11. Vayechi 5780: Telling Your Story --Getting To The Essence Of It All

FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/avrohom.lipszyc/videos/10157645562973257/ SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/hachaim/11-vayechi-5780-telling-your-story-getting-to-the-essence-of-it-all Written Notes: https://www.dropbox.com/s/j9jvifceumnv5rq/11.%20Vayechi%20-Telling%20Your%20Story%20--Getting%20to%20the%20Essence%20of%20it%20All.pdf?dl=0 YouTube: https://youtu.be/X2zbW4QSUWU ______ The greatest struggle of an artist, and often it becomes the neverendingly driving pain of the artist, is trying to give the essence of his story through his art. This struggle often creates an unhealthy relationship between the artist and his art, not allowing him to be okay with his art, show his art, or to depart with any of his art. Chassidus explains this struggle as the paradoxical relationship between essence and expression. Being that essence defies description, thus, essence defies expression. Expression is based upon the boundaries, form and description of that which is being expressed. When the article being expressed defies description, there will never be any satisfactory expression that will appease the one describing the article. Thus, the never-ending struggle of the artist, who adamantly wants to express nothing less than the essence of his thought, feeling or soul. The best the artist can do is to cease control over his work, get out of the way, do the best he can in remaining loyal to what he is trying to express, and then to allow the audience to work out what the art is saying to them. And the more that the artist succeeds in getting out of the way, the more he shall exceed in expressing the core of what he seeks to express, albeit, never fully expressing the “non-expressible indescribable essence.” And so it is, with relationships. There is the frustration of someone in a relationship expressing, “You don’t understand,” to which the other argues, “I do get it,” to which the first-person writhers in the pain of not being understood, coupled with the fact that the other person doesn’t even get that they don’t understand. The outcome of which, a frustration begins to creep in, as the loneliness of not being understood at our very core-essence, begins to gnaw away at the foundation of the relationship. After all, what we are truly looking for is the depth of intimacy, as in “into-me-see,” and can anyone ever truly see into our “non-expressible indescribable essence?” In this lecture we are going to explore how one can truly tell their story, the story of their very essence. This lecture is based primarily on a maamor the Rebbe delivered on this Shabbat, in 1965, exploring the mystical secrets that Jacob wish to tell his sons before his passing