שיחת חיזוק בטלפון (25) (יסוד האמונה מתחיל עם היראה) הרב ירון ראובן

0:00In the name of G-d, let's do it and succeed. A weekly portion, a weekly portion. The big and famous story about the 12 tribes, Joseph's brothers. If you pay attention, Joseph, whatever it looks like, still defends them. And Chazal explain to us that it really was for their good to seek the favor that they did, that they sold him for. and today I heard news from Rabbi Efraim that he says that in chapter Mem-Hei (45), verse 1, when it is written that Yosef could not restrain himself before all those who stood by him, and he cried out, "Have everyone go out from me!" So no one stood with him. Here it is written that Yosef could not restrain himself; he could not continue to punish them.

1:00He couldn't continue with this story and this performance. And he told them that he was their brother. And... The Sages say that when they say that Yosef couldn't restrain himself, Rabbi Efraim says that it could be that if he had restrained himself, he wouldn't have revealed his identity. If he wasn't cheating, he would continue with the test. Continue with the performance. A little longer. Another week. Another day. Another hour. I don't know. I don't know exactly how long. Now, why? Because all of this, it was like, it was annoying them. It was a waste of money for them. But really, it was a waste. It was a waste there. They made a mess. They sold their brother. They sold their brother. They sold their brother. They sold him for the price of a pair of shoes. And now,

2:16Yes, 100%, 100%, but even now he was so good, he loved them so much, he couldn't stand it, and he just wanted to tell them, like, I love you already. He wanted to hug them, not to annoy them anymore, just wanted to say, leave me with all this. But what happened, we read that hundreds of years after that, we have the whole story of the King of Kings. And it's a story, a tale, that really should be read at least once a month or at least once a year at Tisha B'Av, to see what happened to Chazal, what happened to Rabbi Akiva and all the Asarah Harugei Malchut, what the Romans did to them yimach shemam v'zichram. But we say that it's not the end of the world, but it's the highest level. Rabbi Akiva says that's what the debate was about. Yes, but why did they kill them? It's written in the book that they killed them. The king, the Roman Caesar, he started to study the Torah, and then he came here, and he brought the ten wise men of Israel and said to them, "What is the law?"

3:29of people who sell blood. So he said, "Death sentence." So he said, "Okay, now I will punish you because I can't punish the tribes; they are not here, they don't live anymore. So I will punish you in their place until you have sold Yosef." And then they came to, I believe it was Rabbi Yehoshua, They came to him and said to him, "Give us three days. If we have something to protect ourselves with, then we'll give you what you want from us." So they came to him and asked him if there was a gap in the sky. that there will be ten dead kings, that we will be, that we will be like, that there will be a death penalty on us instead of the ten tribes, for the sale of Yosef, and listen to it in the new lesson of Rabbi Ephraim. We just published it with the help of Hashem. So I imagine it will be on the website in an hour, hour and a half, something like that. So with the help of Hashem, if not today, tomorrow, listen to the whole lesson, all the details. And it's really amazing. It explains all the details, what happened and what's this, in worlds that we can't even understand what they are. And it really explains that because...

4:55Yosef did not repent, so there was a punishment on the people of Israel. The Holy One did not punish them for this sin immediately, and really, Yosef did not give them 100% because he did not say explicitly that he would give them. So, there was a punishment for many years, and then... It came to the point that G-d had to give to Satan to kill the ten of them. Now, we will not go through the same process as Rabbi Ephraim did. First of all, he can't, he has great knowledge; second of all, he wants to go through something new. More related to what we talked about now, the business issue, the world issue, what's going on in the world. Every person has all kinds of trials, all kinds of difficult things in the world. You really need to understand how it can be that these things happen. Sometimes you see a righteous person, and he suffers. A wicked person, and he prospers. This is a question even Moshe Rabbeinu asked.

6:12Well, to ask is good; it's one of the things that a person needs to get to... Okay, so even for that, there's a Mishnah that will tell you about it. And it says, "Ein ha'baishan lomeid" (A shy person cannot learn). It's not just talking about a baishan (a shy person) who is embarrassed; it says that a person must know that he must ask. You have to ask questions. If you want to always be wise, if you want to be even wiser, if you want to be something above and beyond the people of the land, you have to learn. No, no, it's not a lot of answers. If there are answers with a source, then you can see that it is an answer from Heaven. If it is an answer that is logical, but it doesn't have a source, then maybe it is someone's opinion, maybe it is someone's thought, all kinds of things like that. But if it has a source in the Torah, then it is possible to understand that it comes from Siyata Dishmaya. Now, after this verse, after Yosef cannot repent,

7:24he says, in the verse of Gimel, and Yosef says to him, in the verse of Mem-Hei, in the verse of Gimel, and Yosef says to him, I am Yosef, is my father still alive? And they could not blame him, because they were offended by him. So Yosef could not respond, he says to them, I am your brother, I am your brother Yosef, is my father still alive? And they couldn't blame him because they were shocked. What do you mean they were shocked? Yosef was an obedient person. Yes, but if you see a person who is obedient, are you shocked? What are you shocked for? They were not shocked for their appearance, their appearance, their dignity. They were shocked for all the... Yes, so now let's explain it. You said half of the answer, the first half, as you said, that Yosef's face was exactly the same as his father, Yaakov. So the reason he asked if their father is alive is because he doesn't understand how they can...

8:47not to identify him as Yosef when they look at his father. Maybe his father died many years ago, and they forgot how his father looked. So, when they look at him, they don't understand that he is their brother. So, what do Chazal explain? Chazal explain that from here we learn that it is forbidden to look at the faces of a rasha. So, they thought up to this point that he was the king of Egypt. So, they thought he was a rasha, so they wouldn't look at his face. So they said, I won't look at his face. So they didn't notice that he was their brother. They didn't notice that he was exactly like their father. So that's why he asked them, "Is your father still alive? Because I look exactly like him, how can you not notice?" So that's the first thing. But why were they killed? What does it mean, were they killed? The sages tell us, were they killed? They died. They all died. They all received a heart attack. They all received a heart attack from the shock. Because Hashem, in the same moment that he said to them, "I am Yosef," put, like a disk in their head, opened their eyes, and showed them all the actions from the beginning to the end. Everything that happened from the second they sold him, and everything that happened to him, and everything that they did, the whole incident, everything together happened in a second.

10:15And they got so shocked that they all died. And the Holy One, Blessed be He, had to bring them back to life. So now, a person who thinks to himself, all of these, the tribes were really the angels of Hashem. Okay, so they made a mistake. Why are you angry? Why are you getting a heart attack? Okay, you made a mistake. A normal person makes a mistake every five seconds. He doesn't get angry, he doesn't cry, he doesn't get a heart attack. Nothing. And a person lights the candle. Exactly. And a person lights the candle on Shabbat, without any intention. Without any intention. Without any intention. Like he's keeping Shabbat. But he lights the candle. Oh, a little bit, oh, what a sin. But that's it, he returns to his life. He doesn't get angry, he doesn't get a heart attack. Yes, exactly. Now, in the Gemara, the book of Chagigah, chapter 15, verse 1, tells the story of Elisha ben Avuyah, one of the rabbis of Rabbi Meir Baal HaNes. Elisha ben Avuyah is called differently. In the whole Torah, in the whole Gemara,

11:45When they talk about him, they call him someone else. He was one of the rabbis of Rabbi Meir Baal HaNes. Rabbi Meir? Rabbi, Rabbi. Rabbi of Rabbi Meir. Rabbi of Rabbi Meir. He was one, he was Tanna HaKadosh. At some point, until he fell off the road, he went out and became, went to a bad culture. There was a story in the Gemara on page 14. It says that there was one of four of the wise men of Israel who ascended to heaven. They saw all kinds of things. One of them died; it was too much for him. One of them went insane. One of them went to a bad culture, which was different. And the fourth one emerged unscathed; it was Rabbi Akiva. So he saw something, he saw one of the angels sitting in the sky, and it wasn't obvious; it was written that the angels weren't sitting. He didn't understand something and went to a bad culture. In any case, the story here is that in the beginning, he went to a bad culture, which not everyone knew. So one day, he went to a zonah.

13:11And he says to her, I want to pay you. So she says, no, you're not, and why are you Elisha ben Avuyah? Like, you're not Elisha ben Avuyah? So he took a radish from the ground on Shabbat. So how did he handle it? He didn't handle it in words. What did he do? He took out some radish. Or some... Yes, some radish from the... No, not bribe, um... Radish. How do you say radish? Radish is a kind of vegetable. A kind of vegetable from the ground. Take it out of the ground. And it's a Shabbat melacha. Yes, it's a Shabbat melacha. A Shabbat melacha. Don't say it in words. Take it out of the ground. From the ground. No, no. A melacha from the ground. Take a melacha from the ground. Take a melacha from the ground. And then she says to him, she said, another one. So here, as we understand, that now, she asks him, he says to her, I want to use the Zonah, that it's not, it's a big thing. And she says to him, what, you're not another, you're not a tzaddik, you're not a Tanna, you're one of the greats of the generation. He doesn't say to her in words, he prays Shabbat. So she says to him, another one, it can't be that you and I are the same.

14:39So what are we learning here? What is the meaning of this verse? This Zonah says that there was a chance that Elisha would have been saved even if he came to the Zonah. There was a chance that he would be a great rabbi, even if he came to the Zonah, which is not so good, but there was a chance. That's why I asked him if he would be the son of a prophet. How do you come to the Zonah if you're a tzaddik, a holy, a wise student, a Tanna? How could it be? That's why I asked him. But when he's a part of Shabbat, I said something else. What does that mean, something else? There's no chance in the world that this person, even the dust of a tzaddik, is a part of Shabbat. This is the Eskel principle that we learn from this story. So when a person understands the substance of the act, the substance of the passing, then there is no chance in the world that he will pass on it if he does not get upset. Elisha ben Avuyah is upset.

15:48and then he went to Gehenom. First of all, he went to the bottom of the well, and Rabbi Meir prayed for him because he knew a lot of Torah. It's written in the Gemara that he prayed for him to go to Gehenom. They saw ashan leave his grave for many years until Rabbi Meir passed away. Then Rabbi Yochanan prayed for him to get out of Gehenom. To get to Gehenom was good, Because when he gets to the place, it's the bottom line, it's worse. So anyway, here we understand that if a person knows the source of the thing, he doesn't do stupid things. That's what we learn from Zohar. So now, why did the tribes operate until they died? Because they understood the source of the thing. They understood the source of the thing. Who doesn't understand the source of the thing? In the Mishnah of Pirkei Avot, chapter 2, Hillel says, he used to say, "There is no one who is ignorant who fears sin, and the unlearned are not pious, and the bashful does not learn, and the impatient does not teach, and not all who engage in business become wise, and in a place where there are no men, strive to be a man." So here Hillel explains to us many things that...

17:14A person who really understands this has to wake up. The first thing is to say there is a rule: the first thing is important. There are all these things now; it's in a certain order. It's not just that I said there is no one reason, and it's the first, and no one said you have to do the second. It's not; there is a certain order. So, you understand that the most important thing is the first, and after that the second, and so on and so forth. So the first thing I'm telling you, a man who is a boor, what is a boor? Rashi and the Rambam both explain that a boor is a man who is naked. He has nothing. He has no wisdom. He has no Torah. And he has no good deeds. And Rabbeinu Yonah says that he doesn't even know how to behave. He doesn't even know how to behave. He doesn't even know how to be a man. You know, there are a lot of people who say, "I'm not religious, but I'm a good man." A boor is not even that. Not even a good person. He doesn't have a minimal concept. Why is that the first thing? Why is that the first thing? He says, if a person is a boor, if he doesn't have Torah, if he doesn't have good middot, then he doesn't even have a chance. He doesn't even have a chance to deal with this life and reach the next world. He doesn't have a chance. Why? Because he doesn't even know what he doesn't know.

18:40He doesn't even know that he needs to be afraid of Hashem. So, where is it written that the wicked are the ones who will be killed? This is a completely different Mishnah. There are people who are wicked, but it doesn't mean that a person is a wicked person. It doesn't mean that he is a fool. A wicked person is a person who goes against Hashem, like a different person. A different person went against Hashem. What? No, rasha is not worse than yod-bur. No, it's mesit. It's mesit or min. It's something different. It's not rasha, it's min. Yes, it's a kind. A rasha is someone who is celebrating Shabbat, but he really doesn't know how much of Shabbat he is talking about, but he is talking about Shabbat, that's a rasha. And a person who eats... No, no, no, a tinok she'nishba. No, no, no, a tinok she'nishba. A tinok she'nishba.

19:51No. It's about the thing, and he doesn't know what it is. It's two different things. If he doesn't know what Shabbat is, if he doesn't know that there is such a thing we call HaKadosh Baruch Hu, if he doesn't know what Torah is, then he is a tinok she'nishba. So because of that, Rabbi Ovadia, zekher tzaddik livracha, said, there is no difficulty, there is no difficulty, there are no tinokot she'nishbu in this generation. No more. No more. No. All those from Chabad who say that the whole generation are tinokot she'nishbu, they are idiots from Egypt. There's no such thing. No, it's true, it's true. What do you mean? It's true. People say that everyone is tinokot she'nishbu, and it causes people to continue on their way. It's not true, it's not nice. If a person does not know the substance of sin, he will not answer. You tell him that he is okay because he is a tinok she'nishba, he will not answer. So it's not good. Yes.

20:54Yes, if I didn't believe that they could change the world, do you think I would leave Wall Street and sacrifice the Arabs now? Why am I doing this? For myself? There is no money in it, there is no such thing. Apart from the commandments and the will of Hashem, there is nothing in it. Why do you think the Arabs are sacrificing? Why do you think Rabbi Mizrachi is sacrificing the Arabs? Why do you think rabbis who support the sacrifice of the Arabs all their lives are doing this? Do you think there is money in it? Is there promotion? Is there honor? There is nothing in it. Only excuses, only problems, only a headache. Why do we do this? This is the will of Hashem and this is the love of the people of Israel. A person who says, "I love the people of Israel," has to live by the guidance of the rabbis. If by himself or through someone else or all kinds of things. Yes, they come, but they don't answer back. They come to the Knesset, but they don't answer back. There is no problem. There are a lot of good things that Chabad does. And if you know the stories... Yes.

22:16Listen, it's not a rule that all Chabad are not good; there are many who are good. Especially if you look at the past generation, if you see, all those who founded Chabad, they were the righteous of the world. You look at all kinds of stories. What did they do for? What did they do with their souls for the people of Israel? What did they do with their souls for the Torah? For HaKadosh Baruch Hu? There is no doubt. But the problem is, I don't know exactly how it happens in Eretz Yisrael, but I know in America, in the communities where there are the most problems, in terms of the rabbis, and in terms of the... Of the communities that are running on Shabbat and people even coming, coming there and not saying anything to them, it's Chabad. Those who say to people, everything is fine, everything is fine, and people are going to the Knesset for 20 years, it's in Chabad.

23:16It's not... You can't say that everything is fine. Everything is not fine. You say to a person, Shabbat is coming to an end, and this person starts to keep Shabbat, and then he goes to his rabbi in Chabad, and this rabbi says, no, no, no, don't listen to him. Don't listen to him, it's not right, you're a tzaddik, you're a navon, you're this, you're that, everything. The person starts to keep Shabbat again. No, you think I'm joking? You think I'm joking? No, I'm telling you how it happens. It happened to me. It happened to me, it happened to me, it happened to me here. I have returned to a complete community. Yes, that's it. That's the point. A person needs to understand. There is truth and there is lie. There is no middle. Either the Torah is 100% truth, or with 100% sugar. That's it. There is no truth, there is nothing in the middle. There is no black or white. That's it. Black is for the Christians, or for the infidels, or for other people. There is no black or white. That's it. And when a person understands this, then he already has wisdom. Then it is the beginning of wisdom, yirat Hashem. When a person is blind,

24:42He doesn't even know that he doesn't know. He doesn't even know that the first wisdom, that the beginning, the beginning of the connection with Hashem is yirat Shamayim. When people teach us, and say, no, you love Hashem, you love Hashem, Hashem loves you, yes, Hashem loves you, He saved you, 100%. But if you go against Him every day, you become His enemy. Where is it written? Parashat Va'etchanan. So a person should understand that a person who does the will of Hashem... This one, yes, he loves him. He calls them lovers. But those who go against Him, desecrate Shabbat, eat chametz on Pesach, eat treif all year long, do all kinds of things against Hashem, they think they are enemies of Hashem. It's written in Parashat Va'etchanan, the last three verses. So, a person who is a boor, he doesn't even understand it. He doesn't even know it. He doesn't even know that yirat Shamayim is the basis of the basis.

25:59To connect with Hashem. He doesn't know what he doesn't know. This is the most dangerous person. There is a person who knows. There is a person who doesn't know. But the most dangerous person is a person who doesn't know that he doesn't know. Why is he the most dangerous? Because a person who doesn't know that he doesn't know, all this plays with him that he does know. He doesn't want to tell everyone that he doesn't know. Exactly. 100%. Listen, all the people of Israel can go back to teshuva. All of them. Even the resha'im, the resha'im. There was one person who was an atheist. He came to me, he was an atheist, thank G-d, he went back to teshuva. There were people who were really stubborn, they went back to teshuva. There are people who don't want to go back to teshuva, they want to look for themselves, they want to. So they don't go back. But thank G-d, every person who is a real person,

27:03And he's looking for the truth, he finds it. It's also written in the sefer Devarim. In the sefer Devarim, chapter 30. It's not easy, it's not easy. He's looking for the truth, he's a human being now. He's real. I know him, I know him. He's real. Now he, in order to be religious, needs to change his life. Okay, hard. It's the work. From the outside? I'm not saying it's simple, but it's a matter of the person understanding what his option is, what his possibility is, what he can do. If he doesn't do it, what will happen? So he has a problem. So first of all, let's get back to our topic, let's get back to the Mishnah here. It says there is no one law; this is the thing that a person needs to understand.

28:06that if he doesn't learn and doesn't work on himself, then he doesn't even have a small chance, even the smallest chance, he doesn't. He's in the worst situation. A rasha has a better chance than him. Why? A rasha, at least, as you said, a rasha at least has mitzvot. A rasha at least knows that he's doing wrong things, but at least he knows who Hashem is. An am ha'aretz doesn't even know who Hashem is, he doesn't know anything. He's empty, he's empty, he has nothing. And then he continues with the Mishnah, he says, and the am ha'aretz is not a chassid. Now, what is an Am Ha'aretz? An Am Ha'aretz is a person who neglects the Torah, doesn't care about its matters, and really, he does things freely. So... He doesn't respect the Torah, I say, he doesn't respect it. He does things; he's religious in my opinion. Like, he does things that suit him. Yom Kippur, he goes to the Beit Knesset. Rosh Hashanah, sometimes. Shabbat, he goes. Kosher, at home. So now, Rabbi Ovadia will remind, he will say, who are the people of the land? Who are the people of the land? The people of the land in our generation, it's Mechalel Shabbat.

29:19The people of the land are celebrating Shabbat, and it is written in the Talmud that it is forbidden for a person to marry his daughter to someone whose father is from the am ha'aretz. If his father is from the am ha'aretz, it is forbidden to marry your daughter. If he does it unintentionally, if he does it unintentionally, if it's unintentionally, then let's say it's even something that sounds smaller, but it's actually bigger. If a person, he's a chazzan, chazzan, and he falls down with a knife, falls down with a knife, not only when they do... No, no. No, no, not only is it forbidden for him to be a chazzan, it is forbidden even to count him as an individual. He is not considered part of the whole of Israel. Okay, but how do we know if he is an individual or not? It doesn't matter how we know, I'm telling you what's written.

30:25Now, why isn't it considered the whole of Israel? Why? It's only being discovered. You said, now, Shabbat. How do I compare a person who is being discovered with a knife to a person who prays Shabbat every two weeks? How is it possible to compare the two things? Why aren't the two considered the whole of Israel? Why? Because he is going against the words of the Chazal. The one who is being discovered with a knife is going against the words of the Chazal in a way—in a fixed way. To be discovered is not once a year. To be discovered is every day, every two days. So he goes intentionally against the words of the Chazal, against the Torah, in a methodical way, so here a person does not have a part among the people of Israel; he is not considered as your people. A person who keeps Shabbat every two weeks, every month, but intentionally, this is like a person who does it in a measured way. This means that such a person is not considered a part of the people of Israel; a person is considered an idol worshipper for everything. So even if he keeps Shabbat, the Shabbat that he does keep, he will receive a reward, but the Shabbat that he does not keep, he will receive multiple punishments. Not only a punishment for breaking Shabbat, but also a punishment for treating Hashem with disrespect, as if He were a casual friend.

31:36I can come to the barbecue; I can't come to the barbecue. To pray as much as possible, of course, 100%, we all pray, we will return in repentance. But the point, but the point is, what is his situation? A person needs to understand what his situation is. There are two people. There are two people, these two people, they have, bar minan, they have cancer. These two people, they only have one year to live. One year. So now, no, not a story, it's just a story. So now... The doctor is one of them. He tells him, "Listen, you only have one year to live." Poor guy, crying, crying, crying. And he goes home. The other one, he tells him, "Don't worry, everything is fine." Everything is fine? Yes, yes, everything is fine. What does he do? Happy, happy, goes back to work. Who is in a better condition?

32:47No, no, no. Both of them will die within a year, 100%. What if both of them die within a year? They have 365 days. So that's the point. Now, a person who now knows, he knows he has a year, and a person who doesn't know he has a year, what, what, what, what... Now, a person who doesn't know, he goes back to his life. What's his life really? He goes back to work. He works, he works 10 hours a day, and maybe this year... yes, exactly. No, he doesn't even do it. What does he do this year? This person, now he works. And this year, instead of working 9 hours a day, he works 12. Why does he want to work overtime for the next year so that he can go on vacation? But he doesn't know that he won't get to the next year. So all year, he's worried about work.

33:55This poor man lost all his money and then he died. The other one, not even a second went to work. Not even a second went to work. Why? He only spent a year. What does that mean? He goes to work, he goes on vacation with his family, maybe he learns Torah, maybe he goes back to Teshuva. There are many things. Even if you find the knowledge, Even if you want to get rid of the story, this person is going to be free, enjoying life, not wasting his time at work. So that he knows in the beginning, even if he cries in the beginning, even if it's hard to get it, when he knows the substance of the thing, then he changes his life. Exactly the same thing as a person who does not know that he is sleeping. He is still an am ha'aretz. He still thinks that it is possible to fast once a month. It is possible to eat a goat once a year. It is possible to go to a wedding. Huh? Yes. So now Hillel tells you that am ha'aretz are not chassidic. What does it mean that am ha'aretz are not chassidic? He tells you that a person who is an am ha'aretz, a person who does not focus on things,

34:58He doesn't even have a small chance of being a chassid. What is a chassid? A chassid is a person who not only keeps the commandments, he does more than that. There are the 613 commandments, plus 7, of the chassid, of Rabbeinu, which is 620. Not all of them are relevant to us, because there is no Beit HaMikdash, and not all of them apply to Kohanim, and not all of them apply to women, and so on. So let's say about half. Let's say about half, and a person is attached; a little more than 300 mitzvot are relevant to them. So the chassid is not only doing these commandments, but he is doing them extra. What does that mean? Instead of buying the etrog and lulav as simple as that, On Sukkot, what does he do? He buys neat things. Instead of using his Tefillin from the Bar Mitzvah, which his father bought him for $300, he buys something respectable—$1,000, $2,000. He has the money, Baruch Hashem. He invests it in Tefillin. Not in a car. Not in a navigation system. Not in a GPS. He invests it in Tefillin. He invests it in things that can make his mitzvah even more beautiful.

36:18When we blow the shofar, that's a good practice, that's a blessing, but 99% of human beings don't have a minimal understanding of why we blow the shofar. You can blow the shofar not with your hand, but like this, in the air. Yes, you want to do it, you don't have to blow the shofar at all. It's a practice, it's not a habit. But why do we even do this? We learned this from Onkelos, Onkelos the Ger Tzedek. Onkelos, if you read his commentary on Shabbat, when the Roman Caesar, who was his uncle, sent people to stop him after he heard that something had happened, So, when they tried to get him out of the house, when they finally got him out of the house, he was struck in the face. They asked him what it was. He said, "Your king only protects you when you're in harmony with him. My King protects me both at home and outside." Exactly, exactly. So here we learn...

37:27Here we learn that the tradition of throwing the mezuzah comes from Onkelos, and it is a beautiful thing to show to Hashem that we love His commandments. Because you throw the tefillin, because you throw the mezuzah, because you throw the book of Torah, you are not obliged to throw the book of Torah, or the tefillin, or the mezuzah, or any other commandment. You have to do it. The commandment, you can do the commandment. You don't throw the tefillin, You have to learn the Torah. You have to read the Torah. You have to fulfill the Torah. To destroy it is a sin. Exactly. But if you just destroy and don't do it, then it's not worth anything. There are many who come and destroy the Torah, but they celebrate Shabbat five minutes after that. They come, they come, they come. To our sorrow, they come. People come to the Knesset on Shabbat and destroy the... Where do we live? In Israel or in America? We live in America. It doesn't matter. The important thing is to know that we are obliged to fulfill the Torah. To destroy it is an aveirah. It is a sin. It is considered a sin. Exactly. So now, the nation of Israel is a sin. A person who will not destroy it is a sin.

38:45First of all, you need to be at least a simple Jew. A simple Jew is a person who fulfills the entire Torah. A person who fulfills all the mitzvot. Until you realize that you fulfill the entire Torah, you fulfill the commandments, you at least try to fulfill everything, you don't make any mistakes intentionally. If you make mistakes, there's no such thing as a person who doesn't make mistakes, but at least you don't do it intentionally. You don't make mistakes intentionally. You don't get caught with a knife. You don't do things intentionally. At least, if you have mistakes, it's at least reasonable. So, at least, until you get to the point where you... So let's get to it now. Yes, but that's not the nation. The nation of Israel makes all of these, plus more. So now...

39:51The people of the land, now we have reached the people of the land. We haven't reached a person who is more than that. The people of the land, Hillel says, the people of the land are not Hasidic. He says, if you are the people of the land, don't grow your beard and start wearing a kippah because you started to keep Shabbat six months ago. You still don't know all the laws of Shabbat. You still don't know that you are not allowed to do all kinds of things. A person plays with you because you are Hasidic. Don't play with the Hasidic. Slowly, slowly. Slowly. First of all, stop being the people of the land. First of all, start learning the Torah. First of all, start fulfilling the Torah, and then you can grow your beard, go to the mikveh every day as you want. You are not obliged to do these things. You are not obliged. First of all, you are obliged not to be the people of the land. This is the first thing. Second thing, how can a person get out, now a third thing, we have two things, the third stage, how can a person get out of the state of the people of the land? How can you get out of it? The first thing he says, and not the problem of teaching. First of all, first of all, you should know if you want to learn Torah, if you want to be a wise talmid, at least to be a wise talmid, don't even, even a standard, even a standard, even a simple Jew who observes mitzvot, you should know how to be a teacher, to be a teacher, a person who teaches, a person who is, like, he's okay.

41:15He's not a Chazal, he's not a Rabbi, he's not even a wise student, but he's fine, he's in a good situation. Yes. So he says to a person like that, to be a teacher, in order to get to that, you have to be baishan. What does baishan mean? If you have a question, ask the question. Don't play with it like you don't know, or it's not pleasant, or I don't want to disturb, or I don't want this, no, no, no, no. If you're baishan, then it means that you're still an am ha'aretz. Why? Because only in a person who's an am ha'aretz... or bur, he doesn't ask. Why? Because if you, if I tell you, listen, about the passage of talking about trees and stones, the Rambam says, about trees and stones, we received punishment for 40 years. When the people of Israel received punishment, in the desert, about what it was, that they said the evil language about the land of Israel. What did they say about the land? What did they say? They didn't say about the language. What did they say? The Rambam explains here, that he brought it from Massechet Arachin, from Mishnah, and also from Tehillim. He says here, that about what we got the punishment of 40 years, that we said the evil language about stones and trees. About stones and trees we said the evil language, and we got the punishment of 40 years.

42:41No, no, no. The sin of the spies is that G-d wants to destroy us. G-d will punish us. Exactly. So the sin of the spies is not 40 years. We received 40 years because we spoke lashon hara. The lashon hara is about trees and stones. So now, the sin of the spies, we will pay for it until today. But 40 years we received because of the lashon hara about the land of Israel. So now, the Rambam explains in his interpretation of the words of the fathers, He says, if a person knows what we have received on the lashon hara, on the lashon hara, on a gift from Hashem, then what will we receive on the lashon hara, on our friend, on our brother, on our father, on our rabbi? What will we receive? So a person must understand, if you are a baishan, you will never ask a question in life, which is important, because you don't know that it's important. You don't know how much of the substance of lashon hara, how much of the substance of all kinds of things that a person who learns, knows. So that's the third thing. The fourth thing, and not the chacham who teaches.

44:02Exactly. This is the source. A person wants to fulfill the will of Hashem, he must learn. He must. There is no such thing as not learning. There is no such thing as a Jew who does the will of Hashem without learning Torah. There is no such thing. Impossible. You don't know. It is a matter that a person does not learn. Either he is blind, or the best situation is the am ha'aretz. And the am ha'aretz are not Hasidic. And then the fourth thing, and she here says... What? So he really doesn't want to repent, so he doesn't reply. Yes. Now, oh, he doesn't know. He doesn't know yet, so now we're learning. And then he says, and not the captain teaches. And if a person doesn't have patience, obeys people, and gets frustrated quickly, then he can't be a good teacher. But not only teachers. Not only, we don't talk only about Rav. We talk, this Mishnah, it's about everyone. So how is it about everyone? He says, if you have children, the children will come to you, they will teach you. Father, what is written here? Father, what does Rashi say? The Rav... So, in a person, no, no, there are many people who are the opposite. They criticize the children, but everyone...

45:20Yes, yes, yes, yes, unfortunately. You live in Gan Eden, I live in another place. You have people with you, everyone is good. I said, this Mishnah didn't write all this Mishnah about you. It's just parts about all of us. All of us. I repeat, it's also for myself. Now he says to you, and not the captain teaches, if the children need patience, if the wife needs patience, if the husband needs patience, if the family needs patience, if you want to teach them, you need to have patience. Even if they ask you 700 times, what is written in it, what is written in it, what is written in it? Patience. There is a story in Masechet Eruvin, chapter 54, about Rabbi Preida. Rabbi Preida had a student, a famous story, This student was a bit surprised. In order to learn everything, he would have to go to Rabbi Preida and repeat it 400 times. Everything. Tell him, Moshe received the Torah from Hashem at Mount Sinai. Moshe received the Torah from Hashem at Mount Sinai. 400 times. 400 times. What is the commandment? Shabbat. Shabbat. Shabbat. 400 times. Everything 400 times. Until he grasps it. Number 400, grasps it, okay, repeats it. Continues something different.

46:43He was the only one who had the patience to work with this student. But one day, the Gemara says, the Rabbi said to the student, "Listen, I have a meeting today, so today, please listen carefully, because I have to leave." "No problem, Rabbi. We go through this 400 times as usual. Number 400..." The Rabbi expects the student to say to him, yes, okay, I understood. But the student says to him, no, dear Rabbi, I didn't understand. So the Rabbi says to him, what do you mean, why didn't you understand? As usual, a few hundred times. Exactly. So he says, why today? What happened today? He says, I'll tell you the truth, dear Rabbi, from the second you told me that you have a meeting, I pressed, and all the 400 times he said it, I just thought, maybe we won't do it 400 times, maybe we won't do it 400 times, maybe we won't go over it, maybe we won't go over it, maybe there's no time, so all the time I just thought you have to go. So Rav Preida said to him, you're right? I'm not going to the meeting. Let's go over it 400 times more. And he went over it 400 times more. He went over his standards, he went over his own standards. And at the end of the 400...

48:09What? It's a wizard, it's not us. It's a wizard, but there is a moral lesson here. Rav Preida's salary came out of the sky and asked him, you did something very great, all the heavens were angry because of you, what you did now. Even on the good grades you have, you passed them, you did something even better than what you can do. So the Holy One will give you a reward. What do you want? To live another 400 years? Or that your entire generation will have a part in the next world? He said that my entire generation will have a part in the next world. So a Bat Kol answered him, because you chose the kingdom of Israel, I will give you both. So he also received the reward of 400 years, and everyone went to the next world. But this man, who is the angel of Hashem, Yes, but what is the moral of the matter here? The moral of the matter is that people who learned the Mishnah of Hillel here, and not the captain teaching, they really took it to heart. Rabbi Preida knew that if I already teach this student, it's okay.

49:21It's not normal. Okay, it's hard. Okay, it's like this, it's like this. But if I'm already doing the will of Hashem, do it until the end of the road. Do it as you need to. If you're already teaching someone something, teach it as you need to. Don't shout at him. Don't belittle him. Do it. If you can't do it, don't do anything. It's better not to do anything. If you shout and so on and so forth, there are people like that who are corrupt. I hear the stories of old people, boys who fell from the path. Why did they fall from the path? They were yeshiva boys all their lives. The corrupt one who was called a rabbi beat them or did this or did that. No, I'm not talking about cops. I'm not talking about cops. I'm not talking about cops. I have a question. If you shout and so on and so forth, there are people like that who are corrupt. I hear the stories of old people, boys who fell from the path. Why did they fall from the path? They were yeshiva boys all their lives. The corrupt one who was called a rabbi beat them or did this or did that. No, I'm not talking about cops. I'm not talking about cops. I'm not talking about cops. Yes, it's Yaakov. Seventy people died in Egypt. Yes. But in reality, seventy people didn't die. Yes, seventy people died. Why didn't seventy people die? No, you're asking questions. One by one. Who was the first one to die? No, there are people who say that it was Yaakov who didn't tell himself. There are people who say... There are people who say... No, there are people who say that they didn't tell Dina, or they didn't tell her daughter. Yes.

50:47Yes, it's Yaakov. Seventy people died in Egypt. Yes. But in reality, seventy people didn't die. Yes, seventy people died. Why didn't seventy people die? No, you're asking questions. One by one. Who was the first one to die? No, there are people who say that it was Yaakov who didn't tell himself. There are people who say... There are people who say... No, there are people who say that they didn't tell Dinah, or they didn't tell her daughter. Yes. I said that here there is a verse that says that it is the son of Dan. Why? Because the son of Dan is not known in the Torah. Who is known? He is the son of Dan Chushim. Yes, yes.

51:47Yes, yes, but she never died. She never died. You know, Chushim, Chushim, if I remember correctly, he killed his grandfather. He killed his grandfather. He cut his head, yes. He cut his head. Yes, exactly. So let's finish. Let's finish this Mishnah. Let's finish this Mishnah. We only have two more things, and then we'll go to other matters. He says now, if you want to connect to Hashem, first of all, you need yirat Shamayim (fear of Heaven), so there is no sin. If you want to be more than just an am ha'aretz (ignorant person), you know you can't be lazy. If you want to start teaching your family, your friends, everyone, you can't trust people. But now, what if a person wants a little more? A person, he wants to be a wise student. So it's written here, and not all who are rich in wealth are wise. He says, if you want to be a wise student, you don't even have a chance, a small chance to be a wise student, if you're rich in wealth. What do you mean? If you're rich in business. Rich in business. Not work. You're allowed to work. Rambam wasn't working. Rabbeinu... Yes, rich in work. When a person...

53:16Yes. Now you don't work, you study. Exactly. Yes, you work, but really you don't work. Yes, you work for Hashem. Of course, 100%. What do you think? It's exactly like being in a prison. You learn, you learn from the community, you learn Gemara, you learn Sifrei Chazal, of course. It doesn't matter where you are. You're in a prison, or at home, or in a car, it doesn't matter. But you learn. What happened here? A person has to learn, a person has to learn, has to, has to learn. He can't spend his whole life saying, "I can't go to class because I have work. I couldn't go back to school because I have work. I couldn't do this because of work. I couldn't." Oh, yes? Baruch Hashem. Baruch Hashem. Baruch Hashem. I won't stop until it's already in your blood. No, not like that. I learned, yes. Yes? We learned this week? I learned. I learned. I learned. I learned. I learned. I learned. I learned. I learned. I learned. I learned. Baruch Hashem. Baruch Hashem. Baruch Hashem. Baruch Hashem. Baruch Hashem. Baruch Hashem. Baruch Hashem. Baruch Hashem. Baruch Hashem.

54:29Just a second. The Holy One, blessed be He, would find it worthwhile to destroy the whole world with all the problems and all the things, just for the study you did this week. Just for that. He doesn't say it would be worth it to destroy the whole world just for a Jew to say Amen. Just to say Amen. But to study Torah is a much bigger thing than saying Amen. So now, this is the last thing a person says: in a place where there are no people, try to be a man. What is a man? A man of good nature, a man who sees the sky. A man who sees the sky. Now I'm telling you, in a place where there are no people, what does that mean? A place where there are no people, they don't see the sky. They are all just atheists. Half religious, half not. They have a beard, but they're bald. They have a beard, but they speak a lot of bad language. They have people who play with them. A place where there are no people, a place where they don't have a heaven, try not to be a heaven. You can't go to heaven, or when the Mashiach will come in our day, with the help of Hashem,

55:33And to say, no, no, no, I did exactly like the public. They spoke the bad language, I spoke the bad language. They stole, I stole. They did, I did. No, there's no such thing. Exactly here in the Mishnah, the Mishnah that precedes the end, it tells you, those who are not people, those who don't have a heaven, it's not an excuse for you that you don't have a heaven. You will try to be a person, even if it's hard. That's why it says, try. That's why it says, try. It tells you, it doesn't matter what they do. You are obligated in the whole Torah. If you are alone in some place in the middle of the ocean, and there are no Jews, or if you are in Monsey, with thousands of Jews, righteous, devout, it doesn't matter, or if you are in the middle of places in the world, where everyone is reform, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, you are obligated in the whole Torah, to try to be a person, and what is a person? A person is a yirat Shamayim, when in a person, the basis, of the connection between him and God, is yirat Shamayim, his teshuvah will succeed,

56:39He will come far, his Torah will exist, his Torah will remain, his Torah will save him. The fact that he doesn't have a heavenly city is temporary. It's like temporary. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. So that's the thing. A person has to learn mussar, he has to learn things. that they really cause his heart to hurt a little. Why? God wants it. That's what God wants. When we got to Mount Sinai, God told him ten words. But the first two words, He Himself said. And every time He said a word, the whole of the people of Israel died. All of them died. He revived the dead. He said the second word. All of them died again. They said to Moshe, no, no, no, do us good. Go talk to Him. You, because if He continues to talk, we will die. Everything He says, we will do and we will hear. So what does he say? They say to him, no, no, listen, we will do everything He says, and then we will hear why He wants us to do it.

57:47Why? Because if he continues to speak, and then he dies again, then what does Moshe say to them? He says to them, no, don't worry, the Holy One is scaring you, that you won't commit sins. That you won't commit sins. So what does that mean? The Holy One wants, it's one of the commandments, one of the 613 mitzvot, De'oraita, that Hashem gave us, it's to see the heavens. That's the basis. A person who has a heaven-sent spirit, he will not commit sins. Why? He is afraid. A person who has a heaven-sent spirit, he will not speak lashon hara in order to do so. A person who has a heaven-sent spirit, he will not reach a situation where he is not afraid of sin. And this is the reason that in the weekly parsha, the parsha of Vayigash, the tribesmen all died. They didn't get angry because they saw his face, because they didn't know. They got angry because they finally realized that what they did wasn't right. Until now, for 22 years, they thought they did it for the sake of heaven. They thought they did a good thing. They thought they were doing the mitzvah that when a person comes to kill you, you kill him first.

58:56They thought that they were doing it to complete the Torah. When a person comes to kill you, the Gemara says, when a person comes to kill you, you kill him first. Okay, but the thing here now, they thought that selling Yosef was good, it was good. Why? They thought he wanted to kill them. Exactly. So they were right, not right. But only now, after 22 years, they understood it. For 22 years, they didn't know. They thought they did well. After 22 years, they were humiliated. Why were they humiliated? They were humiliated because of the truth that the Holy One, blessed be He, showed them in that second, that they made a mistake. And because of this mistake, they all died of fear. From the shock they had, they all died. And this is what a person needs to understand. We are not like the Chazal or the shevatim who will die from the passing. But at least, at least a little bit of God's honor. At least a little bit of God's honor to be afraid of the...

1:00:08at least to learn the heavenly revelation, at least a little bit to complete the Torah, a little bit, a little bit, not a lot. Like the truth, for a person to be truthful. If a person is truthful, he will succeed. A person who is silent will remain pure; he will not even reach the state that he is the am ha'aretz. Why? Because even if he does not know, what does he not know? So with the help of Hashem, all of us, we will return in teshuvah, we will complete the Torah, in the true way, in the good way, with the help of Hashem. Amen. Amen. Baruch Adonai l'olam. Amen v'Amen.