Yom Kippur Within (43 minutes)

0:00I did this the last show I really did that was on the air it was it was called Final Space and it was a it was an animated it was technically it was a comedy but it was it was a lot of drama in it a lot of action adventure in it and we ran for three seasons we had 36 episodes and I co-wrote all 36 episodes and produce some executive produce some and and I put more myself in that show than any production that I've done in my life there's so much tour in that show there's a lot of tour in that show even though it's some animated you know I mean like it was expected Final Space. Tom Kenny no what was in on what? Oh it was on it was on a lot of channels actually it was on TVS it was on adult swim it was on Netflix and it was on HBO Max so

1:01we could still see it on Netflix. I don't think so I think it was one of those shows that got kind of like erased from like his band yeah but anyway it was a show that it was a first show that I ever worked on that people watched it and this was legitimate because I also did this people actually cried real tears while watching it was so emotional that there's a lot there's a comedy in it that people actually like wept watching at different points and when we first started like the first few episodes we were trying to find the character the the lead character and maybe you don't appreciate like live action versus animation and things like that but but animation is very sophisticated also and there's real acting and and I can tell you one of the most and Elon does this professionally as well but I think in my opinion one of the least appreciated talents crafts that

2:05there is is what we call voice talent animated voice talent if you if you know anything about animation like these guys are geniuses hugely brilliant it's a very specific talent so people don't even recognize it they don't even know what it is and they're not seeing the person do it so they they're not even aware I can tell you that one of the most surreal experiences I ever had in my life was my very first day writing producing for the Simpsons and I walked into the table read where the new script comes out and all the actors around the table and you know you meet like you know with real people you know and I walked in and these cartoon character sounds were coming out of these human hands and it was like it was actually surreal like I was looking at the TV set but it was coming out of real people and some like that's March yeah yeah so so so you've got to get the performance right because you've got to

3:13get the character right because the tone of the performance impacts the entire show so the thing was is that our lead actor was they you know there's my partner on the show he like we didn't know how silly is the show how how how broad leak comic is this show or how emotional is this show like we hadn't really found the emotion the emotion really kicked in several episodes later and so so the initial performances were what in show business we have we've got a term called over the top which means too much means too much it's like it's not working it's over the top right and it was very hard because the the actor himself was was young and he wasn't he didn't have the craft fully developed yet so he couldn't make the adjustments in like real time and everything like that and what I'm

4:15getting at is that the this director note that stayed with me and really resonated with me the name of the character the cartoon character was Gary okay and and and what the director kept on saying was we've got to get to Gary zero Gary zero which which meant that here here was where the director saw the character being and here's where all the performances were were all up here and so they weren't working because you were buying into the reality the dramatic reality of the show because it just seemed to silly and so he wanted to get the character to Gary zero which meant to the real play to get him real to make him real and it took a lot of work but he succeeded in getting in getting him

5:21real and so so I think that that's our challenge as well in life with God with ourselves with young keeper coming up with the rest of our lives coming up is how do we get to use your how do we get to the realist version how do I get to the realist version of myself basically and you know if you look around his history is sort of getting to the place where people are starting to discover that they have to get to the realist version of themselves and it's happening in sort of like all these different ways but I think the main way that it's happening is because relatively speaking I know people have all sorts of

6:25challenges and people have financial challenges as well but if you just kind of take five steps back for a moment and you just kind of look at society more broadly we've never been richer as a society in general as we are now people have never had more stuff or more a higher standard of living than they've had than they have right now there's nothing even close to to comparison like the things that I heard someone say this once and it still blows my mind the thing is that a person who would be considered like seriously economically challenged a king didn't have like hundreds of years ago literally a king didn't have a refrigerator indoor plumbing a private toilet like a king didn't have that you know I I remember this was years ago when we're on Beverly in Pico or Beverly

7:32Will in Pico where the Ralphs was like that was a big loss for the neighbor to lose that Ralphs yeah but I remember going in one time I think it was I don't know I'd say shop is maybe it was midnight whatever I remember walking in and just having this moment because no one was in the store and I just kind of stood there and I looked around and I said there's no item I mean there's thousands of things in that store right it was a big house it just hit me there is no single item in this store that I can afford and I think that's probably true I would guess for everyone in this room right like how much is like a really expensive item at Ralphs like you probably have and then I thought to myself a king didn't have anywhere close this amount of stuff available to him just like to take at any point and yet we've never been as a society more miss

8:41from me we've had we have the most stuff we've ever had and we're the most miss from it why and this is what I'm saying getting back to you zero or Gary's zero is that it's sort of is slowly dawning and it's already dawned on a good chunk of humanity and the rest of humanity it's still kind of in the process of dawning that my happiness doesn't come from things outside my happiness comes from what's in me and that is is so if I want to be the realest version of myself I have to start looking to what here let me just lay it out for you very very

9:49simply I have to get to a place where I respect myself every single person has to be in a place where they're not looking outside of themselves for self-respect but they're able to achieve self-respect because of the lives that they're living and the choices that they're making and when you can respect yourself you can get to Gary's zero you can get to use your because at that moment you're not looking outside yourself for something that ultimately nobody can give you other than you so where does

10:49God fit it into this because God hugely fits into this none of this works without God because how can I respect myself so I don't own a bank I don't drive a you know $200,000 sports car you know I don't have a fill in the blank so so how am I going to respect myself and the answer is because all of those things that I just mentioned are false criteria the criteria for respecting myself is the Torah that God gave us it's the mitzvahs that God gave us and to the extent that I'm good with what God wants for me then I'm good with me in other words I have a checklist but the checklist

11:55that I have is not something that I've been brainwashed by Western society and my neighbors and commercials and billboards and and everything that I'm bombarded with that tries to convince me that we want to give you happiness no you just want to take my money it's all you want you don't care about me you don't care anything about me you just want me to buy your product you pretend that you care about me but you don't care about me God the one who made us made us God is the one who actually cares about us and God gives us the secret of how we can be okay with ourselves and not look outside ourselves now there's a Torah it's a classic Torah I'm sure you've heard it if you haven't heard it it's

13:06you know indispensable it's from the Khadu Shairrim and really it's talking about the moment after young Kipper but it's it's it's applying to us right now and it's really applying to us all the time so here here's the classic Torah it's very short which is you know God willing God willing this year at the happy minion will be another year where we don't get a break where we dove in all day God willing or maybe there will be a really short break I don't know but hopefully there will be no break and so you go and you're dovying all day you don't even have a break and and then and then somehow it's like the most crazy thing every small year it is literally the most crazy thing comes to me eela and eela builds to this fever pitch and people are yelling and shouting their

14:10brains out and it's just like you know I shabu lauki I shabu lauki michi mahi isra everything like this and then marif marif it's like my brain like explodes every single year like like marif like that was just like 40 marifs now now it's marif you know and then during marif you get up to slachlan and if you're at happy mean you haven't left the building all young Kipper and you go slachlan you're clapping your soul has been washed clean and you're clapping yourself forgive me God for the sins that I've sinned what did you do right there's no there's no time to have done anything there's literally no time to have done anything so so how does the khodusha him explain it he says do you know what what what you're doing to before for not believing that

15:17you were forgiven on your Kipper and so that's the question and it's very much in keeping with everything I'm talking about up until now how is it that you didn't how is it that you actually don't think that you've been forgiven do you believe in God where is this whole thing just an act where you just sort of born into a family or you got roped in at a certain point and this is what I do right now but was I really forgiven so for a lot of people they do believe in God they do believe that that that young Kipper does a tone but then if you want to go a little bit deeper but I didn't forgive myself so if I didn't give if I didn't forgive myself how did God forgive me and even if God did forgive me I didn't forgive myself so back basically on back at

16:22square one nothing's really changed because my soul can't get to Gary zero I can't get to equilibrium because I because I still am not at the place where I've earned my own self respect I don't respect myself because if I really did respect myself then I'd respect the fact that God who knows more than I do forgive me so whom I not to forgive myself I mean what a good you know like there's an old joke I don't even like this joke it's it's a joke is that someone you know like a super firm person goes to a wedding and says you know before I order who's the who's the leader you know who's giving the hector they say and the person says God he says I have the fish like you don't you don't trust God's cushers

17:31like God forgave me it's not quite good enough but you know something it's serious because it's not a joke because if you actually don't forgive yourself then it actually isn't good enough that God forgave you because ultimately on a core level it's me and again it goes back to this fundamental idea of not respecting yourself now my dad was a psychologist and he was like really intuned with these type of things and he told me one time that his aunt when I never had the privilege of meeting but she should be blessed she um she lived in their home toward the end of her life and she would say to my father and my father said to me you know something if you try very hard

18:38and it doesn't work out whatever it is you didn't fail it just didn't work that's just as simple as it is you tried didn't work didn't fail just didn't work I've been on a lot of shows I've been on a lot of shows I've written a lot of scripts some of them like the audience doesn't tune in but I can tell you that I'm proud of my work and I always feel like it's a success you know because I really like what I did and I don't I don't hand over the judgment to people outside I don't do that you know I tell you something I for some reason

19:45I had this obsession when I was in high school I don't know why exactly I'm sure it was just my weakness of character as a person but I was obsessed with getting into Harvard and I remember the the night before the um um acceptance as we're sent out I was going to get it I remember I can picture as I'm telling it to you my mother was in bed and I was standing by her bed and I was trying to describe to her how I felt because it was so important to me and these this image came to me I said man you know how when you pour a can of cocoa cold in a glass and it like fizzes up but you don't know how much soda is actually in until like the foam fades and then you can see actually how much

20:48soda is actually in the cup I said I feel like that right now got myself I'm about to find out how much soda is actually in the cup and I think that's one of the most toxic things I ever thought because I was handing over my entire self esteem to people who didn't know me from a whole they didn't know me and they were gonna I was going to allow their judgment of me to define how I felt about me what a horrible horrible thing I was setting myself up for and I think that we collectively are doing that all of the time with each other but if you have God and God is real in your life

21:53and God is not an idea but God is like you're immersed in God as we are because God saturates the universe God is all around us right now he can't not be because this can't be here unless God is here you understand I'm not being religious right now and being just factual this can't exist unless God is here so there's nothing realer than God and if you want to be real then God has to be real you see it's like I think that so many people and I think probably I don't want to generalize

22:58but I just think so many people like they get into shul and they get in front of a prayer book and they're not garrisoner they don't know who to be they don't know what role they're playing at that point they they've been cast in a part as a person in shul as a person holding a sitter as a person on the holiest day of the year and they don't know what part to play because they they're not they're not at their realest place so I heard ripsh lamos say a long time ago really like he maybe even have said it twice but I don't think I heard him say it in 40 years and somehow I had to put out like a little three minute thing today and somehow that just came to me like oh I should talk about that and again it relates to everything that I'm saying right now he's not like this

24:05imagine and I think it was you him kipper by the time imagine imagine someone comes into her a pair shop and they've got this thing that's like really broken and the person says like this really broken like I don't can you fix this so the the repairman is going to be looking at how you ask so so I'll give you one verse you come in with this thing and you go you can't really fix this can you the repairman is going to go nah I mean it's pretty broken I don't think so but if you come in with the exact same thing and go you know something this thing is so broken I really need this to be fixed can you fix it I mean it's it's really precious to me can you fix this the repairman is going to give you a different answer he's going to go you know let's give it a try

25:06you know we'll try we'll try we'll do it in other words he's going to be mirroring your commitment to getting it fixed if he feels like you've actually given up on this thing then he's not invested in it at all but if he sees that you're completely invested in it then he's invested in it too so obviously we're talking about us and God so so one of the things and this hit me sort of as a chitish because I hadn't really thought about it that as deeply as as I did today is that I think like if you're asking yourself who am I supposed to be on your own kipper what am I supposed to be on your own kipper what role so to speak am I supposed to play can I get to Gary zero right can I can I get to that place can I get to the realest version of me

26:09I think that the first question is how much do you care about fixing things because God can fix anything nothing is hard for God but God is like looking how how invested are you in making this relationship between you and God like like really good like really close how much how much do you care about fixing your own soul you

27:17you know I can tell you so many young kippers because I I made my career in an industry that's like this you know it's like ups and downs and crazy ups and downs and you know you win I want an Emmy award I want a Golden Globe Award and then I've been unemployed for stretches you know like you people think that oh you reach a certain level in the industry and then you just work work work work work work work work work there's never not work no that's not the industry that's something life I've looked and so I've got into young kipper going God they need cash please gotta pay the rent so I understand believe me I understand the existential heart of Russia shunny young kipper as like God I need some money to keep on going I I I've lived that but at the same time though I think that really the headquarters of this day and the essence of

28:21this day is I got to fix my soul and I got to get my relationship with you right and I've got to get my relationship with me right I've got to get to a place where I can respect myself so that I'm not running after approval from every person who I don't give a dang about and handing over myself a steam to every single person online at rafs for goodness' and then if we get that right the rest will come don't not pray for those material things pray for those things too that I'm telling you that's not what the core of this day is all about that's not the heart of what's at stake because if you can get to that place of self respect

29:27then you're gonna find that you don't need so much in life I've been taking this weight loss pill I've lost 20 pounds like prickly and you'd be shocked at how much weight you lose when you completely stop eating it's like there it is there's a secret and this pill you know takes away your entire appetite like you're just not hungry like even if you like I we have like this little snack counter right and I've just kind of you know for years and years what if I think snack counter whether hungry or not just repretzel cookie prep this just you know pay toll you know and it's like I have literally stood in front of it wanting to eat actually wanting

30:33to eat and go I'm just not hungry I'm just like walked in front of it like it's not it's it's it's and I described this to my brother and he said wow it's a pill that makes it's like a shortcut to being at suck you know like we've heard about Sadiqim that just don't eat and it's like I've got a little taste of what that is like just not to need food like my body still needs food but I don't just go all day basically without eating and and I'm telling you that because when you're good with yourself you'll be amazed at how much you don't need I'm not talking about talking about all sorts of approval all sorts of outside stuff

31:42that can really cure enough is a person there's such a good feeling where you can say you know what you don't like it now I'm not saying you should be arrogant and I'm not saying you shouldn't take notes someone can give you notes and improve something that you're doing you should be open to it and they're probably often right you should take it out I'm talking about telling you a little bit different than that word sort of like when it's all set and done and it's open it's okay if you don't like it because I like it and again you can't get to that place without God because God gives you the checklist of what you need to be striving for and when you accept God's checklist as your personal mission in life

32:46this is what I want to do this is what I'm dedicated to to my very last breath in this world and I'm not going to be satisfied I'm not going to be satisfied until I do it even better for you God then you're at Gary's era it was Gary Gary was the lead character in this in this shot that was the name of the character and to get his performance to be realist so so so part of this part of this is going to be about forgiving yourself

33:46because God can give you can forgive you between now and eternity but if you don't forgive yourself then it's not going to work and what does it mean to forgive yourself it goes back to what my father learned from his blessed hand which is if you tried your hardest and it didn't work you didn't fail you just didn't just didn't go that's cool but do you know what that means though that means that you have to try your hardest this is not the secret for how to get out of work and not care about what other people think this isn't that this is about I am actually working and trying my hardest all of the time

34:55but I know you don't have to know and I approve you don't have to approve and I know what I'm working toward is the right thing because I didn't come up with it God came up with it there's coming out with a book pretty soon that way and I read this up in the book I kind of came up with it on mail and but I saw a Russia fine scene said the same thing so I was happy with that but I'm going to put it in my words so imagine you've got like a race track here okay

36:00and one race track is like newly paved nice and smooth outdoor sunny day beautiful weather the guy racing is like an athlete you know good shape everything like that he's there and then over here you've got a guy and you've got barbed wire and you've got ditches and it's raining and there's someone firing live ammunition right and the guy's like not an athlete and the referee goes on your marks gets it go this guy's like that and then at a certain point he's saying okay race is over and the referee says to the guy on that race track says you know how far Jira he says 10 months

37:05and the the referee laughs this is 10 miles you were supposed to go 30 miles and then he says to the other guy how far did you go says a hundred yards a hundred yards you weren't supposed to get 50 feet so who won the race the guy with the barbed wire won the race so you say well who are these two competitors well this guy is the guy who's born into a good family who's got all the advantages right and on the outside everyone looks at his life and judges him as having a successful life in the most conventional sense this guy is sweeping floors in a Starbucks and no one's giving him any honor whatsoever but he's from the most broken families

38:13got the biggest learning disabilities got everything stacked against him and this guy is still getting up every single day and functioning and behaving like a decent bench so it says in the Gamora tells a story about a near death experience what we call a near death experience now we're one of the Khmer died and then he came back to life and he said to him what did you say and he said I saw that everything is upside down in heaven the people who are on the top here are on the bottom there and the people who are on the bottom here are on the top there so what does that mean that means because the real gauge of success is how hard are you working

39:24it's not the outside stuff the outside stuff that were so brainwashed into thinking is the essence of everything the outside stuff is all maz... it's just maz... God listen if you have two brilliant parents and you're brilliant you're not going to get any reward in heaven for being brilliant I heard Rebitts and Shira smile say that if your parents raised you to be like a super bench like a super midsfo person that all the midsves that you did are their reward what you added to what they brought you up with that's your reward all the other stuff is their reward

40:26and so so that's how you earn your own self respect by working as hard as you can because then you know what you did and if other people finally realize what it is that you're doing so it's the them because you have to do with you you know so so it's supposed to turn the teaching into a a brookha i bless everyone that they should get to that realist place in life with themselves with God with other people

41:37and to get to that place where you know it if we don't measure up to that goal that we wanted it doesn't matter we didn't fail just in the work but did we work hard toward it if the answer is yes then you won man that's slam dunk territory you won you won and you know something and that's the secret to happiness because at that point you're in such a state of equilibrium and balance and it's so real that you have good night's sleeps that you can give other people covered because you're not so busy running after their covered that they should give you how can i give you covered when you give me covered i'll give you

42:38covered but if i feel good about myself i can get everybody covered i heard ripsflamos say that why did god make dovetamele king because he treated everybody else like it so so ashen should bless us that really we should be able to get to that place a place of true equilibrium with the Torah with ashen with ourselves with each other because when the world gets to that state of balance that's masjihah that's masjihah i saw in the cipherate sanusa which is one of the deepest books of this all so it says that this world was created out of bounds and when the with the world achieves balance that harmony will be the fixing of everything and it all begins with our own relationship with

43:42ourselves and with god