Parshas Lech Lecha: The Curious Case of Lot's Impostor Syndrome

Transcript

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Avram Avinu, good guy or bad guy?

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I say good guy.

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Yaakov Avinu or Yitzhak Avinu, good guy or bad guy?

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Both good guys, I'll bet my bottom dollar on it.

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How about Asaph HaRosha?

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I say bad guy.

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Yishmael Hmm, not really a good guy, but does repent at the end of his life.

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What about rebchaim kanayevsky?

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I say good guy.

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What about mordechai atzadik?

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I say good guy.

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What about amalek?

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I say bad guy.

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Most characters of the entire torah can be divvied up into these two very cozy and proper categories of either good guy or bad guy.

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Antagonist or protagonist good player, bad player.

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Tov ra, evil versus good.

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But what are we to do without Romvinu's nephew, mr Lot?

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He is a tough nut to crack.

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Many of his actions seem to put him in a plateau and on the Mount Rushmore of holy people and put him in a very prominent place inside of the club for the righteous, very prominent place inside of the club for the righteous.

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But then some very peculiar and questionable actions really leave us scratching our head.

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Where to put him and how to make sense of this whole story, and who this fellow was will reveal, with the Almighty's help, a lesson that must be internalized for us to not get trapped in no man's land and to do what the Almighty asks of us.

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Question one, and let's set it up nice and clear, concretely, and then deliver the punch, the knockout, blow the aside, hopefully end with some motivational Musser Genesis 19, 29, baratheos, yod, tesch, hav, gimel we hear of the entire implosion, the upheaval of Sodom and Gomorrah, and Lot.

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One of the final episodes of his dramatic narrative is where the angels knock on his door and, as there's fire and smoke and the whole town is literally being churned like a hot bowl of chalant, the angels grab Lot's hand and they rush him out and save him.

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And by Yizkor Elohim that the Almighty recalled Abraham, and in that merit Lot was saved.

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And Lot made it out alive by the skin of his teeth.

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What was the remembrance?

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What did Hashem exactly recall?

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Rashi on the spot, our great Rebbe.

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What does this have to do with anything?

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How is it that Lot got saved in the merit of Avram?

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What did Hashem exactly recall Nizgar, god recalled?

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He see, in our parasha, this incredible episode happened.

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You may have missed it.

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There were a big cavalry of famous and holy people coming down to Egypt.

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It was all part of the second test of Avraham Avinu's ten epic tests, and the second one is that there's a famine and he needs to travel down to Egypt to get food.

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But he knows that the Egyptians haven't seen a woman like Sarah E Menuh, our fairy godmother, not have they seen her beauty of physicality or beauty of spirituality.

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They've never seen anything like it.

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So, avram of Vinu he says that to my sister, achai Sihi.

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He didn't want to die, he didn't want Sarah to be taken.

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Achai Sihi, she's now my sister.

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And Lot, the little nephew of Abraham, standing by the side, kept quiet.

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Rashi says, quoting a Medrash in Beresh, yisrael.

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He didn't rat his uncle out, he stood there, lips sealed, zippered shut.

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He had compassion, took pity on his great uncle.

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So God, remember this action, that Lot was quiet, he didn't rat his uncle out, didn't reveal that no, she's not his sister, that's really his wife, and for that merit was he saved.

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The great Mizrahi, the Maharal, talks about it also, but you must scratch your head and be mechav into this question.

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Lot, he's the one who traveled with Avram Avinu.

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He left where he was living, left it all behind to go on this epic journey with his uncle.

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Followed Avram everywhere, with countless mitzvos, and that's the only schus that we could find for Lot, that he just didn't become someone of a snitch.

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He didn't rat his uncle out.

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That's all Hashem could find.

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That's what Hashem recalled at that moment.

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You even find references to him keeping the mitzvos in that same story in Parakhaftes, if I recall correctly, there was the night of Pesach and there was the eating of matzah that Rashi brings.

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None of those chosim would help him.

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It seems like the one unique aspect that would save his life was that he didn't rat out his uncle.

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To be quite frank and honest, I believe probably all of us if our uncle was Avram Avinu, we probably wouldn't rat out Sarah and Avram either.

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So what is the great schos?

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Why not that he left Haran and traveled with Avram Avinu and all the other mitzvahs that he did?

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Question two is the direct contradiction in his actions that he follows Avram Avinu, as the Pasek says, and Haran died in the lifetime of Terach and after that.

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Then Lo traveled with his grandfather Terach, and later eventually he goes with Avram Avinu to the land of Canaan and really listens to everything Avram Avinu says, but then all of a sudden he takes a direct left turn and just leaves him for Sodom and Gomorrah.

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He gets all cut up and his Typhos sees the beauty and the grandeur and the glit and the glam and the showmanship, the prestige of Sodom and Amorah.

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He seems confused.

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He seems to follow Avram but then falls off the bandwagon Eventually again, actually continues to do righteousness and becomes a judge in Sodom.

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But why is he so confused in what's going on in his psyche, for really inside of his brain?

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Question three is very blunt, but the Medrash in Beresh, yisrael and Memalavov tells us that Lot also had a strikingly similar resemblance to his famous uncle.

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If you look it up, it's an incredible Medrash for the Pasek.

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It calls them brothers even though they're not really brothers, and Rashi says, no, they're kind of like brothers because their facial features resembled each other.

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So however you picture Avram Avinu, make a spitting image of that right next to it and you'll see Lot a whole different way, because they look exactly alike the same nose, the same wrinkle in the left cheek, the same mustache and beard, the same wrinkles above his left eye.

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They are twins, twins.

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Wrinkles above his left eye, they are twins.

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The question is, what are Chazal telling us here?

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What's the significance of that?

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Why would Hashem do that?

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Make it that way?

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There's obviously more here in Chazal or conveying something, but what?

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And lastly, in the actual story of the upheaval of Sodom and Gomorrah, when Lot catches himself and he's about to be saved, there's this angry mob of people.

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Because Sodom they have heard on the great billboards and loudspeakers that beep, beep, beep, there's someone who's doing hachnasas, orachim Lot has guests in his home.

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So the angry mob, with their pitchforks and fire torches they gang up on Lot's house and they bang on the door about to knock it over.

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Send us your guests and we want their heads.

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We want to do bad things to you and to them because we don't stand for kindness here in this town.

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But Lot fights back.

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He votes for Hashem and says no, kindness will win.

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Instead, in an incredibly strange turn of events, he says do not come and take my guests.

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Save them, but you can take my daughters.

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And he throws his daughters out to the mob.

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Do what you will with them, but don't take my guests.

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The question is rather glaring, don't you think?

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Is the man good or is he evil?

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Why is he throwing his daughters to the wolves just to keep these guests?

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He seems maybe schizophrenic, split personality disorder.

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The answer to all four of these questions and the answer to what is, and the answer to what is maybe, in my opinion, what so many of us, including myself, struggle with, as Lote suffered from an acute case, a severe syndrome of imposter syndrome, copycat syndrome.

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The great Rav, nosson, sfee Finkel, the alter of Slavodka, tells us see, don't you see Everyone who serves Hashem?

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You must serve Hashem.

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It must be you, stemming from your own understanding, but not merely copying or mimicking somebody else.

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Each person was given a soul and you must fulfill your obligation in this world.

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Lot, he did what all of us do, which is to try to learn from your teachers how it is to serve Hashem.

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Follow him closely, follow him anywhere that he goes and learn.

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Learn how to serve Hashem, but do not imitate.

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Do not become a robotic parrot that chirps back whatever is chirped at you.

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Lot was one of the foremost disciples of his great uncle.

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His uncle traveled into the great unknown and Lot followed, because that's what all good students do and that's what we all should do follow our great teachers.

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But he failed to internalize what his master's lessons were and why he was doing all of it.

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He failed to be dole umashke betoyroso shel rabbeinu to scoop and water from all of the great wellsprings of wisdom of his Rebbe, but rather he just habitually mimicked and followed every single thing that his Rebbe did in the most robotic, mindless way.

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When his Rebbe went out into the great unknown, he followed, because that's what students do.

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But we're looking for all the great, different chosim that he did matzah, that he did hachnasas, orachim.

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Our question was, says the altar of Slabotka, what's the Yisrael that answers the question.

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Why is it that there were no chosim in the entire world to save Lot?

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Why is it that Hashem recalled that Lot remained quiet when Sarah was pretending, masquerading herself as Avram Avinu's sister, that was it, that he wasn't Megal, that Sarah was really Avram's wife.

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Because, says the altar of Slabodka, that was the only thing that Lot did, by himself and not just mimicking, copying and acting, because that's how everyone else, or even your Rebbe, acts At this moment.

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When he had a chance to make his own decision based on his own guts, his own mind, his own lave, he made the right call and he remained quiet, and he should be lauded for it.

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And it was that schuss, on full display, right here, that saved him.

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And it was that schuss, on full display, right here that saved him and it was enough.

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But it had to be this schuss because everything else would not be credited to him, because it's almost like a robot, following what it's ordered to do.

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Following what it's ordered to do, a student learns and studies and understands his Rebbe's ways, his parents' ways, his teacher's ways, internalizes its messages and then acts based on your own thinking, thoughtful conclusions.

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We asked that Lot.

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At times he makes decisions to do the right thing and to do the wrong thing.

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Because, again, lot halfway in, halfway out, because again, lot, halfway in, halfway out.

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We asked why is it that Lot looks exactly like Avram of Vinu?

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Doesn't it sing like a song, ladies and gentlemen?

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He was exactly a spitting image of Avram of Vinu.

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Chazal are telling us that he looked like Avram.

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He mirrors his face exactly like Avram, but he never went deeper than that to become one of the B'nai Avram.

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He was just a robot of Avram.

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He looked like him.

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He was hardly his true devotee and follower.

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Avram Avinu's midah was chesed, is chesed and continues to be chesed.

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And Lot, he had that lesson internalized.

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He was having guests in Sodom.

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He's following what his Rebbe did.

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You have guests.

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That's what we do, that's what we stand for in the Abrahamic faith.

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So when the mob came to take the guests away, you got to protect the guests away.

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You got to protect the guests at all costs because it's all about kindness.

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That's what Avram did and he threw his daughters to the mob because in a robotic way, if you don't understand things, you just follow the leader without understanding why or how or what.

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Then you protect your guests at all costs and throw your children to an angry mob for them to harass and torment them.

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The Yisod is that a person must serve Hashem with his own mind and it's a smart idea to follow the leader to learn the basics of how Hashem wants to be served.

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But Torah is far from an impartial activity.

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It must be personal.

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I had another Maramukum prepared, but I'd rather jump into the exciting or hopefully productive and non-negative rant.

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We're going to talk about Shimon and Levi, how Achim Klei Chumas, mechei Roi Sam, that they were a pair that borrowed the tools from Esav, and Rabbi Yeruchem discusses how they also had borrowed attributes and were taking it from someone else and it wasn't acting on their own whims.

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But rather let's jump right into the Asayid and see how it affects us, because when you think about it.

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Why is it that we daven?

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Why is it that we daven?

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Why is it that we learn?

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Why is it that we do mitzvot?

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Is it because we understand what our Rebbeim and our parents have taught us as the best way of life and what is obligated for us to do because of the great revelation that Hashem gave us this opportunity of a lifetime?

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And we understand that the mitzvos are there to govern our lives?

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Yoimon volayla on the path to paradise?

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Or do we just merely shuckle back and forth when we pray?

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Because everyone shuckles?

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Because everybody learns daf yomi in the morning before you go to work, because everybody does mishna yomi, because everybody shops at this store, eats this food.

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And if that's what everybody does, then I want to do what everybody does, because that's what everybody does Copycatting, imitating, adopting behavior of others, either consciously or subconsciously, and imitation in Judaism is wrong.

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I noticed it.

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Actually it's subconscious.

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I noticed that as I said something once this past week.

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I noted it for the podcast.

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As I said something, my daughter shrugged at me.

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I said what was that?

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I noticed after I asked her.

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She didn't really know why she shrugged.

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She didn't know what it meant, but she saw daddy do it.

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Daddy shrugs when he's not sure how to answer.

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Why she shrugged?

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She didn't know what it meant.

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But she saw daddy do it.

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Daddy shrugs when he's not sure how to answer, so she shrugged, she just followed.

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We subconsciously follow, even from the very beginning of time.

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We see how people do things and then we try to mimic it.

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Whatever it is, that's cool, whatever it is, that's right.

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Whatever it is that's right, but without ever comprehending and analyzing from our own brains, from our own bellies, what needs to be done in serving Hashem.

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Because we have come to that realization and conclusion, even if it is the very same as our parents and teachers.

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But we came to the conclusion, not a mere horrible regurgitating of all the details and commandments.

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That's how it's supposed to be.

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It's supposed to be from our own bellies and heads.

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We me, you serving Hashem, all as individuals, all as individuals.

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One of my pet peeves is when I have to listen to somebody speak, as they quote everyone but never say anything from themselves.

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My Rebbe said this and my parents said that, and this rabbi said this.

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And then this one said this, said this, and my parents said that, and this rabbi said this.

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And then this one said this.

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I shouldn't say a pepiv, because it's positive and it's good that someone's talking Torah and it's exciting and we all should study Torah.

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But Torah is not impartial.

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How about we turn our brains on and we say to ourselves, hmm, what does Rashi mean by that?

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Why did Avram do that?

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Why did Rabbeinu Hanan say that?

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Why did the Rajba say that?

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Why did the Orachayim do that?

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And then we comprehend, not in an impartial, just sitting on the sidelines way, but touching, feeling on the field and involved.

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That's how your heart lights up with the study of Tyra.

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Not reading out all the details of what someone else wrote, someone else said or someone else heard.

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This is something I kind of had on the back burner of the following for a little bit.

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I was bothered that, with this idea from the altar of Slavodka that we must be echidim, I was bothered by why everybody looks the same, though here in Lakewood, and especially in the yeshiva world, we all seem to follow the leader and just, everyone wears a white shirt, everyone wears black pants, everybody seems to dress alike, be alike.

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Where's the individuality?

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Where's the serving Hashem as a yachid?

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What I've discovered is that I was exactly backwards.

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The reason why everybody seems to dress the same in white shirts and black pants and yarmulkes and pay us the same way is because those are all the things that really don't matter in life, the things that don't matter.

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Everyone kind of says, hey, let's just do it all the same because it doesn't really matter.

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But when you go one by one and meet these people, you meet individuals.

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I discovered that each one was more different and unique than the next.

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I discovered that a lot of some of the people that I always thought were just conformists are really deep, emotional people involved in great aspects of torah, involved in deep relationships with parents and friends, different interests, music, arts, kabbalah this one musser, this one more strict with himself, this one working on a different attribute, but matters of the soul.

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Every person was so deep and so unique and such a yachid.

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But it feels like we all could still fall prey to imposter syndrome, impersonation, parrot-like regurgitation in our Avaytas Hashem.

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It's something to be aware of, because when you mimic, as we learn from Lod, I'm not even sure if it goes on our record and God recalls it to try to save us Because we didn't do it, we just mimic someone else.

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Who does it?

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Avram Avinu, as Rambam tells us, was the ultimate iconoclast, the ultimate lone star.

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Iconoclast, the ultimate lone star.

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He began, which had constantly brewed, to think about the world.

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He was a young one.

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He was thinking who is spinning this earth?

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Who is making it go?

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Where is the power coming from?

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But thinking, honest analyzation, until he had the aha moment.

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It's impossible for there not to be one God concretizing his approach to life from the ages of three until the ages of forty, until eventually he concluded you've all made a grave error, because he thought for himself, he served Hashem, he forged a new path, he understood, he thought, he comprehended, he determined, he elected, he established all of Jewish history because he didn't mimic or mindlessly.

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Follow the leader and follow the herd.

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Become a self-made guzzle, follow the rules, follow your rabbis, because that's probably smart, but ask yourself why, how and what.

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Smart, but ask yourself why, how and what, because the more that you ask, the more that you'll learn.

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And, just like Avram Avinu, the more that you ask and think, it only leads towards truth if you're thinking honestly and you're intellectually honest with yourself.

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Ladies and gentlemen, lot was stuck kind of in no man's land because he was a student, but he really was just mimicking and following, loving kindness like his uncle, following his uncle, listening to his uncle but never internalizing the messages.

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Loving kindness like his uncle, following his uncle, listening to his uncle, but never internalizing the messages and the yisoyd, the foundation of Avram's teachings For us.

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Hashem wants our hearts.

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Hashem wants us to serve him with honesty and integrity and devotion.

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It is Rachman-A Aliba boy.

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God wants our hearts, your heart.

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He doesn't want a mindless regurgitation of someone else's service of Hashem.

Parshas Lech Lecha: The Curious Case of Lot's Impostor Syndrome

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