What is Completeness? (3 minutes)

0:00Okay, I'm glad you're here and let's get ready for Shabbos. This part should begin with the giving of the half-shekel and I saw something on the internet which I guess I should have known but somehow it just like never occurred to me in my mind all these years. I've been picturing half of a coin. A shekel is just a measure of weight. That's a very dramatic discovery which is that the half-shekel was actually a full coin. Now what does that mean to us? Well the half-shekel is always talking about what is our essential identity. In other words I am not the ultimate authority. In fact I am not even me unless I'm joined to my other half meaning to say to the community to Hashem I'm just half a shekel. The erud's fee says that this is like what it says in Perkeavos. Hillel says if I'm not me then who am I and if I'm only me what am I? Meaning to say that before I

1:07join the group I have to make sure that I'm really me. I'm the best me I can be then I can join the group. I'm not depending on the group to absolve all my weaknesses. I'm entering the group with strength being the best me and only then do I receive all the benefits from being the best me after I join the group. So I work on myself but I don't get the paycheck yet until I show up at the office then when I join the group then I receive that beautiful smell of being the best me because now we're the best us. So there's a classic teaching from the Kutskorebi which is that there is no heart as full as a broken heart. Now I think a lot of people have trouble understanding that because when they hear the phrase broken heart they think of romantic heartbreak disappointment all the rest but I don't think that's what the Kutskorebi is teaching. I think a

2:10broken heart means an open heart. A closed heart suggests that I am complete without you that I don't need you to be me. A broken heart a half-shackle says I need you to be me and you need me to be you and all of us need Hashem and when we join together with that level of consciousness that broken heart becomes a full heart that half-shackle becomes a full-shackle. Good chavis, good chavis, good chavis.