Addictions

Good afternoon, everybody. We are going to study Parashat Va'era this afternoon. We are going to look at a few pesukim (verses) that deal with the fifth makah (plague): “Hinei yad Hashem hoyah b'miknecha asher basadeh, basusim, bachamorim, bagmalim, babakar, uvatzon, dever kaved me'od. Vehiflah Hashem bein mikneh Yisrael uvein mikneh Mitzrayim, velo yamut mikol livnei Yisrael davar” (Behold, the hand of Hashem is upon your livestock in the field, upon the horses, donkeys, camels, cattle, and sheep—a very heavy pestilence. Hashem will distinguish between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt, and nothing of the children of Israel will die.). It is a very fruitful promise. We are talking about millions and millions of animals, and we keep saying that it was the Egyptians who lost, but the Jewish people and their animals were not the only ones. The truth is that even on a normal day, animals can die without plagues, but I guess that day would be special, since there would be clearly determined differences.

The pasuk (verse) says that Hashem went ahead and did what He said: “Vaya'as Hashem et hadavar hazeh mimachorat, vayamot kol mikneh Mitzrayim, umimikneh bnei Yisrael lo met echad” (Hashem did this thing the next day; all the livestock of Egypt died, but of the livestock of the children of Israel, not one died.). Not even one. So, this is the Pharaoh I want to talk to you about. What does Pharaoh do after this happens? What does he do? Here, he got the prediction. This is usually how it is, as God says. Now, you have to understand that Pharaoh did not see the Torah. We are able to learn what Pharaoh does because the Torah is open to us. In truth, Pharaoh is in his palace. He knows that there are animals, but he does not know generally which animals are there. If the Jews’ animals were not there, he would not know. He has to check. The pasuk says, “Vayishlach Paro, vehinei lo met mimikneh Yisrael ad echad” (Pharaoh sent, and behold, not one of the livestock of Israel had died.). Pharaoh is looking closely, checking what happened. And behold, as Moshe promised, not one of the livestock of Israel had died—not one animal. “Not one” means even one animal. If there is an animal there, tell me which one, not which kind. So what was the habit? When Pharaoh’s people went out, okay, sorry, they all came back. He was not there. There was no other way to find out, so they looked at Pharaoh, Pharaoh, Pharaoh, Pharaoh.

Not even one. What does the end say? Pharaoh didn’t send them. So why did he send the messengers? What was the purpose of the mission, of sending them out to see whether any of their animals had died or not? Anyway, by the end, you’re not sending them anyway. So why are you making yourself look bad? Just don’t send them. You don’t want to send them, don’t send them. You want to send them? Check whether you got the right results or the wrong results, whatever perspective you’re looking for. Send them out. This is what I’d like to spend a few minutes discussing today: how to understand this pasuk. It’s actually very relevant to all of us.

We’ve heard the word “addiction” in our lives. When I say “addict” or “addiction,” my mind automatically rushes to think about the use of alcohol or drugs, or gambling addiction. We know that addiction can even involve food, eating. A person could be addicted to work. A person could become addicted to power. There’s another addiction, the addiction of lifestyle. A person can become addicted to their lifestyle, their social lifestyle, their religious lifestyle. How do you become addicted? What’s the formula? It really doesn’t take much. A person achieves a certain comfort in their life, and they become addicted to it. We’re probably all addicted to something. If not one thing, probably more than one. What are some of the signs of addiction? How do I know if I’m addicted or not? How do I know if somebody else is addicted? What are some of the signs of addiction that we could see? “Oh, you’re an addict.”

Addiction is characterized, number one, by denial. Typically, we see this in an alcoholic, for example. I personally, unfortunately, have dealt with some people who have been addicted to alcohol. It’s clear to anybody watching that this person has a problem and is destroying his life or her life. It’s obvious to everyone except the person himself. The person can be totally oblivious to his own issues and their ramifications.

A second phenomenon of addiction is that a person who’s addicted has a way of distorting his thoughts, his judgment. He doesn’t see things straight. Not only does he deny it, but he sees things in a completely different way from how most people, normal people, would look at them. An addict is capable of the most complex and most bizarre rationalizations for his behavior. And he believes one hundred percent that what he’s doing is the right thing. So again, either he’s in denial—that he has no problem, that he can stop whenever he wants, that he has no issue—or he goes even further and rationalizes that he’s doing the right thing.

There’s a Midrash that brings an interesting story. Addictions are not something that popped up in the last century. This is a Midrash written a few thousand years ago, perhaps. There was once a fine young man whose father was an alcoholic. Many times, his father would fall down in the street while he was drunk. The children would come and hit him with sticks or stones. Little children would make fun of him: “Look at the drunk! Look at the drunk!” Now, you can imagine what it was like living in a town. That’s how they used to live. Everyone was in the smalls. Everyone was in the small town. Everyone knew each other. Imagine this young, good young man seeing his father being mistreated. A, it hurts him for his father. And B, it’s a shame for the entire family, for himself. He was so ashamed of his father’s situation.

One day, he approached his father with a compromise. This is the Midrash. He tells him, “Abba (Father), if you promise me that from now on you won’t go to the bars and taverns to get drunk, I’ll undertake to supply you every day. Stay home. I’ll get you the best wines and the best food. Every day, I’ll take it upon myself to deliver the best to you. You don’t have to go drinking in the bars. Stay at home.” So the father agreed. It was a good deal: free drinks, the best drinks delivered to your house. Great. This is an alcoholic’s dream. The father agreed, and the deal went on.

One rainy day, before the son came to deliver the goods to his father, the father was still sober. He hadn’t started drinking yet. As the son was going to his father’s house, he saw a drunkard lying in the street. In the room. In the rain. He saw children making fun of him and hitting him. He looked exactly like his father. The son thought, “This is a great opportunity.” He went home to his father quickly and said, “Dad, come, I want to take you just for a moment, for a little walk. Just come with me.” He took him and showed him this man, drunk and disgusting-looking, disgraced by the way they were treating him and talking about him. The man was lying and rolling around in the dirt. Disgusting. The son told his father, “Look. You see how this man looks? Isn’t it disgraceful? How horrible.”

The father was looking. Then he went over to the drunkard, whispered something in his ear, talked to him, and came back to his son. The son thought, “Wow, now he’s giving advice. That’s very good. He’s talking to him. He must have gotten the message.” So he asked his father, “Dad, can I ask you what you told him?” His father said, “I asked him where he got that stuff from. It’s unbelievable. It looks great.” This is the Midrash. I didn’t make up the story. I don’t know if it’s a true story, but the point is true. It’s very clear. What is the Midrash trying to say? What’s the point of the story?

The point is that, with normal eyes, anybody could see that what’s going on is a complete disgrace. Any normal person could see it. But an alcoholic will look and totally ignore everything. The father didn’t see the way the man looked. The father didn’t see him in the rain. He didn’t see the kids making fun of him. He didn’t see it. All he knew was that if your mind is on what you want, which is alcohol, that’s all you’re going to see: that this guy had some great quality of alcohol. That’s it. So again, the Midrash is telling us very simply that a person who is addicted is, A, in denial, and, even clearer from this Midrash, totally warped. He doesn’t see things the way other normal people see them.

The question is, why? What happens to the alcoholic? Does he lose his brain? Is that what it is? It’s not really that. And again, I’m not talking only about the alcoholic. It’s an example of any other addiction. What happens to us? Let’s not talk about the alcoholic. Let’s talk about us. When we become addicted to something, why do we need to deny it? Why do we lose our clarity about the situation?

I’ll tell you a very simple answer. As we all know, there’s something in life that is probably more difficult for us to do than anything else, and that is to change. For a person to make a change in their life is very, very complicated and very, very difficult. Even the smallest change. Even a change for the better—not changing to do better, for good—is so difficult to the point that a person will feel more comfortable in a miserable life that he knows and knows what to expect, even if it’s miserable, than going ahead and looking for a new, unknown way, even if it could be better.

An outsider will look and say, “I don’t understand. It’s simple. Look at you. You’re drinking all day long. You can’t get a normal job. You don’t have a normal life. You can’t get married. If you’re married, you can’t have a normal marriage. You can’t have normal children. You can’t... Where is this going? Where is the pleasure here? You look like a mess. You don’t have to be a genius to see that.” But one thing that we don’t have, that he has, is comfort in knowing who he is and what he does every day. And now you’re asking him to change. It’s so clear that it’s better for him. Of course. But it doesn’t matter, because change is difficult.

For any one of us, anybody in this room, myself included, we’ve tried to change a habit here and there. We’ve tried to change a middah (a character), a character, a characteristic, a behavior, whatever it is. It’s so hard to make the smallest change. We know what this feels like. Don’t look at an alcoholic and say, “He’s no different from us.” He just got hooked on something worse. But as far as getting out of it, it’s not easy.

Why is change so difficult? What is it? Like I mentioned, change brings fear. It’s the fear of the unknown. I don’t know what it’s going to feel like to live that way because I’ve never done it. You could tell me it’s great, it’s wonderful, there’s nothing better. Very nice. But I’ve never felt it. I don’t know what it is. So the fear of the unknown will hold us back from even wanting to change, because it’s not comfortable not to know what’s coming up.

I compare it sometimes to driving out of town. If you’re driving a car in this city, or anywhere you’re familiar with, you feel pretty comfortable. You know where the streets are. You know where to go. You know what’s around you. You know where east and west are. If you drive somewhere in mid-America, even if you have GPS, there’s a little discomfort because you have no idea where you are on the planet. You have no idea where you’re going, really, or what you should be expecting. A little bit of a mashal (parable): when a person goes into unknown territories and doesn’t really know what’s there, it’s very, very, very scary.

Our rabbis tell us that this was one of the problems of the Jewish people, the great Jewish people in the desert. These were the greatest people in the history of our nation. Forty years in the desert. After Egypt, after Matan Torah, after eating man (manna) every day—could you imagine eating man every day for forty years? Every morning, new food comes. Water is traveling with you. There are all types of things; there’s a cloud, there’s fire. There are all kinds of amazing things going on. And Moshe Rabbeinu was there. You need something, you talk to God. It’s great. What a life!

These people, when God told them, “Let’s go to the land of Israel,” and the spies came back, they started to cry. They didn’t want to go. How could that be? One of our rabbis, some of the commentators, say: What was driving their reluctance to go to the land of Israel? Yes, they made excuses: “No, there are giants there,” and so on. These are all excuses. What was really behind their reluctance? They were very comfortable where they were. And I don’t blame them. Imagine being in the desert. No parnassah (livelihood) issues. None. There’s no issue of tuition, no tuition payments, no rent to pay. Everything is done for you. What a life. It’s a life of complete ease. Imagine living on vacation your whole life.

But it’s not just an empty vacation. It’s not like you go on vacation, do nothing, and just sit on a chair for ten days. There’s nothing to do. Here, it’s a vacation that’s full of accomplishment. It’s a vacation with Moshe Rabbeinu, with Aaron HaKohen, a vacation with God Himself. It’s a vacation without all the world’s pressures, and you’re accomplishing. It’s great. Have you ever gone on a Shabbaton (Shabbat retreat)? No? Have you ever gone on a Shabbaton once in your life? That was very inspiring. Imagine being on a Shabbaton for forty years. It’s great. Who wants to leave that? Nothing to worry about. The food comes every few hours. You sing. You have a good time. You enjoy being with your friends. You’re growing. Great.

All of a sudden, now they want to go to the land of Israel. It’s beautiful, the land of Israel. We know. We go visit the most beautiful land. But the land of Israel is not going to be a Shabbaton. The land of Israel needs work. You’ve got to start. You need farmers there. You’ve got to start growing the wheat. You’ve got to work the land. You’ve got to build homes. The honeymoon, as they say, is over. The land of Israel is real life. You’ve got to start working. That was the goal. But changing, even if God says, “This is what’s good for you. This is only a temporary living over here. What’s good for you is to go there,” still brings fear. There’s the fear of change. We’re very happy and comfortable where we are. We don’t want to go there.

Another reason why we resist change, and this could be maybe the number one reason, is that changing, especially if you’re changing something that’s important in your life, is an admission of an earlier era. You’re basically saying, “I’ve been doing something wrong for the last thirty years.” Because when you’re changing, you’re changing for the better. Nobody changes for the worse. You’re looking to improve, and doing that means, “Till now, I haven’t been what I’m supposed to be.” And that takes a very big person to be able to admit that they’ve been doing something wrong. You know how hard it is. Sometimes we’ll even admit something, but we don’t really feel it. We’ll make an excuse. To really feel that we’ve done something that wasn’t right and that we’re going to do it better takes a very big person.

I once heard a beautiful story, just to show you. I mean, I think this story has probably happened to all of us. All of us. There was a Rabbi. I believe he lives in Israel now. At the time, by the left, he was in Miami Beach. And he had a shul (synagogue). One evening, a man showed up to pray. He wasn’t a person who attended shiurim (classes). He was a Jew, an observant Jew, and he wanted to catch a minyan (prayer quorum). He had a Yahrzeit (anniversary of a death). He wanted to make sure he said Kaddish (mourner's prayer). But, to his disappointment, he came a little bit early, and there was a class for a few minutes with the Rabbi. So he sat down. Where was he going to go?

In this class, the Rabbi was discussing the halachot (Jewish laws) of Shabbat, Hilchot Borer. Hilchot Borer, Borer is one of the melachot (prohibited labors). It’s about how to choose from items that are mixed together. You have good and bad in the plate. So if you have, let’s say, watermelon seeds with the watermelon, perhaps, you can’t take the bad from the good. Or if you have rice and there are things mixed in that you don’t want, you can’t just take out what you don’t want and put it on the side. You have to take the good from the bad. This is not a Borer class, okay? But you get the idea. Very intricate laws.

This guy is listening. After Arvit (evening prayer), he goes to the Rabbi and says, “Rabbi, you know everything you said tonight? You know it wasn’t all true. You know that, right?” So the Rabbi said, “What do you mean?” He says, “This Borer business, there’s no such thing. What are you saying? It can’t be. I’m Shomer Shabbat (one who keeps Shabbat) my whole life. My father is Shomer Shabbat. My grandfather was Shomer Shabbat. I never heard of the word Borer.” Like many Jews out there who keep Shabbat and write “Shomer Shabbat” on their storefront, he had never heard that there was something called Borer. He says, “It’s probably some sort of custom the rabbis taught about now, you know, to coupon themselves. But it can’t be the law. It’s like some minhag (custom) or some sort.”

What happened over here? Instead of asking, “Rabbi, where did you get this from? Okay, you never heard of it. Maybe it is a minhag. Or maybe it’s a law that we have from Moshe Rabbeinu. Maybe there are Gemarot and Mishnayot and things in the Torah all about it. Ask.” But it’s very hard. If this person is going to say now, “There is something called Hilchot Borer,” in essence, he has to be saying to himself, “I wasn’t really Shomer Shabbat properly all these years.” Do you know what kind of person you need to be to do that? All these Shabbatot of your life, you worked so hard. You didn’t drive, you didn’t turn on lights, you didn’t cook. You were Shomer Shabbat. And now all of a sudden they’re telling you, “Hello, you missed one item. It’s also included. Without it, you can’t be considered fully Shomer Shabbat.” It’s very hard to accept.

Contrast this story with the following story about a woman in Houston, Texas. A sincere woman keeps Shabbat and keeps kashrut (kosher observance), and she invites a couple to her home. This story happened a few years ago. They arrive an hour or two before candle lighting with a gift for the hostess. The woman opens the package and sees a stunning serving platter. She says, “Oh, that’s so beautiful. Thank you so much.” She says, “Use it tonight in honor of Shabbat.” Great. They said, “No, no, no, I’m sorry,” the guests say. “We weren’t able to tovel the tray, so you won’t be able to use it on Shabbat.”

She says, “What? Tovel? What is tovel?” They say, “What do you mean? You know, taking the dishes and dipping them in the mikveh (ritual bath). You can’t use them until you dip them.” She says, “Really? I didn’t know. Is that what you’re supposed to do? I never toveled anything in my whole life. I never dipped anything. My mother never told me about it.” I’m sure this story has happened to some people here too. She says, “But if that’s what has to be done, what?” And then she thinks for a second: “Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. All my food, all my plates, all my cups—you’re eating here tonight. I didn’t dip anything. What are we supposed to do?” They told her, “Do you have any disposable items? Any paper or plastic goods?” She says, “Yes, good idea.” So for the next hour, right before Shabbat, they changed all the food to plastic, or whatever they did. And that’s how they ate on Shabbat.

This woman is a very strong woman. Most people that I know, including myself, I don’t know that I would be able, just on the dime, just like that, to say, “Okay, no problem. I thought I was doing it perfectly,” and then be able to listen, hear it, accept it, and move on. By the way, dipping dishes is not a recent-day minhag. It’s written in the Torah. It’s a Torah law. It’s not something that people just thought about in this century. But again, it doesn’t make a difference. If a person is willing and able to listen to the Torah, he can make changes, or she can make changes. But if a person is going to stick to their way and not be able to admit that they were wrong— not everything we do is wrong, but sometimes we could be wrong; it’s possible that I was wrong—we’re not perfect. We have to be big enough, strong enough, and confident enough to say, “I did not do the right thing. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t know. Okay.” But you have to be willing to admit it.

I want to tell you that this area called change is one of the most challenging for any person on this planet. It’s much easier for a person to stay where they are, to leave the status quo. But it’s not going to work, because life is not a straight highway. It says by Yaakov Avinu that God showed him a ladder. The ladder was on the ground, and the top was by Shamayim (heaven). Life is not straight. Life is like a ladder. Even more properly, perhaps, it’s like an escalator, an escalator that’s going down. If a person doesn’t push their way up the escalator, it’s by nature that a person will go down. If a person is not going to grow up, he’s not staying the same. He will go down. There’s a saying that life’s like riding bicycles. If you find it’s going easy, you’re going downhill. A person has to grow in life. We have to improve. We have to get better. We can’t stay the same. The same is equal to going down. Not only do we go down when we don’t stay the same; it’s our very essence to improve, to get better. I’ll explain.

There is a Midrash that says that Hashem brought every animal to Adam Harishon, so Adam could give each animal its proper name. In the Hebrew language, the names given to animals were not just random letters put together or based on the person who found them. Each name describes the essence of that animal. Hamor (donkey) has a meaning. It’s not just, “Let’s put the letters together.” It’s not like that. Hamor has a meaning: why a donkey is called a Hamor. And so on and so forth for every single animal. The Midrash says that Hashem brought every animal to Adam so he would name it based on its essence.

The Midrash says that finally, Hashem told Adam, “Okay, you’re done. One more. You have to name yourself. What do you want to be recognized as by your children? What should we name a man?” Good question. We know that Adam told Him, “I should be called Adam.” Why? “Because I come from the Adama, from the dirt, from the earth.” This is somewhat shocking. If I were to ask you to give me a name that best describes a human being, Adam, Adama—everything comes from the Adama. Animals come from the Adama too. Is that what makes us special, that we come from the earth? I would have said, if anything, call him Shamayim. Call him—we, a human being—we see what humans are able to accomplish in the ways of intelligence, Chokhmah (intelligence), discovery, kindness. Humans are capable of so much greatness. The only thing Adam was able to see, and couldn’t see beyond, is that he came from the dirt. That’s how he wanted himself to be known. That was the message to us, his children: remember, you’re Adam; you’ve come from the dirt.

We’re much more than Adam. We know the famous story: he saw the chariot. Whatever this means, I don’t know what it means, but he saw the chariot of God in his vision, the famous vision of Yechezkel. And he saw who was riding in the chariot—he saw, of course, God. And who did He look like, in the image of God? The image of God looked like the face of Adam. I don’t know anything—I’m telling you right now, I don’t understand it; it’s too deep for me. But I know one thing: when God wanted to appear, God has no appearance. But when God wanted to give an appearance to Yechezkel, He appeared as an Adam. Which means that every human has the ability and the power to become Godly: Godly in their behavior, in their Middot (character traits), in their goodness. We can become Godly. We are Tzelem Elohim (image of God). So God, when He wants to show Himself to us, says, “Look, I’m an Adam. That’s what you could become.” So all he could think about was that he came from the dirt? What kind of name is that?

One great Rabbi says, “You should know there’s something very special about the dirt.” Most of us step on the dirt and don’t give it its proper respect. When you look at the dirt, it doesn’t look very appealing, and it doesn’t look very useful either. What could you do with dirt? But the truth is, there’s nothing in this world, that I know about, that has more potential than dirt. Although it doesn’t look very exciting, dirt will become your apple; it will become your orange. Your orange, yes. When you eat an orange, you are eating dirt. Because the seeds that you put in the ground are not oranges. They don’t have any oranges inside. You put the seed in the dirt, and somehow the seed will turn that dirt into an orange, an apple, a banana. All the fruits and vegetables you’ve ever eaten come from the dirt. It is dirt.

Not only that, all the meat you’ve ever consumed comes from the dirt. It is dirt. How do animals get bigger? They eat grass that comes from the dirt. That grass becomes their fat, their meat. All dairy products, all the milk and cheese you ever ate, come from the dirt. The dirt becomes leather. All the wool you ever wore comes from the dirt. That piece of dirt, which to me and you looks useless and unappealing, has the potential, as we see, to give the world almost all the needs that it requires. The dirt is amazing. When you go outside and look at the dirt, just imagine what that dirt can become. What can it become? It becomes humans. The dirt becomes a human. How do we get bigger? A baby is born very small. You get larger and larger and larger. How? Because we eat. What are we eating? We’re eating dirt.

When we say that we come from the dirt, it’s literal. It’s not a mashal. It’s not a parable. It becomes animals. It becomes humans. Adam was telling us and humanity forever, “Look at yourself. You may not see too much in yourself, but look at yourself. You may look at yourself and say, ‘What am I? I’m a piece of dirt. What can I really become? How much can I really accomplish?’ Adam says, ‘You are called an Adam. Look at that dirt. Tell me if you think that dirt could become something amazing. You can’t. But it does.’” Don’t think you are just the way you are. We are born, we are created, and our goal is to become higher and higher and higher. If we don’t do that, not only are we going down, we are wasting our entire mission in life. Our entire mission in life is to take this dirt, this body that we have, and make it something special, something unique. It never stops. You’re never too young to start, and you’re never too old to start. As long as we’re breathing and as long as we’re here, it doesn’t matter where you come from. It doesn’t matter where you’re starting either.

It doesn’t matter if you started in a very religious home. Don’t think that if you go to a very religious home, you’re done. That’s it. You did it. What is left to do? Very often, this is more of a plague among observant people than non-observant people. If a person is non-observant, “Okay, I don’t know anything, so I’m ready. I’ve got to start.” But you find this among observant families. They say, “What do you mean? I am observant. I know what to do. This is what we do.” But life is about growing. There’s more to do. Are you perfect in every area? Therefore, there’s nobody who’s too observant for this, or someone who’s too little observant for this. There’s no age factor. It’s equal for men and women. It makes no difference. All of us have to look into ourselves and ask: Can we get better? Can we improve? Are we going up?

What can we do about our Lashon Hara (harmful speech)? What can we do about our modesty? What can we do in the way we treat people? Is our happiness the way it’s supposed to be? Are we always happy, or are we complaining a lot? How do we bring up our children? So many things. I could list you a thousand things right now, without writing, that each of us could think about. Are we getting there? Are we going up? Are we climbing?

I just want you to know that although we’ve spoken until now about change being difficult, that’s the way it seems. That’s the illusion. But the reality is that change is wonderful. There’s nothing more exhilarating than a person who changes, because a person who changes has taken his own life into his hands. He’s making his own decisions. People who change feel closer to God, feel closer to their friends. People can change. We’ve changed. Everybody in this room here has changed. I’ve changed. Everybody here has the ability to change.

Talk to anyone who ever made a change in their life and ask them, “Was it worth it?” Of course it was worth it. Even if it’s not a spiritual thing. Sometimes a person overeats and is able to change their habits, to control themselves. Or a person oversleeps and is able to control it. You feel, “Wow, I have taken my life into my own hands. I can actually do something that I want to do. I am in control of myself.” That’s a great feeling. So although change is difficult, it’s only in the beginning. It’s only the exterior, what it looks like. But once you’re there, once you’re doing it, there’s nothing more gratifying.

Now I know that right now, if anybody has taken anything to heart from what I said, we’re going to get up and start making lists. You’re probably going to need a number of notebooks, maybe a few, some loose-leaf paper. Buy an extra-big loose-leaf that you can start filling out: “What could we do?” Some people are perfect, of course. But if you’re not from the perfect kind, I’m sure that once you start writing—the problem is, we don’t start writing. But I believe that if we started writing, we would start seeing, “Whoa, another line, another book, another this.” So much. I’m talking to myself.

Either you think—but again, the better you are, the more at risk you are. The more at risk. The more you keep Shabbat, the more at risk you are. The more religiously you grew up, the more at risk you are. Because, “What can I have to change? Look at me.” But there’s so much more. There’s so much to life. There’s no sitting around. So now, I know you’re all excited to start writing, but I want you to be careful. I want you to be careful, because you have to know there’s reality as well. What do I mean by that? It happens to be in this week’s parasha. There’s a big problem in last week’s parasha and this week’s parasha that we just read.

We keep hearing God telling Pharaoh, “Let my people go for three days. Let them go for three days so they can bring sacrifices, and they will come back.” Have you seen that? A number of times this message was given to Pharaoh. “Oh, really? Is that what we learned when we grew up? Is that what God told Moshe? That I want these people to go free for three days? That’s it? Weren’t we told in the beginning of Shemot (Exodus) that He told Moshe Rabbeinu, ‘You’re going to leave Mitzrayim. I’m going to give you the Torah. You’re going to go to Eretz Yisrael (the land of Israel)’? What is God lying to Pharaoh? He’s telling him, ‘Let’s go for three days.’ What three days? What’s He talking about?”

Now, of course, this never materialized because Pharaoh never agreed. But I just imagine: What if he had agreed? What would we do? Would we just keep on going? So again, would God send a lie to Moshe Rabbeinu to tell Pharaoh that that was how we were going to leave Egypt? Obviously, God doesn’t lie. I imagine that if He said three days and Pharaoh agreed, it would have been only for three days. But again, how does that make sense with the whole story? We’re not going for three days. We weren’t meant to stay in Egypt.

I once saw a beautiful answer, and it’s again very relevant to us. You know, it’s amazing. You could talk about Mitzrayim and Pharaoh, and all of a sudden you come to us. But it is very relevant. Pharaoh has free choice at the end. To ask Pharaoh, who has an entire nation of slaves under his belt working day and night, to let them go away forever is asking the impossible. And God doesn’t ask the impossible. If it’s impossible, He doesn’t expect it from you. He cannot tell Pharaoh, “Let them go forever.” It’s not within Pharaoh’s ability to say yes. He can’t do it. How is he supposed to say yes to that?

So God gives Pharaoh something he’s able to handle. He tells him, “Go for three days. Let them go for three days.” What’s going to happen? They’re going to come back. But during those three days, Pharaoh is getting used to the idea that he could possibly survive without having a nation serving him as slaves. Life didn’t end. You know, when you see beyond what you have, you think life is going to end. “If I don’t have this, life’s going to end. If I lose my salesman, life’s over. If I lose my secretary, life is done. If I lose this house, how can I survive?” That’s how we think. “If I don’t go on vacation, life is done.” That’s how we think. That’s how we think. It’s true.

And then all of a sudden, sometimes, against our will, things are taken away, and we’re perfectly fine. We did okay. We got a new salesman, a better secretary showed up, a better place, whatever it is. Before you get there, it seems impossible. When you’re there, it’s fine. So now Pharaoh is being given a chance to get used to having a country without slaves. God would tell him three days, they would come back, and God would tell him, “Now let them go.” Now he can handle it, because now you see he can do it.

What a great lesson for us. As we’re sitting here talking about change, we’re ready to fly to the moon. That’s it. No more—whatever no-mores you have on your list—no more. No more this, and no more that, and no more that, and no more this. Not one time, not one time. I’m not going to start listing everything; I don’t want to get too personal, okay? But you know what they are, right? You can have a hundred things. You can start listing: “That’s it, done.” Right? We’ve got to change. We’ve got to get to the top, and we’ve got to go to Shamayim. You’re one hundred percent right. You’re one hundred percent right. Yes, you have to go to Shamayim.

It says that the ladder is... means it’s on the ground. You’re not flying yet. You’ve got to start on the ground, and you’ve got to go to Shamayim. Shamayim has to be your goal. You can’t have any lower expectations for yourself than to hit Shamayim. You could be, I could be, the greatest person that ever lived, and I need to strive to get there. Yes, in every area: in my character, in my way of speech, in my religious observance, between man and God, between man and man. Yes, I can become the best man or the best woman that ever lived, and I’ve got to set my goals very high.

But you have to do... You can’t possibly ask that of yourself unless you’re a very, very special person. There are very, very special people out there who somehow can turn overnight into something totally different. But most people are not able to handle it. You have to expect real things of yourself. If you go too far, you’re going to fall very hard, and the risk—it’s way too risky to take.

Maybe you can’t take upon yourself the whole week to do something, but maybe a day. Like I know many women, for example, when it comes to modesty. It’s very hard for women to become modest, very hard, especially in our day and age, when to become modest you have to shop in some back office somewhere in Borough Park. Where are you going to buy clothes? It’s very hard. And besides, everyone’s looking at you and everyone’s talking about you. I know it’s not easy. I know we talk about it all the time. But we know it’s not easy. It’s very complicated. So what do you do? Maybe do it for a day. Maybe an hour.

What does that do? You might ask me, “What am I, fooling myself? I either am or I’m not. What is this hour business? What is this day business? What is that doing for me?” You know what it’s doing for you? Because when you do it for a day, for an hour, you think, “Not so bad. What happened? Everything’s fine.” And you start to get used to it. And then you start to rise. I’ll give you one example, but it’s in many areas, in many areas that pertain to us. It’s a great message: yes, the goal is to get out of Egypt, but you can’t do it yet. Let me give you something you can do, something you can handle.

As a review—oh, we had a question. I forgot the question. We asked a question. We asked a question. What was Pharaoh doing? Remember, we said? You forgot the question already. We said Pharaoh sent messengers to go see if anyone died. He came back and was told nobody died. No animal died. And then he didn’t let them go. What happened? What happened? This is the way of the addicted person. Pharaoh doesn’t want to let the people go. He has already gotten used to the lifestyle of having millions of slaves under his belt. He’s not ready to let that go. Yes, Mitzrayim is getting killed. Yes, he’s getting destroyed. No different from any other addiction. He’s addicted to becoming, to being who he is. He doesn’t want to let them go.

But like the person who’s addicted, he’s always looking for an excuse. So what does he do? He says, “Okay, go check. Go see.” If they had found one animal of the Jew that died, he would say, “You see?” He would tell his people, “You see? It’s not true. They have ten million, and they have one. Isn’t that a clear difference?” It doesn’t make a difference. “You see, they had one. It was just a plague. Something happened.” That’s why Pharaoh wanted to make an excuse for why he wasn’t letting them go. But in the end, he didn’t find an excuse. So what did he do? It doesn’t matter: “I’m not letting them go.”

Which means, very often, you talk to a person and they give you an excuse, and an excuse, and an answer. But the truth is, it’s just an excuse. They’re not really—that’s not the point. And you keep arguing the point: “No, it’s not like this.” “It is like this.” That’s not the point. He doesn’t want to let them go, so he’ll give you every excuse in the book. And when there’s no excuse, he still won’t let them go. That’s an addiction: looking for excuses, but in the end not wanting to change. Something very relevant to all of us.

Change is hard. Change is beautiful. Change is important. Change is a must for every Adam, every person. If we look at our lives and all we did in the last twenty or thirty years was get larger in size—just, we got a little taller, maybe a little wider—if that’s the only size difference, the only growth in us, then we’re not really accomplishing in this world. We need to see growth in ourselves. Are you learning more? Do you have more wisdom than you had before? Are you doing more good acts? Is your speech purer? Do you care more about people? Are you helping more people? Are you more aware of people? Is your Shabbat better? Not perfect—is it better? Not perfect—is it better? Are you getting better? That’s the question. Not perfect. Are you getting there? Are you taking the steps? That’s what we need to know: better every day. We will get to be...