs to you. So the first idea of Exodus, of Passover, is that there is order in the world. And the second one, which is even more more connected to our theme today is that there is order in getting out of Egypt. There is order in accepting this consciousness that you have a point of liberty in yourself, that you have to let it illuminate your life. And it's not like you have to stop doing things that you don't want to do. Always we need to do things that we don't really want to do. But when you illuminate on those things with this, um, liberty thing that you have, this liberty soul movement, you do it differently. You say to yourself, okay, I want to do that, I want to be a parent, even though I have 5 children that killing me and I running all day after them. I want it, I choose it, I— this is my liberty. Liberty is being connected in this moment with those with my children. So there is an order in this evening, and the order, um, there are 15 steps. There are 15 steps of this order, very unique, but we won't go all through all those 15 steps. So let's summarize those steps in discovering the, the process of discovering your inner self, your inner liberty, through the 3 names of the holiday. You know, there are 3 names to the holiday. The first one is the The first thing that you would find in the Bible is the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

Okay.

The Feast of Unleavened Bread. I'm pronouncing it right, right? Unleavened bread.

And the second one is the cracker, that matzah cracker thing.

It's like, it's like, it's, you know, in this unleavened bread, there is a contradiction. From one perspective, you can see it's, it's a food for poor people. When you want to eat something, you do not eat unleavened bread. What do you eat? You eat, you know, a good bread that, that, that, you know, feels like a bread, not like something cracking and very hard to eat and very hard to put any something to eat with it. The second name is the Festival of Liberation, Liberation, that, that our sages used. And the last one is the festival— this is the name that we usually use in Hebrew— is the festival of Passover. And you know, the, the, the word Passover, I, I want— I wouldn't translate it like Passover because Passover, it's like, uh, it's like jump, switch. But it's the real— the, the real translation that we, we mean is the festival of jumping, of, um of creating more, of breaking boundaries. Pesach, it's like lifzoch, it's like to jump, jumping to your next level. Yeah, to next level. That's, that's the real translation. So you have even like an order in order to break boundaries, in order to find your liberty. You're in a liberty, you have to go through all those 3 steps. You have those 3 steps in the 15 signs of the Seder, but We'll go only for those three, um, uh, three names. So what is the holiday, the festival of unleavened bread? Unleavened bread, what are we talking about? Unleavened bread, it's a bread that from one perspective it's a bread for poor people. From another perspective, it's what would bring you to liberty. What does it mean when you all know, when you're full of yourself, when— think about the interaction between a father and a your children when you know everything. You think you are a good father, but, but your daughter won't accept you, won't speak with you. Why? Because she, she will feel that she cannot speak with a person that knows everything, that have a solution to everything. I, I, I don't want to cooperate with you because you know everything. When I need something, maybe I'll call you, but you won't be the right father for her, right? And you won't develop yourself and you won't understand her. And think about an interaction in relationship when, okay, I know what you need. No, be quiet for a moment. To be quiet, it's like to take one step backward and to develop this awe, this inner awe, and to listen and to be able to say to myself, I don't know anything. I don't know anything. I don't know how to do things. I really want to accept another knowledge, another understanding, another point of wisdom. And this is the idea of the unleavened bread. When you eat it, you know, the earlier we said, you eat the bread, it's like you fill yourself with, uh, with, um, health. It's the bread of health and the bread of faith. Why is it the bread of health? Because the best health, the best way to get health in your life is stop thinking about yourself. The more you know, most of Most of the researchers will show that the more you think about what happened to me, why it happened to me, how would I get out of it, you will put yourself in a place of a terrible, a terrible anxiety. You know, when somebody thinks about something that may happen to him, he will get into anxiety. And being in unleavened bread, it's like, feel yourself, okay, I'll let myself be. And in order to let yourself be, you need to develop a lot, a huge faith and a huge, um, right, confidence in life and trust and, and, and trust in, in godliness. So that's why when you eat, it's like the process of I believe that I should accept myself as not real. What do you think about me? I am like this. I'm a writer. I did this. No. So this is the first step. And in order to do that, you have to— somebody's asking us, ask me, how can I stop thinking about myself? And it's a huge question. And it's like, there's so many, so many tools that we will leave to another episode. But, but one of the things, it's like being really conscious about it. You speak with someone, try to see how much, how many times you say I. How many times you think about you are trying to talk about yourself? How much you are ready to listen really to him? How much it's important to you that he will appreciate you, or you really listen to him? You want to say the right words in order that he will accept what you have to say, or you want to say the right words in order that he will take out of it the strong thing that you can influence to him? So this is the first level. The first, it's like Now I have to go for a process of unleavened bread. Then I have, yeah, you know, we said the festival of liberation. Liberation, it's the knowing that I'm— I have something to bring to the world. Without this belief in myself, without the understanding that I am, I'm, I'm, I'm carrying a message to the world, and this is my specific message. Doesn't matter if you will, you know, if you will manifest your message on social networks or at home or with your child, but you have a message to the world. And this message, it's like you have to convince yourself. When somebody is— let's go to the extreme— committing suicide, he says to himself that, I don't know if I have a message. I don't know if somebody will listen to my message. I am alone in the world. People do not want to listen to my message. So you have to really believe that you have your message. And the right—

because the—

so it's not only that. You can get— you can be a very famous person and still want to commit suicide because you think you do not deliver a message enough. It's not about— it's very relative. It's relative in a way that, that you try to— you don't know, believe, accept that your message is being accepted. So the second thing is to develop your influencing. You're, you're not calling your podcast Influencing Mindset without a reason. It's one of the most important and dominant ideas in Judaism. That's why we have to recite the idea of Exodus, of getting out of Egypt, every day, because it's so important. Like, it's not enough not to be. You have to be not to be, not to be full of yourself in order to be a carrier, to be a wagon to something else. And this is the second step. And when you went through this working on yourself in this order, and as I said, you know, all the 15 signs of the Seder, of Lailat Seder, are walking through those, those ideas. And, and the last one is when you are— how do you know you went through this process? When you are ready to jump, to do things that you never thought you will do, to be— not to be lazy, not to always, you know, just think about yourself and your interest and what you get out of things. And when you are in this process, only then you say to yourself, okay, I'm starting to get out of Egypt, out of my inner barriers, and I'm starting to It's like I said, I said to myself, I don't want to be anymore this husband that is always walking like, you know, in a full face and criticizing everything. I don't want to be this brother, this father, this husband, doesn't matter. I want to be a better person. Now, after getting out of Egypt, you have to find your Torah, your, you know, your high thing, elevated thing. The, the thing that will, you know, that you will pick your eyes up and you said, okay, I want to go in this order. I want— there is something better that I want to be every day. It's not enough just— it's not enough just to get out of my barriers. You get out of your barriers in order to achieve something. What do you really want to achieve? So this is another, another, um, thing that we have to talk about it.

But yeah, we'll talk about goals. We'll do once, uh, a podcast It's worth, it's worth a whole podcast. You, uh, the idea here with the—

so we'll close the idea with that, that every, um, every day, and you have to go through a process of thinking to yourself, what is my inner liberty? What is the place where I'm, I'm, I've, I allow myself to to break my boundaries. And breaking boundaries, people think it's like to make more money. No, this is the easiest thing to do. It's not a barrier, you know. You can see, I think Tony Robinson wrote a book about 50 billionaires that he met, and he said, I think he said only 3 or 4 out of them were really happy. And it's not about happiness, it's not also happiness, it's about being concentrated. Seems too many, boo. Like, to be in— to be where you are, the solution to happiness, the solution to join us, is the ability to be where you are and to come and to receive and to influence. To receive— in order to receive, you have to be quiet, and then to take what you received and then to influence it in another place. It's like happiness connected to the idea that you have, you know, that you have this liberty. Liberty— what is liberty? If I need now a cigarette I have no liberty. I am, I'm capped to the, to the, to the cigarette. If I need really now, uh, you know, the best love interaction that we have, you need nothing, not a hotel, not— you just need to be with your spouse, just need to be, to relate to it, to speak with it. I don't need nothing. I need coffee. If you need coffee, that means this, this moment, you know, in, in day of Kippurim, the autonomy day, that's right.

Yeah, I think people know what Yom Kippur is.

It's, it's, uh, it's— we don't eat.

It's a fast day, 26 hours, 25 hours of fast.

Why? Because it's, it's when you're really into something, when you meet something yourself and your divine and your creator, really you don't need to eat. You don't need the festival of eating. But then when you become— it's not the idea of not eating. It's not the idea of, you know, it's not enough to reveal only my. My infinite liberty place in myself. It's like to take it down earth. Because when you want to interact, if I'll come to your place, if I'll visit you, and you say, okay, let's interact, let's be together without eating, I will kill you. I want. Come on, bring something to the table. Let's eat something. What are you talking about? How cheap you are. We won't eat. So you bring out this idea of liberty to the mundane life. That's the idea, right? You bring it to the mundane life. You, you said, okay, I need to eat and I do a lot of things. I will do it. I have something that, that it's not about me. It's about revealing something else in this world. And this process, it's like, you know, revealing the infinite in the finite. World. It's like, it's the part of the Exodus. And to do it every day, it's like to feel every day I have something to give to the world, and it's not about how many likes I got. And, and every day I, I can smile even though that, you know, look outside, it's the best period to the humankind. Never in the humankind we had such abundance. And, and, and we live in a really fascinating time, really fascinating time.

Every day I'm like, I'm mind blown because I remember the years go You know, every 5 years it's like it's a whole different world. Like now with November of last year when it was released, you know, ChatGPT and the whole shifted and we are going in through a shift really in everything. Everything is changing again because of AI, because now there is machines that are smarter than humans and they could do so much more faster, and they don't need lunch, and they don't need the lunch break or cigarette break, you know, they can just do it.

But still, that's the point. We are progressing, but still the inner battles that we have are feeling like worse. More people are in anxiety than ever before. More people suffer from exactly stress. So, so it means, you know, think about revolution. I don't know if, if, um Uh, inventing electricity, it's less than AI. I don't know. Or inventing, you know, the—

I think it's around the same scale. It's a revolutionary, uh, it's going to change society forever, and it's already doing that, uh, in, in, in a way. It was just released a few ago, and the machine learning pace, it's accelerating in ways that people never imagine. The capability of that thing to learn and to information is just an amazing thing, you know, and it's something to— people need to understand. I was talking about it the last class that I did, that we— it's because there's going to be so many jobs out there that will not be anymore necessary.

You know, the whole idea of the more you live, you know, development that we see now, the more you have to work on your inner self. Like, the whole idea of progressing is to give you time.

Really important to do that because now this is going to be how people will be valued. It's going to be only your inner self. You're going to have to actually win through your uniqueness. You're going to have to find exact— your exact mission and really execute on it because that's going to be love and energy and that's going to be your currency soon. You know, especially doing now, creating content. I mean, in, I don't know, in 100 years, my grand-grandson will get, you know, a penny or two royalties. Who knows? You know what I'm saying? But, you know, it's about creating value and keeping creating this value and bringing that value into the world because we have value to give. And also the purpose of this podcast is to encourage to bring that value into the world, you know, not to be afraid to be an influencer because exactly, you know, we are here to influence. I love your analogy, the unleavened bread, and how, you know, during the Passover We eat the unleavened bread, which means it's like a dough that did not rise, and from that dough they did not make the matzah. So, so when the dough rise, it symbolize the sense of self. Oh, now I'm important, now, now I'm in the middle. The, the rise means the ego rise, and this is why we are not eating bread that was risen, but it's only for 7 days.

After that, you know, yeah, consciousness of just, just to have, you know, understanding that you have this ability to manifest this, uh, this inner emotional treatment, or, you know, to get out of your ego. You can do that, but then you need to, to, to harness your ego in order to achieve more things. I think we touched the point.

Thank you so much, Dr. Harari, for your time and for your insights. Best of luck.

Thank you very much, my love. All the best.

We'll be in touch. Take care.