Rabbi Peretz Chen | I'm around the kids all day and I'm exhausted! Where do I get more energy from?!

00:00 Every successful place depends heavily on a successful leader. That’s true in the workplace and in the army, for example: when the commander is good, it affects the way everyone operates. The same is true of a country. When its leader is good, it affects the entire country. And it’s true in our homes, too. We parents are the leaders of the home, and the more capable we are, the more strength we have, the more it will affect the way the whole household functions. But when a period like this comes along—the summer break, when we expend so much strength and energy on our children, especially once the day camps are over, or for those who don’t send their children to camp at all—where do we draw the strength to keep giving? We’re not machines. We’re human beings with limits. Our strength has limits, too. Where do we find the strength to keep going? So in today’s class, we’ll talk about some practical ways to draw strength so we can keep giving our all to our sweet children. We’ll learn and talk about how, in life, between one situation and the next, between one stage and the next, there needs to be some kind of pause, some kind of break in between. This shows up in everything, in every process in this world. We’ll see today that even in the higher, spiritual worlds, when moving from one state or stage to another, there is a pause in between. And not only that: when something we all long for happens—when, with Hashem’s help, Moshiach comes, and one of the stages of the Geulah is the resurrection of the dead—even in the moments just before the resurrection, there will be a certain pause between what came before and what comes after. Because at every stage of life, when moving from one state to another, we need a pause

02:29 to gain the strength and the ability to keep moving forward. I want to share a story. When I was still relatively newly married, about a year and a half after our wedding, with one small baby—or maybe we already had two; I don’t quite remember—one of my colleagues at work told me something that has stayed with me to this day. At the time, I didn’t really understand how important it was for a couple to go away together. I thought, all right, we work—sometimes harder, sometimes less hard. I didn’t grasp just how important it was to go away as a couple. Then that colleague, a learned Jew qualified to serve as a dayan—someone very serious—said to me, “Look, listen carefully. Going away on vacation together, just the two of you, without the children—the husband and wife together—is much cheaper and much more pleasant than couples therapy.” Listen, that’s what he told me. Honestly, I still didn’t quite understand, probably because life wasn’t so busy then, certainly not compared with today. Though we always think we’re the busiest people in the world. As life goes on, you realize you were probably less busy back then than you are today, but at the time I didn’t fully appreciate it. Still, I took his words to heart. He was someone whose opinion I valued very highly. So my wife and I arranged a getaway together for the first time, and suddenly we felt the strength, the energy, the refreshment it gave us. When we came back, we were already looking forward to the next time. Getting away together, disconnecting from daily life and our routine, going away without the children—it renews your strength in such a meaningful way. It gives you the strength to be there for your children afterward with much, much more energy,

04:41 much more strength and patience and energy, and everything else you need. Because sometimes you simply have to pause. You can’t keep running without stopping. It doesn’t work; life doesn’t work that way. Anyone who has done it surely knows exactly what I mean. Sometimes a couple’s vacation can give you strength for a whole year. You work hard day after day, and then you remember: ah, at the end of the year, at some point, we’ll go away together, just the two of us. That gives you strength even in difficult moments. That’s how the world works: between one state and another, between one stage and another, there has to be a pause. We see it every week, too. We work very, very hard all week. The work reaches its peak at the end of the week, on Erev Shabbos, with the preparations for Shabbos. We work hard, and then Shabbos arrives, and with it comes rest. “Shavas vayinafash”—“He ceased work and rested.” Vayinafash brings to mind the word nofesh, a vacation. There’s a chance to rest. On Shabbos, we stop working; we need to rest on that day. It’s a day to regain strength. A day when we don’t even need to flip the light switch, because the lights come on by themselves, according to how we set the Shabbos timer. We don’t need to turn on the air conditioner with the remote; it’s all taken care of. The food is ready, and it’s already hot on the hotplate. We rest and build up our strength. I know quite a few Jews who didn’t have the privilege of keeping Shabbos in the past, and now, baruch Hashem, they do. They say, “We don’t understand how we ever lived without it. How could we manage without this weekly rest? It’s simply impossible. It makes no sense; it isn’t human. How could anyone do it?” As human beings, we need

06:40 that rest. And in a marriage, too, we need that pause, that moment to stop. There’s a concept in Chassidus that between one yesh and another—between one existence and the next—there has to be ayin, a state of nonexistence, in between. Between one reality and another, one state and another, one stage and another, there must be that pause, that break, so we can reach the next stage successfully. Otherwise, where would we draw the ability and the strength from? The Gemara tells us about Rabbi Zeira, one of the great Amoraim, who lived in Babylonia—present-day Iraq—and wanted to move to Eretz Yisroel. But the approach to learning in Eretz Yisroel was different. In Babylonia, there was the Babylonian Talmud, the Gemara we know. A hundred years earlier, the Jerusalem Talmud had been compiled in Eretz Yisroel. It’s the Talmud of Eretz Yisroel, and its approach to learning is considered more difficult, more challenging, and completely different. Rabbi Zeira was afraid that if he moved to Eretz Yisroel with the approach to learning he was used to in Babylonia, he wouldn’t be able to understand its approach properly. So the Gemara relates that he fasted a hundred fasts to forget his previous way of learning, so that his mind would open up to the new approach in Eretz Yisroel. Rabbi Zeira knew that to move from one stage to the next, from one yesh to another, from one state to another, there had to be a break in between—that ayin, that moment of stopping—so that he could truly move forward and reach the next stage. That’s how things work. You can’t travel without stopping; you need breaks to rest along the way. And in a marriage, this is critically important. Now someone listening might be thinking, “A vacation? What vacation? Where are we supposed to leave the children?” These things aren’t

08:52 Practical. No, no, you may be right about that. Not everyone has that option. Not everyone can have their parents watch the children or take the children to their parents. Every couple has its own circumstances; it isn’t possible for everyone. So okay, maybe you don’t go away together as a couple. But don’t give up on going out to a restaurant together. Make an effort for it—those few hours alone, alone, alone, in peace and quiet. And if that’s hard too, because it doesn’t work out, because, thank G-d, the children keep you busy and who knows what else? When the children go to sleep, stop and have a cup of tea together, a cup of coffee with cookies on the side. Without phones, of course. No phones while you sit and talk and hear and listen to each other. It refreshes you; it gives you strength. After all, what do you talk about all day? “Go buy this.” “Go get that.” “Change a diaper.” “Get everyone to dinner.” “Give them baths.” That’s the conversation. It’s a very, very important and holy conversation. But we also need our own personal conversations, about ourselves—to share experiences, to make plans. It gives us strength; it builds and shapes our marriage. Again, going away for two nights, or even one night, contributes so much, from experience. Even going away for one quiet night, just once, is powerful. “It’s impossible, it’s hard, it won’t work, it isn’t practical.” Fine. There are options at home too. There’s a restaurant; there’s a cup of coffee at home, a cup of tea. Who was greater than the Lubavitcher Rebbe? The Rebbe was busy. You can’t fathom how the Rebbe managed to do everything he did: answer enormous numbers of letters, each of which the Rebbe opened personally and answered; meet people [unclear], speak words of Torah. Today, whole libraries are filled with books containing just the Rebbe’s Torah teachings.

10:55 And with all his commitments and that packed daily schedule, the Rebbe did not give up having a cup of tea together with the Rebbetzin. None of us is as busy as the Rebbe. None of us. None of us is as busy as the Rebbe, or comes close to being as busy as the Rebbe. And despite all that, the Rebbe did not give up that cup of tea together. We won’t give it up either. It’s important, it’s critical, it builds us up. Because between one stage and the next, there has to be some kind of pause. And as I said at the beginning, you see this in everything. For example, one of the things that is very, very fundamental in the world of chassidim is immersing in a mikveh. I mean immersion in a mikveh for men, something they do not give up: every morning before davening, on Erev Shabbos, on Shabbos morning. Immersion in a mikveh. So much so that even during difficult periods in history, when it was hard to immerse in a mikveh, chassidim did not give it up. I even heard a story. There was a chossid named Reb Moshe Vishetsky [unclear]. One winter day in Russia, he was walking with one of his young sons to immerse in a mikveh—which meant breaking the ice and immersing in the water beneath it. As they walked, a Jew saw him and said, “Reb Moshe, have you gone crazy? If you want to immerse in icy water, I can understand that. But your son won’t survive it.” Reb Moshe told him, “It will be fine.” So they went there and broke the ice. Reb Moshe took off his coat, immersed in the water, and came back out. He could manage it; he was older, a grown man. Then he said to his son, “Come on, take off your coat.” His son took off his coat and cried, “Father, I’m cold.” “There’s nothing to be done. Take off your sweater and your shirt.” And with every item of clothing the son removed, he said how hard it was for him.

12:43 But his father did not relent. Then, when the boy put the tip of his finger into the river’s freezing water, he let out such a scream that his father said, “All right, get dressed. We’re going.” As they walked back, that same Jew had somehow noticed what had happened from a distance. So he said, “Reb Moshe, tell me, what were you thinking? You knew he wouldn’t be able to do it. Why did you do that?” Reb Moshe Vishetsky [unclear] told him, “I knew he wouldn’t immerse. I knew it. I’m not imagining otherwise [unclear]. But when he put his finger in and felt how cold the water was, and saw that I had immersed, and knew it was for the sake of mikveh, it instilled in him, down to his very bones, that a mikveh is something for which one must be ready to sacrifice oneself. That will stay with him all his life.” And indeed, that Reb Moshe Vishetsky, a"h, merited to have children, grandchildren, descendants and great-grandchildren who are all, today, observant Jews, chassidim who fear Heaven. It worked. Chassidim immerse in a mikveh; they don’t give it up. For a mikveh, chassidim are ready to sacrifice themselves. What is the idea behind a mikveh? We also find that the Kohen Gadol on Yom Kippur immersed in a mikveh when he moved from one type of service to another. What is the idea behind a mikveh? When you move from one stage to another, you need to cleanse yourself a little, to nullify yourself, to shed something of your previous state. Immersion in the mikveh is an act of self-nullification. And so, for example, we move from a weekday into Shabbos. How can we suddenly go from a weekday into Shabbos? They are two completely different things. On Shabbos, the worlds are more spiritual, more elevated; the worlds ascend. Everything is more spiritual, everything is holier. So we immerse in a mikveh, and that immersion before Shabbos prepares us for the new state of Shabbos. It removes our previous state and prepares us for the new one. Why do we immerse on Shabbos morning? Because the sanctity of Shabbos day is much greater than the sanctity of Shabbos night. We’re moving to another stage. We need to renew and cleanse ourselves for the new state, so we immerse in a mikveh. And likewise, every morning a Jew wakes up and, before going to daven Shacharis, after sleeping and dreaming through the night, needs to move into a new state. How do we do that? Between that previous state of sleep and the coming state of prayer and a new day, we place the mikveh—immersion in the mikveh, self-nullification in the mikveh. That’s how this world works: between one stage and the next, there must be some kind of pause, some kind of stop, a nullification of the previous state and a renewal in preparation for the new one. And that is the idea of going away together. We need it; we absolutely need it. All of it together. Going away together is critical. It gives us strength. It gives us strength to carry on with everything we do at home, to continue caring for the children, to continue giving our children all of ourselves. It has to happen, and we need to make an effort for it. For some people it happens naturally and easily. Good for them; they are fortunate. Not everyone can manage it so simply and easily. Even those who can’t need to make an effort to find what suits them, whether in this way or another. But it needs to happen. We also spoke about the mikveh. Actually, it’s interesting: this isn’t only true in this world, but in the higher worlds too. When a soul passes from this world to the World to Come, it passes through immersion in a river called the Nahar Dinur. What is the idea? You cannot arrive in Gan Eden and the World to Come while still carrying this world’s concepts in your mind. So that Nahar Dinur removes the concepts of this world, preparing the soul for the World to Come. Because between one state of being and another, between one reality and another, there needs to be, as we said, a state of nothingness in between: some kind of pause, a certain stop, and renewal and refreshment.

14:42 Shabbos day is on a much higher level; its holiness is greater than the holiness of Friday night. We move into a different stage. We need to renew ourselves, to cleanse ourselves for the new state, so we immerse in a mikveh. In the same way, every morning a Jew wakes up and, before going to daven Shacharis, needs to move from sleep, from the dreams of the night, into a new state. How do we do that? Between the previous reality of sleep and the next reality—davening and a new day—we make an interval of ayin, of letting go of what came before. That is the mikveh, the immersion in the mikveh, the self-nullification in the mikveh. That is how this world works: between one stage and the next, there has to be some kind of pause, some kind of stop, a letting go of the previous state and a renewal in preparation for the new one. And that is the idea of getting away together. We need it; it is essential. Everyone together. Taking a vacation together is critical. It gives us strength. It gives us strength to keep doing what we do at home, to keep caring for the children, to keep giving our children all of ourselves. It has to happen, and we need to make an effort for it. For some people it happens naturally and easily. How fortunate they are. Not everyone can make it happen so simply. Those who cannot also need to make an effort to find what works for them—whether it is one way or another—but it needs to happen. We also spoke about the mikveh. Actually, it is interesting that—no, this is not only in this world; it is also true in the higher worlds. When a soul passes from this world to the World to Come, it passes through immersion in a river called Nahar Dinur. What is the idea? We cannot enter Gan Eden and the World to Come with this world’s concepts still in our minds. So Nahar Dinur removes the concepts of this world, preparing the soul for the World to Come. Because between one yesh and another, between one reality and another, there needs to be, as we said, ayin in the middle—a certain pause, a stop, and then renewal and refreshment.

16:38 Before entering a new state. Even a soul in Gan Eden that wants to move to the higher Gan Eden, a higher level, passes through the River of Fire. That is how things work: between one state and another, between one stage and the next, there is a pause. It says in halachah that when a Jew has committed sins and wants to do teshuvah, one of the ways to do so is to leave his city, go somewhere new where no one knows him, and make a kind of fresh start there as he enters this new state of teshuvah. He was in a bad state, a state of sin, and wants to reach a state of teshuvah. There has to be some kind of pause in between. A stop. Because between one state and another, there has to be a pause. We all long for Moshiach to come, for the Geulah to arrive, for the Beis Hamikdash to be built, and for the Resurrection of the Dead. What will happen in the moments before the Resurrection of the Dead? After all, thank G-d, we are alive, and with Hashem’s help Moshiach will come any moment now, at this very moment, in our time, certainly with Hashem’s help. Then the Resurrection of the Dead will come, but we will already be alive. So what will happen to us? It says that a moment, or a few moments, before the Resurrection of the Dead, we will return to dust and then rise, as it says, “May my soul be like dust before all,” and as it says, “For dust you are, and to dust you shall return.” We will return to dust. That is what will happen in the moments before the Resurrection of the Dead. Even the holy Baal Shem Tov once said that he could have ascended to the higher world like Eliyahu Hanavi, without passing away, together with his body. But he wanted to experience “to dust you shall return.” But the question is: why? Why? What for? Why do we need that? Let us go straight into the Geulah. Why do we need to return to dust? The explanation is that from the moment the Resurrection of the Dead takes place, the world will be a different world, a new world, in a completely new form. And we cannot enter that new form as we are today. There has to be

18:41 some kind of pause in between, a kind of restart, a renewal. That renewal means returning to dust, leaving behind what we know today, and entering the new world, the world of Geulah, the world of the Resurrection of the Dead. By the way, if any of the listeners are frightened by this—what, we will return to dust?—there is an alternative. I saw in one of the Rebbe’s maamarim, in a footnote, that the Rebbe cites the idea that for a Jew who has such self-nullification before Hashem that “my soul is like dust before all,” this can be a substitute for “to dust you shall return.” In other words, someone who has a very, very deep self-nullification before Hashem, who attaches no importance to himself, only to Hakadosh Boruch Hu—that can take its place. So anyone interested should start working now on “May my soul be like dust before all.” In any case, we see from this too how, between one state and another and between one stage and the next, there has to be a pause for renewal, and that gives us strength afterward. May we merit to have nachas from our children and truly be able, with Hashem’s help, to give them all of ourselves, and may Hashem give us the strength to do it. But Hashem wants us to do things in the natural way, and in the natural way that means knowing how to stop from time to time: for a vacation together as a couple, for a restaurant, for coffee or tea together, for something that is just for the two of us. We saw that this is how the world works. We saw that this is what happens every week on Shabbos. We saw that when Rabbi Zeira moved to Eretz Yisroel, he understood that he needed some kind of pause before the new beginning of studying the Talmud Yerushalmi of Eretz Yisroel. We saw that this is the whole idea of a mikveh, because the principle is that between one yesh and another there must be ayin in between. It is the same in the higher worlds: when moving from one world to another, there is the River of Fire. And a Jew who does teshuvah goes somewhere else in order to find

20:32 a kind of renewal, a fresh start. We saw that this is what will happen at the time of the Geulah, in the moments before the Resurrection of the Dead. May we merit to put these things into practice and have the strength, the inner strength, to invest so much in our family. So once again, may we have nachas from our children, and may we merit the complete Geulah and the coming of Moshiach very soon. Amen, may it be so. Thank you very much.