2nd Annual HoShana Rabah ALL NIGHT TORAH with Rabbi Yaron Reuven

0:14Last year, we had an all-nighter shiur that went well. A lot of new faces actually ended up meeting because of it. We only started with me and a couple of people in the beginning of the night. By the end of the night, since we were the only ones still studying and everybody else went to sleep, everybody that came to study elsewhere ended up joining us, and it was good. Now, we weren't planning on actually doing anything this year because nothing just worked out. But on Friday afternoon, actually on Thursday night, they said, "You know what? Maybe we should try to do something last minute." uh, we only started with me and a couple of people in the beginning of the night. By the end of the night, since we were the only ones still studying and everybody else went to sleep, everybody that came to study elsewhere ended up joining us, and it was good. Now, we weren't planning on actually doing anything this year because nothing just worked out. But on Friday afternoon, actually on Thursday night, they said, "You know what? Maybe we should try to do something last minute." Nobody comes to the shiurim anyway, so even if it's just me and Hashem, it's fine. So I actually asked my friend, Rabbi Efraim from here, if he wants to do something, but he was missing in action until Friday at 2 p.m. I didn't hear anything back. I said, oh, nothing's happening. At 2:15, he says to me, he goes, oh, sure, let's do it again. Let's do the Hoshana Rabbah again.

1:29So, no time to market, no time to do anything, no time to prepare, no time to do anything. It's perfect. That means it's 100% Hashem. It has nothing to do with me anymore. Perfect job. Let's do it. So, Baruch Hashem, here we are. We have, b'ezrat Hashem, we have pizza coming in a little while. Anyone that wants to eat, enjoy, it's free. Just stick around and learn. The key is for me to answer any questions you have. If you don't have any questions, then I'll have questions and I'll answer the questions too. But if you have questions, ask the questions. Any questions you've always had your whole life that bother you, that maybe are the reason you're not doing it, maybe are the reason you are doing it, whatever it is, if you have any questions, ask. Ask away. If you don't have, traditionally what the minhag of Hoshanah Rabbah is that... Judgment Day is Rosh Hashanah. That's Judgment Day. Judgment Day for the entire world. Whether it's somebody that's living or somebody that died, Judgment Day for the entire world is on Rosh Hashanah. The Gemara says that on Rosh Hashanah, Hashem opens the book of the living and the dead.

2:49Now, the living you can understand if the guy is a mechallel Shabbat or the guy is going with married women or he's eating non-kosher. I understand Hashem opens the book and says, "You know what, it's not worth it for Me to let this guy live another year. Okay, this year, if he doesn't do teshuva in two months, finished." Or Hashem says, "You know what, this guy, I'll give him another year. Let's see what happens." He had a couple of decent mitzvot last year. Let's give him another year. This woman, she walks around with a miniskirt, Hashem yerachem, and she causes other people to sin. It's not worth it for Me to let her live for another whole year. I'll give her 10 more months. Let's see what happens. That's judgment day. Jewish, not Jewish, everybody. And it seems the older that you get, the more people you know that die. This year, just between, mamash, between the beginning of Rosh Hashanah, until now already there are half a dozen, six, seven people that I know have died. Very sad. Only one of them was religious. The rest of them, all the questions they ever had in their life, now they're getting an answer. The problem is that the answer, when you get it in Shamayim, it hurts a lot more than when you get it from here. There are no politically correct rabbis in Shamayim.

4:11Oh, you didn't like it? Oh, the kosher food wasn't good? Oh, okay. I've said that, no problem. There's nothing like that over there. Over there, they give you a personal one-on-one lesson. Come, come with me. Come, come. I'll show you. I'll show you what happens when you eat non-kosher. Let me show you something else. In Shamayim, there are no jokes. They all face Din. It's called the depth of judgment, and it is very, very scary. That's Rosh Hashanah. But the question is, opening the book of the living we understand. But what about the book of the dead? They died already. Why is He opening their book also? They died. Would they die again? So the Gemara says, they open the book of the dead to see what kind of fruit they left behind. Meaning, everyone leaves something behind. They leave kids behind, they leave a wife behind, a husband behind, a book behind. Maybe they wrote a book causes people to go against Hashem. Somebody like Stephen Hawking, for example—the guy wrote a bunch of books that help people go against Hashem. So, for him, every single year, his punishment will go up even more. Why? Because the more people read the book and go against Hashem, the more punishment he has to get. But, on the other hand, somebody wrote a book and

5:29that gets people to do teshuva. Every year more people do teshuva. Every year Hashem gives them even more bonuses. More Gan Eden. More zechuyot. There's no end to the good that Hashem can give a person. This side men, this side women. Middle, just for me. Just my stuff. And the potato chips. And the pizza. So the Book of the Dead is because of the totsa'ot. What did we leave behind? What did we leave behind? A person could literally do something small and get rewarded for it for eternity, every year a bigger reward. For example, when we first came out with those CDs, I was just starting out. This is just maybe five, six years ago. So I didn't have any sponsors, not that I have any sponsors now, but more people donate Baruch Hashem today. When I first came out with the CD, I said, who's even going to give me, donate anything? We just started Be'ezrat Hashem. We just started the organization. One guy that's been watching from Australia said, oh, you're coming out with a CD? I've been waiting for one. He donated $1,000, which to me was like all the money in the world, and I never got any donations in this...

6:48So now this thousand dollars gave me the power to print more CDs. People did teshuva because of those CDs. Another guy at the same time also said, "I'm going to donate a thousand dollars." Now, both of them, their lives have changed drastically over the last few years. The second guy, two weeks after he donated the money He said that his, he told me that his son has a growth in his head. He has a growth. They think it's cancer, a tumor, something in his head. A little three-year-old kid. And they've been going to testing and testing. And the doctor says, we're sorry, we have to do a surgery. Just talking about it gives you a little bit of tza'ar, you know, it makes your heart break. A three-year-old undergoing surgery on their head. So now, one week before the surgery, they said, listen, last check, just to make sure everything is still in order, and then we have the surgery. The mom takes the kid to the hospital. They do the pictures again. The doctor looks at the mom, and then he looks at the kid, and then he looks at the mom again, and he goes, okay, where's the kid? She says, he is here. He goes, no, no, no.

8:16It's a different head. Give me the kid, the kid that has the growth in his head. He goes, no, it's him. I only have two kids. He's one, that's it. He goes, what do you mean? He's nervous. He starts sweating. He doesn't understand what's going on. Maybe the machine, which costs half a million dollars, is broken. Call the other doctor. They take another picture of the kid. We scan the kid; he's crying. He doesn't know what they want from him. They asked him, "Are you sure it's the same kid?" He goes, "Listen, the other kid has a tie. He's still crawling. So you can't make the mistake. It's not like they're twins. This one's three. The other one was just born." She goes, "Ma'am, I don't know what you did and how you did it, but the tumor is gone. It's like a different head. It's all gone. Some people get reward in the next world. Some people get a taste of it here." Hashem opens the book on Rosh Hashanah for the living and the dead. So, why do we have Yom Kippur? Yom Kippur is for appeal. If somebody goes to trial and they lose the trial, and they want to send them to jail, the law says you can try to appeal the case if you have new findings, new evidence, or maybe you just want to bring it to a higher court.

9:43so you can appeal the decision. Maybe bring a new argument. That's why we have Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur gives us an opportunity to try again. Rosh Hashanah, Hashem decides how much money you're going to make for the whole year. It doesn't matter how much you work, it doesn't matter if you're a taxi driver, a stockbroker, if you are born a millionaire or born broke, it doesn't make a difference. Hashem will decide how much money you're going to make on Rosh Hashanah. The Gemara, Masechet Rosh Hashanah, page 16a and Beitza 16b, both say the same thing, that Hashem will decide how much parnassah you're going to get. Hashem decides on Rosh Hashanah how much money you're going to make. That's one of the decisions He makes on Rosh Hashanah. On Yom Kippur, you try to see, maybe Hashem will give you a few more dollars. Maybe He only decided you're going to make 50,000 this year, but you need 100,000. Maybe He only decided you're going to make 100,000, but you need 500,000. So Yom Kippur is a chance not only to fight for your life as far as living or dying, but also for parnassah, also for a zivug, everything.

10:50If the decision on Rosh Hashanah wasn't good enough, maybe I'll get something better on Yom Kippur. Now, since none of us know what's really going on, all of us assume we're in the middle. You can't assume you're a rasha. You can't assume you're a tzaddik. You have to assume you're in the middle. But that's assuming you're trying to fulfill mitzvot. If you don't keep mitzvot at all, then you're a rasha. Hopefully, you start doing teshuva. That's why they call it the Ten Days of Teshuva. The point is that Yom Kippur is a second chance. Then we have Sukkot, a time you're supposed to celebrate, a time that's actually a celebration for all of the nations, not just Am Yisrael. At the time of the Beit HaMikdash, Am Yisrael would bring 70 korbanot, 70 sacrifices, one representing each one of the nations, to the Beit HaMikdash. So Hashem blesses them too. If the goyim knew how good the Beit HaMikdash was for them, not only would they not have destroyed it, they would have sent their army to protect it.

11:53Because they didn't realize that Am Yisrael also prays for them too. That's why ignorance is the most dangerous disease on earth. Not knowing is the most dangerous thing in the world. Imagine there are two people, both go to the doctor. The doctor sees that both of them have cancer. Hashem sees that both of them have one year to live. Both of them have one year to live. The first guy, he tells him, "Listen, I'm sorry, buddy. I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but you have one year to live. There's nothing I can do for you. There's no cure. You have one of these pancreatic cancers." Right, sit. "You have pancreatic cancer, the most common cancer in the world, by the way. You should know, it's the most common form of cancer in the world." for both men and women is the sex organs. It's the most common cancer in the world. Not only is it the most common cancer in the world, but it's the most deadly. Women get it in the breast area, men get pancreatic cancer, and so on. People that have these types of cancers, many of them don't make it. It has the lowest success ratio. Why do I mention this to you? What, are you going to become a surgeon tomorrow? Unless you already are one.

13:24The reality is that Yom Kippur, when we're doing the appeal, anyone that went to Beit Knesset, you remember that before the end, we do vidui. It's called a long vidui. A long I'm sorry. Half an hour, an hour, we tell Hashem I'm sorry, but with details. I'm sorry for this, I'm sorry for this, I'm sorry for this, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. What are we saying I'm sorry for? If you look at the details, if you look at the translation in English or a language you understand, you see that 90% of what we're saying I'm sorry for is sex crimes. 90% of what we're saying I'm sorry for, immodesty, wasting seed, all types of sex crimes, all types of things that Hashem says, "I hate this." When I give shiurim, I tell people to stop wasting seed; it's the biggest sin in the Torah. You say, "Oh, come on, you're machmir, you're too stringent." It's funny to me sometimes and sad at the same time. I say, you go to Beit Knesset, even people who don't keep anything go to Beit Knesset. Most of my life, I wasn't religious. Hashem, forgive me, but it's not Hashem's fault. I wasn't religious. I still went to Beit Knesset on Yom Kippur.

14:40All my life, I went to Beit Knesset on Yom Kippur. All my life, I read the Siddur. I was born in Israel, so I know Hebrew. And all my life, I had no clue what I was reading. My whole life, I read it like everybody else. I can make the sounds and make it sound good too, with a nice voice and everything. For over 35 years, I read it. Come, come. 35 years I'm reading. now realizing I'm the criminal I'm talking about. It's like you're saying you're having a whole thing, a whole case. You have a judgment. Yeah, we should kill him. Yeah, we should hang him. Yeah, we should tear his head off, break his legs, beat him up. And who are you talking about? Yourself. You're talking about yourself. That's why ignorance is the most horrible disease in the world. So now the doctor sees he has two patients. One of them, he tells him, listen, you have cancer, misken, I can't do anything for you, pancreatic cancer, I'm sorry, sir. The guy, misken, he's depressed, he goes home, he starts crying, he tells his wife, she starts crying, they tell the kids, they start crying, they tell the neighbors, everybody starts crying.

15:55The doctor, they call the doctor. They're all crying to the doctor. The doctor starts feeling bad. He goes, "Why did I make these people cry? Who wants this kind of job? What kind of job is this, making people cry? What a horrible job. I'm such a horrible person. I made the guy cry." So he's having second thoughts about his life. At the same time he's having second thoughts, the second guy comes. The second guy comes; he also has cancer. He also has one year to live. He's cancer. The doctor says, Yeah, sir, I looked. You're okay. See you later. Doesn't tell him. The guy's like, what? Really? He gives him a hug. Thank you, doc. I love you. You're the best doctor in the world. Thanks, doc. I appreciate it. He goes home. He kisses his wife. They hug. They celebrate. Everything is good, Mommy. Everything is good. We're going on vacation. We're going to hang out. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. Everything is great. The guy is happy, and now the doctor says, "Wow, is he yufie? So much fun. I made the guy laugh, I made the guy so happy." A year later, the cops show up at the doctor's office, they handcuff him, and they throw him in jail. Why? They say, "You, sir, are a murderer. You are a murderer. Why are you a murderer?"

17:17You saw the evidence that the guy only had one year to live, and you didn't tell him. You are a murderer. Why is he a murderer? Why? One guy told him, the guy starts crying. The other guy didn't tell him, he didn't cry, so isn't that a nice thing to do? Not to tell the guy the truth. Lie to him, so at least he can live in an illusion. He's going to die anyway. What's the difference? Here's the difference: The first guy he told him, the guy cried in the beginning. He cried because he realized his whole world just collapsed on his head. He thought he's going to live 20 more years. He's going to build another house for his wife. He's going to do this. He's going to do that. He just realized, I only have one year to live. So obviously, at that point, everything changes. The first thing he did, I quit my job. The first guy told him, and the man cried in the beginning. He cried because he realized his whole world had just collapsed on his head. He thought he was going to live 20 more years. He was going to build another house for his wife. He was going to do this, he was going to do that. He just realized, "I only have one year to live." So obviously, at that point, everything changes. The first thing he did was quit his job. quits his job. Why? Why am I going to work? I only have one year to live. I'm going to go to work? No, let me spend it with my loved ones. Let me go on vacation with them. Let me hang out with them. Let me spend some time with my kids I haven't seen in a few years. Let me do things I'm never going to do anyway. That retirement plan is irrelevant. Why? I'm not going to be there. So what does he do during that one year? He does all the things that he can possibly do to say goodbye. The other guy...

18:32The other guy, who doesn't know, what does he do? After he's happy, happiness goes away after 15 minutes. He orders pizza, eats the pizza, then another 15 minutes go by. He buys himself another 15 minutes of happiness, and he's finished. Half an hour total, happiness is done. You go back, what do you have to do? Go back to work. So he goes to work. But now he's trying to save for vacation. So he works overtime. He's not going to work regularly; he has to work overtime. And also, he's stressed out. Why? He's already 50 years old and 59 and a half is retirement. He has to save for retirement. The market's this, the market's up, the market's down. He has to save more money. He has to make more money because he has to retire. So now he's going to work overtime. So instead of coming home at 5, he comes home at 10. His kids, he says, "I'll see them later. I'll see them next year when I don't have to work overtime. I'm going to work overtime this year. Next year, I'm not going to work overtime." So he works the whole year, doesn't see his wife, doesn't see his kids, doesn't eat, doesn't sleep, doesn't do anything, slaving away. A year later, he dies. Why? Yeah, yeah, have a seat. A year later, he's gone.

19:46But moments before he's gone, in the weeks before he passes away, he realizes what's happening. He tells the police, shows the police all the reports, and they investigate. They see that the doctor lied to him on his report. They go to the doctor and say, "You, doctor, are a murderer." He says, "Why? All I did is not tell him the truth. What's the problem? I knew he's sick. But if I told him, he would have cried. If I would have told him he only has a year to live, he would have cried. I don't want to make the guy cry. So I lied to him. I told him, listen, you're okay. What's the big deal?" He says, "The big deal is that you knew he only had one year to live. If you would have told him that he only has one year to live, he would have done something different." He would have used that year to do something different. He wouldn't have spent the whole year doing what he does, assuming he has 50 more years to live. He would have spent more time with his family. He would have spent more time with... He would have done other things. You stole the last thing he had. He only had a year, and you stole it. You are a murderer. Today, Rabotai Yekarim, unfortunately, we live in a generation of thieves.

21:07Why do we live in a generation of thieves? Because very few people are willing to tell you the truth. There are countless people that go to shiurei Torah for years. They go to the Beit Knesset once a week, twice a week, five times a week. They go and they listen on the internet. Baruch Hashem, today Hashem made it very easy. Anyone that wants Torah is only a click away. There are thousands of people watching this shiur right now, as we are next to each other, thousands of people watching it live right now. Baruch Hashem, from all parts of the world. Anyone who wants Torah, it's only a click away. But unfortunately, the vast majority of teachings that are out there are lies. Not lies like they tell you Moshe Rabbeinu, his name is not really Moshe, it's Tzvika. No, they don't lie about stuff like that. No, no, Yaakov and Esav, no, no, really Esav was the good guy, Yaakov was the bad guy. They don't say things like this. That's obvious. They tell you the truth about that stuff. But they don't tell you the truth

22:16the diagnosis, the diagnosis of Am Yisrael, the diagnosis of ourselves, your diagnosis, my diagnosis, everybody's diagnosis. They want to make everybody happy, so they don't tell you, by the way, the nation has cancer right now—spiritual cancer. They don't tell you that. Why? Because if they tell you that, they're afraid you're gonna cry and... And if you cry, maybe you're not going to donate any money. And if you don't donate any money, then they can't build the next villa that they want to build. And they can't retire. And they can't build the next Chabad Center for $30 million. Or the next Aish HaTorah Center for $50 million. Or the next other Beit Knesset for a billion dollars. And they can't do all of these things. And they need you to be happy because they need your checkbook. The problem is, Rabotai Yekarim, is that... ...unless we realize that we are sick, we're not even going to try to find a cure. We're not even going to try to find a cure. So, some of the things, if you've never heard my shiurim before, some of the things you're going to hear from me are going to be very, very different than what you heard. And it's not because it's a different Torah. It's the same exact Torah as everybody else has. Same exact Torah.

23:38The difference is, I'm going to give you both sides: the stuff you like and the stuff you don't like. And the reason why is because that's the only way you can assess for yourself whether you're sick or not. You can determine. I'm not a doctor. I'm just a speaker. You decide. I'm going to tell you all the things. Whatever question you ask, I'm going to give you the answer. Whether it's a question about a mitzvah, a question about halacha, a question about what happens after you die, questions about Gan Eden and Gehenom, whatever question you have. Uncensored. My worry is not whether you like it or not. I'm not looking for fans. My concern is that hopefully, at the end of the night, whether you stay with me until the morning or you leave in an hour or two, whenever it is, you leave here with something to take home, that you decide if you're sick or you're healthy. So at least try, throughout this whole time, to think of at least one question. Each person should think of at least one question that's a life changer for them.

24:48One question that you could ask that would change your life. Don't worry about whether I have the answer or not. It's not me anyway. You ask the question, Hashem gives you the answer. Has nothing to do with me. I'm just a tuki. You know what tuki is? A parrot. So you ask any question that's going to change your life. Any question. Don't ask me, oh, do you think it's nice weather outside? Who cares about my opinion? Oh, do you think that this shul is good or bad? It's not going to change anything. Don't ask me my opinion. Ask me something that's going to change your life. Something I can show you in the Torah. Show me something. Show me there's Gehenom in the Torah. Show me there's Gan Eden in the Torah. Prove to me life after death. Prove to me that the Torah is even real. Anything, a story, anything you want, but something that's going to change your life. So you go home and say, you know what? I'm perfectly healthy. You know what? I have the worst cancer in the room. Whatever it is, but at least now you can have a diagnosis.

25:49Because we have right now approximately 15 to 20 million Jews in Am Yisrael that we know of. And the overwhelming majority of them are sick without even knowing it. How do I know? Because out of the 15 to 20 million, the highest estimate is that only 3 million of them keep Shabbat. 3 million keep Shabbat. Now Shabbat, Rabotai HaKedoshim, is the foundation of Judaism. No Shabbat, no Judaism. Anyone that ever did Kiddush remembers that when the Mekadesh, the one that actually says the Kiddush, reads out loud, he reads a Pasuk in the Torah, and he says, "This is a covenant between me and you." me and you. What does it mean, a covenant between me and you? What is a covenant? A covenant is an agreement. A covenant is an agreement; it's another word for an agreement. There are only three things in the Torah that are called covenants. And Hashem says tefillin, brit milah, and Shabbat.

26:59These are three things. That's the deal. What does it mean, "that's the deal?" We have 620 mitzvot: 613 from the Torah, 7 from the rabbis. A lot of people think it's the opposite—613 from the rabbis, 7 from Hashem. No, 613 from Hashem, 7 from the rabbis. The rabbis' mitzvot are like berachot: to do a blessing before you eat, to do a blessing after you eat, to do a blessing after you leave the bathroom—all the blessings. Another rabbinical mitzvah is Chanukah. Everybody likes Chanukah. Nobody likes the Torah, but everybody likes Chanukah though. They all blame the rabbis for some reason. So, that's a rabbinical mitzvah. Purim. Purim is a rabbinical mitzvah. Purim is a rabbinical mitzvah. So, we have the rabbinical mitzvot, seven mitzvot. 613 from the Torah. Shabbat is one of them. Shabbat is also one of the Ten Commandments. And Hashem says that even though there are 620 mitzvot, There are three deal breakers. Meaning, if you don't keep this, the whole thing's off. If you don't keep this one thing, it doesn't even make a difference if you keep the other 619. It all goes in the garbage.

28:14That's how big it is. So even if somehow somebody found some magical way to keep 619 out of the 620 mitzvot, in reality, you can't do it, because some of the mitzvot are for kohanim; not everybody is a kohen. Some of the mitzvot are just for males; not everybody is a male. Some are just for females; not everybody is a female, even though some people want to be both in this age. Some people want to be male and female. They want a unisex bathroom. Why? Because they feel unisex today. People are crazy today. People want to be everything. Bring a chair. Come. We'll fill up, break the walls, and they'll come over here, we'll go over there. Amen. Come. I can look at you. They say, look at the panim of a tzaddik. So I can look at a tzaddik the whole night long. So... Even if somebody found a way to keep all of the mitzvot, somehow, he's a male and a female, he's a Kohen, he has the Beit HaMikdash for himself, you know, some of the mitzvot are just for Beit HaMikdash. In reality, out of 613 mitzvot, the most you can make is around 300. Around 300. But let's say you found a way to keep 612, let's say. But the one you don't want to keep, the one, just one of them, you don't feel like keeping Shabbat.

29:32you don't feel like it. It's not for you. It's your best business day. You sell cars. And sorry to say, if you're in the car business, that's the day. I remember before I went into the investment business 20-something years ago, I was considering going into the car business. And the guy says to me, "Yeah, the number one day is Shabbat." That's the number one day. You don't work on Shabbat, you can't work in the car business. And it wasn't just him, it was anybody that's in the business. Move a little bit this way, woodlings. So, in the car business, if you're in the car business, Shabbat is the day. I had one student, I told him this, listen, you don't keep Shabbat, Nothing's going to happen. Nothing's going to work for you. It doesn't make a difference. You put tefillin five times a day, it won't help you. He says, yeah, but they're going to fire me. He worked for AT&T. He worked for AT&T. He said, listen, Shabbat, you have to work for AT&T. For some reason, that's the day. I said, listen, Hashem runs the world, not AT&T. So after talking to him a few times, it wasn't a one-time thing. After talking to him a few times about it,

30:56One day he tells his boss, "Look, listen, I can't work on Shabbat anymore." His boss says, "Listen, you can, you can't, you don't show up on Shabbat, you're fired. Doesn't make a difference to me. We have 60,000 employees. What's it to us to fire you?" So the guy says, "What am I gonna do?" He comes to me, I said, "Listen, like I said, Hashem runs the world, not AT&T." Baruch Hashem, he had the courage; he didn't go to work on Shabbat. Motza'ei Shabbat, he sees his phone, 500 messages. Where are you? Where are you? What are you doing? How come you didn't come? He comes back to work on Monday. Where were you? I told you I can't work on Shabbat. Listen, I'm warning you. I'm warning you. I'm going to fire you if you do it again. Okay. Next Shabbat, guess what happened? He didn't go. Motza'ei Shabbat, 400 messages this time. Not 500. They saved. They got the message earlier. Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Monday morning, he comes back. No, I told you, you better come. Next Shabbat, same thing. Next Shabbat, same thing. Next Shabbat, same thing. Nine months, same thing. He doesn't go, they send him messages. After a few times, they stop sending him messages. But they kept giving him warnings once in a while. Nothing happened. After nine months, he opened his own business. Hashem changed nature for him for nine months.

32:21Until he was ready to open up his business. Why? Because Hashem runs the world, not AT&T. Not your boss, not your customer, not your wife, not your husband. Hashem runs the world. But if he didn't do it, if he didn't keep Shabbat, and he found a way to keep 612 mitzvot, he would go up to Shamayim at some point, and they would tell him, you my friend, I've wasted your life. Unfortunately, the Torah says that if you violate Shabbat in Parashat Ki Tisa, a person that violates Shabbat on purpose on a regular basis, his soul is cut off from the nation, and they get death upon death and are cut off from the nation. So what does it mean death upon death? How can you die twice? the commentators explained very simply. They said death one is in this world. What does it mean one in this world? It can mean one of two things. One is the person dies early. The person dies early just like, unfortunately, somebody that I know died at 23 years old just on the second day of Rosh Hashanah last year, a cousin of mine. He didn't keep Shabbat.

33:40No one expected a 23-year-old to die. He was perfectly healthy. His father had no less than a hundred million dollars. He could cure anything he wanted if he had it. But on the second day of Rosh Hashanah, he was playing on his scooter. He fell off the scooter, hit his head. They took him to the hospital, and the hospital said, "No, you're okay." Give your father our regards. You're okay though. Oh, yeah, my father's in Israel vacationing. Okay, say hello for us because he's a big donor to the hospital. Tell him we said hello. Okay, I'll tell him. He calls his Abba and Ima. "You have to get a chair to the back." He calls Abba and Ima. "Abba, Ima, everything's okay. Enjoy your vacation in Israel." Abba and Ima relaxed. another few hours. The next morning they call, no answer. They called the neighbor who lived five miles away because it's such a big house. They said, "Listen, our son, he's not answering. Can you go check?" The neighbor goes to the house.

34:59opens the door, she goes to the bedroom, she sees the 23-year-old son went to sleep like everybody else; he just didn't wake up like everybody else. Everyone thinks they can do whatever they want until they run out of choices. Unfortunately, that's a very, very bad position to be in. I try to mention them in as many shiurim as possible, so hopefully, there's merit. People do teshuvah because of this story; hopefully, it helps them in Shamayim, if it's even possible. The Torah says that someone who dies as a mechalel Shabbat gets two deaths. One is that they can die early; the other option is that they can die spiritually, meaning that even if you give them a mitzvah to do, they don't enjoy it. Tell him, listen, why don't you come hang out with us for Kiddush? The whole time he's eating, he's not enjoying himself. He doesn't want to be here. You invite the guy to a shiur Torah, and the whole time he's like, ah, this shiur Torah is so boring. I can't wait to go to the club. I can't wait to do this. You guys go, okay, eat kosher food. Eat kosher food. Who doesn't like food?

36:11You give him kosher food; it doesn't matter what kosher food you give him. If it's kosher, he doesn't like it. If it's chazir, he loves it. If it's not kosher, he loves it. If it's kosher, he doesn't like it. He dies spiritually. He does not enjoy the mitzvot. He hates them. That, some say, is a worse death. It's a worse death. Why? Because you're alive, but you're dead at the same time. That's the first part. The second part that the Torah says is "veyumat," it says that he has no share of the world to come. Hashem. What does it mean, no share in the world to come? What, just goes to nothing? A lot of people think they came from monkeys. I believe them; they probably did. We didn't, Baruch Hashem. We came from human beings. They maybe came from monkeys. I just don't understand if they really believe they came from monkeys, how come they don't go to the zoo to visit their grandparents? It's not nice. They should visit their grandparents: the monkey, the chimpanzee, the gorilla, their cousin. How come they don't visit them? They say they came from monkeys.

37:11The reality is, even if they came from monkeys, they're here, they're human. Why do they want to stay monkeys? But some of us realize we're not monkeys. And we have to know the answers. After a person finishes this world, something happens. It's not nothing. Some people that think that they came from monkeys, they think that nothing happens. They turn into air. They turn into energy. They become a tree. And maybe they print a Sefer Torah on them or something. I don't know. They become nothing. They become, you know, poop. They become a mush, nothing. That's a horrible life. That's a horrible life to live. It's better off to die already. What's the difference if you live 10 years or 100 years? You're going to become poop anyway. Might as well die now. Why suffer mortgage payments, stress from the family, stress from this, the bank doesn't want to give you the loan? If you're going to be an amoeba anyway, go be an amoeba now, early. What's the point? Why deal with life? I don't know how much suffering is in life. Show me one person that's not suffering. One.

38:20One person that's not suffering. If they're not suffering, it didn't get to them yet. They're still too young. Everybody suffers in life. That's life. Now, as I said in a shiur last week, what's the difference if you have Torah or you don't have Torah? Either way, you have suffering. The difference is, if you don't have Torah, your suffering is purposeless. It's just you're getting beat up for no reason. Can't wait to die. But if you have Torah, you realize that the suffering has a purpose. It has a higher meaning. Which we'll get to, Be'ezrat Hashem, of what that higher meaning is. The point is that suffering is in everybody's life. So if a person really believes they're going to turn into an amoeba, they're going to turn into manure, they're going to turn into nothing, what's the point of life? What gives them the right to kill a cow and eat it? Why are they more important than the cow? Why? Because they don't speak the same language? Maybe the cow is more sophisticated. Maybe the cow speaks a better language. Maybe the cow knows algebra better. How do you know? You don't understand what it's saying anyway. It just says moo. Maybe the moo is the whole story.

39:27What gives you the right to eat the cow? What gives you the right to shoo away the rat that wants to have a nice little hotel in the middle of your living room? Who says it's your house? Why? Because you bought the house? Who says it was yours to buy? The rat lived there before you. What gives you the right to tell the rat, "Shoo"? These are questions that every person needs to answer because if you think that you came from nothing and you're going to be nothing, then you have no right to take anything away from any other being in the world. You are the same or less than anyone else in the world. You're the same as the cow. You're not allowed to eat it from now on. In fact, you're not even allowed to eat a tomato. Why? Because scientists have discovered that when you cut tomatoes or any other vegetable, any other fruit, the actual tomato has feelings. According to the test, it shows on the test, it's the equivalent of the tomato screaming like you're murdering it.

40:28So you have no right to eat tomatoes anymore. No right to eat cucumbers. No right to eat anything. Bread? You're destroying. Who gave you the right to eat the wheat? You're killing the wheat. Maybe the wheat is nicer than you. Who says you're right? Who says? Only the Torah says you're right. Why? The Torah says all of those things—the cow, the wheat, the tomato, the potato, the coffee—everything was created for you. If you don't believe in the Torah, you have no right to do anything else to anybody else. You can't even be a vegan. Like people think, "No, no, I don't kill animals." Okay, so you don't kill animals, why? "I feel bad for them." Okay, you feel bad for them because you hear them, you see them bleed and everything. Okay, the tomato's also bleeding. Just a different color blood. And the watermelon, what? You think the watermelon doesn't want to live past your teeth? He wants to live longer. He has kids, he has friends. He has a vacation planned for next year in Cancun. Leave him alone.

41:29You can't be a vegan. Why? If you don't believe in the Torah, you have no right to kill anything. You have no right to live. Torah is what gives you the license to live. Torah is also what gives you the license to kill. But kill for a reason. Kill the cow in a kosher way so you can eat it, so you can live because you are superior to her. Without the Torah, you have no right. So the Torah says that after this world, there's not nothing. After this world, there's a couple of options. One of them is generally called Gan Eden. Gan Eden is something we cannot even theorize. We can't even have a theory of what it is because there's not enough good in the world for us to know what good really means. And the reason why, the Rambam explains, is that most of what we want And what we believe is good is actually bad for us. For example, most people, let's take a test to get you guys to wake up a little bit. It's still early. Who here doesn't want money? Raise your hand. Okay, so you guys are all normal. You all want money. Now, who wants a lot of money? Everybody raise their hand.

42:52Who wants a lot of money? Everybody raises their hand, right? Not a lot of money times two. Okay, so you've been to enough shiurim. You're exempt from the test. You're exempt from the test. We're women. So the reason is most people want a lot of money because they assume that money is going to allow them to buy happiness. They think that instead of the house they have now, they're going to have a bigger house. They believe they're not going to have to worry about paying rent or mortgage, and so on. They won't have to put five people in one room; they could put one person in one room. and one person in half a house and so on and so forth. People think that money can solve their problems, that if they buy a Bentley, it's somehow going to get them to their destination in a better way than their, you know, instead of a $50,000 car, a $20,000 car, if they go with a $500,000 car, therefore it's better. And if they go with a private jet instead of JetBlue, it's better. And so on and so forth. People are convinced that if they had more, they could do more.

43:55The truth be told is that it's not quite true. And there's a lot of examples that we get to see almost on a monthly basis of celebrity suicides that literally are happening almost on a monthly basis in recent history, where people that have all the money in the world, they have literally tens of millions, hundreds of millions in some cases, but still decide to kill themselves, still decide that it's not worth to live, still decide that their life is purposeless, their life is full of suffering, and they just don't want to be here. but still decide to kill themselves, still decide that it's not worth living, still decide that their life is purposeless, their life is full of suffering, and they just don't want to be here. Meaning that money did not solve any of their problems, let alone their purpose in life. So most people that want money, they don't just want money to survive; they want a lot of it. Rambam says this is bad for you. Why? Because usually, when a person has a test of a lot of money, it's a much more difficult test than having little money. Now, money is a test for everyone, whether it's a lot or a little. It's a test either way. But it's much more difficult, as the Torah teaches us, to have a lot of money and stay righteous and have a purpose in your life than to have less money.

45:14because with less money, you have fewer tests. Your main test is survival and not losing your mind. When you have a lot of money, you have many more tests because you have many more opportunities to sin. You could do many more bad things with a lot of money. Make many more mistakes with a lot of money. The most tragic mistakes in human history were made by people who had a lot of money and a lot of power. Mistakes that are made by poor people or by people that don't have influence are usually not big mistakes, and the reason is because poor people don't have power to reach a lot of people. So their mistake is their own. But the guy that has a lot of money, the guy that has 10-20 billion dollars, is usually has a few thousand employees and he usually has a few hundred politicians in his pocket and usually has a lot of influence where any decision that he makes influences potentially millions of people. So if he makes a mistake, millions of people suffer. Somebody came before the shiur and asked me what do I think of the merger and... usually has a few thousand employees and he usually has a few hundred politicians in his pocket and usually has a lot of influence where any decision that he makes influences potentially millions of people. So if he makes a mistake, millions of people suffer. Somebody came before the shiur and asked me what do I think of the merger and

46:19between Time Warner and AT&T. We're not going to talk about investments, even though I did it for 20 years, simply because it's a complete waste of time. But I explained to him that mergers that happen between big companies are usually a disaster waiting to happen and only happen because the companies were so bored, they had so much money, they had nothing to do anymore. And they had to do something to spark some type of interest. But eventually, it turns out to be a disaster. The reason why is because if you have one small company merge with a big company, then the small company can take advantage of the big company's money. Therefore, the small company could also become a bigger company. But if you have two big companies combined together, then it's like two governments combining together. Everybody's got their own rules, and no one wants to get out of the way. Why? He's the boss, and he's the boss. He's got his way, and he's got his way. He built a $50 billion company, and he built a $50 billion company. Who are you to tell me what to do? So it becomes a political problem for years until they eventually lose enough money that investors force them to either break up the company or fire half the staff.

47:34This has happened, actually Time Warner made this mistake already 20 years ago when I was in the business and almost went bankrupt the last time they did it. They'll probably do the same thing now. The point is that people think that big things are good. In reality, most of the time, big things are bad. But people still think that they'll do better. Okay, this last guy made a lot of money, he made mistakes, I'm not gonna make those same mistakes. I don't wanna do the same things he did. Everybody thinks they're different. reality is that right now with no money, you're different. When you have money, you become the same, so you can't say, "I'm not going to do the same thing as him because I don't want to do what he does." Why? Because now you don't want to do it because you have no ability to do it, so you have no desire to do it. But once you have the money, it's a different story. So the first thing that people want a lot of is money, and the Rambam explains it's bad for you. Second thing that a lot of people want is a lot of sex. And as we all know, I don't need to prove it to you guys, but the reality is that it's bad for you. Why? Because it leads to diseases, it leads to a meaningless life, it leads to a lot of major problems. The happiest people in the world are people that have been in the same relationship their whole life. The celebrities that you see that get married and change their spouse like we change underwear.

49:02Not happy people. They're the most miserable people and usually the first ones on the suicide list. They get married four, five, six, seven times thinking that the next one is gonna make them happy. The next one's gonna make them happy. They get so used to divorce they forget that their relationship is meant to last. So, before they actually get married, they get all excited based on lust and... get married but then the first fight the guy says, "Oh, listen, I don't like this dress you're wearing," or she says, "I don't like this car you bought. I don't like your hair. I don't like this. I don't like this shirt." One little bad comment, and we'll go into divorce. Divorce! "I can't take it. I can't take it." Because they figured they got divorced so many times, what's another one? They change husbands literally like they change clothes. And they never realized that a marriage that's a successful marriage is a marriage that's full of problems but also full of solutions. All marriages are full of problems. There's no such thing as a marriage without problems. It's two people coming together, and they deal with each other's problems and their own problems together. Problems you're going to have regardless. What's the marriage going to do for you? A marriage is supposed to have both of you. Instead of being selfish, you're supposed to help each other. Help each other with your own problems. Help each other with each other's problems.

50:16Marriage is problems, but if you work on them, then you can build something special. Then you can bring the best out of each other. Then one plus one could equal three. Instead of you being individuals, marriage is not going to solve all your problems. Marriage is going to have problems also. But the point is to fix them together. The problem is that most people don't want it. Either one spouse wants to fix the other one's problems, and the other one wants to create problems. Or they're both so selfish, they don't want to, he has his room, I have my room. Everybody has their own room. No, you have your own bank account. I have my bank account. You know, people have their own bank accounts. Eventually, they also have their own houses, and eventually, they also have their own lawyers. But the reality is that marriage is supposed to be two people becoming one. People don't understand this, so as soon as there's a problem, they ask for a divorce. We want a lot of this, and the reality is it's no good.

51:18The same goes for everything else in life. Too much of everything, with the exception of Torah, is not good. A lot of people want to have fun at their job. The reality is, if you have too much fun in your job, you're going to forget to work, and so on and so forth. Most of us don't really know what's good. You ask a person what's good, he's going to give you at least a couple of the examples that I gave, and others, meaning they think it's still good and... So, to describe Gan Eden, the Torah doesn't waste its time. The Torah doesn't describe Gan Eden. The reason why is because the Torah says you don't even know what's good. So, if we defined good to you, you wouldn't know it's good. One of the descriptions that the Chachamim say is, what do you do in Gan Eden? Everybody learns Torah. Everybody learns Torah in Gan Eden. If a guy is not learning Torah here, why would he want to learn Torah over there? He's like, well, listen, he didn't learn enough already over here to get to Gan Eden, why would he go on vacation over there? because that means you haven't learned enough Torah here to realize that's the real joy in life. The reason why it's the real joy in life, as a small, tiny example, is anyone that ever searched for an answer to a big question and found it knows that that answer made an impact on their life big enough to change it. And it gave them a high. It gave them a pleasure that they knew the answer.

52:44It's like somebody says, I'll bet you anything that XYZ is right. And you know for sure it's wrong. Why? Because you have the answer already written on your hand. And he's saying, I'll bet you a million dollars. You're like, sure. I'll bet you two million dollars. Sure. You're having fun just saying sure because you already know for sure you have the answer. It's in your hand. Imagine that pleasure. You know for sure you have the answer. That's Torah. That's Torah. When you learn Torah, really learn Torah, you have the answer. That answer gives you spiritual pleasure. So when they say, the Chachamim say that you learn Torah in Gan Eden, and a person says, ah, that doesn't sound like fun. That's because you haven't felt the pleasure of Torah in this world yet. So Gan Eden, the Torah doesn't waste its time describing it because simply most people don't know what good actually means. And the ones that do, the ones that do know what it means, don't need Hashem to describe what Gan Eden feels like. Why? Because they already feel it here. They already feel it here. When Moshe Rabbeinu, when it was time in this week's parasha, it's coming up, it's the last parasha in the Torah. Hashem says, "Come Moshe, let's go. You're coming to join me."

54:04The body of Moshe said to Hashem, "Hashem, I know the body is supposed to be temporary and the soul is supposed to go back up. But come on, Hashem, let's look at it this way." What place, what place could be better for the neshama than this body? Look how many mitzvot I did. Look how I served you so well. Let me stay here for longer. Let me stay here for longer, serve you for longer in this body. What do I need? If I go over there, I stop serving you. I just go and have fun in Gan Eden. I don't want to go to Gan Eden. I want to continue serving you. The body of Moshe Rabbeinu was doing so well, was so holy that it literally became one with the soul. It became just as pure. feeling of Gan Eden. A person that learns Torah be'emet, real Torah, feels the pleasure of Gan Eden in this world, even with the problems, even with the headaches. So the Torah explains to us that all the good in the world, we're not going to understand what it means. So to describe the Olam HaBa of Gan Eden, the Torah doesn't waste too much time on it. On the other hand,

55:31Torah says there's option B. If it's not Gan Eden, it's someplace else. They call it Gehenom. We had a whole shiur over here some months ago, maybe six, eight months ago, about the details of Gehenom. We're not going to go into the details tonight. Number one, because it's very long. Number two, because many of you are new, so I don't know if you're actually prepared for those types of details. The point being, it's no good. Point being is if you ever imagine lava, This is times a zillion worse. So when the Torah says that Mechalel Shabbat has no share in the World to Come, or such and such has no share in the World to Come, what does it mean? Obviously, it doesn't mean the Gan Eden I just described. And it doesn't mean nothing because we're not monkeys. It's just another way to explain to you it's not Gan Eden. It's definitely not nothing. It's the other option. It's the fire. It's the suffering. It's a lot of really, really bad things eternally. No end. So some people will tell me, hey, listen, what, Hashem gets pleasure out of making us suffer? Why did He create us for? That's what somebody asked me the other day. Because why did Hashem create me if He's just going to punish me? He didn't create you to punish you. He created you to give you reward.

56:57In fact, the biggest question that people ask usually is why did Hashem create the world b'chlal? For what? He's perfect. What does He need to create us for? So yes, we don't add anything to Hashem. With us or without us, He's perfect. But the only way that you know that something is good, to define good, if you look in a dictionary, good creates good. Like anyone that you ask, do you think you're a good person? Most people will say yes. Most people. Anyone who says no usually has some mental problems. But people that, most people think that they are good, even if they're not good. Like if you ask Hitler, he's in Gehinnom right now, by the way. You ask him, you think you're good? He says, I'm the best. Not only am I good, I'm the best. Why? I am ridding the world of a problem called Jews. He thought he's the best. Everyone thinks they're good. Everyone thinks they're good. And the problem is that they think they're good because they define good themselves. They don't look up the definition of good. They determine what good is. They think that if they help the local homeless guy with a dollar a day, they're a good person. One guy wrote something on one of the social media platforms that I saw. He's like, "Oh, today I got rejected by a homeless guy. Can't believe it."

58:25And he writes the details. He goes, you know, I gave the guy a dollar and the guy didn't even pay attention to me. So I'm thinking to myself, this guy must really think he's something special. Like he gave the homeless guy a dollar thinking that he's saving his life. A dollar can't even buy you a candy bar today. What kind of attention do you expect from a dollar? Give the guy a hundred bucks, you'll get some attention most likely. You give the guy a dollar, he could probably find it on the street. You're not really helping him. You're not really helping him with a dollar. I'm sorry to tell you. You're not helping the homeless guy with a dollar. It's nice. It's better than zero. But don't expect him to start bowing to you. "Oh, thank you, sir. May Hashem bless you. Bless your family." Don't expect him to start giving you blessings like you're Moshe Rabbeinu of the generation. You gave the guy a dollar, he can find it on the street without you. People want so much attention because they gave the homeless guy a dollar. Big deal. Big deal. "I gave the guy a dollar." Ooh.

59:27People need to really evaluate things based on the right perspective. Oh no, I donate a lot of money here. What do you donate? Yeah, I have this program. I donate 50 bucks a month. Okay, 50 bucks a month is not zero, but relative to what? Like how much do you make? Oh, you know, I make 100,000 a year. Okay, so you donate $600 a year out of 100,000. That's not even 1%. And you're proud of this? You should be ashamed, you should dig yourself a hole in the ground and be next to the mouse, hiding from reality. Hashem gave you a hundred thousand, and you're donating half of a percent? And you think you're a gift to society? Don't say anything. Donate your $50 a month. No one's saying it's bad. It's just, stop pretending you're such a gvir. I’m the, you know, the Bill Gates of the Jewish world, they make it like. I bought an aliyah last year for $500. Out of what? You made a million, you donated $500? Big deal. If you made a little bit of money, you made $30,000, you donated $600, then you're talking about something, oh, it's 2% of your net worth, pretty much. Okay, that's something.

1:00:40People make it seem like their donations are such a big deal. In reality, it's because they don't see the right perspective. So, we have to look at things based on the right perspective. How do you do that? You do something called empathy. Empathy means putting yourself in the other guy's shoes. If you were the homeless guy and... If you were the guy collecting tzedakah, and someone that makes $100,000 a year gave you $50, sure it's better than zero, and you can eat for the day, but would you start blessing him every day and night for the rest of your life? Most likely not. Why? Because as soon as you finish the meal that he just bought you, you have to worry about tomorrow's meal. You don't have enough time to bless every single person that gives you $50. So a person needs to always look at things from the right perspective by looking at it from the other guy's perspective. That's how we start getting closer to understanding how to define good. Good is defined only by a person who understands what good means. And good means creating good. Creating good.

1:01:59If you help people, you're creating good. If people need you, and you're there for them, you're creating good. You're a good person. It doesn't always require money. It can be free. Somebody needs a ride to the airport, and you're there to give them. You're good. That's a good thing to do. On the other hand, if somebody needs you to push them off a building, and you push them, that's not a good thing. That's not a good thing. So, everybody needs to understand that good creates good. This is why Hashem created the world, at least to our understanding, in a small, small, tiny perspective of it. We don't understand the whole thing, and we're not going to understand it until later on. But the first understanding that the sages teach us is that Hashem wanted to create good because He is the ultimate good. He's the ultimate good, and He wanted to create good. Now, With that being said, initially, He created the neshamot, the souls. And the souls were being rewarded endlessly. But anything that's good...

1:03:09Like I said, Hashem wants to create good. And the souls, since they weren't able to create good, they were only receiving good, they started suffering. Why? They said, Hashem, you're giving us all this good. You're giving us parnassah, you're giving us this, you're giving us everything, but we can't give you anything back. So all the good that you're giving us, it's good, but it's so much that we're starting to feel bad that we can't give anything in return. We're starting to suffer from the good. What is it like? What's your favorite food? Give me your favorite food. What's your favorite food? Pizza. Okay, pizza's coming soon. You? Sushi. Sushi. No, you? Steak. Steak. Okay, like me, no? Steak. Steak. You don't have a favorite food. He's fasting his whole life. Next guy. Salmon. Salmon. Okay. We're not going to have dinner together. No? Steak. Steak. Oh, also steak. You eat. You're not like him. You're not fasting. Okay, you? Fish. Fish. Okay, so you guys can't eat together. He eats fish steak and only after he finishes you can eat the fish or you finish first after him. I like fish too. Fish. Okay, you guys all like fish. Bread. Bread. Okay. No.

1:04:27Watermelon, you're like my daughter Sarah. She likes watermelon. Don't have it for your fasting your whole life also? Or you just eat anything? Anything that's kosher? Oh, Hashem. So now imagine this food that you like. Imagine somebody said, you know what, you like this food so much, I'm going to give it to you for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Nothing else, though. You can't have the steak and beans. No, no. It's just steak. You can't have the pizza and some mozzarella sticks, maybe some sauce, and maybe some... No, no, no. Just the pizza. Just the steak. Just the sushi. Just the salmon. Okay, the first day, you're like, wow, it's so great. Three times a day, steak is good. Second day, a little less good. Third day, can I have something else? No, we made a deal. I'm going to give you your favorite food, just steak. After a week of eating steak for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, all of a sudden you're starting to skip meals. You don't want to eat breakfast anymore.

1:05:30After two weeks, you're skipping two meals. Maybe you're going to eat once a day. I'm going to eat steak once a day. After two or three months of eating steak once a day, you don't want to eat anymore. After six months, you just hear the words, "Honey, steak is ready," and you start vomiting. You start vomiting, "Oh, steak from yesterday." You start vomiting the steak. You don't want to eat the steak anymore. Leave me alone with the steak. You start having nightmares that a steak is chasing you. "Come here! I'm going to eat you if you don't eat me!" The steak is chasing you. You don't want to eat the steak anymore. You don't want to eat the pizza anymore. You don't want to eat the fish anymore. Why? Too much. It's too much. You don't want to eat anymore. So the souls said, "We have so much good..." suffering from it. We need some flavors. We need to earn it. We need to do something about it. So Hashem says, "The only way you could earn it is if I create a world for you where you'll have the opportunity to succeed and fail. If you succeed in

1:06:42your mission, then you come back to Me, and I give you eternal reward. And now you're not going to suffer anymore. Why? Because you're always going to remember: I earned my pay, I earned my meal here. I don't have to worry about "too good, too good, too good," because I suffered for so many years in order to get here. On the other hand, if you fail, it's your own destruction on the line. The souls were suffering so much from all of this steak and the pizza. They said it's worth it for us to put everything on the line and potentially self-destruct rather than continue like this, because living like this is as good as dying. Hashem created the world and He said Kol midei shamayim chutz mi'yirat shamayim. Everything is from heaven except the fear of heaven. What does it mean? Hashem decides everything except whether you're going to serve Him or not. That's your decision. Whether you come to the world or not, He decided. Whether you're male or female, He decided. Whether you're tall or short, He decided. Whether you're fat or skinny, He decided. Whether you have blue eyes, green eyes, yellow eyes, this eye, everything He decided. Rich or poor, He decided.

1:08:05Single or married, He decided. Everything He decided except if you're going to serve Him or not. If you're going to have fear of Hashem or not, that's your choice. That is the only fear that does not come to a person naturally. If you notice, they always say, "The Pirkei Avot says..." Human beings, naturally, naturally are scared of everything. For example, one time we had a shiur, and a mouse showed up to the shiur also. Now I was the only one that saw it because I see what's behind you. You guys are all looking at me, and I see what's behind you. And I saw at the end of the room a little mouse. And I know that if somebody else sees it, it's not going to be so good, especially if it's a female. All of a sudden, you see me give him a shiur Torah and you go, ah! What happened? Somebody had a heart attack? So I'm starting to, I'm watching this mouse move right, move left. What am I going to do? What am I going to do? I realized the mouse was not going. He's here for the shiur Torah to stay. So until I told one of the tzaddikim in the shiur, "Go take care of the thing," they turned around and baruch Hashem, they had the courage that I don't have, and they went and took care of the mouse.

1:09:29Human beings are scared of mice, even though the mouse is not even one—it's not even two, three percent of your size. It's two percent of your size, you see a little mouse, ah, run away. I remember when I was living in New York, they don't have mice in New York, they have rats. Rats are like a Rottweiler version of a mouse. And you go to the subway, you go to the subway, the train that's underground in New York, and they have these rats, they're the size of Rottweilers. And they're running, and you're thinking, maybe I should ride the rat instead of the train, he's faster, he's so big. The rat is so big, you're thinking, maybe I should ride the rat instead of the train, he's so big. And they're running, and they don't have a care in the world, they're not scared of you at all. they want your sandwich. Don't eat on the subway. Why? Because the mouse may want to share with you—the rat and his brother. And by the way, rats, why? As soon as they find out there's food, they tell all their friends. They tell all their friends. All the friends come for the sandwich. It's not just one rat. One rat finds the sandwich and all the other rats come too. When there was a flood, there was a hurricane.

1:10:50And in New York, some years ago, I think it was 2011 or 2012, Hurricane Sandy, I think it was called. It flooded New York. We, at the time, were living on the 35th floor in a building, and we were like on our own island. They lost electricity. And there was no electricity. You couldn't go up and down the building other than the stairs. And who's going to go up and down 35 flights? I mean, my neighbor went up and down, but she was an athlete. Me, I was half dead. Even with the elevator, I was barely making it. They wanted me to go up and down the stairs. So we were in the apartment for four days. Four days in the apartment without leaving. Baruch Hashem, my wife has a lot of experience. She lived in Florida her whole life. She has a lot of experience with hurricanes and preparations. So our whole house was full of water and food and everything else. We could have lived there for a month. But after four days, my wife's like, "Listen, based on the radio that was getting energy from the air or something that she had, the situation is dire. Not only is there no electricity, but there's not going to be electricity for who knows how long. Downtown Manhattan is destroyed. That's where we lived. So we have to get out of here." After four days, we packed a couple of suitcases. I had a dog at the time.

1:12:15we went downstairs 35 flights. By the way, going downstairs was one of the most painful things in my life. It was so painful; I thought it would be easy to go downstairs. Upstairs, I didn't even dream about, but going down 35 flights with suitcases and a dog, for me, my body was very weak at the time. Also, anyway, by the time we got downstairs... We felt like it was Gog u'Magog. We felt like it was like a nuclear attack happened. We couldn't, because there was no TV, there was nothing. We went downstairs, it was literally like a nuclear war had just broken out, and we were like one of the survivors. Cars were upside down. The garages were flooded to the top. The cars were floating. The cars went to the ceiling. Cars were upside down. Buses, everything was a disaster. Disaster. This was four days after they were already starting to fix stuff. It was a natural disaster like no other. And we ended up leaving because downtown was closed for three, four months. Our building didn't have electricity for months. So even if we had stayed there for long, we wouldn't have survived. We would have had to leave anyway.

1:13:31But one thing they had a lot of is a lot of rats. Lots and lots of rats. Why? Because the rats also had to float. The rats also had to float. They also had to go. So now instead of just seeing them in the subway that's underground, now you're seeing them in the streets everywhere. And if you're lucky enough and you're walking around at night, you can see a nice, like, rain of them. People are scared of rats. People are scared of mice. People are scared of bugs. We went to see a house. We have to move. Hashem, Baruch Hashem, makes sure that I feel like I'm in exile at all times. Almost every year I have to move. Every year my landlord has a new agreement. Every landlord I go to decides that the original agreement is not good enough. They want to do something else. So this one, Baruch Hashem, we agreed to rent the house, assuming we're going to be here for a few years. After 10 months, or 11 months, he decided, "Oh, listen, I'm not going to renew the lease." Why not? We paid you on time. Everything is good. What's the problem? "Oh, I want to sell the house." Well, why didn't you tell me before I rented it? I would have rented something else.

1:14:45But nobody cares. So anyway, we went to see a house. We had a very short time to go find houses. So somebody said, "We have a house. We have a house over here. Great house. Only, only, like it's a bargain. Only $2,500 a month. Only, like it's free. Only $2,500 a month." So I said, you know, we don't have many choices. It's unaffordable, but if it's what we have, we have. We went to see the house. Fidel, God bless him, came with us. We went into the house and we saw there were already tenants there. There were already tenants in the house. Cockroach on the right side, cockroach on the left side, cockroach and his family on our opposite side. Cockroaches everywhere. The house is full of cockroaches. There are holes in the ceilings, holes in the walls. It’s like abandoned property. And they want only $2,500 for it. Only. I said to myself, how do you even show this house to people? Who would live in this thing? Apparently, somebody is not afraid of cockroaches and the holes and all the different other sicknesses that are in the walls. There’s a lot in the walls probably. And they want to rent it.

1:16:00So, people like me are scared of everything. Cockroaches, mice, rats. We like to see it on the Discovery Channel, on TV it's fine, on the internet it's fine. But once it's close in real life, we don't want to see it. People are afraid of heights. People are afraid of money problems. People are afraid to be alone. People are afraid to go hungry. People are afraid of everything. People are afraid of sicknesses they don't even have. Today, everyone's a doctor. They just go on Google and they start diagnosing themselves. They have a pain on the right side, they go on Google, and by the time they finish a Google search, they have cancer, AIDS, and everything in between. Why? Because they have a little pain, because they pulled a muscle, but they think they have all the symptoms for all these diseases. People self-diagnose, and they make themselves sick. You go to a doctor, he's like, Doc, listen, I think I have it. Well, what do you have? I think I have lupus. The doctor starts saying Kaddish. What do you mean you have lupus? What makes you think you have lupus? Oh, I don't know. I have a pain on my right side and I'm lethargic and I'm a little tired. And, you know, sometimes my eyes hurt at night.

1:17:14And you know, when I drink tea, it's like it doesn't really taste good to me anymore, so maybe there's something wrong with my tongue, and there's a little bit of yellow on my right nail here. Like, buddy, you're just lazy. You played with some clay at work, and you should go to sleep earlier. You don't have lupus. But people diagnose themselves. Why? Because we're scared to die. We're scared to die. So we're scared of everything. Except God. We are scared of everything. We're scared of our wives. We're scared of our husbands. We're scared of our kids. We're scared of our boss. We're scared of the customer. We're scared of the customer we don't have. We even have a saying, "The customer is always right," even though he's always wrong, by the way. The customer is always right because we're scared of his money. We're scared of the kehillah. We're not scared of the rabbi, by the way. But we're scared of everything else except God. Why? Because if the fear of God came to us naturally, there would be no purpose to creation. If you are naturally scared of God, just like you're scared of a spider, just like you're scared of dying, just like you're scared of money problems, and so on, if you are naturally scared of God, then you would never ever do anything against Him. Therefore, there's no test, there's no point.

1:18:45Everyone will be a tzaddik. Everyone will be Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov. Everyone will be Sarah Imenu. Everyone will be Rivka. Everyone will be Rachel. Everyone will be tzaddikim. Why? You're scared of Hashem. The beginning of wisdom starts with the fear of Hashem. So the holy Yisrael, Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, says the following: He says the only thing we're not scared of is Hashem, and in reality, it's the only thing we should be scared of. You shouldn't be scared of bugs, you shouldn't be scared of anything else, except Hashem. Everything else is nothing. It's all Hashem's creations. Hashem decides whether the customer is going to buy or not. Hashem decides whether you'll be married or not, whether you live or die, whether you'll have money or not. All of these things that we're scared of, Hashem decides them. If there was a mouse, that means Hashem sent the mouse. If there was a check that bounced, Hashem made the check bounce.

1:19:49Meaning the only thing we should be scared of is Hashem. If we're scared of anything else, it's a problem. And that's why in Tehillim, David HaMelech says, a person that relies on another person is cursed. Why is he cursed? Because he's scared of the wrong thing. He's scared of a person. He's scared of a person instead of being scared of Hashem. He's scared of a customer. He's scared of a wife or a husband. He's scared of what the neighbor is going to think. One woman said, "Listen, I want to put on kisui rosh, I want to cover my head." I said, "Okay, so do it. You have to cover your hair." She goes, "Yeah, but I'm scared." "What are you scared of? What happened? Do they have a decree in your neighborhood in New York that they're going to kill you if you cover your head?" I said, "No, no, no, there isn't." She said, "What? What's going to happen?" She goes, "I'm scared of what my neighbor is going to say." I'm scared of what my friend's going to say. She's scared of the shekhen and not the Shekhinah. The shekhen in Hebrew means neighbor. The Shekhinah means Hashem. Instead of being scared of Hashem, she's scared of the neighbor. What the neighbor is going to think. I'm scared of what people are going to say if they see that I'm religious or not. Somebody starts wearing a kippah, they say, what happened? Who died?

1:21:09the guy becomes self-conscious, "Oh no, no, no, nothing, nothing, nothing. I was just kidding, I was just kidding." They take off the kippah right away, they take off the kippah right away because they're scared people will think they're religious. Or sometimes you have people that are supposedly religious. They keep Shabbat, but they don't wear a kippah. They don't wear tzitzit. So how come you don't wear a kippah? How come you don't wear tzitzit? "No, when I pray, I wear it." Obviously, when you pray, you wear it. I'm not asking you why you don't wear a kippah when you pray, because I know you wear a kippah when you pray. I'm asking you, how come you don't wear a kippah all the time? How come you don't wear tzitzit all the time? If you don't believe, it's a different story. Then we have a different shiur for you. But I'm talking about you already keeping Shabbat. You already keep kosher. You already keep basic mitzvot. How come you don't wear a kippah all the time? Oh, you know, it's... What? Oh, you're scared of what your friends are going to think. You're scared that your friends are going to think that you're religious. Oh, so you're scared of your friends. You're not scared of Hashem. Your friends, are they going to help you in Gan Eden or Gehenom? Which one are they going to help you with? Where are your friends going? Are any of your friends going to show up with you to the Beit Din of Shamayim?

1:22:14No, I'm scared that if I make sins, people are going to know I'm Jewish, so maybe it makes it worse. If you make sins, it doesn't matter if they know or they don't know. Don't worry, you're going to Gehenom anyway. It doesn't make a difference if people know or they don't know. It doesn't make a difference. You're going to Gehenom anyway. No, I don't want to make it worse. No, don't worry. Seventh place in Gehenom or sixth place in Gehenom, you're not going to feel the difference. Fire in both places. So it's just a little harder, but you're not gonna say, you're not gonna say, ah, I wish I was in the sixth one. No one says that. No one in the seventh says, I wish I was in the sixth. No one says, oh yeah, that lava, it's like Gan Eden. No, no one says that. So the fear of Hashem is the only one we're supposed to have, Rabotai HaKareem, but that's the one we don't have naturally. That one is only acquired through effort. through effort. How do you acquire fear of Hashem? How do you acquire it when it doesn't come to you naturally? You learn about it. You learn about Hashem and the truthful parts of Hashem and why you should be scared. Someone came to me the other day and he said to me, "Why do you even keep mitzvot?"

1:23:40Why do you keep Pesach, Yom Kippur, Shabbat? What do you get out of it? I said, Hashem said so. He said, yeah, but what do you get? I said, Hashem said so. That's the only reason you're supposed to have it. It's the only reason you're supposed to keep mitzvot because Hashem said so. If you get something out of it, it's a bonus, but the real reason to keep any mitzvah is because Hashem said so. I said, the problem is you don't believe in Hashem. He goes, no, no, I believe in Hashem just like you. I said, no, no, you believe that there's a Creator maybe, but you don't believe in Hashem. A lot of people believe that there's a Creator. Jews, non-Jews, a lot of people believe that there's a Creator. It's not exactly a big deal to believe that the world came from something and not from nothing. You don't need to be a genius to believe that the world came from something. I told you that this cup just appeared in the middle of the shiur out of nowhere, you'd say, "Listen, thank you for this shiur. We didn't know you were crazy. See you later. We didn't know you were crazy, but now that we do, thank you. You've saved us the time. We're gonna go to sleep instead of doing this thing that you call learning. You're a crazy person. The cup didn't come from nothing; somebody made it. How do I know? Because nothing comes from nothing. It had to come from something."

1:25:05So it's not exactly a big discovery that Hashem created the world, that a Creator created the world. What's a big discovery? A big discovery is that it's Hashem from the Torah, and not just any creator. That's a big discovery. Why? If a creator created the world and nothing else, then you could be a Christian, you could be a Muslim, you could be a Buddhist, you could be... agnostic. You can be whatever you want. Why? Because if some creative creator just left, like the Greeks used to say 2,000 years ago, Aristotle, Plato, and all those people, they all believed in a creator. They just figured that the creator created the world, but he's too busy to run the world. So he left. He went on vacation. So if you believe in that type of a creator, then you don't have to do anything. But if you believe in Hashem, the Hashem of the Torah, then you have a problem. Why do you have a problem? Because then you have to know what He said. Because you know that Hashem wrote the Torah, and Torah also means instructions. Instructions for what? Instructions for everything.

1:26:30instructions on how to live, how to win, how to lose, how to be a married person, how to be a divorced person, how to be successful, how to be a failure, how to be a tzaddik, how to be a rasha, how to do everything. It's an instruction for life. If you believe that Hashem is the one who gave you the Torah, that means you believe that He gave you an instruction set And you now have to read what it says. Because if you went to work for a big company and they told you, "Listen, we're gonna give you a job and we're gonna pay you a million dollars a month. It's a good job. You get insurance, you get a 401k, you get a vacation, you get a lot of things. But you have to make sure that you do a good job."

1:27:30You're going to say, "Yes, I want the job." Because you raised your hand when you said you want a lot of money. So, you want the job. So what are you going to do the first day? First day, you got the job. I said yes. Okay, you got the job. What do you want to do now? What do I have to do? What do I have to do? I want to get this million dollars. I don't want to get fired. The first thing you're thinking about is, "I don't want to get fired." On the first day on the job, the first thing you're thinking about is, "I can't lose this opportunity. I have to keep this job. I cannot lose it. It's a million dollars a month. They gave me insurance. They gave me a 401(k). They gave me this. They gave me everything. I can't lose this job. It's the best job in the world. I need to make sure I keep this job. So, what do I do, sir? What do I do, ma'am? What do I do? What bathroom do you want me to clean? What building do you want me to... Who do you want me to fire? Who do you want me to hire? Give me something to do. I can't lose this job. I need to do the job right. Rabotai Ya Karim, being a person that believes in Hashem is even more significant. Because you said you believed that Hashem created the world, and He's saying He's paying you a lot more than a million dollars a month. He's paying you eternity.

1:28:45You choose what that eternity looks like. You choose what that Olam HaBa looks like. Every single mitzvah that you do adds another section to your Olam HaBa. Every single sin that you commit destroys it. You choose what your Olam HaBa looks like. If you show up to Olam HaBa and it's full of destruction, you did it. It's your own self-creation. If it's full of castles and wonderful things, You did it. High five. Enjoy it. So now, if you say you believe in Hashem and the Torah, you must find out what He said. How do I keep this job and get a good one? Get a good contract? Get a good deal? How do I do a good job? You must find out what He said. And everything he said. Why? Because you can't show up to Shamayim and say, "Oh, I didn't know." A person that makes a sin as a result of not knowing

1:30:01He didn't know because he studied and he studied and he studied, but he just simply never got to it. There are a lot of laws, and he studied every day, but he never got to this one. He tried; he just never got to this one. Then he made a mistake. He made a sin as a result of a mistake. It's considered a mistake. It's still a sin, but it doesn't carry as great of a punishment. On the other hand, if his sin is a result of him simply not studying, he just didn't know, then it's considered not a sin by mistake; it's considered a sin on purpose, a purposeful sin. Why? Because he didn't study on purpose. He didn't find out the answer on purpose. Instead of learning, he watched sports. Instead of learning, he did other things. He said he believes in me. He believes in Hashem, but he didn't want to find out what I actually said. That means he believed in something else. There's no way that you believe in Hashem and don't want to know what He said.

1:31:11Doesn't make any sense. So when this person asked me, "What does it give to you, this mitzvot that you do? What do you get out of it?" I said, First and foremost, there are other things that you get out of it, but that's not a conversation for here. I explained to him, if I tell you other things that you get out of it, it’s not going to do you any good. Bottom line is, the first reason why you should do all of the mitzvot is simply because Hashem said so. He said, "Yeah, but even if Hashem said so, why should I listen?" So I said, "Oh, so you don't believe in Hashem?" She said, "No, no, I believe in the same God as you." I said, "No, you don't. We have two completely different beliefs. Your god is a loser god. Your god is a loser, weak, ugly, smelly, stinky god that works for you. If he does good for you, you do good for him back. Your god is a slave. Your god is a slave. He works for you. You just call him god because that's his name, but he's not really your god."

1:32:18Because you want your god to give you stuff. And unless He gives you stuff, you don't want to do anything. That means, in reality, He's not the real God. That means you're god. That means if you dig deep down enough, deep, deep, deep, enough into your own real belief systems, you believe you are God. And the thing you call God is a weak, loser, slave. God, on the other hand, is almighty, all-powerful, and owes me nothing. I only wish I could hopefully serve Him right, even if I know for sure He won't give me a penny. Nothing, in fact. Even if He punishes me, it doesn't make a difference because He's the Master, and I'm the slave. That's the difference. That is the difference, rabotai. As long as you think that if you do mitzvot, you're going to get a whole bunch of different things, but if you don't get a bunch of things, you're not going to do it anymore, your god's a loser. It's not God. It's not my God. It's not the same thing. It's not Hashem. You can call him whatever you want. Call him Hashem, call him Elokim, call him Pikachu for all I care. It's not Hashem of the Torah. Hashem of the Torah owes us nothing.

1:33:46He's the Almighty God, the King of Kings, HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Do you understand what HaKadosh Baruch Hu is? The Holy One, Blessed be His Name. Meaning, we're not even allowed to say His Name, it's so significant. Hashem isn't actually a name. Hashem means "The Name." Meaning that He is so holy, that even His Name is so holy, that we don't even say it. He's so almighty, so omnipotent, so omnipresent. He's so significant that even His Name is too holy for us to say. Let alone what you want to tell Him. He owes you something? He has to give you money? He has to give you a shidduch? He has to give you a house? He has to give you anything? Who are you? Until we arrive at that basic foundation, we haven't begun Judaism. As long as you think God owes you something, you're worshiping a different god. You're not worshiping Hashem. He owes you nothing. But since He's also our Father and loves us more than we even love ourselves, He gives us an unlimited amount of gifts, an unlimited amount of rewards, even if we're undeserving. And...

1:35:10...in order to encourage us to serve Him better, in order to encourage us to fulfill our purpose. So imagine every month He sends you a million dollars. Every two weeks, five hundred thousand dollars goes into your checking account. Every two weeks, you have a check coming in. Every month, a check comes in and... gives you the rewards. Every month you have the 401(k), the IRA, the plan, the insurance. Every month you're getting paid. Every month you're getting paid. And you take all of that money every month, and you start another company that competes with them. The company is giving you money every month. But instead of you working for it, you take the money they give you and you start a company to compete with it. You go to the beach instead. You go and actually buy bombs so you can blow up the building, maybe. You go and get weapons to destroy the company that's paying you.

1:36:25That's what a rasha does. When a person does not keep mitzvot, that's exactly what he's doing. Because he's getting gifts from Hashem, even if he's not serving Him. You have eyes, that's a gift. You can see, that's a gift. You can hear, that's a gift. He doesn't owe you the ability to hear. You have food, that's a gift. Why the food hasn't come up, I'm not sure, but the gift is coming soon. You have hair, you have legs, you have arms that move. You know how many people in the world are paraplegic? You know how many people would die to be like you and be able to walk and run and so on? You know how many people in the world beg, beg to be just like you sitting here? Able to listen and watch a Shiur Torah. You know how many people beg to be able to simply have a child? You have two, three, four, five, and a dog. In America, everybody has a dog. Two kids and a dog. One kid and two dogs. "No, I can't have another kid." Why? "Can't afford it." Why? "Because I'm giving all the extra money to the dog."

1:37:46One woman in New York died; she left 20 million dollars to her dog. She died, and the dog got 20 million dollars. The level of stupidity in this generation has surpassed any previous generation. I just wonder, what if the guy responsible to give the dog 20 million dollars just killed the dog? Would the dog's uncle sue him? What, with the PetSmart? We'll say, hey, listen. He's not buying from us anymore. We're going to sue you? Like, what would happen? What would happen if the dog didn't get the 20 million bucks? What are you going to do? Buy him $20 million worth of dog food? You're going to buy him a villa for the dog? Maybe give him a couple of girlfriends? Like, I don't understand. What are you doing? It's the level of stupidity in this world. There are people that don't have food to eat, but she leaves $20 million for a dog.

1:38:46Guys, we can hear you. It's just a chair, guys. You're not building a building. Get a chair, put it there, and sit. Move. Move. Move to the side. It's not rocket science, guys. It's not rocket science. You move. There you go. Another chair moves again. And then he moves. It's a puzzle, guys. Remember when you were little kids? Did you do puzzles? Dominoes? So, sometimes a person will live in the world and literally live a purposeless life, not realizing what's right, what's left, why they're here, why they're not here. And a person needs to know that they have a purpose. There is a divine being that has given you a plan.

1:39:50you must fulfill. But the first thing you should do is find out if this divine being is real. The first thing you have to do is find out if this divine being is real because unless you know for sure He's real, you're always going to have doubts about whether you should serve Him or not. Whether you're already religious now, you're on the way to being religious, or you're not religious at all, it doesn't make a difference. Every single human being needs to know whether Hashem is real or not. If He's real, you must find out what He said. You must find out what He says because it obligates you. I read the book. It obligates you, even if you don't know. You cannot go on the highway and drive 150 miles an hour And then when the cop pulls you over and says, "Listen, your speed limit was 30. You're going to jail, sir." "No, I didn't know." The fact that you're ignorant of the law is irrelevant to us. You put other lives in danger. You drove 150 miles an hour in a 30. You put other people's lives in danger. Your ignorance is actually going to give you an additional punishment. Why? Because when you signed up for a license, you signed up to agree to the laws. Whether you know them or not is your problem.

1:41:12We're not obligated to come to your house and teach you the laws. Our only obligation is to enforce the laws. When you break them, we catch you, and we'll enforce the law. It's your responsibility to find out what the law is. So if that's the law with flesh and blood in a place like America, or Israel, or Zimbabwe, or wherever else you go in a civilized world, there are laws. You need to know them, and you cannot claim ignorance. Obviously, you cannot claim ignorance with the Creator. So the first thing you need to do is find out if He's real, because if He's real, I'm telling you I read the book, and you're obligated to do a bunch of stuff. You're obligated to do a bunch of stuff, and I don't just mean build a sukkah. I don't just mean fast a few times a year. Hashem is not interested in your fast, by the way. You have to fast, but that's not the point. The Mishnah Berurah says if a person fasted on Yom Kippur, he didn't eat for 25 hours, and he went to shul, and he prayed, and he walked around with slippers,

1:42:30Like he's in some hospital or something, or walking to a pool. And all day he's thinking about food. But he prayed. But during those 25 hours, he did not think about doing teshuva. It's as if he didn't fast. It's as if nothing happened. He went on a diet for a day. Why? The whole point of the fast is to get you to think about teshuva. If you did not think about teshuva, it's as if you didn't fast. Nothing happened. You just decided not to eat for a day. We don't know why. We don't know why you decided not to eat for one day out of the year. We have no idea. It's your problem though. The Gemara in Masechet Ta'anit, page 25a. Quotes the Prophet Ezekiel screaming at Am Yisrael: "Stop putting ashes on your head, stop putting sacks as clothes. Stop fasting! Hashem is not interested in you ripping your clothes and you fasting. Hashem is interested in you ripping your hearts." Rabotai Yekarim, if a person

1:43:50did not realize that they're supposed to do teshuva after all of those fasts. The fast was a complete waste of time. This is why Hashem gives us Hoshana Rabbah. Because many people, yeah take the chair from here, right there, there you go. Because there are many people, literally millions of Jews Millions of Jews went to Beit Knesset. Over the last few weeks, millions of Jews fasted, but very few did teshuva. Very few even knew they're supposed to do teshuva. I remember as a secular person, every year I would go to Beit Knesset on Yom Kippur. When I was younger, I would try to sleep really late throughout the day so the fast would go faster.

1:44:51Sleep till 2-3 o'clock, so by the time I arrive at the Beit Knesset, there's only a few hours left. Because to me, as long as I fasted, I did my job once a year. Hashem figures He's going to give me a bunch of money now. Do you know how many people have this belief? The overwhelming majority of Am Yisrael has this belief. I don't mean 10%, 12%, I mean 90%, 95%. Probably believe the same thing I just told you. Why? Because many of them do it. Just look at your Beit Knesset on Yom Kippur. Look at how it was in the morning. There's barely a minyan in some places. But at Ne'ilah, an hour or two before the holiday is finished, you can't move. You can't breathe. You're looking at the ceiling. Maybe you're going to hide on the top of the lamp because you can't move. It's so packed. Why? Everybody shows up an hour before the holiday because they've been sleeping all day. Because everyone thinks the fast is the point. Hashem had mercy on us and He gave us Hoshana Rabbah. He says you have an opportunity to do teshuva tonight.

1:46:00It's time to wake up. It's time to start listening to the truth and start considering where you stand. Now, it's not easy to hear some of this stuff because it obligates us. Everyone here, myself first, knows we haven't been so great. We have to do more. Even if you keep all the basic mitzvot, the more you keep, the more you learn, the more you realize you have to do more. We learn in the Rambam, Hilchot Teshuva, chapter 7, halacha number 2 and 3, the Rambam specifically says most people think that they're supposed to do teshuva for the big things: Shabbat, Taharat HaMishpacha, Kashrut. Yes, of course, you have to do teshuva for those things, but that's not the key. That's obvious. The donkey who speaks a little Hebrew and a little French knows you also have to keep Shabbat. Have you ever seen a donkey violate Shabbat? He doesn't keep Shabbat. Have you ever seen a monkey violate Shabbat? You don't see a monkey drive on Shabbat. Keep Shabbat. Not a single monkey in history ever drove on Shabbat. Not a single monkey drove on Shabbat ever. All the monkeys keep Shabbat. But they don't have Olam Haba. Why? Because they're monkeys.

1:47:21A Jew that drives on Shabbat has no share in the World to Come. So anyone that drives on Shabbat, whether they're watching this shiur, or they're here, or they're there, or they're going to hear this shiur tomorrow, whenever it is, that's something you have to think about. Without even knowing what this Gehenom looks like, we already understand it's not a good place. So now, a person needs to decide, do I believe that Hashem gave the Torah or not? If he believes that there's a Creator, now he has to decide, is this Creator the one from the Torah? Because if it is, and I don't keep Shabbat, I have a serious problem. I have to do Teshuvah immediately. I have to keep this Shabbat no matter what. It doesn't make a difference if the business is open or closed. Why? Life is on the line if Hashem gave the Torah. Now, how do I know if Hashem gave the Torah? There are plenty of proofs that the Torah is divine. There are three or five different movies we made about it, short movies, showing scientific proofs.

1:48:40The Torah is divine. It's also a four-hour movie by Rav Mizrahi called Torah and Science that is highly recommended. Anyone who hasn't watched it should watch it. I have some CDs in my car, or I could just send it to you in the mail, or you can just watch the shiur online. It's free on his website, divineinformation.com, or on YouTube. You can also watch our shiurim, like I told you, on Be'ezrat Hashem.org, our website, or on YouTube. Point being, there are scientific proofs that the Torah is divine. The Torah came from God and from nowhere else. No human being could have written it. There's information in the Torah that no human being could have known. A few very simple examples: in the Torah, it says, the example of fish that are kosher. A fish that's kosher must have two signs: fins and scales.

1:49:42There are some fish, the Torah says, that have fins but no scales, but you will never find a fish that just has scales and no fins. Meaning, if you just find half a fish, the Gemara says, and you see that this half only has scales, you could assume that the other half had the fins. Therefore, it's a kosher fish. Now, whoever wrote this knew that this is a proof, it's a statement that could easily be proven wrong or right. Why? With enough research and time invested in the ocean, you're going to find over 40,000 different fish species that we know of today. So we have already 40,000 fish that we know of. one of them has only fins and no scales. I'm sorry, only scales and no fins. The Torah has a mistake in it if it has a mistake in it. That means it's not divine. That means it's not from God. Why? Because God doesn't make mistakes. God doesn't make mistakes. So all a person needs to do is find one fish with just scales and no fins.

1:51:11So one hero says, "Oh yeah, the snake. The snake has scales, but no fins." He said, "Yes, but listen to what you're saying. You're saying a snake. A snake is not a fish. It just knows how to swim. The Torah defines it as a fish, not something that knows how to swim. Even a cockroach knows how to swim. We don't conclude that it is a fish if it has scales but no fins." A lot of things can swim. There are certain bugs, as a matter of fact, that can swim better than fish. That doesn't make them fish. So, another one said, "Yeah, but there was a fish that has only scales but no fins." And then, after investigation, they saw that this fish has fins when it's underwater and...

1:52:14It has fins and scales. But as soon as you take it out of the water, the fish has a defense mechanism and it retracts its fins. It retracts its fins. They fold back into its body. So it looks like it has only scales and no fins. But in reality, it does. It's just that as soon as you take it out of the water, it has a defense mechanism. Defense mechanism meaning it thinks that it's protecting itself by just showing this. It's as if it's dead or whatever it is. Similar to, for example, there are certain animals, like the raccoon, for example. If the raccoon doesn't have rabies and it sees something it's scared of, it pretends like it's dead. Is it here? Bring it. Help him out, guys, to bring the pizza. The pizza's here. Thank you. Let's get some mitzvot. So please, anyone that's going to eat, do a hamotzi. Do a hamotzi. Don't worry, it doesn't bother me. Get up, wash your hands. Thank you. Wash your hands. One, two, three. One, two, three.

1:53:31Then come over here. Before you eat pizza, say HaMotzi, and eat as much as you want for the rest of the night. You finish the pizza, we'll order you some more if you want. But please do the blessing. I know that some people say it's mezonot, but it's only mezonot if you only eat like half a slice and the bread is sweet and under certain conditions, and it's not considered a meal. In reality, we don't eat any of those things. No one's going to eat half a slice. And most people here, if they're going to eat pizza, it's going to be a meal. So do the blessing. Hashem gave you the pizza. The least we can do is say thank you. For the eat all of it, I mean, so the researchers saw that this fish that they thought only had scales but no fins really does. Another question that I got from one student is about swordfish. Swordfish, that's a very good question.

1:54:51which actually I didn't know myself. They asked me if the swordfish, when it's a baby, has fins and scales. But, yeah, you asked me the question. A swordfish, when it's a baby, has fins and scales. But when it grows up, it sheds the scales. So it looks like it only has... It used to have fins and scales, but now it only has fins. So is it still kosher? Because now it only has one. So, of course, the Torah also knows about that. It's been a very, very big halachic debate for years already. For years. About whether it is or it isn't, and so on. But in essence, it's also some of the things that the scientists thought that they found proofs against the Torah, but they found nothing. The point is, any and every single question that we have, someone has already asked it.

1:55:53The Gemara in Masechet Chullin says something else that's very interesting about fish. It says something very, very interesting about fish that I believe that all of the people that are scared of doing Teshuva should know what the Gemara says about fish. It says, how do you know if a fish is alive or dead? How do you know if the fish is alive or dead? How do you know? Now, if it's in your aquarium—I used to have an aquarium when I was a kid—every day there was a new dead fish. Why? Because every day there would be one fish that was floating to the top. So you know it's dead. If it's floating, it's dead. But what if they're in a river? I mean, what if the fish are in the river? How do you know if the fish are dead or alive?

1:56:56says that if the fish is swimming with the tide, let's say the tide is going downhill, and the fish is swimming with the tide, then you cannot know whether it's alive or dead. Why? Because maybe it's swimming with the tide, or maybe the tide is pushing it. The only way you could know for sure if the fish is alive, without taking it out of the water, is if the fish is swimming against the tide. Why? Because a dead fish cannot swim against the tide. Only if the fish is swimming against the tide—if the tide is going down and the fish is going up—that means it has strength. That means it's alive. I That's a living fish. Maaz says, you've got a living one. You've got a living one. What do we learn from here? Why do we care about the fish being alive or dead? Whether he's alive or dead, I still want to eat him.

1:58:07Don't you guys do, I don't like fish, but the point is the fish. Why do I care about the fish? Why is the Gemara spending a whole page? I mean, there's a lot of information about a fish. What do I care about the fish, alive or dead? Just take him out of the water and find out if he's alive. What do I care? He's going against the tide. He's going against the tide. Maybe he's on vacation. Maybe he's asleep. Why do I care about this fish swimming? Well, maybe he doesn't know how to swim. Well, maybe there's a swim. Maybe he failed swimming class. He doesn't know how to swim. The Gemara is trying to teach us about a Jew. It's trying to teach us about you. How do we know if the Jew is alive? The Jew is going with the tide. We don't know if he's alive or not. Safek, 50-50. Maybe he's okay, maybe he's not. We have no idea. We can't tell. He's just going with the flow. He's a sheep like everybody else. How do we know the Jew? How do we know the Jew is alive? If he's willing to go against the tide.

1:59:11If he's willing to do teshuva, even if all of his friends are Mechalelei Shabbat, reshaim, murderers, rapists, it doesn't make a difference. And he's willing to go against the tide and be a tzaddik, he's alive. He's alive. His neshama is living. Why? He doesn't care about what everybody else is doing. He doesn't care about what everyone else looks like, doesn't look like, keeps, doesn't keep, and it makes no difference to him. Why? The only thing that makes a difference to him is to stay alive. And if staying alive means being connected to Hashem and going against the tide, I'm the first one on there. Because I want to live. Because I want to live. Rabotai ikarim, teshuva... the most difficult thing you will ever do in your life if you don't want to do it. If you don't want to do teshuva, teshuva is the most difficult thing you will ever do in your life. Why? The whole time you're suffering. You don't feel like keeping Shabbos. Why? You want to go to the casino instead on Shabbos. You want to go to the beach.

2:00:27Instead, you want to go to the concert. You want to go smoke some cigarettes. You want to go to McDonald's. You don't feel like keeping Shabbos. So if doing teshuva when you don't want to do it is a hundred percent suffering. It's the most difficult thing in the world to do. Eating kosher when you don't want to eat kosher is the most difficult thing in the world. Why? All of a sudden you became an accountant. Everyone that doesn't want to keep kosher all of a sudden is also an accountant on the side. They know how the chicken is $1.63 more expensive when it's kosher. The steak is $8.12 and a half cents more expensive when it's kosher. The pizza, it's not so good, it's a little bit less, but it's $6 more. Everybody's an accountant when they eat kosher and they don't want to. They know how much more expensive it is to eat kosher. Why? Who says that it's more expensive to eat kosher? Someone doesn't want to eat kosher. So if you're doing teshuva but you don't want to, it's the most difficult thing in the world. But Moshe Rabbeinu says in Sefer Devarim, it's in your mouth, it's in your heart to do.

2:01:47What's in your mouth, in your heart to do? In your mouth, in your heart, to do teshuva. Meaning, the only reason you're on this earth right now, the only reason you were created, is to do teshuva. The only reason you were created, it comes to you naturally. It's in your heart, it's in your mouth to do it. Meaning, that's what you were made to do. It's like somebody says, yeah, I have a phone, but I don't know, I don't want to make any calls. So get a computer instead. You don't need a phone if you're not going to make any calls. Get a computer. What do you use the phone for? I use it to go on the internet. You don't need a phone to go on the internet. Get an iPad. Get a tablet. Get a laptop. There are a bunch of other devices. You don't need a phone to go on the internet. There are other things that are more catered for the internet than the phone. But if you want to make phone calls, you need a phone. Hashem is telling us through Moshe Rabbeinu

2:02:49tell Am Yisrael, you were created to do teshuva. Don't say it's too hard. Say you don't want to. It's only hard because you don't want to. Because if you want to, You should know. It'll be easy for you to do it. It'll be easy to do teshuva. Why? That's what you were created to do. That's your function. What do you think? You were created to become an engineer? Hashem needs engineers in the world to live for 70 years and make a nail? A guy who was created in the world, lived 70 years in the world, to make a little tchotchke he could put on the ceiling. That's what Hashem needed in the world? He needed you to come for 70 years so you could make a box of matches? Wow! The guy was created, he lived in the world for 90 years. What a life! What? He created Q-tips. Wow! What a discovery! What a purposeful life! He created Q-tips.

2:04:01A guy created a Care Bear sticker. What a life, 70 full years. Like seriously, that's what you think you came to the world to do? To make stickers and Q-tips? Oh, he made some sales in his life. He sold laundries and laundromats and laundry machines and everything related to laundry. We called him "Mr. Laundry." Wow, what a life. We're really going to remember him three years after he dies. Like seriously, think about it. You really think you came into the world to deal with laundry, to deal with mortgages, to deal with bottles and things like that, the mundane? It's the most meaningless life in the world if that's your life. There's no point. There's absolutely no point to life if that's what you came to the world to do, to print books, make little bottle caps and little cups, and be one of these employees at the call center. If that's your life, there's no point to it. In fact, the ant has a better life than you. Why? Six months and it's done without torture.

2:05:11It has no mortgage payments, it has no pension plan, it has no health insurance issues, it has no enemies, it has no problems. There's no lashon hara, there's no rechilus, there's no nothing. The ant lives six months, dies, goes to Gan Eden, it's finished. In Gan Eden, ant world, but not real world. He has no problems. We have to deal with mortgage and rent and landlords and kids and diapers and the store clerk, and the neighbor yells at us, and the laundry, and the laundromat, and the lawn machine, and all this craziness all day. You have to deal with craziness all day for what? You really think you came to the world for what? To deal with a few kids, to teach them the Aleph Bet for two years before they say goodbye to you and you never see them again? That's your life? That's it? It has to be more to life. It has to be if it came from Hashem. If it came from Hashem, Hashem says there is a purpose to your life. What is it? Do teshuva. Why is it to do teshuva? Because teshuva is something that you start and never finish. It's an eternal covenant. It's an eternal job to fulfill the eternal covenant.

2:06:30A person that starts doing teshuva understands they're missing something in their purpose. But if they don't want to do teshuva, but they feel like they're forced to do teshuva, they're forced to keep Shabbos because they don't want to go to Gehinnom. They're forced to eat kosher because that's the only thing that their wife makes them. They're forced to keep holidays because they don't want to be the one excluded in the crowd, in the community. Then they suffer in every mitzvah. Why? They don't feel like doing it. They don't feel like doing it. They don't want to feel like they'll keep anything. So they start looking at all the bad things about it. Sukkah, oh Sukkot, it's so hot. The first thing they think about, instead of thinking Sukkot is a wonderful time to get closer to Hashem, you do more mitzvot, you get together with the family, and so on and so forth. So many wonderful things to do on Sukkot. All you can think about is how hot it is. I need to be in some tent instead of the air conditioner in the house. Okay, so get an air conditioner in the Sukkah.

2:07:32Yom Kippur. Oh, we have to fast again. Ah, I can't believe it. What, Hashem needs my fasting? I have to go on a diet again for a day? You're already thinking about the food you're going to eat before and the food you're going to eat after. Honey, what are you making before the fast? Okay, that's not bad. What are you making after? Are you sure it's going to fill me up? It's only two plates. You sure? I'm going to be really hungry because I didn't eat for a whole day. I'm a tzaddik. I'm a tzaddik. I didn't eat the whole day. The whole day he sat in Beit Knesset, thinking about food. What did you fast for then? So the guy that doesn't want to do teshuva, he's suffering the whole time. The mitzvot are meaningless to him. He doesn't like it. But the one who wants to do teshuva, he enjoys the mitzvot. Why does he enjoy the mitzvot? Because he knows this is another opportunity to improve himself. Not only improve himself and his connection with Hashem, but also improve himself as a human being.

2:08:36A person that keeps mitzvot but is a terrible human being is not doing anything for himself. You cannot be a tzaddik and a rasha at the same time; you're one or the other. So the Rambam says in Hilchot Teshuva, chapter 7, halachot 2 and 3, he specifically says people think that they need to do teshuva only on the big things, on Shabbat and kosher and so on. But that's not what we're talking about. Even the monkey knows that you need to keep Shabbat. Even the monkey knows you have to eat kosher. That's not what we're talking about when we say teshuva. Stop murdering. We need the Torah to tell you to stop murdering? is working on our middot. Working on our character traits. Working on the negative character traits that we have in us. Some of us are negative people. You have to start becoming positive. Some of us are arrogant. Cool yourself down. Stop thinking you're something special. Realize who you really are. You're nothing better than any other human being.

2:09:47In fact, you may be less than most. Stop being so arrogant. Stop being so cheap. Stop being so angry. Every time somebody says something to you that's not to your liking, you want to kill them. Even that feeling, even though you didn't take action, but you feel it inside, the rage, that someone said something that's not to your liking, you really want to yell at them. You want to give them a nice piece or two of your mind. That shows you have a serious problem, you have to work on it. Real teshuva is working on our character traits, also called middot. Why? Because Hashem says, "I put a piece of Me in you. I put a piece of Me in you. That piece is perfect. Make the rest of it like it. Make the rest of what you have in there the same thing. Make it perfect." That's teshuva. Teshuva is something that you start, you never finish. Now, how do you do this? How do you fix these character traits? Why? Do you just wake up one day and decide, I've been angry for 35 years, let me stop being angry. I've been cheap for 45 years, let me stop being cheap. I've been arrogant for 50 years, let me stop being arrogant. You can't just stop. You're addicted to it. In fact, you even thought it was okay until somebody told you it's not.

2:11:15Modern society, most people appreciate arrogance. They think it's a good thing. In modern society, people think that arrogance is what you need to have in order to achieve greatness. People think that Donald Trump's arrogance is what won him the race and why he's the president now and... Anyone that thinks that is a kofer. It's heresy because, in reality, they think that anything in the world happens without Hashem doing it. Hashem put him there, not his arrogance. The fact that he's arrogant just makes him a sinner; it doesn't make him a president. But the point being about this is that people who are arrogant are the ones that are controlling the headlines today. The more arrogant you are, the more attention you get, and... people try to admire that type of arrogance because their mind is upside down. Just like the arrogant person, they think that, "Oh, he only got there because he's arrogant because he knows what he's worth." In reality, he doesn't; he pretends to. Paro also thought he knew what he's worth.

2:12:31When Moshe Rabbeinu came to Paro and he told him, "God said such and such, let His people go," Paro said, "Who is this God that I should listen to Him?" Now, Paro wasn't a fool. He knew that the world didn't come from nothing. He knew that the world had to come from something. But yet, Paro had such a high level of arrogance... that he turned himself into God, and he told people that he doesn't go to the bathroom. He told people that, unlike them, he is not human and doesn't need to go to the bathroom. So they didn't need to have a bathroom in the entire castle. There's no bathroom in the entire castle. Even today, the archaeologists who go into the pyramids and other places in Egypt see that there are no bathrooms anywhere. ...a law by Pharaoh: no one is allowed to leave the house. Everyone must stay home. Anyone that leaves the house receives the death penalty on the spot. Strange law, but hey, listen, they believe these gods, so they listen. During this time, this little fake god called Pharaoh would go to the Nile River to go to the bathroom. How do we know this? Because when Hashem told Moshe Rabbeinu...

2:13:52a law by Pharaoh: no one is allowed to leave the house. Everyone must stay home. Anyone that leaves the house receives the death penalty on the spot. Strange law, but hey, listen, they believe these gods, so they listen. During this time, this little fake god called Pharaoh would go to the Nile River to go to the bathroom. How do we know this? Because when Hashem told Moshe Rabbeinu Go to Paro early in the morning. Go meet him at the river. Why go to the river? Why don't you go to the palace? No, go to him while he's going to the bathroom. So we can show him, hey, your trick's up. You're not a god, you're not anything. Right now, you're caught with your pants down, literally. And literally almost every time that Moshe Rabbeinu went to see Paro, he would go to him when he was going to the bathroom to remind him, "You're a liar, the son of a liar, and you're fooling no one except yourself." I'm not just making it up for your entertainment. Moshe would go and talk to him only when he was in the bathroom. That's when he would go to him. Go read the commentary.

2:15:18Rashi, Rashi. So, Rabotai HaYekarim, a person that has a high level of arrogance does not want to do teshuva. He pretends to want to do teshuva, but he doesn't want to do teshuva. Why? Because teshuva is what obligates you to change. So the Chazon Ish says there are a lot of people that like to fool themselves. By saying they did teshuva. Pretending like they did teshuva. Why? They say already a hundred years ago, the Chazon Ish, Gadol HaDor, was talking about people and saying how people lie to themselves. They convince themselves they did teshuva. They convince themselves they have emunah. They convince themselves they have bitachon. They say things like mantras: emunah, bitachon, you gotta believe, everything's gonna be okay, everything's gonna be this. They say all these things to make themselves feel like they have emunah.

2:16:28ואומנם בזאת ייבחן אם פיו וליבו שווים, האם בוטח הוא באמת, או אך לימד לשונו לצפצף ביטחון ביטחון, ובליבו לא קוננה. He says, the real test can decide whether a person really believes in what he's saying, whether he really does, or if he just trained himself to speak like he has belief in Hashem. He just trained himself like a monkey. You know, you could train a monkey to say a few things, you know that, right? You could train a monkey to say a few words. can decide whether a person really believes in what he's saying, whether he really does, or if he just trained himself to speak like he has belief in Hashem. He just trained himself like a monkey. You know, you could train a monkey to say a few things, you know that, right? You could train a monkey to say a few words

2:17:41You could train a monkey to peel a banana the opposite way. You could train a monkey to put clothes on. You know, as a monkey, they have to put clothes on. Put pants on, put shirts on. They put little suits on. They're cute. Put a bow tie. You could train a monkey to do a lot of things. In fact, you could even train a cat to serve you with a dish. In the time of the Rambam, almost 850 years ago, the Rambam was considered not only the Gadol HaDor of the Jews, but also the goyim recognized him as the best of the best. The king of the goyim used the Rambam as his private consultant. Anything he needed, any wisdom, he would go to the Rambam, even though he was a Jew. The other goyim didn't like this. Why? They wanted the job the Rambam had. So they came to the king, and you know, after a while, little knickknacks in his ear, "No, no, he's not good, he's not good, he's lying, he's lying, he's lying." Eventually, the king says, "Okay, prove it." They said, "Look, this Rambam says that a man was created with a certain nature and an animal was created with a certain nature, and it can't change. Nature can't change. We can prove otherwise," they said. "How can you prove it?" "We can prove that the nature of a cat or an animal can change."

2:19:10And the king says, "If you can prove that the Rambam is wrong, you can have his job." So he brought the Rambam in. And they told this to the Rambam. He says, "Okay, you can have as much time as you want. Change the nature of anything. And if you can, no problem." Now, in those days, it's not like today—you don't just lose your job. In those days, you lose your job and your life at the same time. Same package, same price. Pizza and mozzarella sticks at the same time. So now, a few months pass. And these people came back with a cat. They brought the cat to the castle and called the Rambam, telling him, "Come right now, we're going to show you this cat that's changed its nature." The Rambam comes on the spot. He had already forgotten about this meeting, but he comes because the king commanded him to come. The Rambam comes.

2:20:12And they see hundreds and hundreds of people there watching this big event. The Rambam, the Jew, is going to be proven wrong finally. Everyone is salivating at the destruction of a Jew. The king, to his surprise, is seeing this about to happen. He likes the Rambam, but what can he do? If the Rambam is wrong, he's wrong. So, all of a sudden, these scientists Haters of the Rambam show up with a cat that's wearing a suit with a little bow tie and pants and is standing on two legs with one of its paws holding a dish with sugar and a drink on it. And they see the cat walking on two legs, and everybody says, "Wow, look, the cat became human."

2:21:12changes nature and the cat's walking around with a little bowtie and a dish. And he's walking and walking, and he's walking towards the king across the whole floor, and everyone is in wonder. "Wow! See, the Rambam is a liar." Ah, they're all excited about the destruction of the Jew. Rambam does not get nervous at all. He reaches into his pocket and opens a little box that he had of tobacco. It's a box of tobacco, and he opens it, and a mouse that was trapped inside the box of tobacco runs out of the box. ...runs out of the box and scurries to the middle of the floor. All of a sudden, the cat reverts to its nature. The dish goes flying, the papillon—the little bowtie—goes flying, the suit goes flying, and the cat goes chasing the mouse. And the Rambam proves that nature doesn't change. Maybe you can teach it a few tricks, but the nature doesn't change. So the king had a question...

2:22:23so you're smart and you know the nature doesn't change, that's great, but where'd you get the mouse? Where did you get a mouse? It was just suddenly, you happen to have a mouse in a tobacco box? He says, "Well, your highness, you see, Hashem runs the world, and Hashem loves me because I'm His child, and He protects me. So earlier today..." I was studying Torah, and I saw that there was a mouse in my study. And you know, we're taught in our Torah not to be vicious and not to just kill everything. So I didn't want to kill the mouse. But at the same time, he was bothering me. So, as soon as he went by himself into my tobacco box, I just closed the box. I put it in my pocket, and I planned on opening it, taking it outside, opening it, and letting him go, thinking this is it. But as soon as I went outside to open the box and let it go, your soldiers at the same time grabbed me by the shoulders and put me inside the caravan and said the king commands you to come right now. So I'm here. Apparently, Hashem sent me the mouse because, you know, I'm gonna need it. Why? Hashem runs the world.

2:23:49Hashem runs the world. If you thought the mouse just happened to be there, it's a little bit. It's like the dust of kefirah. It's the dust of heresy. Dust of heresy. Not much heresy, but the dust of heresy. Enough dust, you have a whole mountain. If you think anything in the world happens just because Enough of that, it's heresy. Enough of that, you become an atheist, Buddhist, Christian, all types of idol worship. An animal cannot change its nature, but a person can. That's the difference. That is the difference between you and the mouse. B'ficha u'bilvavcha la'asoto. Moshe Rabbeinu tells you, yes, teshuva is difficult. It's only difficult because you really don't want to do it. That's the only reason it's difficult. Because you were created to do it.

2:24:59It's in your mouth, it's in your heart to do. Where's the mouth and heart to do? To do teshuva, to keep mitzvot. That is how you're programmed to do teshuva. Meaning that the only reason it's hard for you to stop whatever sin you're doing is simply because you haven't committed to stopping. And that's why the Rambam says in Hilchot Teshuva that teshuva is a four-step process. It's not a one-step process. Most people think that teshuva is a one-step process. But it's a mistake. You ask yourself a question. There's a big sugya. It's a big question. It says in the Torah that Yom Kippur mechaper kol ha'avonot. It wipes out all your sins. So if somebody went through Yom Kippur, Chatanu, Avinu, Pashanu, everything else. Why is it that the Torah, Reshit Chochmah, the Gemara, and the Zohar, everywhere, the entire Torah says people go to Gehenom for sins they made in 1912 when they were 15, 16, 17 years old, 27 years old, 35 years old. What do you mean? The guy lived another 30 years. He had 30 more Yom Kippurs. Why? He didn't do teshuva for it. You said that Yom Kippur mechaper kol ha'avonot.

2:26:23He had Yom Kippur. Okay, so he made the sin. He violated Shabbat. He stopped. He stopped. He had Yom Kippur. I'm sorry. I'm not going to do it again. But then it says he gets to Shamayim and they still burn him in Gehenom for a few hours because of the sin he made 30 years before he got there. Why? But he had Yom Kippur. He had 30 times of saying I'm sorry. Why are you still suffering for it? If the only sins you would suffer for are the sins you made in your last year of life, you'd be in good shape. Why? Number one, it's only one year's worth of sins. Number two, you probably didn't know you were going to die. So it's not like you especially added more sins during that time. Maybe Hashem took you right before you made the big sin. Sometimes, a person dies young at 23 years old, like my cousin. So he made some sins, but only 23 years' worth. He probably doesn't have as many sins as a 70-year-old. But that's not what the Torah says. The Torah says a guy could get punished for sins he made 20, 30, 40, 50 years before he died. How? He went to Yom Kippur. He did Teshuvah, no? The problem is, Rabotai, that a person does not know how to do Teshuvah properly.

2:27:49He never read Hilchot Teshuvah. He read it on the internet. He read it on the internet and said it's a four-step process. He never understood what the four-step process is. So the Rambam gives us details. Step number one, stop sinning. If you haven't stopped sinning, there's nothing to talk to you about. If you're continuing to do things against Hashem's will, there's nothing to talk to you about. You haven't started, there's no teshuvah, there's no nothing. Step number one, stop sinning. Step number two, commit to not going back. Not only are you not going to desecrate Hashem's name, but you commit to not go back to do it again. That's step number two. Step number three, regret the sin. Say, I'm so sorry I did this. Step number four, Hashem Himself has to testify for you at the Beit Din of Shamayim to say, He is not going to sin anymore. Now there's a kushiah.

2:29:10There is a very, very big obstacle here. It doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Step number one and two, logic. Stop sinning. Don't go back. Great. I don't need anybody's help. Step number three and four don't make any sense whatsoever. Unless you know the details. Why? Step number one, you said stop the sin. Okay, stop the sin. I'm not going back to the casino anymore. I'm not going back with this girl anymore. I'm not going to eat non-kosher anymore. I'm not going to be mechalel Shabbat anymore. I'm not going to do it. Okay, finish. Achieve step number one. Step number two, I'm not going back. See, I said it already in step number one, no? No, no, we need to do it again. Okay, again. Step number three, regret it? Wait a minute. Shouldn't that be step number one? Didn't I only stop because I regretted it? First, you have to regret it, then say, no. Rabbi Yisrael Salanter says something extraordinary, Rabotai. The Gemara in Masechet Yoma says the first time that a person makes a sin, it's simply because he's not considering punishment.

2:30:27He thinks, I just want to get this thing now. Punishment I'll deal with later. Or he doesn't even think about the punishment. It just looks so juicy. This non-kosher steak, it's so juicy. Ah, no, it's worth it. This girl, it's, ah, it's worth it. This money, ah, it's worth it. He doesn't even think about what's going to happen. It's just so juicy. The pot is so big. Let me just take a little bit. He's not thinking about punishment. that's the first time. He said the same thing. The second time he made the same sin, it now officially became allowed. Again, the first time he sinned, he's just not considering the punishment. He's just living it up. He's living in la-la land. He thinks there's only Gan Eden, like most people in the world think there's only Gan Eden. Second time he sinned is much, much worse. Why? Because now he just put the hechsher on the chazer. He just put the kosher stamp on the pig. Why? He says, listen, the first time I did it, nothing happened. Second time, nothing happened. Oh, so it must be allowed. It must be allowed.

2:31:53It must be allowed. So when a person finally says, ah, you know what? I'm going to do teshuva. I'm not going to drive on Shabbat anymore. I'm not going to steal money anymore. I'm not going to do such and such. I'm going to do teshuva. I'm going to do the first step. I'm going to say, I'm not going to do it anymore. I'm going to stop doing it. Second step, I'm going to commit not to go back. The third step is to say, I'm sorry. Why is the third step, the holy Yisrael, Rabbi Yisrael Salanter says, why is it the third step? Because during the first two steps, in reality, He's not doing teshuva. He's just saying he's going to stop doing it, even though it's allowed in his mind. In his mind, he's allowed. He made the sin so many times, not once or twice. He made the sin a thousand times he drove on Shabbat. A thousand times he went to the casino. A thousand times he went with a non-kosher girl. A thousand times he wasted seed. It became allowed in his mind. So he only decided, I'm going to stop doing it because I want to be a tzaddik.

2:33:08Not because it's not allowed. It's allowed. But I'm just going to stop doing it. I'm not going to do it anymore. And I commit not to doing it anymore because I'm going to be a tzaddik. And only after a while of not doing it, after a while of being outside of the manure that he built for himself, after a while of being outside of the garbage that he built for himself, does he realize, "What did I get myself into?" When you're in the garbage, you don't realize it's garbage. When you're inside the garbage, you're part of the garbage. So you don't think it's garbage. Only once you leave the garbage for some time, and then you go back and look and peek into it. What a smell. This is where I used to live. That's where I used to live. I can't believe it. So the first two steps, the first two steps, he's not doing teshuva b'klal. He's just stopping something that he thinks is allowed because he wants to be a tzaddik.

2:34:20He wants to be a tzaddik. And the Rambam says, yeah, he's a fake tzaddik. He's faking himself. He wants to be better than himself. And in reality, if he stays there, there's no teshuva b'chlal. That's why he has to have Yom Kippur again and again and again and again. Every single year. Why? Because he never regretted it. And if he never regretted it, he never got to step number four. And Hashem never testified. And Shamayim said, he's not going to sin again. Why? Because Hashem knows the future. Hashem knows the future, and He says, this guy, he still thinks it's allowed. He just stopped doing it because he wants to be a fake tzaddik, maybe call it some tzedakah. But in reality, he doesn't regret anything. Which means, next opportunity he needs extra money, something goes bad, he's going back to it in a second. Next time he sees that, he goes back into it. It's like, next time he has the opportunity, he's going back. Maybe he's just taking a break for two, three, four, five, six, seven years. I'm not testifying for him, Hashem says. He doesn't even feel bad about it. He never regretted it.

2:35:25What about the fact that Hashem knows the future and knows he's going to sin again? So how does He ever testify if He knows he's going to sin again? Because if a person gets to step number three not only said "I'm not doing it," stopped doing it, and said "I'm not doing it," but he got to the level of regretting it. Hashem says, "I judge him based on where his heart is now, not based on where he's going to be in the future. I judge him based on where his heart is now, and his heart right now really believes he's not going to sin this sin again. Even though I know that in 10 years from now, I'm going to send him another test and there's a 50% chance he's going to fail." But I'm not judging him on the future. I'm judging him on his heart now. Because right now, he feels bad enough about it that he believes he's never going back again. For that, I'll sign off on him. He's not doing it again. He did teshuva. So that's why the next time he does the same sin, ten years later, Hashem judges it as if it's the first time he ever sinned. How do you say it in Hebrew? In Hebrew. When you say you judge him by the sin of the people.

2:36:40So the key is, is that even if Hashem knows that a person may fail in the future, He only judges them on this today. And that's why it's really important for a person to know that teshuva is not just stopping the sin. Teshuva is not just saying, "I'm not going to go back." Teshuva, real teshuva, is to stay away from it long enough, learn about it long enough to the point of regretting all the things we did. If you're still reminiscing about the girl you used to be with—that's not kosher—and the money you used to steal—that's not kosher—and the things you used to eat—that's not kosher—you still reminisce and celebrate and laugh over the things you used to do, you haven't begun teshuva. That's why Hashem says Yom Kippur doesn't even help you. Yom Kippur doesn't even help you. Why? You haven't done teshuva yet.

2:37:46To do teshuva, you have to complete four steps. All four steps have to be done. And a person needs to pray every day to ask Hashem to help him do teshuva. And that's one of the prayers we have in the Amidah. Why do we say to Hashem, a guy that's frum from birth, a guy that's already religious for five, ten, twenty years, Rav Ovadia, Alav HaShalom, the Chazon Ish, the Ben Ish Chai, all of them, Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov all said, Hashem help me do teshuva. What do you mean Hashem help me do teshuva? You're Kodesh Kodashim. everybody has to do teshuva, Rabotai. Everyone has to do teshuva, or else if they don't, they'll be exactly like the Chazon Ish says over here. This person is just a faker; he's just like a little tweety bird, saying "No, have him now, have him now." As soon as he gets a test, everything breaks, the whole system breaks. And that's why the Chazon Ish says, the real test that decides whether a person really believes what he's saying, or he just trained himself like a bird, let's say, is when he meets up with a situation that demands that he indeed place his trust in Hashem. At such a time, the role of trust is to guide his actions, heal, and soothe him.

2:39:11Does he turn to the trait of trust, of bitachon, and actually trust Hashem? Or does he particularly at this time not make use of it? All the things that he said to everybody and himself, have bitachon, have bitachon, instead of using it himself, He turns instead to unreliable mortal allies or useful and ignoble strategies. Meaning, instead of having bitachon in Hashem, he starts asking people for favors. He starts asking for this. He starts looking for other ways to figure out a situation. Wait, didn't you say you have bitachon in Hashem? What happened? What happened? Why are you trying to escape your problems? That's because the whole time you were a faker. So, habrutai, the key ingredient The key ingredient to having this is to be real with ourselves. You have to be real with yourself. You cannot lie to yourself throughout your entire life and pretend like we did for everything, pretend like we don't have to fix everything, pretend, pretend, pretend. Every person needs to do a self-accounting. Look, okay, this instruction said, number one, I believe it came from Hashem. Good. Two,

2:40:31If it came from Hashem, I need to know what it says. Okay, so far I know these ten things, I know that's what it says. So these ten things that I know it says, am I doing them? Compare. Okay, you don't know everything. I don't know everything. Nobody knows everything. Okay, but you know something. You know something. Write down, there's ten things you know. Okay, ten things you know. Out of those ten things you know, are you the best at those ten things? Not are you doing them. Are you the best at them? No one's asking if you're keeping Shabbos. Are you the best at keeping Shabbos? Are you the best? Are you enjoying Shabbos? Or is it just like you can't wait till it's over? No one says are you keeping kosher? Are you keeping kosher mamash and you're really enjoying it, the cooking, the preparing, you're enjoying it? Or is it just like, ah, it's food, you know, it's food. Yeah, you know, I can eat pizza, I can eat this, I can eat that, you know.

2:41:33Enjoying the holidays or is it like a time of torture for you? Like, what is it? Every person needs to understand that in order to become who you want to be, who you can be, it requires sacrifice, it requires effort. Without effort, you're not going to succeed in life. The Gemara says that Rabbi Chiya, one of the talmidim of Rabbeinu HaKadosh, Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi... Rabbi Chiya, in his generation, in the days of the Gemara, was worried that the Torah was going to be lost. He's worried. If anybody doesn't mind bringing me a cup, I would appreciate it. One person, not 15 people. You can bring me a cup. Are you standing up already? Cup, cup, not the bottle. The bottle I have already. I just need a cup. Thank you. How many people are required to get a cup? One. Thank you. Call the other people off. You already succeeded. Three other people followed you, all eager to do a mitzvah. Thank you, thank you.

2:43:04So far so good? On the same page? Anybody have any questions on anything I said so far? Or anything else? Anybody have any questions about anything else I said? Go ahead. Same price. So when you're saying Hashem himself has to testify, that category is bigger than just He's going to know whether or not it's real. That's the point at which He's saying... So, because we're not shamans, we don't know exactly. But what we do know is that Hashem has to testify about your heart, which He knows, in the 13 Principles of Faith. You're supposed to say them every day. Most people say it after Shacharit. And one of them, one of the 13 Principles of Faith, is... determines whether you're a Jew or not. It doesn't matter if your mom is a Jew, or your father's a Jew, or your uncle's a Jew, or if you converted. If you don't believe these 13 Principles of Faith, you're not a Jew; you're a kofer. One of them is that you know, understand, and believe that Hashem knows what's in your heart, meaning what you're thinking about at all times. Nothing escapes Hashem. If you think that maybe Hashem doesn't know this one idea that you just came up with...

2:44:31You and J.C. Penney, same thing. Same thing. You need to know Hashem knows what's in your heart. That's what makes Him Hashem. If you know something He doesn't know, you would be Hashem. That's why when the Chachamim would ask Him, with the greatness of Hashem, "What about this? What do you think Hashem is doing? What do you think about Hashem in this situation?" Eventually, they would arrive at the conclusion: "If I knew what Hashem is thinking, I would be Him." If I understood Him, I would be Him. We understood certain things that He said, but people ask certain questions as if they know what Hashem is thinking. We don't. We just know what He said. So now Hashem said, He has to testify that you are not going to go back to the sin. How? Even though He knows the future, there are two aspects of the future. The Rambam discusses it in Shemonah Perakim,

2:45:32He also discusses it in Moreh Nevuchim, Guide to the Perplexed. And he also discusses it a little bit in Yad HaChazakah, the Mishneh Torah. And Rabbi Yisrael Salanter discusses it a little bit, and Rabbi Yitzchak Blazer discusses it, and many other places. The two aspects of the future. There's the future that Hashem knows that's eternal, that He is part of it. The past, the present, the future is all the same to Him. And that is the future based on your reality, where you stand—the logical aspect of it. And that's what He uses to judge you. He doesn't use the future that's beyond your reality to judge you. He did not punish Yishmael for sins he didn't commit, even though He knew that in the future he would commit them. did not destroy Yishmael because he's going to have children that eventually become these Arabs that terrorize every day and kill in the streets. Even though it all started with Yishmael, He did not punish Yishmael for that. Why? Because at the time Yishmael didn't sin. He's not going to punish him before he sinned. He did not punish Noach for being careless one time in his life. One time.

2:47:00he was not only righteous, he was complete with Hashem. Whatever Hashem says, I'm going to do. No questions asked. No questions asked. Oh, it's Kodesh Kodashim. Some people say, yeah, but it's only in his generation, only his generation. That just simply means they don't understand anything. Why? Because to be righteous, if all of your friends are Chassidim, Tzaddikim, Kodesh Kodashim, it's not so difficult. Big deal, you keep Shabbos. Wow. Your whole neighborhood, your 5,000 people, your neighbors, they all keep Shabbos, and you keep Shabbos. Oh, what a big deal. What a big deal. If one donkey sees 5,000 other donkeys running, it runs also. What's the big deal? Will you give the donkey a reward for running? You see in a forest, one deer starts running, another deer starts running, next thing, the bear is running. Everybody's running. Why? Because the deer saw fire. Everybody trusts the bear. Maybe he's right. Everybody starts running. So, if you're among a bunch of Tzaddikim, and everybody keeps being smart, it's not such a big deal.

2:48:19Torah says, that's the significance of Noach. Noach was a tzaddik in his generation when everyone else was a rasha. That's what made him special. Everyone else was a murderer, rapist, thief, liar, garbage of the world. To be a tzaddik under those conditions, that's something special. But Noach made a mistake. Noach made one mistake in his entire life. After the Mabul. Before the Mabul, he made one mistake. After the Mabul, he made one mistake. Two mistakes that we know of. Before the Mabul, he made a mistake where he didn't go to the people and tell them, "Listen, Hashem is going to destroy the world. You should do teshuva, you should do teshuva." He only did it if they came to him. If they came to him, he told them, "You should do teshuva." But if they didn't come to him, he didn't go after them. The Torah says if he would have gone to other people and asked them, Hashem wouldn't have destroyed the world. The second mistake he made after, the second mistake he made after, is he had a few drinks. He had a few drinks.

2:49:35What's the big deal having a few drinks? It's allowed. It's allowed to have drinks. Anybody seen in the Torah that it's not allowed to have a drink? The Torah says, Noach, just saw the entire world get destroyed. Picture this, Rabotai. The entire world, the entire planet, with few exceptions, was destroyed. He witnessed this. He went in the boat, there were people. Came out of the boat, nothing. Death. No trees, no nothing. Horrible scene. Before, The world was completely full of beauty. Everything was like diamonds. Something that you cannot even imagine. To us, if we saw even 10% of what the world used to look like, it would be like Gan Eden. How beautiful the world was. After, there are certain parts that are beautiful to us, but in comparison, it's ugly to what it used to be. He sees this destruction, Hashem,

2:51:06He's in the boat. He's in the ark for a year, feeding the animals. He has to smell the nasty smell all day. All day he's working to feed the animals. One day he was late feeding the lion. The lion gave him a nice tzabcha to the side, and he suffered for the entire year for that. Imagine a lion gives you a nice pow to the side with his claws. It hurts a little bit. A little bit it hurts. You shouldn't try it. Hurts. Noach tried it. It hurts a lot. So Noach got a nice tzabcha. He's suffering. He's in agony and pain the whole time he's in the boat. He can't wait to get out. Families arguing. Who wants to eat? Imagine, we can't even survive Shabbat. We can't even survive Shabbat dinner with family. Imagine you're on a boat with just these people. No one's leaving. All day, the bickering, the fighting, the headaches. And you can't leave. You can't. Listen, I'm going for a breather. You can't. It's raining outside. You can't leave.

2:52:13all they have to hear is their bickering and their yelling and their screaming. "It's your fault! It's your fault! You did it! You did it!" No! Who? Ah! All they have to hear is this stuff. You want to be one with the animal to kill you now. Already you're thinking, "Maybe I should go outside with the mabul with the rest of the people. Who wants to be in this boat?" Finally, he survives the boat. A year has passed of this torture. People think he was on a love boat or something. He's tortured on this boat. A year, a year. He's on this boat. Misken, the poor guy. Finally, he gets out. He starts crying into his hands. "What'd you do to the world?" Hashem says, "Raya shoteh, you're like a shepherd, like a drunk shepherd. You should have cried before the mabul. If you would have cried before the mabul, I wouldn't have destroyed the world." So maybe... Noach is a little bit upset. Can you say, I mean, would you be upset? You just saw the whole world get destroyed. You just suffered in a boat with your family. Got a little upset. He goes, he says, let me plant some trees. He plants a tree, bro, you know, he gets some grapes, finally gets some grapes, makes himself a little bit of wine. You don't have Coca-Cola in those days. There's no Pepsi. What are you going to make yourself? What do you drink? You drink wine. So he makes himself some wine.

2:53:38That's what it says. Noach planted a tree. The tree produced grapes. From the grapes, he made some wine. And he drank. He got drunk. That's it. This was a mistake. This was a mistake. Why? Torah says it was better off even though everything he did is allowed. He's allowed to drink. Allowed. Allowed to drink. No problem to drink. This is the Gadol HaDor. The biggest of the biggest. The whole world came from him. It was better for him not to be born. For this pursuit to be written about him. Why? Because we know that after this, when he, for a moment, just one moment, was careless and drank just one extra cup. One extra cup, not ten extra cups. He didn't open a bar. We didn't have to take him to rehab, and yes, to Alcoholics Anonymous.

2:55:04No, he had one time an extra drink, one time, and Hashem, Yerachem, his grandson took advantage of it, and Hashem, Yerachem, what he did to him. The Torah says it was better for him not to be born than to have such a thing written in the Torah. When something is written in Shamaim, Rabotai HaYekarim, it's not something that just goes in passing like a headache. Rabbi Yagen, alav ha-shalom, says in many of his lectures, one of the things that Rabbi Yisroel Salanter and Mishlei said is that one of the worst tragedies in the history of mankind is the Ma'aseh Dina. What happened to Dina? What happened to Dina? What happened to Dina? Dina was Kodesh Kodashim, one of the daughters of Yaakov. One day, she decided she wanted to go out and see the daughters of the world, the women of the world. It says the goy saw her and had his way with her.

2:56:30against her will. And now, think about this. This is a tragedy of its own. A woman gets raped, chas v'shalom, it's a tragedy. It passes, something happens. It passes, and hopefully the woman Doesn't have to relive it every day. I mean, eventually, hopefully, she moves on with her life. It's a traumatizing experience, nonetheless. You cannot minimize it. But eventually, it passes. But imagine what's happening here. Imagine that something happened to a woman. The next day, it's in all the newspapers. Every newspaper. Every newspaper. She can't take it. It's in all the newspapers in town. She leaves town. She goes to the next town. It's in their newspapers also. She says, "I can't go." She goes to a different state. It's in all their newspapers also. She leaves the country. She comes to America. As soon as she gets off the plane, they're waiting for her. All the reporters are waiting for her.

2:57:48Oh, no, no, here's the woman that this happened to her. Oh, wow, wow. She just wants to bury herself. She goes to a different country. Pictures, look what happened. This is the woman, this is the woman, this is the woman. Now, if this happened one time to a woman, one day in her life, if this all happened to her, she would want to commit suicide. Who wants to live like this? Imagine she has to live this every single day for the rest of her life for eternity. For eternity, the little children in first grade in yeshiva, second grade in yeshiva, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh grade, the kollel, the talmidei chachamim, the gedolei hador, the biggest rabbis in the world, the guy that comes to shul once a year—everybody has to hear the story. It's available in a book for eternity. In Beit Din Shel Ma'ala and Beit Din Shel Mata. They study this Pasuk. They study this Pasuk in Gan Eden. In Gan Eden they say, look at what happened to Dinah, Hashem Yerachem. In Gan Eden they hear this. And over here they hear it. It's worse than Gehinom.

2:59:03For what? What did she do so bad? It was, I mean, imagine this is worse than Gehinom. It's like you say, listen, where's the fire? Who wants to live like this? Just experiencing it alone. I'm not a woman, but I can't imagine. I know some women that these things have happened to them and, Hashem, they're traumatized for life in some cases. In most cases. But forget about traumatized ones. Imagine every day, all the time, in every generation, for eternity. Just thinking about it is a nightmare. What did she do that she deserved such a punishment? What did she do? Did she kill people? Did she walk around with a mini skirt? She walked around like this, Hashem yishmor, this woman from far away, Baruch Hashem, I didn't see up close, but from far away I saw she had a kisui rosh and a tank top. Today. She had a kisui rosh, mitpachat, but she was wearing a tank top. I don't know, maybe she was a biker, maybe. I don't know. Maybe she's a biker.

3:00:04I have no idea what's wrong with people today. But I'm thinking, what did this woman do that she gets this punishment? What does it say? Do you remember what it says? Do you remember what it says? What did she do? What did Dinah do to get such a thing? What did Dinah do that's so bad that every single Beit Din from Shamayim to Aretz, big yeshiva, small yeshiva, big talmidim, small talmidim, every single person from Am Yisrael, the goyim hear it, the Jews, everybody knows the story. What did Dinah do? What did Dinah do that she deserves this horrible thing that the whole world needs to hear this story a million times for eternity? Dinah wanted to go see what the girls of the world are doing. That's it. And she violated the mitzvah of Am Yisrael, kol kevuda bat melech penima. The mitzvah of a bat Yisrael, all of our honor, inside. You have no business going to see what the women of the world are doing.

3:01:20You have no business going to see what the goyot are doing. Who says you're not going to be influenced and want to do what they're doing? Why are you taking the risk? Maybe you like what they're doing, and they're wearing tank tops; now you're going to want to wear a tank top. Maybe they're eating pork, and you're going to want to eat pork. Why are you taking such a risk? Why are you taking such a risk to go see? What business do you have to see what the goyot of the world are doing? It's not like she wanted to go see the guys. Chas v'shalom, she wanted to see the guys. What punishment she would get. This is, she wanted to go see the girls. Let me just go hang out with a few girls in town. We'll have coffee together. We'll have coffee together, me and my girlfriends. We'll have dinner tonight. Let me just go. What's the big deal? I'm having dinner tonight. What? What? What's the problem? A woman does not belong outside in the streets. She does not belong outside in the streets. That was Dina's mistake. That is why she's getting this. But what's her zechut?

3:02:30You heard the story. Every single person who understood the words that came out of my mouth did a little bit of teshuvah from it. Why? You're scared to death something's going to be written about you right now. Because you should know, everything that we do, that we say is being written in the Torah as we speak. Every single thing you do, every single thing you're going to do, everything you did is being written in the Torah as we speak. Right now, it's being written in the Torah. So imagine, right now, nobody knows I did it. Nobody saw me. Nobody saw me. They're going to see you. They're going to see you. Watch. They're going to see you. You'll go up to Shamayim. Say, come, come, Hamudi, come. Come, let me show you what you did. Wait, who else knows this? Everybody. Everybody knows. You see millions and millions of neshamot coming, looking at you. It's like, you did it. You did this? It's you? It's you? You did this? Disgusting. Disgusting. That's what you do to Abba? This is how you went? This is how you thanked Hashem? This is what you did to thank Hashem? They spit at you in Shamayim. They say, when a person sees what he did, he asks Hashem to punish him. He asks Hashem, please punish me. Please, I can't take it. I'd rather get punished.

3:03:58I'd rather get punished. I can't take it. I can't take it. I can't take it. I cannot believe I did this to You. I cannot believe I did this to You. Because now he sees the real perspective. He sees the real perspective, the magnitude of his sin. And Hashem, where a person stands, he wants to go to Gehenom. He wants to go. The Reishit Chochmah says, he asks Hashem, Hashem, please send me to Gehenom. Please. I cannot believe I hurt You like this. The story came out almost 20 years ago. Yes, go ahead. If a person makes the same sin over and over again, is it written every single time? Yes. And every single time, they'll show him exactly how he did it and what he did. We say that Hashem, nothing benefits or harms Hashem in any way, shape, or form. The only thing that Hashem does for us is benefit. Obviously, there's a system, there's karet, there's punishments, there's a cleanliness, whatever. For those people who are cut off, karet, what benefit is there for that person who will never ever seek an end here? What's the purpose of it? The whole purpose is...

3:05:16What's the benefit for Hashem to let him exist? Or what's the benefit for Hashem to give him karet? There's no arrogance toward Hashem. There's no feelings that Hashem has. So, when a person sins, the Torah asks, what's the point of punishing him? He sins. Destroy him. That's it. Why is he even getting punished? Why bother even punishing him? And ultimately, what benefit does Yerushalayim get out of it, out of punishing him? Not only that, let's say your other option is just destroying him. What's the benefit of that either? The point is, Hashem shouldn't do it for purposes to do good. Hashem shouldn't have any feelings. So... since Hashem is good and was always good, always will be good, we cannot benefit Him in any way, shape, or form. We understand, to our level of understanding, that the only reason why He created us is in order to give us good. To give us good. Because good creates good.

3:06:47Therefore, when a person sins, Hashem is in a place where He cannot give him good. And for that reason, he gets punished. It's not that Hashem is less because of him. It's not that Hashem gets a benefit out of punishing him. But ultimately, the reason why Hashem put a piece of Himself, figuratively speaking and literally speaking, in your neshama—a part of your neshama is Hashem Himself, and a part of your neshama is independent from Hashem. But in essence, the two are glued together, if you will. They're one. They don't know the difference. It's as if it was one. The reason why Hashem invested so much into you is because He wanted to give you good. But He knew that if He only gave you good, there would be no purpose for your creation. That's why He brought you to the world where there's a test. On the other hand, He cannot reward you for doing bad. Because by doing bad, you're directly causing Him to go against the purpose of the world.

3:08:14You're causing Him not to be able to do what He created you to do, which is to give you good. And therefore, when a person does bad, Hashem has to destroy that connection between his neshama, the person's neshama, and Hashem Yitbarach. So what happens is, if chas v'shalom, chas v'shalom, a person does not do teshuva... and dies and leaves this world and has no tikun, has no tikun, then in order for Hashem to separate His part from the neshama that was created, that part has to be destroyed. It has to go through the destruction of Gehenom and it has to be destroyed until the point where it simply doesn't exist. And that process, apparently, is not a one-two-three process. Would that not be considered a limitation? I mean, I fear, but I'm saying like, it sounds like a limitation. No, not a limitation indeed, because most of the things that Hashem creates, we don't really have even a general understanding of their significance, of how big they are, and how much magnitude they have. For example, they say that you're not allowed...

3:09:36to ever evaluate or measure the size of any mitzvah, big or small. And the reason why is because we think that if we make one simple mitzvah, okay, so maybe I'm going to get a nice house because of this mitzvah. Maybe I'm going to get a nice little city in Gan Eden. We don't realize the magnitude of these things. So as an example, one of the Chachamim explained once is that when a person makes a small, tiny sin, They think, oh yeah, you know, this is probably a little annoying, like a fly to Hashem. Shoo, shoo away. They don't realize that that sin is not even, not even the same level as an atomic bomb going off and destroying an entire country. It's not even equivalent to that. When that person arrives in their Olam HaBa, they're going to see literally a destroyed

3:10:36planet from one sin. I'm not talking about all of their sins. The same concept goes for one mitzvah. They're going to see worlds, not a world, not a city, not a house, not an apple, not candy, not a little bit of money in the bank account—worlds being created out of a tiny little mitzvah. The magnitude of the actions that we have is immeasurable for us. Same thing that a person has an immeasurable understanding, a limited understanding of even his own capabilities. Oh, I forgot the battery is off. Why didn't anybody tell me? A person doesn't have... a person... Let me just check...

3:11:50If anybody sees this going red, tell me, please. A person does not have an understanding of the magnitude of their actions. Simply doesn't. Does not have an understanding of the magnitude of their neshama, what potential their neshama has. If they did, they literally wouldn't leave the Torah. I'll give you a story. It's been a while since I gave you a story. After the story, a woman came from a religious house and she found a shidduch, an avrech, who learns Torah. Good boy. And he wanted to study Torah. So, I'm going to make parnasah. She said, my father agreed to pay for us for five years. It's a good deal, good shidduch. Deal. So they get married. The father pays their bills for five years. After five years, the father says to the daughter, okay, deal's up, five years. You're on your own.

3:13:17woman comes to the husband and she says, "Honey, you gotta go get yourself a job. We gotta make some money, so maybe you should go. I know you want to learn and everything else, but maybe you go work for my father. Put in a few hours a day, put in a few hours a day, and that's enough. I'll work the rest." "Okay, no problem," he started working. got a taste of money, liked it, three hours a day, started working four hours, got some more money, he liked it too, five hours, got some more money, he liked it, six hours. Before you know it, within a matter of months, he's working full time and stopped studying. The day he started working full time and stopped studying, something happened to his wife, ...and she started shaking uncontrollably and saying weird things. She wasn't able to function. They thought maybe she got the flu, maybe she's sick, maybe it's something else. A few big rabbis came by and said, no, we're sorry, she has a dybbuk. She has a dybbuk; she has another soul in her.

3:14:47True story, almost 100 years ago. What do we do? Bring the Chazon Ish. This is Tzadik Chazon Ish. It's written in it. Bring the Chazon Ish. Chazon Ish comes. Ish Kodesh. Kulo Kadosh, not an ounce of him is not holy. He starts talking to the woman. He says, who are you? Me, I'll be running, I'll be hiding in the next city. He goes and talks to them. The difference. Who are you? She said, I was an orphan. An orphan. My parents died. And all I did was make sins my whole life. And Hashem decided to take me early, to take me young. But since when I got to Shamayim, they said, listen, you didn't have parents that could teach you Torah, so we can't send you to Gehinom, but we can't send you to Gan Eden either. You're in, like, limbo. She says, okay, so one day I saw this woman and I went inside her. I said, yeah, but what gives you the right

3:16:13...to go inside this woman. She keeps Torah and mitzvot. She comes from a religious family. What are you doing here? You're not allowed to be in such people. She says, no, her grandfather and her husband's grandfather sent me. The Chazon Ish asks her, why did her grandfather and her husband's grandfather send you? She says, because they were both tzaddikim. Both grandfathers were tzaddikim. And I said, look at this woman. She thinks that money runs the world. She took her husband out of the yeshiva. She took her husband out of Torah to go work. Go inside her and torture her until she understands she made a mistake. So I got permission from Shamayim to go inside and torture her until she stops. On the spot, obviously she pleads, "Please get out of me. He can go back to yeshiva, stay, they don't even come home anymore." But the significance of a neshama, we have no concept of it. We have no concept of it, of how a person leaves this world, what he will look like in the real world, if he could help somebody, not help somebody. About 25 years ago, 20 years ago, there was a story on the radio...

3:17:38Israel came out. The guy had three near-death experiences. I love you again. I love us alone. I heard the story. He says, "Call." He told one of his assistants, "Find out his phone number. Call him. I want to see him." They found out where he lives. They called the city. There were five people with that name. The first one they called happened to be the guy. "You're the guy that died?" "Yes." "You're the one that's alive now?" "Yes." "Okay, we want to talk to you." So he tells him the whole story. He says, "One time, I had a couple of drinks with my friends. Then we decided to go for a drive. It was at night. I was following them, and after a little while, they realized that I wasn't following them anymore. I" turned around. They came back to where they saw me last and they saw that my car rolled off the road, off the mountain. I flew outside of the car through the windshield, and my head smashed on a boulder, dead on the spot. By the time the ambulance came.

3:18:57Minish Emma is floating over there, sees the whole thing. The doctor says, "Okay, just put him in the bag," meaning the body bag, not, "Put him in a body bag." But the guy he was telling this to was like a newbie, a new person. He's like, "Doc, can I try it out on him?" That's why they tried to revive him. "He's dead." "Yeah, but can I try it?" Can I try to revive him? He said, "Listen, okay, we don't have to leave for another few minutes, so whenever they come, you have to put him back." "Okay, okay." So he, oh, he's training. He doesn't get training. It's better to get training on dead bodies than living ones. So he started training on this guy, and to their surprise, after a minute, the guy's heartbeat started coming back. Everyone's in shock. This guy's alive. They called the chopper. The chopper comes to Tveria, picks him up, airlifts him to the hospital. He is in a coma for the next few weeks. Everyone says, okay, this guy's in a coma for life. They're waiting for him to die pretty much. After a few weeks,

3:20:23There's a strange person walking around the hospital. He's like, "Yes, sir, who are you looking for?" He goes, "No, I need the exit." He goes, "Yeah, are you here to see somebody?" He goes, "No, I was a patient." He's like, "What do you mean you were a patient?" He goes, "Yeah, I was in the room over there. I'm such and such." They go run to the door. They see the bed is empty. The guy woke up, took all the wires, all the tubes out of himself. He's 100% healthy, like nothing happened. And he wants to leave. He said, "Okay, hold on a second. Let's at least wait a day. Let's do some checking. It's like a miracle. What happened? This guy is perfectly healthy." He says, "When I went up to Shamayim, I said, 'Give me a chance, I'll do teshuva.' And they let me come back. He didn't do teshuva. He said, 'Let me do teshuva.' He didn't do teshuva." Young guys in Israel, they like to go to India, Brazil, all the centers of avodah zarah; they like to go there. So one day, he decides, after this experience—after he dies, comes back, doesn't do teshuvah—he decides to go to Brazil. And apparently, in Brazil, there's island hopping. There's an area where there are islands.

3:21:43And the guys like to risk their lives by traveling from island to island. But you have to do it at a specific time when the tide is down and you can walk it. Because if the tide is up and it goes up at the same time you're walking, you're dead. You'll drown. So he and his friend decided to go island hopping with a bunch of Brazilians. Brazilian goyim. they're going, going, going, and all of a sudden, he says a huge 150-meter wave came, no more, no less, something like out of the movies, like a tsunami came. And they're crossing; the Brazilians already passed. They're seeing these two poor guys, they're in there, tsunami is on them, and they're seconds from dying. He says, when I got to the top of the wave, I got to the top and I knew this is my last second in life, I screamed, "Hashem, if you're real and you save me now, I'm going to do teshuva." He said, on the spot, the wave went from 150 meters to zero. Flat ground as if it didn't exist. The goyim, the little Brazilian goyim, said this is a miracle.

3:23:07This miracle, nothing happens. He says usually it's days before the tides go away. Days! The tide comes, it stays for days. You can't cross anything. This is a miracle. You're a magician. No teshuva. The tide went from 150 meters to nothing, no teshuva. No teshuva! He says Brazil is not enough, he wants to go where? Sodom and Gomorrah. He wants to go to America. He comes to America, he lives in New York, works in the malls. One day, after work, he starts seeing, he doesn't feel good, but finishes working. He comes outside, and he starts seeing black. Starts seeing black, like his vision becomes black. Not like he's starting to have a hard time seeing, just starts seeing black. He says, "I knew I'm dying. I know I'm dying. I went inside the taxi next to me. I went inside, I told the taxi driver, 'Take me to the police.'"

3:24:28don't know what to do with my body. I gave the guy money, and I started dying. He said within a minute or two, exactly that happened. My soul, my neshama, left the body. Three malachim habala came, three angels of death came, took my neshama, pulled it out, they're all full of ice, scared to death. and started taking me through a tunnel. Scariest thing in the world. They bring me to the Beit Din of Shamayim. I see the Beit Din of Shamayim. Everything is beautiful. And then they look at me and say, Pinchas, rasha merusha. You swore to Hashem twice. You'll do teshuva and you didn't do teshuva.

3:25:292,800 years of Kaf HaKela. And then we'll see you again to review what Gehinnom is going to look like. He said, I started screaming and yelling, "No, please, no, let me go, please, please, give me another chance, I'll do teshuva, I'll do teshuva." As a teshuva, they started yelling at me, they started showing me my sins, "Rasha, you swore in Hashem's name, how can you do it?" And I felt so bad and so horrible, he says, misken. And all of a sudden, a spark came out of nowhere, An old man came and testified in my name and said, "Let him go. Let him go back. Give him another chance. He's gonna do teshuva." And I said,

3:26:40We can't let him go. He made this promise twice. The Rav says, no, no, let him go. Give him another chance. This time, he'll do teshuva. This time, he'll do teshuva. Let him go. I swear on my name, he says. I promise. He'll do teshuva. So the Malachim, the Beit Din of Shamayim says to him, since the Baal Shem Tov It's testifying for you. We cannot say no to the Baal Shem Tov. You can go back out there, but only under one condition: you forget everything you saw here. He says, then I started crying hysterically again. He goes, no, don't let me go back then, because I'm going to forget everything. I'm going to come back and be a rasha again. I have to remember it. Let me publicize it. Let me tell people, please, please. I started crying hysterically. And the Baal Shem Tov said again,

3:27:41Let him remember. Let him remember. People will know the story even 20 years after, and they'll do teshuvah because of it. And I said, we trust you. And they let him go back inside his body, and he came back to life. And only then did he find out that he's the great-great-grandson of the Baal Shem Tov. He has the merit of the Baal Shem Tov to make some serious mistakes, and the Baal Shem Tov will fight for him. Why do we have mosquitoes? Why do we have a headache? All of us are related to some big rabbi, some big tzaddik. If you're part of Am Yisrael, you're related to Avraham Avinu. Who says he's going to testify for you though? A person needs to know the magnitude of his neshama is endless. So, Hashem wants to give that neshama the ability to reach the ultimate high, the ability to be right next to Him on the Kisei HaKavod. When a person makes sins and does not do teshuva for them, in essence, they're limiting Hashem. They're doing the one thing that Hashem...

3:29:04cannot do Himself. What? They're limiting Hashem. They're refraining Hashem from giving you good. A person that makes sins forces Hashem to punish him. Why? Because He cannot give you a reward for doing bad. And He cannot do anything. Nothing. He has to punish the person. So in essence, you're forcing Hashem's hand and, in essence, limiting Hashem. And you're going against the creation itself. And for that, Hashem punishes the person. Now, as far as the big punishment and the fire and all of that other stuff, that is a necessary part of burning the tie between Hashem. The neshama that the person has and the connection he has with Hashem, or it's to clean it. It may be to clean it. In most cases, it's to clean it. So now, since we don't understand the full concept of a neshama, I'll give you an idea. Now, there are certain types of material that, for example, if you take a piece of metal,

3:30:19take a piece of metal, and after a while, if you don't take care of it, it could become rusty. Now, if you just have simple water damage, you could easily fix the water damage. With a little bit of care, you could easily fix the water damage. the piece of metal has a small scratch, small scratch, a little bit of grinding with some sandpaper, you could take care of the scratch. But it's different than the water damage. If the scratch is not a scratch, it's almost like it's engraved. Engraved, it's more grinding, it's more difficult to fix it. But if it's rust, it's much more difficult to fix. requires a lot more work, a lot more rough work on the metal. In essence, you have to beat up the metal to take the rust out of it, use different chemicals, undo a process that took a long time to do. When a person makes a sin, each time a person makes a sin, they have a scratch on their neshama that everyone can see, all the other neshamot can see. When they show up to Shamayim, they're not wearing their clothes. They're wearing their deeds. They're wearing their good, and they're wearing their bad. Everyone can see it. Everyone can see, "Oh look, he became a baal brit, look at his right arm. Oh look, his eyes, look his eyes, look at what happened to his eyes." They see everything you see, everything you do, Hashem yirachem.

3:31:35They have a scratch on their neshama that everyone can see, all the other neshamot can see. When they show up to Shamayim, they're not wearing their clothes. They're wearing their deeds. They're wearing their good, and they're wearing their bad. Everyone can see it. Everyone can see, "Oh look, he became a ba'al brit, look at his right arm. Oh look, his eyes, look at his eyes, look at what happened to his eyes." They see everything you see, everything you do, Hashem yirachem. person will die from this, from the embarrassment. So in order to remove these, Hashem has to burn these off. It depends on how deep the sin is. If it's a superficial sin, One time he looked. One time he ate. One time he did this. One time he did that. Superficial sin. It's like water damage. A little deeper sin. It's a scratch. A little deeper sin. Engraving. She walked around immodestly for years. She's completely rusty, full of damage, full of everything. Almost unrepairable. And in some cases, it's too damaged, you just got to destroy it. It all depends on the magnitude of the sin.

3:32:48When Hashem says the covenant is between Me and you, these are the sins that, in essence, are a complete disaster. One of them is Brit. We already talked about Shabbat; the other one is Brit. The Zohar HaKadosh says it is all the same thing as it says in Gemara Masechet Berachot. In the end of times, at the last generation, the Satan will help people think that they are tzaddikim. He'll give them the feeling that they are tzaddikim. He goes to Beit Knesset, he lays tefillin, he gives tzedakah, he's good, his wife is this, they eat kosher, everything else. Why? Because all of that person's mitzvot, every single one of them, goes to give power to the Satan himself. Every single one of them. is Shabbat, is kashrut, is taharat mishpacha, is learning Torah. All of the mitzvot, they give fuel to the Satan himself. Why? Because he's only making one sin. Which one? Gama Brit.

3:34:06He makes Gam HaBrit, he wastes seed, all of the Kedusha, instead of going to Shamayim to build his Gan Eden, goes to Koach HaSatan. He gives the Satan fuel, he gives the Satan power, and that causes Anashim Malachim, a kind of damage to Am Yisrael. Why? It's such a disaster of a sin, It's such a disaster of a sin; it destroys all of the ropes, the spiritual ropes that connect the neshama to Hashem Yitbarach. It destroys all of them in one shot. Meaning it doesn't matter if he's doing all of his mitzvot. He can do everything. That doesn't matter. He's making the situation worse. But in essence... Just that he could do all of his mitzvot, but he's doing this sin, he's... If he's doing all of the mitzvot and he has one sin, even though the sin is enormous, he only has one thing to do teshuva for. If he does teshuva, then he goes back to bringing holiness to the world and can turn all of his old sins into even mitzvot.

3:35:26But if he doesn't do all of those mitzvot, then he'll never have the ability to do teshuva for that one sin. The only reason a person will ever do teshuva for that one big sin of wasting seed, of going with women that he's not allowed to go with, and so on, is if he does other mitzvot. Because mitzvah goreret mitzvah, sechar mitzvah mitzvah. One mitzvah leads to another mitzvah, and the reward of one mitzvah is another mitzvah. So if he's only making sins, then he'll never even think about doing teshuva. In essence, he's self-destroying, and his whole life is on borrowed time. And there's no good end in sight. On the other hand, if he does mitzvot, if he keeps Shabbat, he keeps Taharat HaMishpacha, he keeps everything else, he can eventually do enough mitzvot that are going to encourage him, give him at least the idea that he needs to do teshuva for that big sin. Give him the idea to do real teshuva, give him the idea, give him the power, give him the strength to stop this big sin because that will help him complete himself.

3:36:43Why would he even have that idea? Because he has, even though the power of those sins is going to the Satan himself, he's still getting rewarded for those mitzvot by having the inclination to do teshuva. So if he dies as is, he has got a serious permanent problem. But if he continues doing mitzvot and eventually does teshuva, then he can put himself in a very good position where all of his sins will turn into mitzvot eventually. No, no, here, here. Yes? I don't know. Educational punishment? Yes or no? Yes or no? Can you learn from punishment? Yes. Is it only for educational purposes? Not always. Because it all depends on a person's perspective and also on the punishment itself. If a person, for example, lost some money, then yes, that could be an educational punishment, where if he realizes that the Gemara calls money damim,

3:38:09Why damim? Damim means blood because a person spends their life, their blood, chasing money. So Hashem, in essence, instead of killing a person for their sins, will take away their money instead and give them more time on earth. So He still has to punish them, but instead of taking their life and ending their opportunity to do teshuva, He could take away something that's the equivalent of life. which is their money, and give them more time to live and hopefully do teshuva. So if somebody loses their money, then if they understand that losing the money, whatever way it is—whether it's due to the stock market, a bad business deal, lost it on the way to work, lost the wallet, whatever the case may be—it's actually Hashem talking to them, then yes, that lesson is a learning opportunity. but if he doesn't, and he sees this as just a bad thing, then it's a pure punishment. But that's not because Hashem meant for it to be a pure punishment. It's because that person is not learning from it. On the other hand, there's another perspective, another point. Sometimes a person gets a broken leg, a broken arm, or some type of physical ailment that's temporary.

3:39:32a punishment, but also as a warning shot that something worse can happen. So again, it could be a lesson, or it could be just a person suffering. But sometimes Hashem gives a person a terminal illness, and he goes to the doctor with a headache and he leaves the doctor realizing that he's only got three weeks to live. There's not much to learn there. All he has to do, all she has to do is make as many mitzvot as they possibly can over the time that they have allotted to them. Whether it's three weeks, three hours, three minutes, three years, whatever it is. They have to pretty much do teshuva as if they became the Baba Sali overnight. Unfortunately, most people don't do that. either continue looking for opportunities to find another way to live longer, or they just give up, or they do silly, stupid things. The point is most people don't take it as a learning opportunity. A person cannot change their perspective overnight into a Torah perspective just because an event or disaster happens in everybody's life. Problems happen in everybody's life.

3:40:55And the only way that a person could naturally go and realize this is Hashem talking to them is if they've already trained themselves before it happened to think that way. If they've already learned enough Torah and implemented enough Torah in their life before it happened to realize that as soon as it happened, almost like a reflex, "Oh, this is Hashem. This is Hashem talking to me." Oh, I lost money? Oh, it's Hashem talking to me. Oh, my wife yelled at me? Oh, it's Hashem talking to me. Oh, my partner wants to break up? Oh, okay, it's Hashem talking to me. They've already trained their whole life to realize everything is Hashem talking to me. This is something you can train yourself to do, and when the time happens, whatever person, when the big test happens, you can use it at that point. That's when you really measure a person. A big person, like the Chafetz Chaim used to say, a big person is not measured by small things; a big person is measured by big things. Meaning, if you ever see a diamond, see that diamond is one of the strongest materials on earth. For many years, many centuries, it was the strongest until they discovered a few things that are stronger. But for better or for worse

3:42:24it's at least one of the top five strongest materials on earth. To such an extent that the Midrash says, one person said, "How strong is a diamond?" So another one says, "Listen, take a hammer and smash the diamond. See, I'll show you. That's the only way you're going to learn. Me telling you it's really strong, it's strong, it's really strong, it's not going to change anything. Take your hammer, your best hammer, take your hammer, smash the diamond, see what happens." That's what the Midrash says. The guy took the hammer, smashed the diamond; the hammer shattered to pieces, and the diamond stayed exactly as it was. Nothing changed. To such an extent that we know that a diamond, if you want to cut it to make it shiny and beautiful and have all of the different reflections of the light—Baruch Hashem—my father has been in the diamond business for 50 years. Remember going to his factory when I was a kid. You'd have all these people, you know, with a piece of metal holding this big giant piece of metal, and then they have a spinning wheel going really, really fast—another big, huge piece of metal. But this other big piece of metal has this holder, has this tiny little holder. It's like a little clip, and...

3:43:47But this big holder, in essence, has a lot of pressure, has a lot of power to hold, at the end of it, a tiny little diamond. And a tiny diamond, they put it on top of this spinning wheel. And that spinning wheel, I only learned many, many years later, is full of diamonds on it. They put diamond dust on it. Because the only way to cut a diamond is with diamonds. The only way to cut the diamond is with diamonds. Why? Because a diamond is very strong. On the other hand, if you take a CZ, a cubic zirconia, it looks the same or even better than a diamond. You see a lot of these young kids, they have these big earrings. If it was a diamond, the guy would be a millionaire. But in reality, it's a $5 piece of glass. But it looks beautiful and it looks like a diamond, if you like diamonds. What's the difference between the CZ, the cubic zirconia, and the diamond? If you look at them, you can't tell the difference with the naked eye unless you're a professional. You can't tell the difference. In fact, the cubic zirconia looks better. It looks shinier, looks brighter. Wonderful.

3:45:06How do you know, how can you tell the difference between the two? Under pressure. You take the hammer, smash the diamond, the hammer breaks. You take the hammer, smash the cubic zirconia, the cubic zirconia ceases to exist. Disappears, shatters to nothing. Like glass, like nothing. It is glass. Meaning that the only way you can tell if something is a diamond or not is under pressure. What kind of pressure? Extreme pressure. If you just squeeze both of them with your hand, nothing will happen. The diamond, nothing will happen. The cubic zirconia, nothing will happen. A little bit of pressure, both of them are the same. A lot of pressure, the diamond shows you it’s a diamond, and the cubic zirconia shows you it’s nothing. A big person, a little bit of pressure, everybody here, everybody there, everybody everywhere says, "Ah, that's life. I got a flat tire. Everybody gets a flat tire. The ATM machine didn't work. Ah, everybody's ATM machine doesn't work sometimes."

3:46:10Oh, I got fired. I got hired. Oh, life's problems. Yes, no. Sometimes you lose your temper. Sometimes you don't. Sometimes you pretend you have emunah. Sometimes you don't. Bottom line is, life's pressures, ups and downs, it all depends on your personality. Some people are very hot fire, like me, where we're naturally always angry. And unless you have Torah, you're like a machine that wants to kill people. But you have Torah, Baruch Hashem, it calms you down. Other people are very calm and collected, like Betzalel, always happy, always happy. Nothing gets them angry, Baruch Hashem. Some people are lucky enough to have such a personality. When is the real test? Naturally, we can both be the same. Naturally, we can both be the same. Why? His ATM machine doesn't work, my ATM machine doesn't work. His flat tire, my flat tire. His wife, my wife. Naturally, it's all the same thing, naturally. When can you tell the difference? Under big pressure. Under big, serious pressure. That's when you tell if someone's a diamond or not. A lot of people talk about emunah.

3:47:25A lot of people like to talk about these big keywords because they get you hits on YouTube. You write a lecture, it says Mashiach, automatic 10,000 hits. You have a lecture that says Geulah, automatic 15,000 hits. It doesn't matter who you are; you can be a donkey. Just put a banner in the background, and you get hits. That doesn't mean you have emunah. You can read from a book about emunah all day. Because when he says, a lot of people train themselves, they read a lot of books about emunah. It doesn't mean anything. How are you going to know if the guy's a diamond? How do you know if the guy has real emunah? When Hashem starts torturing him. But He doesn't torture him to torture him. He tortures him because He loves him. He puts pressure on him. He puts pressure on him. I want to see you do under pressure. I want to see if you stick around or if you break into nothing. I want to see. I want to see what happens. A lot of people forget that one of the foundations of our Torah, we learn from this week's parasha from Moshe Rabbeinu. Hashem calls him Ish HaElokim.

3:48:48the man of God. And the pasuk says, the pasuk says, Torah that Moshe commanded us is a heritage of the congregation of Yaakov. Chachamim say, wait a minute, isn't this a little bit of a problem, this verse? What do you mean Moshe tziva lanu? What do you mean Moshe commanded us? Hashem commanded us, not Moshe. Hashem commanded us. Why are you saying Torah tziva lanu Moshe? It's not Moshe. Hashem commanded us. Hashem wrote this verse over here. It says Torah tziva lanu Moshe, not Hashem. Moshe. Why? teach us one of the most important foundations of Judaism: Emunat Chachamim. If the Torah said Torah Tziva Lanu Hashem

3:50:00Then everyone would say, yeah, yeah, it's what Hashem commanded me. And everybody would interpret it their own way. Yeah, Hashem says this. This is what Hashem meant to me. Maybe it means something else to you. Maybe this, maybe that. Once he says, Oh, that's one law. That's a uniform law. That's one law over here. That's it. We know the rabbi was given the tools to tell us what to do. The rabbi was giving us the tools. From here, we learn something called Emunat Chachamim. The problem with Emunat Chachamim is people believe in them until the Chacham says something they don't like. Oh, he's a Tzadik. Tzadik, I love this rabbi. He's the best. He's the best. He's the best. He's the best. Three years, he's the best. Three years, two days, and a half an hour. He says something. Oh, I didn't like it. He's Rasha, Amalek, Haman, the worst guy in the world. I can't believe it. What happened? Three years, everything was good. What happened in that one day? Oh, yeah, he said something I didn't like.

3:51:11What did he say? He said, you know, something I didn't like. What? What did he say? He said, I have to do teshuva. You have to do teshuva. No, you do teshuva. You do teshuva. I do teshuva already. Sometimes you like what the chacham says; he says the best. But it doesn't make him a chacham. What makes a person a chacham is if he says what Hashem says. What makes a person a chacham is if he tells you what Hashem says regardless of what your opinion is, regardless of whether you like it, regardless of whether you don't like it. A person who has emunat chachamim always wins. A person who doesn't have emunat chachamim always loses. This is one of the things that a person simply does not understand. People don't understand this in their heads. They always try to say, no, no, no, maybe he meant this. Maybe he meant something else. No, but he told you what he meant. Yeah, but you know, maybe, maybe, maybe. They try to manipulate what the Chacham said. Maybe it's something else because I don't like what he said there. So maybe it's something else that he said. Maybe he meant something else. They become Rashi on the Chacham. They become a commentator on the Chacham. And this is poison.

3:52:27The reason why is because Hashem gives the Chacham Siyata Dishmaya. He gives him special assistance from heaven to specifically say things for you. Once you change what he said and manipulate it to fit you, instead of understanding what he said, You now took the special assistance from Heaven that Hashem specifically gave you as a present. You took it, you wrapped it, and you threw it in the garbage. You took a gift that Hashem gave you. Instead of saying, "Oh, thank you, Hashem. I love you. You're the best. Thank you for sending somebody that's going to tell me. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I know it's hard, it's hard for me to accept it, but I appreciate that you sent them to tell me the truth. Thank you, thank you, thank you," you said, "See this? Take this back." That's the problem. Why? Because when a person starts doing that, Hashem stops sending presents.

3:53:34I sent you presents. You spit in my face. I sent you a present. Instead of saying thank you, you spit in my face. What do you want? No, why did Hashem do this to me? He didn't do it to you. You did it to yourself. He sent you a present. He didn't like you spitting in His face. Now He didn't like it. You spit in His face. And now you're dealing with it. So what do you blame Hashem for? It's not Hashem's fault. You did it. A lot of people cause problems for themselves. I had a person send me the other day. Listen, I'm really worried. I said, why are you worried? He said, I'm really, really worried because we have this deal and I'm not really sure if this deal is going to go through. I'm like, wait a minute, but you got the money, right? To do the deal. Yeah, yeah, I got the money. I said, so do the deal. He goes, no, but I'm trying to see if maybe over the next three days that I have as a deadline, maybe I could do a better deal. I said, wait a minute, hold on a second. You have the money to do the deal, right? He said, yes. But now, you're playing with fire. You're going to play with the three days that you have to maybe get a better deal or maybe lose the whole thing. Is that right? Yeah. And you're worried? Is something wrong with you? You're causing yourself pain and then you're saying, ow?

3:54:57Stop causing yourself pain. It's like somebody's slapping themselves in the face and saying, "Ow, that hurt." Stop slapping yourself! What's the matter with you? You can't cause yourself pain and say, "No, you shouldn't do this to me." What do you mean? You did it to yourself! A lot of things people do to themselves. Why? They don't have Emunat Chachamim. They always want more than what they have. They don't like the decree that they have. They want to change things, and they force things, and a lot of times they manipulate things and say, "No, no, this is from Hashem too." No, no, no. This is from you. Hashem was the first option. Hashem was the option you didn't like. You did this. This is all you. No problem. No one says you're not allowed. You're allowed to do whatever you want. That's all you. Don't blame Hashem if it doesn't work out. Hopefully, it does, but it's all you. It's all you. This is people playing, this is people, like she said, this is people playing casino with their life. People playing casino with their life. A lot of people did this throughout all of history. It's no different. Heard some stories from the Chazon Ish about it. How literally people trusted their lives in the hands of the Chazon Ish, even though things didn't make sense at all. Why? That Emunat Chachamim. Every single time, every single time, it saved their life.

3:56:21Every single time, it saved their life. Why? Because once you trust the chacham, Hashem makes it so. Why? Because Hashem said, "Torah tziva lanu Moshe, morasha kehillat Yaakov." Hashem sent you the chacham. He sent you Moshe. He didn't say, "I command it." He said, "I sent you Moshe Rabbeinu." I sent you the chachamim. And I'm not talking about just anybody that has a beard and a hat. I'm talking about people that have Yirat Shamayim. I'm talking about people that care about you. I'm talking about people that know what they're doing. Even though sometimes the things they say are not to your liking. Reality is, Rabotai, it's very, very hard. And people ask all the time, "What do I think is important for teshuva? What's the secret? What's the secret?" i can tell you for myself, naturally, naturally, I've said this in previous lectures, I only say this to help you and not necessarily to insult myself. You're not supposed to insult yourself. But naturally, my natural inclination is I'm a very, very arrogant person, naturally. I think I'm better than everybody, naturally. Even though I'm right most of the time.

3:57:41Not because I'm better naturally, but simply because I'm willing to try harder than most people. It's still not a good thing to have naturally. You're not supposed to be arrogant. It's a bad thing. It's an evil trait. Naturally, I don't like to have bosses my whole life. But whenever I had bosses, I listened to them. Why? I'm working for you. I'm under your roof. You're paying my bills. Yeah, of course, I'm the one making sales. I'm the one doing my thing. But in essence, if you don't sign the check... I don't have any money. You have to be grateful. But I never liked having bosses. It was part of the process. However, any opportunity that I had to be independent, I always took it. I always took the opportunity to be independent. So when I was in the business world, as soon as I made a few dollars... let's continue. Let's do a second video after four and a half hours on Facebook. One second, let me stay with the same train of thought.

3:59:25okay, so when I was in the business world, I was in the business world. I was in the business world. I, uh, in the beginning, I ate straw for a while, you know, meaning I paid my dues, and, uh You realize there are other people here, right? You realize there are other people here, right? And you're disturbing. Thank you. So, as soon as I made a few dollars, I had two opportunities. One opportunity was to go work for a few firms. One big firm offered me $1.2 million to go work for them as a sign-on bonus. Another crooked firm offered me $3.6 million. But since I wasn't a criminal, I didn't want to work for them either. But the big firm, a company called Smith Barney, was a good firm to work for. But it was either that or be independent, meaning start my own shop. And even though a million dollars is a lot of money,

4:00:48i chose to go independent. And the reason why is because I knew that if I started my own shop, I would be able to grow the way I wanted to grow. I would be able to pitch what I wanted to pitch. I would be able to do whatever I wanted to do. Part of it is because I thought I had better ideas than the system, because I did. Part of it was because of bad inclinations. Either way. That's been my life. I have always gone my own road, my own way, and tried to avoid under all conditions having a boss. The same thing was also implemented when I would deal with clients. Even though I had some really big clients at times, and some small clients at other times, all clients were treated the same. All clients were treated the same. If you already became, if I already made you a client, you get the same treatment—sometimes even better treatment if you're smaller, depending on what you needed. But you weren't treated with any special favoritism just because you had more money with me. I didn't jump at your phone call. I didn't start chasing you because you were some big client. To me, it didn't really make a difference. Why? Again, my ego maybe was a part of the reason.

4:02:12Reasons simply because I just didn't see a reason to chase anybody. So when I did, I started doing teshuva. The first thing I understood when I started listening to and talking to other frum people is that he knew more than me. I immediately understood he knew more than me about this, maybe about other things. He didn't know. I didn't know what he knew. But I appreciated his knowledge about Torah. And I knew for sure he knew more than me. The second thing I knew is that he meant for my best interest because he had no benefit out of it. It wasn't like I was paying him. It wasn’t a salary. I wasn’t giving him any donations. I was actually kind of annoying to deal with because I was constantly screaming and yelling in pain of some type—emotional, physical. So I saw he had no benefit in doing it. So he's looking out for my best interest, plus he knows more than me. So I have to listen to him. Little by little, I realized that it's not that I should listen to him; it's that I have to listen to him. And this became more and more difficult over time. Not because what he said was so...

4:03:37out of the ordinary or anything. But rather because it constantly obligated me to change. It constantly obligated me to swallow my own pride because I thought I knew better. And naturally, in some cases, I was sure I knew better. But early on, my wife and I realized that it's either all or nothing. Either you listen to the Chacham or don't listen at all. 50-50 doesn't work. 90-10 doesn't work either. You're all in, or you're all out. In my opinion, that's been the secret for us. Many of the people who became giants in Torah, that's been their secret. The students of Rav Wasserman, alav ha-shalom, are... writes in his bio, in his book, of how when they were little kids, young kids in his yeshiva, they admired him and were scared to death of him. He was like fire. One thing they could never understand is how he became like a little boy once a year, when it was time to go visit his Rebbe, the Chafetz Chaim.

4:05:05He was mamash, like a little boy. You see this fire, giant, Kodesh Kodashim, Moshe Rabbeinu of this generation, all of a sudden becomes this little, puny-like, little yeshiva boy. Why? Going to visit my Rebbe. Who? Chafetz Chaim, going to visit him. And he would come back after he visited him for Rosh Hashanah, he'd come back, only talk about him. Chafetz Chaim did this, Chafetz Chaim did that, and you have to see this. All day he would talk about Chafetz Chaim and the wonders and how he was mamash, scared of his shadow. but you're a giant, you're of your own, you're a big chacham yourself, it's not like he's nothing. You're one of the Gedolei HaDor. Nothing, nothing. One time he wrote a Devar Torah that was published, and someone went against him, wrote an article against him, saying he was wrong. And he started the article, he says, oh, this Rav Wasserman, The Talmid, the student of the Chafetz Chaim, made a critical mistake about such and such and he wrote the whole article about it. So Rav Wasserman, alav hashalom, wrote a response. He says, "The Kevod HaRav made a very critical mistake in saying that I am the Talmid of the Chafetz Chaim."

4:06:32Alvai, I would one day have the merit to be on such a high level of being even a Talmid of the Chafetz Chaim. Oh, and in regards to all the things he said I had a mistake on, here are the proofs of how he's wrong. Meaning, the whole argument was about, no, you made a mistake. No, I didn't make a mistake. There's nothing. The mistake you made is not that. The mistake you made is that you called me a talmid of the Chafetz Chaim. Why? He's such a giant. You're saying I'm a talmid of his? I know what it is to be a talmid of the Chafetz Chaim. People don't understand this. Part of the reason is because there are not that many chachamim in the world. Part of the reason is because there's not emunat chachamim in the world. People like to have emunat in people that died. If they died, yeah, yeah, I believe him. He's the best rabbi in the world. Which rabbi? Rabbi Nachman, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, all the rabbis that died, we all have emunah in all of them. What about the ones that are living? What about the living rabbis? Nobody has any? No, yeah, no, yeah. The reality is, Rabotai, that yes, you have to have a connection to someone that passed on from Moshe Rabbeinu all the way till now. But you also have to have a connection to somebody that's alive. Why? The one that died can't fix any of your day-to-day problems right now.

4:07:47Can't help you with any of these problems. Unless you have Ruach HaKodesh, then you don't need it. I don't know what you're doing here. You should be giving a shiur. The reality, Rabotai, is that Emunat Chachamim is something that's critical. It's critical for a person to have a Rav. A lot of people start doing teshuva, they were influenced by a lecture, they were influenced by some type of shiur, they were influenced by something, and they start, and they start, and they start, and then they hit a wall. They hit a wall, and they don't know where to go when they hit that wall. Their wife doesn't want to do something. The husband doesn't want to do something. Money is difficult. They hit some type of wall, but they don't know where to go. And the reason why they don't know where to go is because they don't realize that teshuva requires you to have a chacham. Teshuva requires you to have a rabbi that's going to tell you right or left. And you have to be afraid of this rabbi like you're afraid of God. That's what the Gemara says. if you're not, he's not your rabbi. People would ask him questions. You'd ask him questions. He, to find the answer, it's not like today you have Google. And it says yes, no, and that's all you want. No, he will tell you not just yes or no. He will tell you why yes, why no, and all the details in between. He would write you a long answer that took him three days.

4:09:12He wouldn't sleep for three days because you asked him one question. Finally, after three days, he gives you the answer on a silver platter, no charge, no money, nothing. He gives you a nice half a book for your one little tiny, puny question that you didn't really care about that much. And then you go do the opposite anyway. His talmidim would ask, "He just did the opposite of what you said." It's all Baruch Hashem. What do you mean Baruch Hashem? Why Baruch Hashem? You didn't sleep for three days, Kvod HaRav, for this person. You wrote him an answer and you're saying Baruch Hashem he didn't listen to you? He says, yeah, Baruch Hashem he didn't listen to me. He goes, why Kvod HaRav? He says, because if he listened to me, then it means that I'm his rabbi. If he listened to me, it means I'm his rabbi. And if I'm his rabbi, I have to go to Beit Din of Shamayim, and any mistakes that he makes, I have to pay for too. Who wants to pay for it? Let him have somebody else as a rabbi. I don't need him to listen to me. I don't need him to listen to me. People don't understand, if somebody's a real rabbi, psss, alevai aleichem. So, the key to understand is that sometimes,

4:10:30You're going to have things that conflict with your reality. Sometimes you're going to have things that are exactly what you hoped for them to be. Either way, you've got to take it. That's part of teshuva. That's part of teshuva. And it's very, very hard. For me, my experience with the last few years of dealing with people in the Torah world and many, many years, decades of dealing with people in the business world and otherwise, In general, people love everything I say until it obligates them. In the business world, I had guys that worked for me, came from nothing, became something, built, built, built, built. Eventually, they would ask me for something; I would say no, and all of a sudden, I turned into the enemy. Not once, not twice, not three times, not five times, not ten times, not twenty times. every single time, it usually comes from the people you invest the most in. But I thought that this is just the business world because people are greedy, sharks, vultures. When it comes to money, they would sell their own mother for money. So, okay, this happens in business. I didn't think this happens in the Torah world. In fact, in the Torah world, it's even more common. You invest an enormous amount of time and effort into people and

4:11:57It's almost like there's an hourglass on the relationship time. It's like an hourglass, and the sand grains keep going lower and lower. It's only a matter of time before you say something that they don't like, and you turn into Hitler overnight. As you guys have witnessed, a few people have gone off. Many people went off before you, and it's not like I changed. The Torah stayed the same. Just that for a while the things that were being said either didn't affect them or they wanted to do it anyway, but eventually something was said that they didn't like. This is a poison that the Satan gives as an injection to people in order to destroy them. Sometimes the Satan will wait for you for 40 years. For 40 years, he waits for you around the block. Just to destroy you on one thing. In fact, sometimes one of the scariest things I've ever learned in my life is that sometimes the Satan will help build you. Get you to do mitzvot. Get you to do kiruv.

4:13:12Get you to do big things. Tzaddik. Get fans. Get all types of donations. Get an organization. Get everything. Build you for 40 years. Eighty years he was a Kohen Gadol. Kohen Gadol. Most righteous person of the land for 80 years. Became a kofer before he died. The whole plan was what the Satan was doing. Sometimes the Satan builds you for 40 years, and he gives you mitzvot. He doesn't even bother you. Why? He's waiting for that one big thing. The one big thing that you neglected. The one big thing that you didn't even work on. You thought you were perfect on. And after he builds you, he breaks you in a second. Breaks you in a second. Why? Because all of that kedusha now goes to him. Person needs to be very careful, person needs to be very careful, and that's why the Vilna Gaon says that a person needs to know that when they learn Torah, they're like a pilot. A pilot, no matter how good he is, no matter how many years of training he has, doesn't make a difference. A pilot must have a co-pilot.

4:14:40Why? Because if he flies long enough, he's going to cross the Atlantic. It's going to be a long flight; he may get tired. He may lose attention. He may lose focus. And if he loses focus for just an extra second too long, not only is there no more pilot, there are no more passengers either. Everything's on the line like this. It says, Ben Torah, Abba Torah, Jew needs to know they're like a pilot. Satan is waiting for you around the corner. He's stronger, he's bigger, he's smarter, he's older, he's everything better. In fact, without Hashem, you can't beat him. But the only way you know it's him and not Hashem, it's Hashem and not him, is if you have a co-pilot telling you, no, no, no, wrong direction. You're hitting the water, not hitting the sky.

4:15:43Anyone that's ever been a pilot on jets in the army will tell you, when you fly, you fly fast. You cannot tell the difference between the sky and the ocean. You can't tell the difference; they both look the same. The only way you know if you're flying into the ground, into the ocean, or into the heavens, into the sky, is through the machine. Because based on your visual, you can't tell the difference. If you don't use the machine, they tell you in pilot school, you're guaranteed to crash. Guaranteed to crash, die, no hope for you. By the time you realize it's the ocean, it's already too late. You're ejecting into the ocean, you're dead on the spot. You have to use the machine, even if you've been a pilot for 25 years without an accident. You have to use the machine. It tells you if you're pointing to the ground or pointing into the heavens.

4:16:44The only way you can tell the difference if the tikkun is coming from Hashem or it's coming from the Yetzer Hara is you have a co-pilot. You have to have a co-pilot. Why? The co-pilot is going to tell you, hey, my friend, Torah says such. Like it, don't like it, it's your problem. That's what Torah says. Torah says this. Torah says this. You don't like it? Yeah. Worse things have happened. Worse things have happened. You don't like it. But the point is, Rabotai, is that Torah says you must understand. You have to double-check everything. You have to double-check everything. If you don't double-check everything with a co-pilot, with someone that's going to tell you the truth, you're going to crash into the ocean. By the time you realize it's the ocean, it's too late. So, I think for me personally, For me personally, that's been the most difficult, but yet the key to, baruch Hashem, baruch Hashem, with no end, key to the success in avodat Hashem. Because many, many times, not once, not twice, not three times, not four times, not five times, I had to do things that are against my nature, against my will, and against my desire. Why? Rabbi Ephraim said so.

4:18:15But if Rabbi Ephraim said so, I don't like it. I don't want to. In fact, I hate it. And sometimes I'll even argue with him. No, please, no. This is not Torah. We're going to change your opinion because of you? I'll change the Torah just for you? All of Am Yisrael has to have this? You have to have something special, custom-made? This is not Torah. What do you want from my life? No. That's not Torah. That's not Torah. That's da'at Torah. You realize when the person has nothing to gain, what are you going to do? But that's the secret. Most people are not willing to do it. That's why most people's teshuva never works. It's only a matter of time before they crash or they hit a plateau, meaning they grow, they grow, they grow, and then they stop. they stopped growing. Why? The test got to a level, they're not willing to do anything more. They're just, "I'm done, I'm finished. Done, finished, can't do it anymore." They raise their hands, say, "Hashem, finished. Finished. Done, done, can't do it anymore. Can't do it anymore. Give it to somebody else." There's no finished. There's no finished. So, there's many, many stories about Avodat Hashem, and the reality is that

4:19:34A person that understands that the difficulty is necessary. I'll give you one more story; I haven't given you a story in a while. The Gemara says he was afraid, he was afraid that Torah is going to be lost in the world. He's afraid. So he took some flax, some grains, planted it, and grew it. He made rope out of it. After he made rope out of it, he made nets, and then he trapped some deer. Trapped some deer. After he trapped the deer and slaughtered them in a kosher manner, he gave the kosher meat to poor people. Deer is kosher as long as you slaughter them and catch them the right way, not with a bow and arrow. He gave the meat to poor people and took the skin of the deer and made parchments from it. He wrote a Sefer Torah on the parchments.

4:21:00Mishnah, six parts of the Mishnah on it, and then he took the Torah that he wrote and taught a group of kids in a certain town where they didn't know anything. First, he taught them Bereishit, and the second one... Shemot, and each one, after they learned what they learned, they would teach the other, and he would teach them Chumash. Taught them the Chumash. Then he went to a different place, and he taught them the Mishnah. First, he taught them one part of the Mishnah, then a second part of the Mishnah, and each one that learned it would teach the other, and eventually they all knew the entire Chumash and the entire Mishnah by heart. Baruch Hashem, aleinu. The question goes, though, why didn't Rabbi Chiya, whom Rabbi HaKadosh, Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi,

4:22:02The president of Am Yisrael, Dorot Mishnah, says praiseworthy is Chiya. Meaning, "I'll buy a letter to be like Chiya," even though he's his talmid. He's his talmid. Rabbi HaKadosh found out through ruach hakodesh the merits of Rabbi Chiya in Shamayim. He says everyone that wants to go from one world to the other in Shamayim, they have to have an angel take them. Rabbi Chiya, Rabbi Chiya, he goes wherever he wants. Nobody can tell him what to do. That's his merit in Shamayim. Why? He does kiruv. Rabbi Chiya does kiruv. He can do whatever he wants in Shamayim. Rabbi HaKadosh, Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi started hysterical crying. His student is bigger than him. He started running in the middle of the streets looking for somebody to help him do teshuva, be like his student, Rabbi Chiya. But the question goes: if you're so big, why are you making such a big thing? Why didn't you go buy the books? Why did you plant the seeds, the tree, trap the deer, make the net, the whole process? Do you know how many years this takes?

4:23:10Go plant a little apple tree. Go see how long it takes, a little apple tree. Go, go plant a little flax and see how long it takes you to get to a point where you have enough to make a rope. Go find a deer somewhere after you trap it. You know how much time this takes? Years. Years of effort. Why don't you just go to the store, go to artscroll.com or something in those days, order the book on Amazon or something, finished. Why do you have to go through this whole thing? You know what made Rabbi Chiya so big? He understood the secret. What's the secret? The real secret, not the shtuyot people tell you. The real secret to life. The more work you put into something, the more of a guarantee you have from Shamayim that it will last. Rabbi Chiya, as we started the story, said he's scared. He's scared terribly. What is he scared of? He's scared that Torah is going to be gone from the world. So I need to do something, he says. I need to do something that ensures it's not going to get out of the world. It's not going to be lost. How can I ensure that people are not going to forget this Torah? By investing my entire life, livelihood, and time into it.

4:24:29Go plant the flax. Go make the net. Go trap the deer. Go write the parchments. Go write one Sefer Torah. One Sefer Torah takes a minimum of one year. A minimum of one year to write a Sefer Torah. If I put all of that effort and all of those years into it and then teach it myself to a bunch of ignoramuses that don't even know Aleph Bet, then... I know it's going to last. The deeper you drive the nail into the wall, the more difficult it is to take it out. The deeper the Torah is in your neshama, because you've put more effort into it, the harder it is for the Satan to break you. Make no mistake about it. Hashem calls the Satan ra. Why? He's trying to break you. He's trying to kill you. A person needs to understand this. The Satan is trying to break you at all times, every time, all the time. A person needs to know and needs to, as the Gemara says, visualize himself as if the Satan is standing on top of his head with an axe trying to chop his head off. And if he doesn't feel it, that's because he already chopped his head off.

4:25:57you don't feel the danger of the Satan chopping your head off and trying to make you a sinner, that's because he already chopped your head off. This, rabotai, are things we need to do. These are the types of things we need to understand. This fire, this is Torah fire that's going to get you through the year. This Torah fire is going to get you through the day, through the tough times that are ahead. It's not going to get any easier. Yes, there are going to be certain moments, certain times that are good, certain times that are better, but it's not Hashem for all of us, for all of you. But there are going to be moments of weakness, there are going to be moments of test, there are going to be moments of kefirah, there are going to be moments of different difficulties. This is the fire that's going to keep you going. This is the fire that keeps you going. Because if you think that one day salvation will happen in this world and that's what you're waiting for, I'm sorry to tell you, you're waiting for Gan Eden. It's not in this world. This world is work. That's why it's called avodat Hashem. Avodat Hashem means serving Hashem. Serving Hashem is not supposed to be easy. It's supposed to be difficult. Why? It's work. It's work.

4:27:20Fidel had a question. How big is the soul? How big is it? I mean, it doesn't necessarily have a size, but if you want a visual aspect of it, I mean, it says it's like the body. The visual aspect of the soul is the body, but since it's a spiritual entity, it doesn't necessarily have limitations like the body. So... For example, size is not really relevant to a soul. Move back so I can see his face. I want to see your face when I talk to you. It's not your problem, it's my problem, not yours. Size is not really relevant to the soul because size and time are things that are relevant to something material. One of the things that people give Einstein credit for, even though the Rambam said it 800 years before him, is that time is only relevant to matter. Wherever there's matter, wherever there's material, if there's no material, there's no time. The same concept goes with size. Size is a physical aspect and is only relevant to things that are physical.

4:28:49So the restrictions that you have with size, for example, you look at a human being. If a human being is this big, then he can eat a certain amount. You can already assess how much he can eat. You can already assess how fast he can be, going from place to place. You can already assess certain limitations he has. The soul does not have those limitations. For example, The body, if I wanted to go from here and all of a sudden I got some urge to run to the front door over here, it would take me a certain amount of time that you could measure. A neshama, on the other hand, could be in countless places at the same time, simultaneously. Meaning, I could be here teaching you the shiur, I could be next to my wife right now saying I love you, I could be next to my kids also playing with them, I could be next to my parents in New York saying how you doing, next to my brothers, next to this, I could be going to Rabbi Freiman in Yerushalayim, an unlimited amount of places all at the same time. Which to us is like God-like. That's the piece of Him that He put in us.

4:29:59So the limitations of the body are not something the soul deals with. So when we ask about size, we're, in essence, trying to compare the two, but there isn't a comparison. We learn some of this stuff, obviously from the books, from the holy books, but also from the near-death experiences. One of the things that make the near-death experiences or show their validity, that it's real and it's not just some story that somebody made up, So many of the times that people die in hospitals, their soul leaves them, and they all tell the same story of how the soul was floating on top of the body and seeing everything, but at the same time, was also floating on top of the building and seeing what was on the roof, and at the same time, was floating in the street. 5, 10, 20, 30 miles away. So when the guy comes back to life, he says, I was out of my body. Like, what are you talking about? You're out of your mind, maybe. No, no, no. I can tell you. On the roof, there's a pair of shoes. There's a pair of sneakers somebody left on the roof. And down the street, 25 miles from here, there's just been a car accident between a Bentley and a little Ferrari.

4:31:17And then 25 miles away from there, there is a such and such, and such and such. And by the way, under your gown over here, you were wearing a red dress before you got here. And they know a lot of things that they couldn't have known. They were just dead two seconds ago. So this is countlessly, it's repeated many, many times with these near-death experiences which show the validity of them. These researchers, most of whom started as very secular people... that went into this parapsychological field to look into the world beyond this world, that's how they confirm whether it's a valid experience or not. Whether the guy just had an illusion, or some type of, he lost his mind, an epileptic seizure of some kind, or literally his soul left his body. and that's part of the way that they see that this person now possesses information that there's no way that he could have known. For example, I remember that one of the things that Rabbi Alon Anava said when he shared his story, that maybe some people don't realize the magnitude of it, but for example, he says that when he first started learning Torah and

4:32:41he went to a shiur, and he started realizing that a lot of the stuff the guy was saying, he already knows it, even though he never learned Torah a day in his life. He used to be an atheist. But a lot of the things that the guy was teaching, he says, "Oh yeah, I remember this, I remember this, I saw it in Shamayim, I saw this, I saw this, I saw that." So, this is the type of stuff, I mean, you gain knowledge, if Hashem allows you to keep it, that sometimes is beyond what you can get in this world. One time the... I believe it was the Arizal. Arizal or the Gaon of Vilna, I always confuse the two, even though they're a couple hundred years apart. They napped, you know, in the middle of a shiur, studying for a few days in a row without sleep. They dozed off for a second. And two minutes, three minutes later, the talmidim said, and woke him up. "Why did you wake me up?"

4:33:42The amount of Torah that I just learned, that I just learned in my dream, if I wanted to teach it to you, it would take me 80 years. What do you mean 80 years? You were sleeping for two minutes, two and a half minutes. Because, yeah, but in that world there's no time. There's no time. There's no space. There's no matter. There's no time. He says, to teach you this Torah, what I just learned in three minutes in my dream was... would take me 80 years. So, comparing the two—size, space, all of those things—is not possible. Not possible. Next question. Thank you. Passion of anger and other types of emotions from the hearing and some So, the experience also, we learn that they burn with fire. Good. And they make a serious impression on the soul. What are some of the offenses that somebody can make for themselves? Against anger? Yes, to keep themselves from getting to a point of burning anger.

4:35:08The reward we hope to gain from mentioning these points that by recording these negative aspects and all of their severity, we are forced to recognize the wrongness of fake bitachon, false trust. Meaning, when a person believes he's trusting in Hashem, but in reality is not

4:36:11And if the security breach is lacking in the soul, it is almost as if it does not have a part in the basics of Judaism. The Rishonim said of it, the protected security being a complete breach of security, and the thief is not allowed to have much of the remains, and the ruin is in the thief's safe, where the thief is clean of them. Ki ha-meshulal meshulal min habitachon, ve'azayfani meshulal mibitachon u'mechuyav be'ziyuf, ha-meshulal lo yamshikh acharav chanichim lechancham be'torat habitachon, ve'azayfani ma'amid talmidim chanichei e'ziyuf. Ha-meshulal lo yigrom avon chilul Hashem, Rahmana litzlan, aval ha-zayfani ka'asher mitgalei klono. Translation to everything I just said, the Chazon Ish says: Lack of bitachon in Hashem is a fault in any thinking person. And a person who lacks that trust

4:37:31comes close to having no part in the basic tenets of Judaism. Meaning that a person who doesn't have any bitachon, in essence, has no connection to Judaism, no connection to the Torah. But a false sense of trust is even worse than that, he says, as it's completely bad. The person who trusts falsely is no better than one who does not trust at all. He who does not trust avoids much of the outrage and the destructiveness associated with the false truster. For he who lacks trust in Hashem, lacks the trait of trust in Hashem totally, simply lacks it. But the false truster, the faker, not only lacks it, Not only does he not have it, but he is also to be condemned for his falsehood. Double punishment. He who lacks trust will not attract disciples nor teach them about trusting in Hashem. But the false one teaches others to be false like him.

4:38:58He who is totally without trust will not cause any desecration of Hashem's name, but the falsehood of the false one is revealed. His despicable actions against his fellow man become known. Then people say of him, "Look at that man who studied Mussar and see how shameful his actions are and how ugly his ruses are." So, first and foremost, the Chazon Ish, alav ha-shalom, says a person needs to know first and foremost where he stands. First and foremost he needs to know where he stands. Is he a faker or a non-believer at all? If he's a non-believer, then we could go, that's being honest with yourself, even though you don't believe. You don't believe everything is from Hashem. You don't believe. Believe that I'm doing it. He's doing it. She's doing it. They're doing it. Okay, that person's no good. Terrible. But we have a diagnosis. We have a diagnosis. He doesn't believe. So we're going to show him. We're going to show him different examples of why he should understand and believe that Hashem runs the world. On the other hand, if he's a faker...

4:40:24And he pretends to believe. He pretends to be a Baal Mussar. He pretends that he has emunah. He pretends and he pretends and he pretends. He is much more dangerous than the guy who doesn't believe anything. Why? Because when it's discovered that he really doesn't believe, it will cause a Chilul Hashem. Whereas the guy who doesn't believe, no one's expecting any better from him. No one's expecting anything from him. But the guy that's a faker, when he's exposed as a faker, it will cause a monstrous amount of Chilul Hashem. The other thing is also that a person needs to know where they stand. The second thing is, a person needs to do something about it. Now if a person has bitachon and he understands that everything comes from Hashem, the good and the bad, that automatically helps a person deal with at least half of their problems, if not all of them. There's a principle in the Torah: There's no punishment without sin.

4:41:37When David HaMelech reached Ruach HaKodesh, when it was decided in Shamayim that David HaMelech is going to be the fourth pillar of the Merkava, to carry the Shechinah, to be the vessel of Hashem. Imagine Hashem says, I'm going to send my holiness, my Kedushah, Through this vessel, Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, David. There are billions and billions of people throughout all of the generations, and you are one of the four in history that's going to carry the Shechinah? It's something unimaginable. What did he get this merit for? Did he get it for writing the Tehillim? No. The Gemara says no. Did he get it because he was the king of Am Yisrael? No.

4:42:38He didn't get it for that. Did he get it because his son, Shlomo HaMelech, built the Beit HaMikdash? No. Not that. Did he get it because, maybe, Mashiach comes from him? No. That's not the reason why he got it. Why did he become so big? I mean, this is like bigger than big. This is something unbelievable. Why did he get such a big reward? If you remember, I said in one of the shiurim some time ago... Shaul HaMelech, who was Kodesh Kodashim, the Gemara says, Shaul HaMelech was something out of this world in how holy he was. Tzanua, Tzadik, very modest, very righteous, made one mistake his entire life. We make one mistake every two seconds. He makes a mistake once in his life. But the Amaleikim came and they made a mistake. But he was so modest, so holy, that even after he left this world, he still saved the world. How? His descendant. His descendant saved the world. Who knows who his descendant is? Esther. Esther and Mordechai. So now,

4:44:07Now, part of the mistake that Shaul HaMelech made is that he thought that King David was out there to kill him. King David was going against the kingship. He was trying to kill him, even though King David constantly proved to him he was not trying to kill him. And he chased King David his whole life. And some of his followers, some of Shaul HaMelech's followers, were not just regular people. Kodesh Kodashim, heads of the Sanhedrin. Heads of the Sanhedrin, the biggest, the best. One of them was the head of the Sanhedrin, Shimi ben Gera. Shimi ben Gera was the head of the Sanhedrin. In order to be a head of the Sanhedrin,

4:45:10You have to know 70 languages. I think I know 70 words. You have to know 70 languages, minimum requirement. You have to know witchcraft, to know how to deal with the witches. You have to be like a malach, you have to be like an angel, not a human being. According to our standards, not a human being. The entire Torah, Something unbelievable. Shimi ben Gera was the head. And he was in the camp of Shaul HaMelech. One day he sees King David with his soldiers. and he curses King David. What's a curse? That's every curse in the book. He called him every horrible name you can possibly imagine, like a womanizer, like his parents weren't married, like his mom cheated on his father, and he was a bastard child, if you will. Rasha. Worst things in the world. All of the, imagine, all of the worst possible things you can call somebody in one word, he said to him. If it's coming from some drunk loser, who cares what the guy says?

4:46:26weren't married, like his mom cheated on his father, and he was a mamzer, if you will. Rasha. Worst things in the world. Imagine, all of the worst possible things you can call somebody in one word, he said to him. If it's coming from some drunk loser, who cares what the guy says? If it's some drunk loser, some, you know, some druggie or something, the local homeless guy, you know, who cares what he says? Who pays attention to him at all? But imagine, the biggest rabbi in the world comes to you, you're with all of your people, with your this, with your that, oh, you! Do, do, do, do, do... What, the biggest rabbi in the world just cursed you? Gave you one curse, you want to kill yourself already. So embarrassing. Now Avner, he's a gibor. He's one of the soldiers, general of David HaMelech. He says, "Your Highness, why do we let this dead dog," he calls him.

4:47:53Shimei ben Gera, even though he's the head of the Sanhedrin, now he's going against the king. He's considered a dead dog. Rabbi, no rabbi, going against the king. Hashem made him king, not he made himself king. Why do we let this dead dog say such things about Kevodo? Let me go there and just chop his head off real quick. Let me just flick his head off really quick, it says. has all the reasons in the world to say, "What are you waiting for? You're asking me even? Go, I'm gonna do it now. The guy just embarrassed me in front of everyone. The guy just cursed me out, called me this, called me that. What are you waiting for? You've been asking me for permission." If he would have done that, he wouldn't be David. If he would have done that, he would not be David HaMelech. What did he do? He says, no, he did not curse me. Shimei ben Gera didn't curse me. Hashem cursed me. Why? There's no way that Shimei ben Gera or anybody in the world will ever be able to do anything without Hashem signing off, do it.

4:49:17allowed permission check. Go for it. Nothing happens in the world without Hashem signing off on it, meaning even him cursing me. I must deserve it. Why? It's a decree from Heaven. I must have done something. I must have done something at that moment. Hashem says, if you realize that at the moment of such a difficult and embarrassing test, you are worthy, my son, to carry my Shekhinah. Writing the Tehillim, building Beit HaMikdash, tests, all those things are wonderful. But only the thing that makes you meritorious enough, worthy enough to carry my Shekhinah, is understanding at the moment of such a test that everything is for me. At any other time, Rabotai, it would not have been as significant. It would not have been as significant. But at that moment, it meant everything. At that moment, it meant literally everything. And that's what a person needs to know, that in order for them to reach greatness,

4:50:36In order for them to reach their full potential, they have to endure some serious tests. If you're thinking you're in this world to live a peaches and orange juice type of life, where everything is going to be wonderful at all times, and you're not going to have any worries, and your wife is always going to be in a good mood, and your husband is always going to be in a good mood, and everything is always going to be in a good mood, you're sadly mistaken. Life doesn't work that way. Now, the reality is that whether you like it or not, there will be difficulty. But by accepting what Dovid HaMelech accepted, you'll realize where it's coming from. So, tool number one to deal with anger is having real bitachon. First and foremost, identify where you stand. Do you really believe that Hashem does everything or not? After you've passed test number one, your own self-check,

4:52:05one second, guys. I just didn't have the second battery. The second battery is not working. Huh? No, no, I have this. These are all full, and technically this thing is supposed to work too, but for some reason, the second battery is on and off. Well, it's fine. It's all right. It's all right. Say, uh... It's okay, I'm giving you guys a breather for about two minutes.

4:53:47There's no sound? Hopefully, the camera works. Hopefully, the camera works. Yeah, I can't look at the comments, so I wouldn't know. I'll wait two minutes for the people to catch up on the internet. So now, the first thing with regard to anger is, first, Diagnose the size of the problem. Is it because you don't believe that anything is from Hashem? Or is it because you have momentary lapses of understanding? Where does the... Sometimes, it's simply because a person thinks they're in control of their own destiny, like the goyim think. The goyim are convinced they're in control of their own destiny. If I think good, it'll be good. Type of mentality.

4:55:15If that's the sickness, it's a very big cancer. The only way to get that rust off your soul is through very, very serious mussar. On the other hand, if a person just has momentary lapses of belief, He just—somebody ticked him off, something ticked him off, and at that moment, he just simply doesn't think it's from Hashem. His momentary lapses. So, he has to work on himself and train, do certain things to train himself. So, first and foremost, constantly do exercises, mental exercises, to remind himself that everything is from Hashem. Just like David HaMelech, at the moment of heat, at the moment of trial, he passed the test with flying colors. It's not that he just happened to do it that one day. His whole life was like this.

4:56:28So, constantly do mental exercises. When you're reading something in a sefer that talks about specific things like that, go over that section a few times. Go over it out loud. Go over it standing up. Memorize it. Constantly do things like that which are going to help you engrave it into your heart. Engrave it into your neshama. The second thing is in regards to actual practice when it comes to anger is to get yourself to slow down with responses. Don't respond right away to anything. Initially, it's best not to respond to anything right away. One of the reasons why a lot of people lose their cool is because they've unfortunately trained themselves, indirectly or just unintentionally, respond to things quickly because we're in a very, very fast world today. People send a text; you respond right away. People send an email; you respond right away. People ask a question; you respond right away, even if you don't have the answer. You respond right away because we've trained ourselves that everything has to happen right away. Our kids, excuse me, want everything right away, again, again, again, again, right away, right away. And this is the Satan making us vulnerable. Why? Because it doesn't give us enough time to think and...

4:57:55So first and foremost, you should, something happened, doesn't matter, good, bad, indifferent, try to train yourself to take two, three, four, five seconds, if not longer, depending on your personality, depending on the circumstances, take a few, take a little bit of time before you respond. But don't just say, "Okay, one, two, three, four, five, go." No, like during those five seconds or five minutes, however long it is, think about the opposite of what you naturally think. Think about the other argument of why you shouldn't tear his head off, even though he gave you all the reasons to do it. He's making it easy for you to want to kill him, but ask yourself, "Why shouldn't I kill him now?" Fight for him. So that's the other thing. You have to slow yourselves down. Slow yourselves down. It's very hard. Very, very hard. But nonetheless, it works. If you slow yourselves down in regards to responding, naturally a person who thinks about things deeper will automatically make different decisions. Because it's no longer as much of a reflex.

4:59:16For example, this organization that I follow from time to time that is pro-life and tries to bring awareness to people about abortions and the horrible, horrible murder behind the abortions and abortion clinics and so on. It's a secular company. It's not a religious company, but nonetheless, they do a lot of good. One of the biggest things that they do is educate people. And I don't mean just through the internet, sending emails; I'm talking about having people on the field at times where they stand by these abortion clinics. Many of these abortion clinics have a Most of these abortion clinics, if not all of them, usually have religious Christians standing outside with all types of pamphlets telling you, "No, you shouldn't kill," "Jesus loves you," and all types of nonsense. This almost helps no one. People care less about Jesus and their other idol worship, and if they want to have an abortion, Jesus is definitely not going to help them with it.

5:00:37But they're still there because they're still there. But this other organization does something much better. Not always, I don't know how often they do it, but I know they did a study on it. And they asked the women, it's like, listen, why don't you at least ask them to allow you to hear the heartbeat? Or better yet, we'll show you. We'll connect. We have here as a tool, here's the stethoscope. Listen to yourself. Is it your heartbeat? Is it the baby's heartbeat? And they said that an overwhelming majority, something like 96%, some ridiculous number of women that heard the heartbeat of the baby didn't have an abortion. They canceled it. Why? Because until that moment, they heard that heartbeat, they simply were misled to believe it's just a piece of meat. It's not a living thing. It's just a piece of meat. It's not alive. It's nothing. And in essence, they were working off of that instinctual fear that they had of bringing a baby to the world. They asked some unreliable person,

5:01:57Maybe the abortion clinic itself, maybe the boyfriend that doesn't want to be a father, or whatever it is, some unreliable source. What do you think? Yes, no, who, what, when? A person with a bias. And the reality is no one ever told them, "Yeah, by the way, you realize that you're about to commit murder, right? You realize it's actually a living thing. You're about to murder it in cold blood. The fact that you can't see it and it's inside you, Your body doesn't change the fact that it's murder. Like if you murder somebody simply by shooting at the wall, and he happens to be on the other side of the wall and he dies, it doesn't change. It's still a murder. If somebody's inside the wall, inside the bathroom over there, and you don't see him, but you just decide, let me just have target practice on the wall. You start shooting the wall. Moments later, you know what, I need to go to the bathroom. You go to the bathroom, you see there are six dead bodies on the floor. You just killed with your target practice, your genius target practice. Now, when the police come and say, "Who did this?" You respond, "It was me, but I didn't mean to kill them. I was having target practice." Okay, we'll have target practice on you also. It's called the death penalty by lethal injection. The fact that you didn't see it is irrelevant. It's still murder.

5:03:17So a lot of the times that we get out of control is simply because we work off of instinct instead of using our mind. And our instinct does not use common sense. Our instinct does not use our full knowledge. Our instinct, in general, is limited with knowledge. That's why it's instinct. And that's one of the things you have to try your best to limit. Limit as much as possible being instinctual. what comes to you naturally, unless you have dot to line, you are very, very well trained in regards to the Torah. Meaning, you have many, many, many years of learning and teaching, and learning and teaching in regards to Torah, and you've engraved this stuff onto yourself. Naturally, your instinctual habits will be wrong; your instinctual habits will actually be against your own best interest, and

5:04:19So, a person needs to try to do as little of that as possible. And the only way to do it is by taking physical measures, such as holding your breath for 5 seconds, 10 seconds, 15 seconds, or 20 seconds. Don't do anything during those 15 seconds. Holding your breath forces you to limit your actions and... If something else works for you, something else works for you. But the point is, don't react right away. Don't react right away. That already buys you 15 minutes of clarity. Hopefully, during those 15 seconds, I'm sorry, 15 seconds, 15 minutes maybe, whatever it is, it'll give you clarity. Again, it all depends on the size. On the size of the problem. The second thing is, or the third or fourth, whatever we're up to right now, is that usually the problems that we have are one of two things. One, something you can't do anything about. Two, something you can't do anything about. It's one of two. If you can't do anything about it, like, for example, the check bounced. It bounced already. Even if you had the money in the bank, even if you had the money in the bank, and the bank made a mistake, there's nothing you can do about it.

5:05:47Being angry about it is completely irrational. Why? There's nothing you can do about it. The guy bumped into you. He bumped into you, and he made a mistake. He cut you off. He bumped into you. Your fender is now off the car. You're going to have to go spend half a day, two days, you know, at the auto shop, and it's a big waste of time, and it's very annoying, and da-da-da-da-da. Being angry about it is a complete waste of time. Why? Even if you're right and he did everything wrong, there's nothing you can do about it. It happened already. Rav Mizrachi once said he spoke to a big Talmid Chacham that was also an expert in raising children. He said, "What should we work on? What should we work on with our kids today?" And the expert said to Rav Mizrachi, "If the things that the child is doing are simply gonna go away with age, don't make a big deal out of it. But if they're not, make a big deal out of it."

5:06:50simply gonna go away with age, don't make a big deal out of it. But if they're not, make a big deal out of it. such as if the kid jumped on the table and broke the table, jumped on the table and broke the plate, jumped on the bed, all those things, all that stuff is gonna go away with age. Don't make such a big deal out of it. I'm not saying let the kid wreck your house. Obviously, tell him to stop, tell her to stop. Don't break things. No, no, no. You know, discipline them a little bit, but don't make it such a big deal, like they just cursed your whole family out and went against Hashem. Don't scream bloody murder. Okay, they broke something. It's not the best thing in the world. It's annoying. But it's not the end of the world. It's not the end of the world. Don't punish them for a week for something that took five minutes to fix. Relax. Don't make such a big deal out of it. Don't make the kid scared of their own shadow. That's not productive. That's not going to do anything for you. It's going to go away with age. The kid's not going to be 18 years old still jumping on desks. If he is, you're the problem, not him. So, things that are going to go away with age, don't make a big deal out of it. But, a big "but," there are certain things that don't go away with age. They get worse.

5:08:20What are they? Lying and stealing. If you don't make a big deal out of catching your child lying or stealing, they will become the next Bernie Madoff. They will become the biggest liar in the world. They will become the worst. Why? That's a personality defect that, if you don't nip it in the bud, disaster will strike. There was a Ponzi scheme that happened, I believe, in Lakewood. Many years ago, someone knew that this guy was going to be a problem. He was a liar, he was a thief, but it was embarrassing to bring this out to light, to tell people about it. So everybody closed their eyes to it.

5:09:22Let Yankele get along. He'll be okay. He'll get through it. He'll get this. He'll get that. Okay, he stole an apple. No problem. Oh, he stole a key. No problem. Oh, he stole a knife. No problem. Oh, he stole a car. No problem. No problem. No problem. Little Yankele, with the beard and the hat and everything, everybody kept saying, no problem, no problem. Eventually, Yankele became a smarter, more clever thief. And he started a fund. real estate fund, and he got millions of dollars from people. Millions. Thieves are not stupid, by the way; usually, they're smarter than the average person. He got millions of dollars from the religious community, millions of dollars from the religious community, only to find out several years later he's been stealing all the money. stealing the money, gambling it, spending it, made off in the religious world. And when the story came out, all of a sudden, all the people said, ah, yeah, you know what? I should have known better. He's been a thief and a liar since he was a kid. All of a sudden, all the people that knew him for years said, yeah, I should have known better. He's always been a liar and a thief. He's always been a liar and a thief. But nobody ever did anything.

5:10:51nobody ever did anything. Why? No, it's lashon hara. It's all nonsense. People don't know Torah. They just throw tag names on everything. No, no, you don't have to say lashon hara about people. What are you talking about? There are certain people you have to say lashon hara about them. It's not lashon hara. It's certain things that are not even lashon hara. People say everything is lashon hara. It's complete nonsense. First and foremost, you should know there's a rule. If a person is causing other people to sin, Causing other people to sin. Like some of these so-called rabbis that I've mentioned in previous lectures to you guys. There's no din of lashon hara. There's no din of lashon hara. It's a mitzvah to publicize their names and warn people about these dangerous individuals. It's actually a sin not to publicize it. You're standing over your brother's blood. You know that he's about to go to this guy's lecture, and he thinks he's something. He's going to listen to him, not realizing the guy is lying through his teeth; everything he says is kefirah (heresy) in Hashem. So, to not say anything is actually a sin from the Torah. That's number one. Number two, if a person is a mechallel Shabbat...

5:12:11makes sins against Hashem, has decided that he's going to be a sinful person on a regular basis. There's no Din of Lashon Hara against them. He's not considered part of Amecha. The sin of Lashon Hara is only against people; it’s only connected to people who are part of your nation. Your nation means someone who keeps Torah and Mitzvot, not someone who’s a sinner. So if the guy’s a secular person, if the guy is a Mechalel Shabbat, there’s no Din of Lashon Hara against them. Even though there are a couple of Poskim that say no, no, maybe yes, maybe no, 99% of the Poskim say no. If he’s a Mechalel Shabbat, he’s considered a Goy L'chol Davar. There's no Din of Lashon Hara. There's no Din of Lashon Hara against them. You can say whatever you want. It's not encouraged to say it for no reason, because that will encourage you to say it against kosher people too. But the point is, there's no sin there. Third, most important, a new point I don't think I mentioned before. A lot of times people say, "Oh yeah, you know such and such, she wore a really immodest dress to the wedding." "Oh no, don't say that, it's Lashon Hara." It's not Lashon Hara.

5:13:20Why? Anything that's known, that was made public and known to three people or more is not lashon hara; it's considered public knowledge. She made everyone know that she's walking around immodestly. You didn't make everybody know—she did it herself. She walked around immodestly, and hundreds of people saw her. You saying to another person that you saw this, it's not lashon hara. It has nothing to do with lashon hara. She did it. She publicized herself. So that's the thing. People today, they're so clueless and fake righteous that they try to get away with not rebuking, not saying, and not helping anyone by this falsehood of righteousness. It's complete nonsense. In fact, The Chafetz Chaim himself literally writes in his books, he writes in his books that there were certain people that he would pray for them to die. People that were secular, like some of the Zionists and so on, and people of that nature. He would pray for such people like that to die. The king of teaching us about Lashon Hara

5:14:40You understand what I'm saying? So it's ridiculous. He even mentions names. He mentions names. They had one time Trotsky. Trotsky, the Chafetz Chaim gathered a bunch of people and said, let's pray for him to die. They got a bunch of people. Rav Wasserman was one of the people there. They got a bunch of people to come to the Beit Knesset. They took the Shofar out, Sifrei Torah out. They all prayed for him to die. Literally at the end of that prayer, sometime within like 24 hours, some ridiculous amount of time, they've Something crazy happened. Trotsky went from being at the top of power to getting ousted. He had to flee the country, run away to Mexico, and then he got murdered like a dog in Mexico. He went from being a leader and the biggest hater of the Torah world to being a dog in the streets. Okay, okay. That's why they prayed for him to die. So...

5:15:42...is not so simple. You can't just throw everything out. There are certain things that you have to know, certain truths that we all have to know, despite the fact that it's not always fun to talk about things that are difficult to hear and difficult to do. These things constantly put us to the fire, constantly make us seem like we're not good enough. The reality is, we can never escape the truth... We're not allowed to escape the truth. The first thing a person needs to do is assess themselves: Where do I stand? Am I a faker, part of the system? Or am I just regular, trying to do my best, but I fail once in a while? I fail. Is my failing intentional and systematic? Or is my failing just my limitations because I'm not exactly where I should be or want to be in Torah? These are the things that a person needs to ask themselves all the time. And of course, we're all going to fail at times. There's no such thing as a tzaddik that doesn't make sins. Everybody makes sins. The question is, why did you make the sin? Did you make the sin simply because you care less?

5:17:03Or because you had a moment of weakness. Are you going to repeat the sin? Is the sin something that's part of you? Or is this a one-time thing? All of it, it's getting old. If it's part of you, it's a very, very big problem. Why? Because you have to do serious, serious teshuvah. It's like removing the rust off the metal. But if it's a moment of weakness, then it's much easier to do teshuvah for it because then it's just water damage. Yes? Yes? Well, according to the Torah, it depends on how old the kid is. If the kid, regardless of age, curses, it's not the kid's fault; it's the parents' fault. So that's first and foremost you should know.

5:18:05child; it's not the fault of the child. The child is a copy machine of the parents. The kid only curses because they hear curses in the house. A child doesn’t come up with curses on their own. The Steipler Gaon didn’t have curses in his house, so you know what happened? None of his kids cursed to this day, 100 years after him. If the kid hears the parents cursing each other out, or other people out... the pizza delivery guy, the kid's gonna curse. And if he sees that the parents react in a certain way that can encourage him to continue doing it, then he won't decipher when to not and when to lose. Well, a lot of mistakes that parents make is when a little kid curses, like two-, three-, or four-years-old, they laugh. It's funny when those filthy, disgusting words come out of a little thing, a little body; it's funny, but it's Hitler in the making. It's only funny for the moment, but if you don't nip it in the bud right then and there and literally make sure this is something that you make a big deal of at that moment, then it won't go away.

5:19:32It'll actually become worse, and eventually, it won't be a two-year-old, three-year-old, or four-year-old making you laugh. It'll be an eight, nine, ten, eleven, fifteen, or twenty-year-old cursing you out because he thinks you're just somebody. The worst thing in the world is when a kid calls his parents or her parents by their first name. "Hey, David, what's going on, David? I'm your father. Don't call me David." The Torah has specific rules that, if a person knew them, they would be scared of their own shadow. It's very, very important to know that a person who disrespects their parents, it's not only the person's fault, it's also the parents' fault. But nonetheless, it doesn't absolve the kid from sin. It doesn't absolve him from sin. At some point, he becomes an adult. Either way, When a kid curses the mom out, it's the mom's fault when he's a child. It's 100% the mom's fault. Later on, when a kid becomes in his 20s and 30s, then it's his fault. But at that point, it's too late already. So the mom has to do teshuva herself.

5:20:44and fix herself, fix our own language, and never ever use curses in the house or against anything. But the problem is that as long as a person watches TV, it's impossible to do that. As long as a person listens to certain types of secular music, it's impossible to not curse. If you listen to curses, you will curse. Now, I don't mean if you listen to them unintentionally, like, for example, you walk around the streets of New York, there are curses every two seconds. That's not your fault, and that's not intentional, and that most likely won't influence you much. I'm talking about when you are choosing to listen to curses by watching filthy movies full of curses, by listening to videos full of curses, by listening to music full of curses. You do that, just like your ears are filthy, so too your mouth will be filthy. And you should know, the Gemara says, a person that was decreed even 70 years, meaning a full life, full of reward, can simply destroy all of that reward with a single curse. Why? Because your mouth was supposed to be a tool that Hashem gave you to praise His name. You're supposed to praise Hashem with that mouth.

5:22:04when you use it to curse, it's literally the exact opposite. So a kid that curses, it's because he's being permitted to listen to it. Either the parents are cursing, or they listen to music that has cursing, or there are movies that have cursing, or shows that have cursing. There's too much freedom. That's why when a guy came to me some time ago, and he said, you know, You should be careful with some of your videos that talk about punishment, Gehinnom. You know, there are kids that could be watching these videos. So I told him, "Halvai, I wish that the young 10-year-old kid would watch my graphic Gehinnom video. I wish he watched it." Because if his parents are so irresponsible and stupid to give him such freedom to watch whatever he wants on the internet without them monitoring it, then the only thing that will save his Olam Ha'ba is my Gehinnom video. Because if he's not watching my Gehinnom video, he may be watching Hashem Yerachem what he's watching. My Gehinnom video may be the only thing that saves him.

5:23:26so if a parent watches their mouth, the kid will watch their mouth. If a parent watches their eyes, the kid will watch their eyes. But if they don't, they don't. I have one guy I really feel bad for; my heart breaks for this kid. It breaks for him. For three years already, I'm trying to help him—two, three years I'm trying to help this guy with wasting seed. He has an addiction. wasting seed—something that's a major disaster. Baruch Hashem, we've helped many, many young guys, young and old. Some in their 50s and 60s, some in their teens—15, 16, 14, 13—many in their 20s and 30s. Both, Baruch Hashem, through the videos and the personal advice and... Encouragement and so on has helped countless people that want to help themselves get over the addiction of wasting seed. Baruch Hashem, anyone that really wanted it was able to overcome the addiction. But this young kid, young guy—three years of trying to help him, no success. Same material, if anything I've invested more in him than anyone else, and

5:24:48time, more advice, more videos, more money than anyone else. Failed so far. Why? He lives with his parents, and I don't know what kind of parents these are. They must have come from the seventh chamber of Gehinnom, but for some reason, his parents are so dirty and disgusting in their behavior that that they watch literally pornographic movies in the open. In the open, just like it's a regular show. I've never even heard of such things. How are you going to do teshuvah in such a place? How do you do teshuvah? How do you do teshuvah in such a place? I mean, it's better off jumping into the fire already. They watch disgusting, filthy things. You can't blame the kid. You can't blame the kid. He doesn't watch it, but it's always on his mind, all this filth, disgustingness.

5:25:58What are you going to do? But he's literally gone to the point where the addiction is so bad he's destroying his body. You know, a lot of the things I said in the lecture that came from doctors say how the addiction literally eventually destroys the body. Literally, I'm seeing all of it happening to him. And there's nothing he can do. He's so addicted to it. So much mesaken, I feel my heart breaks fast. This is a tragedy, but it's all the parents' fault and they will burn for a countless, endless amount of years for what they did, unless they do teshuva, which would require a miracle upon a miracle for such people to achieve teshuva. So The rabotai, sometimes a person gets so addicted to a sin, he doesn't realize it's a sin. And sometimes, by the time he realizes it's a sin, it's very, very difficult to get over it. It's not so easy. So, with kids, a person needs to be very, very careful what language they use next to them. The parents need to

5:27:17refrain from ever arguing in front of the kids. The parents should always have a uniform opinion. If you don't have a uniform opinion, go discuss it, get to a uniform opinion, and then say it in front of the kids. Don't talk in front of the kids about your problems. They don't need to know you're having financial problems. They don't need to know that you're having all types of other problems. Definitely don't need to know what happens behind closed doors. They definitely don't need to hear those types of words. Parents need to be careful. You need to be careful because those kids are little copy machines. They're little copy machines. You have to watch your language even if you're at the moment of heat and you want to lose your mind because your wife did something, it doesn't make a difference. If you can't contain yourself at the moment of heat under any condition, you're no different than a lion. You're no different than a zebra. You're no different than a bear or some other form of animal. That's the difference between a Jew and everyone else. You're obligated to control yourself at times of pressure. And it's hard. That's the point. That's how you can actually become David HaMelech. Who doesn't want to become David HaMelech?

5:28:46On the other hand, you can become Esav too. Same thing. So we have to take certain measures to protect ourselves. I tell people all the time, one of the difficult steps that I had to make was to stop listening to 99% of the music I used to listen to. At this point, it's been years already, Baruch Hashem, none of the music that I listen to has lyrics. Why? I've come to the conclusion that the only type of music that could potentially ever even be kosher cannot have lyrics. Unless it's holy music, like someone singing Tehillim or something like that. Other than that, it's almost impossible for it to be kosher. Why? Because they sing about things that are not kosher. And even if you... surpass the filthy, disgusting cursing in rap and hip-hop and all that other stuff. The Gemara says that if you listen to curses or you say curses, you can lose a reward for 70 years for a single curse. Even if that's the case and you don't listen to those types of music, but you want to listen to other types of secular music because it makes you feel good and

5:30:01you like to hear the love songs and Billy Joel songs and this type of stuff. The problem is that the songs, the lyrics in those songs inspire heretical type of behavior. this free mind, drug-type of mind, godless mind that will poison you at the time of need. It may not poison you every day where you think that you're feeling good on it, but the moment that the Satan will give you that big test he's been waiting to give, you'll fail miserably. Why? Because you've been listening to such and such music for all this time. So even if it doesn't have curses directly, but it has non-kosher lyrics, So, in order to listen to music, it's not 100% forbidden to listen to all music, but it all depends on the lyrics. And the vast majority of lyrics today are about things you're not allowed to talk about even. Intimacy, you know, promiscuity, arrogance, all types of things you're not allowed to be a part of. Not as a Jew, not even as a goy actually, but the point is that as a Jew there's even more of a responsibility.

5:31:16You have to watch your ears. Needless to say, you have to watch your eyes if you're going to be watching TV. Don't expect to be going to Gan Eden straight. Don't expect it. Why are you watching TV? You're going to be watching things that are not kosher, whether you like it or not. There are shows on TV, there are movies on TV, and... There's certain language, certain behavior you see—little young kids having boyfriends and girlfriends on TV, kissing on TV. Even if it's not mamash, still, it's not allowed; it's forbidden. You watch TV, you watch all this garbage, you let it enter your mind. You watch all of these immodest women on TV, even if they're the newscasters. You watch it. That's it. It's going to poison your mind. It's going to poison your eyes. And that's going to poison your kids. It's going to poison your kids. That's it. Don't tell a kid, "Why are you such a bad kid?" What do you mean, "Why are you such a bad father? Why are you such a bad mom?" You have to censor yourself. If you're not going to censor yourself, don't ask me any questions. Don't ask me how to censor your kids. I can't help you.

5:32:39Can't help you. If you can't censor yourself, I can't help you with your kid. You're the problem, not the kid. The kid's a copy machine. So, a person needs to know. They have to censor themselves. They have to limit themselves. Use what you need. You need it for work, use it for work. You have a computer, you need it for work. You have a phone, you need it for work. Use it for work, not for the other shtuyot. It's hard. It's hard. It's very hard. But if you want a kosher mind, a clean mind that's going to help you at the time of need, a pure neshama, it's the only way. One way or another, a person's neshama is going to be cleaned, either by himself or by Hashem. Same price. But certainly, there's a time to act, whether it's appropriately acting or not. Like when Goliath was cursing Hashem, and David HaMelech went and said, "Let me fight this giant." So how do we proceed to know, like, yes, I'm going to go and do this now? Like David HaMelech certainly did when he saw and he acted, right?

5:34:01When should you punch somebody in the face? Is that what you're asking me? The kid? You shouldn't punch the kid in the face. He's only little. Violence is a last resort under all conditions and in many cases not allowed. The Torah says that a person who raises their hand doesn't hit him. It just goes like this: Against their fellow in Shamayim, they just wrote a din, Rasha. He didn't hit him. He didn't hit him. He just raised his hand in the air as if he's going to hit him. In Shamayim, they wrote, oh, such and such, Rasha. With a big capital R. Why?

5:35:02Who are you to hurt people? On the other hand, like you said, there's a time to act. When and when. Now, if it's somebody that's trying to hurt you, Goliath is trying to hurt you, someone is trying to hurt you, you're not only allowed, but you're obligated to hurt them first. Kill them first. No question there. They're trying to hurt you. Somebody's trying to beat you up. they'll have to kill them according to the Torah. According to the law in the United States, it's a problem because it's a radical law. If they could say that you used too much force, the guy tried to punch you in the face, and you ended up punching him in the neck, and he ended up dying. And they say, oh, you used too much force, and they may send you to jail for self-defense. But the point being is that according to the Torah, you're fine. According to the law, it's a problem. So, in such a case, if a person can run away, it's best to run away. If he cannot run away, then he has to defend himself. But that's with strangers who are trying to kill him. A child, on the other hand, of course, you have to use child-rearing. You have to discipline the kids. Different kids require different amounts of discipline.

5:36:25If you've never disciplined a kid or there was a lack of discipline, then disciplining them has to be much more difficult, much more by force. If there's been an appropriate amount of discipline from birth, then there's less pressure that needs to be applied. So, for example, the Gaon MeVilna writes to his wife. Apparently, this was her second marriage. She had children from her first marriage before she married the Gra. And he wrote her a letter when he went on a journey to go to Eretz Yisrael, with instructions on what to do, and how to run the house when he's gone, because he didn't know if he was going to come back or not. In those days, it was not like going on El Al and you'll be back in a few days. In those days, if you went on a journey, there was no guarantee you would even make it to your destination. So he wrote her this letter, It's a letter that's available on the internet for free. ArtScroll actually just came out with a commentary on it, similar to the Iggeret HaRamban. And maybe we'll do a lecture series about it, b'ezrat Hashem. But anyway, in the letter, the gadol hador, the biggest rabbi in the world, one of the biggest rabbis in any recent history,

5:37:54Sister's wife, a few things that you, it's unbelievably simple. Don't leave the house. I left extra money for you to send people to do your grocery shopping. Only leave the house when you have no choice, not even to go to beit knesset. Don't go to beit knesset at all. And one of the things that he, the Gaon, the Gaon of Vilna, angels were begging him every day to go study with him. They would knock on his door every night. He told his talmid this story. He said, "Angels knock on my door every night. What do they want? They want to study with me, chavruta. I keep telling them, no, I'm not interested." Angels want to study with him. He tells his wife, If the kids curse, hit them. If the kids curse, hit them. Why? At the end of the letter, he says sometimes a certain sinner makes a sin because he's inconsiderate of the sin.

5:39:18but sometimes a sin becomes part of the person's behavior where their heart, instead of being a heart of flesh, becomes a heart of stone. The klipah that's a result of all their sins, the accumulation of all their sins, makes their heart a heart of stone. It makes it very hard for them to do teshuva, to even recognize their flaw. And he says we all know that the only way to get water from a stone is by breaking it. And that's why I told you if the kids curse, Because if they've reached the level of cursing, meaning they've lowered themselves to such a level that they're cursing, that means that their hearts are the hearts of stone. And the only way to get them to do teshuva is by hitting them, by breaking them. He didn't say to hit them like people hit people in America today. You hear about parents that punch their kids with closed fists in the face and the kids limping for 10 days. I don't mean like that. Meaning hitting them enough to get their attention.

5:40:41People sometimes say, "Oh, you are advocating hitting kids." Yes, hitting kids with reason, not trying to kill the kid like he's Saddam Hussein. Like slapping him on the butt, slapping him even in the face once if it's necessary, but with reason, not with a closed fist to give a black eye, just to get his attention so he stops doing something bad. all of us, I don't know, when I was a kid, I got smacked around a couple of times. My brothers did also, and everybody from previous generations until now. It was the normal way of disciplining kids. This is the only generation in history where the mom says the wrong thing to the kid, the kid calls the cops, and the mom goes to jail. I've never heard of such a thing. It's easier to discipline chickens than people. But the reality is that according to our Torah, it's perfectly normal if you're a normal person. But if you're a psychopath, and you start punching your kids in the face, then yes, you should go to jail, actually. They should call the cops on you because you're not normal. But I mean, you have to discipline the kid. So if that kid, for example, I don't know how old he is or how old she is, that person is, if they're below six years old,

5:41:53they're under the age of disciplining, where even if you hit the kid, they wouldn't know why. The Ben Ish Chai writes that until the age of six, a child, yours or mine or anybody, for the most part, is no different than a monkey. Until the age of six years old, a child is no different than a monkey. You can train them, but you're limited as far as disciplining them. Why? You yell at a three-year-old kid, and they sometimes will laugh at you because they think you're doing something cute. They don't know why you're yelling, so they start yelling at you. i don't know why this little kid, three years old, has no idea what this is. what's this face you're making? he thinks it's fine; it's like a part of the game. you can't discipline a three-year-old. you're limited. you can, but you're limited with what you can do. so hitting a kid at three years old? no, you don't do that. that's crazy. when they are over six years old, it's an age of disciplining. and again, if you did the right job...

5:43:00During the first six years, you won't need to do much of it. Why? Because that means that during the first six years, you only showed things to that kid that were kosher. The shows they watched were kosher. Teaching them ABC, teaching them Alef Bet, teaching them manners. You're not teaching them to be a Power Ranger. You're not letting them watch wrestling. You're not letting them watch superheroes. You let them watch that stuff, your kid's going to want to hit you. Not only are they going to want to hit you, they will want to hit you. Why? Because the kid learns wrestling moves on TV. He wants to perform his wrestling move. Who's he going to do it on? You! Why? Because he has to do it on somebody. So the kid will punch you in the face one day, and you have no idea why. I remember when I was younger, maybe my teenage years, 16, 17, 18 years old, I had this one friend who had this little young brother named Ben. Now this little Ben is 30. But this little Ben was tiny, tiny—like a 4, 5, 6-year-old kid.

5:44:05And anytime, you know, you'd have people over at his house, the family had people over the house, this little kid, cute, cute, peaches of a little kid, cute. He'd walk up to you, look at you, and you're like thinking, ah, it's so cute. He'd take his head, pow, punch you in the face. And it hurt. One time he punched me in the face. I wanted to punch him back, but then I realized he's like five. But it hurt. And everybody laughs. Oh, it's so funny. And this was the thing. This was the thing. They would let this kid go up to random strangers that came to the house and just punch them in the face. Because it was funny, but it's not funny. So, if you give the kid too much freedom, they become little Amaleik. so you have to understand, you cannot give the kid complete freedom. You have to discipline the kid. Under age six, you're limited with what you can do, but they're also more under your control. So,

5:45:17If you really don't want them to watch any shows, you simply don't allow the TV to go on or the show to go on or the computer to go on. That's it. If you don't want them to have toys, you take the toys away. There's not much they can do. In essence, they can learn that way. You don't have to be physical. The shows they watch, you only allow those shows. You only allow those shows. Only allow them to have educational shows. Don't have them watch these violent shows. And violence, by the way, doesn't matter if it's coming from cartoons or real life. It's the same thing. People think that if it's a cartoon type of violence, then it's okay. It's not okay. All violence is bad. So if at three years old, it's very, very easy to turn things around. Why? Because the kid is like putty. At that age, you could literally turn things around. It may take a few months, even six months, but it’s still turn-aroundable. If you told me the kid's 13, it's pretty much the last straw. Maybe the kid may not be able to turn around, depending on how much the damage is.

5:46:26It's very, very important that the person knows, first and foremost, if you want your kid to be good, you have to be good. If you're not good, if you're not watching your eyes, your mouth, your everything, the kid's not going to do it. And hiding it from them is no solution. Okay, I watch TV, but not next to my kids. The kid knows. I curse, but not next to my kid. The kid knows. Huh? Oh, okay, good. Yes. Thank you. So, the kid knows, the kid knows everything. The kid, let's just get this straight.

5:47:26The kid knows everything, and a parent that thinks that if they do it behind the kid's back, the kid's not gonna know, they're only fooling themselves. Only fooling themselves. It's a complete waste of time. The reality is, we all have to do too much. We have to watch ourselves. We have to watch ourselves. Next question. Yeah. The scary part. Okay. So, even then, we...

5:48:27How is it possible, since the soul is from Hashem, and that the soul is eternal, or is it eternal? And if it is, how come it can either be destroyed or perish, or in a way like no more? or even suffer for that long knowing that Hashem Himself is suffering as a soul suffering for eternity. So, okay. Suffering is figuratively speaking and not literally in the sense that we would understand it. first and foremost, like I said, there are two parts to the soul. I mean, the soul actually has many more parts than two, but there are two main parts. One of them, one source of them, is from Hashem; one is independent, meaning it's Hashem connecting some creation to Himself. And if the soul ever has to be destroyed, the only part that gets destroyed is the independent part.

5:49:44And the part from Hashem goes back to the Source. Which, by the way, you should know, I mean, I don't know if... In the end of it all, meaning after Olam HaBa, whenever that is, the original soul, all the souls go back to the Source anyway. But only the clean parts and so on. But as far as when Hashem, chas v'shalom, ever destroys a soul, um, he's not hurting himself per se; his part he's hurting, okay? Uh, he's not hurting himself; it's his son or daughter. Now, how does he suffer with the person? It's like, for example, if a father or mother has to discipline their kid. Don't worry, I have kids too, and you'll see that sometimes you have to do things that you don't really want to do. You have to yell at your kid.

5:50:45when they grow older, you have to sometimes yell at them a little louder. Sometimes even spank them. Now, no parent that's normal and loving wants to spank or yell at their kids. I know that, Baruch Hashem, my daughter, God bless her, she's three and a half, and she loves to play. She's a wonderful, amazing, Baruch Hashem, gift from Hashem. Sometimes, she's so active and happy and so on that I have to tell her to slow down, slow down, and she doesn't slow down. She keeps going again and again and again and again. It's all "slow down," you know? And no, no, she's getting again and again and again and again. She doesn't know, like, there's no stop button. So sometimes I have to raise my voice a little bit. And, apparently, Hashem gave me a voice that's a little bit scary, apparently. I'm only learning this now. she's so active and happy and so on that I have to tell her, "slow down, slow down," and she doesn't slow down. She keeps going again and again and again. It's all "slow down," you know? And no, she's getting again and again and again. She doesn't know, like, there's no stop button. So sometimes I have to raise my voice a little bit. And Hashem apparently gave me a voice that's a little bit scary, apparently. I'm only learning this now.

5:51:46...that my voice sometimes is scary. I don't know. I don't think of myself as scary, but a lot of people say I'm scary. My wife said I'm scary—not to her, but to other people. Her, I'm scared of. That little woman scares me. So, anyway, I raise my voice a little bit, and my daughter gets shocked. And she doesn't know what to do, and she starts crying. And I feel horrible. I feel, I wish nothing came out of my mouth—not today, not yesterday, not the day after. I feel so terrible, this little angel is now crying. Oh, what do I do? Stop. But now this little baby is crying, and I'm like, oh, what can I do? But you have to do it. That's what it means to suffer. Meaning, Hashem doesn't want to punish you. He didn't create you to punish you. But sometimes He has to. Sometimes He has to. Why? To keep you alive. To keep you alive, He has to sometimes. If you don't punish a child, if you don't discipline a child, your child is going to be a Hitler one day. That's just the reality.

5:53:06The parents that think, "No, no, I'm going to be friends with my kids." Yes, you'll be friends until they throw you in the streets. You'll be friends with them until they throw you in the streets. There's no such thing as being friends with my kids. There's no such thing. People that are friends with their kids eventually realize the biggest mistake in their life because friends don't always respect each other. So, as soon as your daughter talks to you like you're one of her girlfriends, soon as your son talks to you like you're one of his friends, as soon as this and as soon as that, there is no parent-child relationship. And I know in one particular case I only heard recently, Hashem, I don't know, I don't know, this is even in a secular house. To me, it's an abomination, but literally, a couple of people have told me this already that Kids, they're not kids anymore, they're either teenagers or even in their 20s, talk to their parents about their sex life. To me, I find it one of the most despicable, disgusting things I've heard in my life.

5:54:20The last person on earth you would ever want to talk about that subject to is your parents. Unless it's the education you get when you're like 10 or something, or 12, or whatever. Where the babies come from or something. But to tell them, "Yeah, my boyfriend is this and my boyfriend is that." Hashem, that is pure filth. Why? You forgot they're your parents. Then you forgot they're your parents. It's disgusting. But that's it. When you teach your kid to be an animal, that's what they are. That's what happens. So these are the things that everybody has to realize. If you listen to garbage, you'll say garbage. If you say garbage, your kids will say garbage. Don't listen to garbage. And your life becomes garbage. ...becomes garbage. A lot of parents say, "Oh no, I can't believe my daughter wants to marry a guy. Why? Why? Why? Why can't you believe it? Why? Why? We kept Shabbat, we kept the holidays." Okay, so you kept Shabbat. How? You took a break once a week, you didn't work, and you did Kiddush. Okay, but after that, what did you talk about on Shabbat? Oh, you talked about work...

5:55:34And what did you do during the week? You watched sports. And what did you do during the vacation? You went to where the goyim are. In essence, your whole life you acted like goyim that take a break once a week. Why are you surprised that your daughter wants to marry somebody like you? You acted like goyim. She wants to marry a goy. What's the problem? Why are you so surprised? No, but we're Jewish. You should have told her that. should have told her that. She doesn't know. Kapotai. Kids are a copy machine. People don't know how serious this is. They let their girls, young little girls, walk around immodest. They think, no, but she's cute. She's young. Yeah, in your eyes she's cute and young. Not in the sick-minded men out there. She's not cute and young.

5:56:38People think that everybody sees their children as children. No, there's a lot of sick people in the world. So, unless we start reflecting, understanding, and putting things into the right perspective, it's better off not to have kids. Why? Keep the damage contained with you. But if you're going to have kids, you have a responsibility. You have to protect them. You have to protect the kids. They don't know any different. like I said, it's generally speaking is when you choose to be around it, not when you're around it just because that's the world. So if you're walking around in the streets of New York or you're in an office on Wall Street or you work for some manufacturer, blue-collar type of job where people speak freely and they're mostly goyim and they curse freely and that's their language, and most of the time today,

5:58:03When people curse, they've become so acclimated to cursing that they don't even view 99% of the curses as curses. People use the F-word and things of that nature not as a curse, just as, like, that's their language. That's just, like, their slang, that's their way of talking. And it's like, you know what I mean, you know what I mean? Like, they're talking to you like, "This is how I talk." And I know for myself, it took a lot of work to undo a lot of that garbage because you get used to it, and that's the way you talk. You don't mean to say it in what it actually means; you mean to say there's some type of effect that it gives. Either way, we're not allowed to say it. As far as listening to it, if it's a place you didn't choose to be in, meaning it's just like the example that you gave, it's a completely different ramification. I'm talking about the damage that is done when you choose to hear it. For example, you choose to listen to music that you know for sure has curses. You choose to watch shows and movies that you know for sure have curses. That is the same thing as you cursing.

5:59:19Because you press the play button, but if somebody that you work with curses like a truck driver, it's no fault of your own. You can't control your environment, and sometimes if you tell somebody not to curse, they'll curse even more just to annoy you. They don't see what's wrong with it; most people generally curse and don't see a single thing wrong with it. The people that usually don't curse in the Western world are usually from certain parts of the country, old-timers, very, very old-fashioned traditional types of people. But your day-to-day city-type people, cursing is a second language or within their first language. if you don't want to be around cursing in general, obviously you have to also limit your friends too. You have to limit your friends. You have to limit the people you're around. But again, don't just cut off the whole world and think that you're going to survive being a tzaddik on your own in a cave.

6:00:32That's not healthy either. Everybody has to grow within reason, at the right time, and in the right place. Don't speed up everything. A lot of people usually worry about the wrong things. And a lot of them, it's not that you don't need to worry about certain things, but sometimes I see certain people that the Satan really puts all of their attention on things that are small or not really yet the appropriate time, instead of worrying about the big things. It's like, for example, Esav. Esav was a pretender. The Torah says that Esav, his head, was buried in Me'arat HaMakhpela. His head. Next to Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov. A head was buried next to Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov. The reason why is because when Yaakov

6:01:36left this world and went to the next world. Before it, he asked Yosef HaTzaddik, his son, to bury him there, to make a promise to bury him there. So they went. After he died, Yosef HaTzaddik and the brothers went to Me'arat HaMakhpela, but as soon as they got to Me'arat HaMakhpela, they saw Esav. Esav was standing at the gate, says, "Who says this cave is yours? It's mine, my inheritance." And he got in their way. He said, "Listen, we have a contract. We have a contract that the Me'arat HaMakhpela belongs to Yaakov. It doesn't belong to you. It belongs to our father." One of the sons of Yehuda was a gibor, a warrior, but he was deaf. was a gibor, a warrior, but he was deaf. And he didn't know what was going on. He didn't know there was a debate going on. And he saw that the Holy of Holies, Yaakov Avinu, was being delayed. He's not letting him in.

6:02:57He's not letting him in Me'arat HaMakhpela. Now Esav is a gibor. He's a warrior. He's not just a nach nach. He's a warrior. The son of Dan sees this. He says, what's going on? Why is it not going away? Why is he not getting in? And they point at Esav. Why? You are not letting him in. He takes his bat and he hits Esav's head so hard he chops his head off with the bat, and his head rolls all the way inside the Me'arat HaMakhpela, and his body dies on the spot, staying outside the Me'arat HaMakhpela. And the din was, the din, Torah din was, wherever the head was, that's where you bury. And they buried the head inside Me'arat HaMakhpela and the body outside Me'arat HaMakhpela. But this was a lesson from Hashem. Like I told you, nothing happens for nothing. Why did Hashem allow Esav, as much of the vicious death that he got, why did He allow him to merit to have his head buried inside Me'arat HaMakhpela, but his body outside?

6:04:16Because his head knew everything. He knew the entire Torah. Esav knew the entire Torah—all the mitzvot. If Esav came to this generation, he'd be Gadol HaDor. They'd kiss his hands. His head, he looked like Rabbi Nachman. He looked like the Lubavitcher Rebbe. He looked like the Chafetz Chaim. Kodesh Kodeshim he looked like, with chassid, big beard, peyot, everything. And he knew the entire Torah. His head, entire Torah. His body, on the other hand, only did what he wanted. Only did whatever fit his life. And that's why Hashem says to the Prophet, Esav saneti. Esav, I hate him. Why? He only did what fit him. So Esav, he couldn't tell everybody what he was. So he pretended, especially to his father. He would come to his father, Yitzchak, and he says, Abba, ma'aser, we have to give ma'aser, right? Oh, my tzaddik son, yeah, of course we have to give ma'aser to my tzaddik son. Okay, so Abba, what about ma'aser on my salt? I have to give, I have salt, what about giving ma'aser on my salt?

6:05:36Wow, my son is a tzaddik. Even on the grains of salt, he wants to give ma'aser. But no, son, you don't have to give ma'aser on the salt. There's no ma'aser on the salt. What is this? This is a show. Show. Show business. He gets an Oscar. Show business, pretending to be righteous. Pretending to be righteous. "Oh, I want to give so much ma'aser, I'm even considering my soul." Don't consider the soul. Don't do anybody any favors. Consider the bank account. Reality, Rabotai, Shlomo HaMelech says, "Don't be overly righteous." Some people, they worry about certain things that are so far above their pay grade. They just started doing teshuva, maybe they keep Shabbat and kosher, and they're already starting to talk about, "Listen, I'm going to do ta'anit dibur. I want to study without talking for two, three hours a day. It's a ta'anit dibur, it's a na'alayim." Keep one or two more mitzvot, what ta'anit dibur?

6:06:52Relax. Relax. People worry about things that are, it's ridiculous sometimes. And the reason why is because people, they buy into the image of the tzaddik and they want to become a tzaddik overnight. Overnight they want to become a tzaddik. I read the whole Chumash last week. The whole thing. Who told you to read the whole Chumash last week? Who told you to read the whole Chumash last week? Who told you to read Chumash in one week? Read the parasha, a couple of commentaries, read some other stuff. Who told you to read the whole Chumash in one week? Wait, if you read the Chumash in one week, that makes you a tzaddik? I read Sefer Devarim 40 times. Who told you to read Sefer Devarim 40 times? Do you know what hilchot Shabbat are? Do you know what you're allowed to eat, what you're not allowed to eat? Do you know how to tell whether your wife is niddah or not niddah? People do things that are above and beyond because it's exterior. Remember from the teshuvah steps: First step, don't sin. Second step, commit to not sinning. Third step, say I'm sorry. Why do people do the first two steps? Because they want to be a tzaddik.

6:08:18not because they believe in what the tzaddik actually stands for, but they want to look like one. That's why right away you see them with the beard and the payot and the hat and this and that. All of a sudden the guy is a Ben Ish Chai. He stopped robbing banks three weeks ago. All of a sudden he has a turban on his head. He's a little Ben Ish Chai. What happened? It's all exterior nonsense. So this is why a person needs to first and foremost Basics. Basics. No, no, but I like to study the Zohar. What Zohar? What Zohar? Do you even know how to spell Zohar in Hebrew? Do you even know? What is Zohar? What are you talking about? What Zohar? What are you talking about? Do you know Gemara? Do you know Tosafot? What do you know? Do you read the Chumash at least one time with commentary? No, I like the Zohar. I like the Zohar. What do you know about the Zohar? People want to jump. They think that if they jump to the bigger, more difficult things, that's going to make them more righteous. But that's why they end up staying losers forever. That's why they end up staying losers forever.

6:09:31People love the things that are out of reach because they think that if they get a little scratch, a little grab of something that's out of reach, somehow that gets them everything else. And that's why I see a lot of times people have been doing teshuvah 5, 10, 15, 20 years, and still know nothing. Still know nothing. Nothing. Mamash nothing. You guys don't know anything. Haven't finished the Shas. Haven't finished anything. Don't know anything. Parashat Shavua, basic, Rashi said so. Wow! Chiddush! What chiddush? You should have known this before me. You did teshuvah 20 years ago. I'm just starting. What chiddush? Where were you for the last 20, 30 years? What did you read? Dardasim? Smurfs? What did you read? I don't understand. No, I was reading the Zohar. It's the Zohar. Need to know where we stand. Focus on the basics. Focus on the things that are going to affect your day-to-day life. This is why I said last week, don't spend so much time on the mystical and on the things that are out of your reach, whether it be the souls or it be Mashiach. All of those are entertaining to watch, entertaining to listen to, meaning learn.

6:11:00But to an extent, to an extent, if you have 10 hours of study time and let's say 15 minutes to a half-hour you spend on this, okay, it's not the end of the world. But if you have 10 hours and nine of them are talking about Mashiach, you're just going to be a moron one day and you're not going to realize it. You're going to be a moron. Graduation level is you're going to be a moron. That's the ultimate knowledge: that you know nothing. You only know that Mashiach is supposed to come one day. That's all you're going to know, like everybody else that's five years old. You're not going to know anything. Why? You learn every lecture about Mashiach, Mashiach, Mashiach. Okay, great, Mashiach. The souls, gilgulim, you're incarnated, you used to be a plant, then you were an animal, then you were a lion, then you were a lion king, then you're a person. Okay, do you know how to keep Shabbat? Do you know how to keep Shabbat? Do you know how to keep kosher? Do you know how to build a sukkah that's kosher, for heaven's sake? 90% of the sukkot that I see are not kosher. 90% of the sukkot that I see, the sukkah is not kosher.

6:12:00The sukkah, sukkah. The sukkah is not kosher because the walls are a little felt or some type of... That's not kosher. The walls are supposed to be hard. It's not a kosher sukkah. The walls are supposed to be like a wall. And the only time, if you're going to use those strings for the three tefachim and everything, the string or whatever it is can't move with the wind. If a sukkah moves with the wind, it's not kosher. It's the same thing as the felt you have around it. It's not a kosher sukkah. No, but he knows about Mashiach. And he knows that he has a gilgul. The Arizal said he's a gilgul. He used to be a plant. Now he's a carrot. Maybe next week he's going to be a beet. He's going to be a pumpkin. What's he going to do with this information? People need to know basics. You need to know how to live. How to be a Jew. How to be a Jew. I can tell you stories from here to next year about things that will blow your mind. It's not going to help you though. It's not going to help you. What's going to help us is knowing how to be basic, decent human beings. Decent human beings. That's the most important part. No. No.

6:13:30You got all night, guys. We're not going away anyway. Go. Rabbi, in Deuteronomy 32:44, it says, "Moses spoke the words of this song in the ears of the people." And I was wondering, like, because I heard it before. and I didn't quite understand that part, like, why is it emphasized on the ears of the people, in the ears of the people? Let's see. Only Moshe actually proclaimed the song, but on this last day of his life, Moshe stood with Yehoshua bin Nun to symbolize that the leadership was being transferred. Moshe stood with Yehoshua bin Nun to symbolize that the leadership was being transferred. Otherwise, scoffers might have belittled Yehoshua bin Nun's qualifications for leadership, saying that as long as Moshe was alive, Yehoshua was afraid to lift his head.

6:14:48Why? I don't know. I don't know. Again, this bothers me. Why is it specifically mentioning the ear of the nation instead of the... I mean, what do you want to say? Like what? I'm sure there is. I mean, if I look deep enough into the commentary, I'm sure I'll find something, but I'm seeing what you wanted to say. Like, give me the...

6:15:50like, what do you want? So, wait, okay, you wanted to say that Moshe spoke to the words of Am Yisrael. He just spoke directly to them. I mean, basically, from my understanding of the pasuk itself, it's referring to two things. If it says... It's simply talking about one side. It's talking about one side of the equation that Moshe Rabbeinu told Am Yisrael, X, Y, Z. Hashem spoke to Moshe. He told Moshe, "Speak to Am Yisrael and tell them to do tzitzit." And then later on, Moshe spoke to Am Yisrael and told them to do tzitzit. Here it says differently. It says that Moshe spoke to the ears of Am Yisrael. So, for me, I can say that the Gemara Masechet says that...

6:17:15No. The Torah says that the Jewish people only realized the significance of Moshe Rabbeinu after 40 years. From there, we learn that sometimes it takes a person 40 years to understand what his rabbi really meant, meaning that finally, when Moshe Rabbeinu was leaving, finally, when it was the last five or six weeks before he died, it wasn't just Moshe Rabbeinu telling Am Yisrael, "Do X, Y, Z." It was Am Yisrael saying, "Tell us what to do." Am Yisrael was listening. He was talking in the past, but they still went and worshipped idols. He was talking in the past, but they still complained against the man. He was talking in the past, but they still were complaining about the water, complaining about Egypt, complaining, complaining, complaining. But in the book of Devarim, there's not a single complaint. In Sefer Devarim, there's no complaints. Why? Because they finally realized Moshe is the greatest. Moshe is the best. Now we have to listen to what he says. We have to listen.

6:18:26So that's what I would say is what I understand from the Pasuk. What I understand from the Pasuk. Next. Excuse me one second. Okay, if this thing stops blinking, tell me. Stop blinking? Hopefully, this works. Gotta get some more, relax. No, go ahead. It repeats.

6:19:27of when a person, when I see it, they get involved or they get to the scene. Is it something like a, I don't, One hundred good sins. The sin I made cost me, let's say, hypothetically, twenty zechuyot. I mean, all the zechuyot, my question is, are you saying that you hold, or you don't hold, that they get annihilated by my sins? No, sins, sins, reward, you get reward from mitzvot, you get punishment for sins. They don't, wipe each other out as far as the next world. In this world, Kabbalistic teaching is that when a person is making really big sins, the Kedusha power that they're supposed to get in order to facilitate more mitzvot, instead of going to the good side, goes to the bad side. But as far as the next world, their reward for those mitzvot, they'll still get. They'll still get them.

6:20:48but the punishment for their sins, they'll still get one way or another. I mean, it doesn't cancel each other out. Doesn't cancel each other out. Go ahead. Can I, can I, can I, can I? Trying to find another solution. Go ahead, you can talk. What kind of wire? Is it the charger wire? That actually maybe worked for me. Yeah. Let me see, sis. OK.

6:21:58Is it working? Yeah, it's blue. Hopefully, it works. Okay, yeah. The show goes on. Yes, he has to be afraid of his rabbi. But if his fear of his rabbi would supersede his fear of Hashem... I'll supersede the same. Let's supersede the same. I've heard from a rabbi in Israel. He said that the Ramban says there are rabbis who are teaching the Daat Torah, true Daat Torah. Everything is in there, and everybody is going in the way of the Daat Torah. However, these rabbis are going to go to Daat Torah, and they're never going to come out. Why? Because all the things that the people were doing

6:23:21they were doing it for the sake of the rabbi, with him in their mind, not that they feared Hashem; they feared him. So what's going on here? Because someone may not be able to make the difference between whether he's really afraid of Hashem more than the rabbi. People that worship the rabbi, they're not afraid of the rabbi. People that worship the rabbi are not afraid of him. People that worship Rabbi Nachman of Breslov or the Lubavitcher Rebbe or some other rabbi out there, they're not afraid of them. Those types of people are no different than the... fake believer that I talked to a few days ago that I told you, that asked me, why do you keep Shabbat? Why do you keep mitzvot? What good do you get out of it? I told him, that's because you have to fear Hashem and so on. And he said, I told him, we have different beliefs. He said, no, I believe in the same God as you. I said, no, your god's a loser. Little god. Little fake god. Mine's a real God. There's a difference and so on and so forth.

6:24:30So the reason why is because his god works on conditions where he thinks that if he does X, Y, Z, then his god will give him magic tricks, will magically make money appear in his account, will magically make his stock portfolio go up, will magically make his wife like him or make him find a wife and so on and so forth. He's turned God into an idol of some kind, a little voodoo or something. Same thing with these people that worship their rabbis. These people that worship their rabbis, they're not afraid of the rabbi, but they think that if they eat the rabbi's bread or if they pray to the rabbi and they kiss his hand and they cling to the rabbi, then everything in their life will be fixed magically. All of a sudden, they're not going to have financial problems anymore. All of a sudden, they're not going to have headaches anymore. All of a sudden, their stomach aches are not going to be there anymore. And that's all nonsense.

6:25:30Those people are not listening to the rabbi. They're simply worshiping the rabbi. That's not fearing the rabbi. Fearing a rabbi means you fear the words that come out of him because the words that come out of him are Torah. In essence, you're fearing him because you know that he is the messenger of Hashem because what he says is Torah. So it's not that you're fearing him as a human being. It's that you're fearing the Torah that comes out of him because you know that the word of Hashem comes out of his throat. And that's what you fear, and you realize that Hashem will literally change nature for such people. That's the fear—it's fearing Hashem, but through His messenger, because you know that he stays close to the message itself. You never chas v'shalom worship him, but you literally kiss his hand like it's a Sefer Torah because he is a Sefer Torah; he's a living Sefer Torah.

6:26:31Gemara says, when Rav Huna died, they said, "We should bury him with a Sefer Torah." No, we can't bury him with a Sefer Torah; that hasn't happened since Hezekiah. It's like, why did it happen to Hezekiah? Hezekiah, he was the same thing as a Sefer Torah. They buried the Sefer Torah with Hezekiah, the king. Why? He said, "Sefer Torah, Hezekiah, same thing." Same thing, same thing, no difference between them. It's just Torah, the whole nation. Learn Torah, everybody becomes tzaddikim. It's about Torah. So, in certain parts of the Jewish culture, especially in the Eastern world, the Middle Eastern world, there is a lot of respect for their rabbis. They kiss their hands, and some of the things that they're willing to do for their rabbis, people are not willing to do for their parents. But it's because they have the closeness to the rabbi because they believe that their rabbi is mamash, a messenger of Hashem, that the words that come out of him are da'at Torah. It's the opinion of the Torah. Not because he per se is anything. It's that Torah comes out of him. When people ask him a question, they're asking him, "What's da'at Torah? What does the Torah say about such and such, such and such, such and such?" And whatever he says, they listen to him.

6:27:57Meaning that to fear your rabbi as much as you fear God means that you're asking your rabbi a question, and you, in essence, believe that whatever he says is definitely in the Torah. Even if you don't like it. Even if it's against your opinion. It came from him, it's Torah. I fear what he says like I fear Hashem. Why? What he says is Torah. It's the same thing as if Hashem said it. So it's not like I fear him just because I'm afraid that he's going to look at me funny. No, no, no. I ask him, what's da'at Torah on XYZ? I have a problem with my wife, she... I have a problem with my business, this... Whatever the issue is, you ask him, what's da'at Torah on this? He tells you da'at Torah, that's what you have to do. But you don't really like it. You don't really like it. You still have to do it. You still have to do it. Not, you know what, I'll think about it. No, it's never I'll think about it. Never ever am I going to think about it. Never. That's the secret. That's Emunat Chachamim that a person who has it wins in the end. Two couples came to Rav Ovadia, both crying because they can't have kids. Same time they came, they're friends. Same time. Both can't have kids already for a long time.

6:29:21Rav Ovadia gives the blessing to the first couple, gives a blessing to the second couple. A year later, both couples come back. One couple has a little baby in their hand. Way, way, way, very cute little baby. "Rav, I want to thank you for the little baby. Thank you, the blessing worked. Baruch Hashem." A year ago, we were here, Baruch Hashem. Right away, everything worked. Your blessing, first class in Shamayim. The other ones, crying even more than last time. Maybe you spent a blessing on them. You didn't give us a blessing. We don't have a kid. We don't have anything. Why is it? Why did you do this to us? He would cry with people, even if he didn't know them.

6:30:22He says to him, "You want to know be'emet?" He said, "Yeah, I want to know. How come you didn't do it?" "Okay. I'm going to ask you both a question." He says to the first couple, "When I told you I have a blessing, you will have a kid, what did you do after you left here?" He said, "We went to the store, we started buying, we started looking at furniture for the baby room." He said, "The rabbi blessed us, so we're going to go look for furniture for the baby room." So we started looking. We're going to have a boy. We're going to have a girl. What should we get? Maybe we should get a neutral color. Maybe we should get this. We should get that. We started looking at things. We started buying stuff for the baby. He says, you, I give you a blessing. Same thing, two minutes later. What did you do? He goes, we went to some kabbalist and went to some doctor and asked him, what do you think? Do you think the blessing from the rabbi is going to come true?

6:31:24Because that's the difference. That's why the blessing didn't come true for you. They believed what I said. They believed it so much, they went and started buying furniture for the kid. Why? You came here for a little trick. You thought maybe I'm going to make a baby appear in your stomach now. And since I didn't, you want to double-check. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm right. Let's see if the doctor agrees. Let's see if science agrees. Let's see if there's evidence. Let's see if there's no evidence. You didn't believe anything. It was as if you didn't come. That's why you didn't get a blessing. That's emunat chachamim. A person who has emunat chachamim wins. But I mean real chachamim, not people who pretend to be chachamim. And that's the problem today, is that a lot of people don't have Emunat Chachamim, and a lot of people don't have Chachamim as Tov Abo. But the reality is, Rabotai, that a person needs to do everything they possibly can to do the will of Hashem. Part of it is to have a rabbi, part of it is to make sure that the rabbi has Da'at Torah, and ultimately to remove their own opinion. Remove their own opinion.

6:32:38from the equation. The more you remove your own opinion from the equation, the more successful you will be in your avodat Hashem. If you are in love with your own opinion, you're going to have a very, very hard time serving Hashem. Very, very hard time. Next. In regards to the life of a Jew, what role does socializing play? Socializing? With whom? What, friends and such? Socializing. It's a good question because I know this is the world today. People need to socialize. People are social creatures.

6:33:38Tell you without a doubt. No one ever went to Gehenom because they had a lot of friends. No one ever went to Gehenom because they socialized with a lot of people. But plenty of people went to Gehenom for it. Plenty of people went to Gehenom for having some bad friends that eventually led them astray. I Of course, there's always going to be a superhero that tells me, "Yeah, but there's a lot of people that had their friends influence them to do teshuvah." Yeah, show me them. And even if you did, what is that in comparison relative to the ones that influenced them to jump off the mountain? So anyway, as far as socializing is concerned, you have to always ask yourself, what's the purpose? Someone asked me a question today or yesterday or whenever it was, and he said... You say you should only learn Torah. What about secular knowledge? I hear that Rambam learned secular knowledge. It's okay, right? I said, when Rambam talks about secular knowledge, he's not talking about the same thing you're talking about. When Rambam is talking about secular knowledge, he's talking about secular knowledge with a purpose. Like secular knowledge, for example, for a profession. You need to learn medicine.

6:35:02You need to learn law. You need to learn accounting. You need to learn how to fix an engine because that's what you do for a living, to sustain yourself. There's no problem; you're learning it. What you're talking about as far as secular knowledge is you want to watch the news to see who won the sports game. You want to listen to all types of nonsense about politics, secular knowledge. And that's forbidden unless there's a purpose to it. What's your purpose? What is the purpose of what you're doing? And that's what a lot of people simply do not ask themselves. What is the purpose of the things that you're learning about? How is it going to help you? What? Oh, it makes me laugh. Okay, after it makes you laugh, then what? Finished. Then what? Oh, then I feel good. Why? Why do you feel good? Why? What makes you feel good about it? Oh, I don't... The point is, everybody has to ask that. You have to... Who is wise? Someone who sees what’s born, what happens as a result of their actions. Why? Why are you doing what you're doing? Even more so than learning, is socializing. What is the point of this relationship?

6:36:24Are you inviting them over for dinner on Shabbos because you want to show off your house? You want to show off your cooking? What are you inviting them for? For what? What's the point? What is the point? Same price. You're allowed to sit. Sorry, it's just seven times walked in and out of the room. What's the point? What's the point of what you're doing? Why? Why? Why are you socializing with these people? Are they bringing any value to your life? Or are they my family? So what? Esav was Yaakov's family. And Yaakov prayed to Hashem, The Midrash says, what does it mean? Why is Yaakov Avinu crying to Hashem, "Please save me, Hashem, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esav?" Why is he afraid Esav is going to kill him? Yaakov is a very powerful person. So why? Why is he afraid? No, no, no. The other side. Other side.

6:37:39Why? Why is Yaakov, why is Yaakov, what is he crying to Hashem for? He's afraid, not afraid of Esav. Women on this side, men on this side, what's the problem? Why is he afraid of Esav? The Midrash says, Yaakov could have killed Esav with one finger. With one hand, he could have killed him. He's not afraid of him at all, not afraid of him at all. Even though Esav was a gibor, Yaakov was a bigger gibor. So what is he afraid of? He said, "Save me from my brother." Why? He may have kids, I have kids, and hopefully his kids don't ruin my kids. Because he's our cousin, he's family. They'll think, oh, since we're cousins, we're allowed to play together. Save me from him. As soon as he saw him, Esav says, okay, let's go together. He goes, no, no, no, you know, my kids, they're weak.

6:38:55You know, they're weak. All my stuff is weak. You go. You go with your people. We're weak. Because if we go at your speed, we're all going to die. I'll meet up with you. Midrash says, what does it mean you'll meet up with me? You never met up with him. He says, yeah, I'll meet up with you when Mashiach comes and he kills you. I'll meet up with you then. That's what he says. He says, the same, you haven't seen your brother in 22 years. You haven't seen your brother in so many years. At the very least, hang out for a few days. Hang out for a week, a month. You know, you're shalom shalom now. He didn't want someone to kill you like he used to. Now you're buddies again, no? Hang out with him for a few days. Yaakov Avinu literally couldn't see him for an entire day. A few hours he saw him. He said, I'll meet you. I'll meet up with you. I'll meet up with you. Why don't you go with your soldiers? I'll meet up with you. Never saw him again. Why? His kids influenced my kids. So people have to ask themselves, you want to socialize, and the people you're socializing with, friends, no friends, family, no family, but they're little Amaleks, little Eisavs walking around, for what purpose?

6:40:04What is it going to bring to your life? Other than destroying your kids, your livelihood, and everything else in between. What else can it bring to your life? Oh no, I'm doing kiruv. Okay, do kiruv with one of them, not all of them. Don't risk your kids for the sake of kiruv. You have no right to risk your kids for the sake of kiruv. So socializing has to have a purpose. like everything else in life, it has to have a purpose. If it doesn't have a purpose, then what are we doing here? And that's what people need to understand: if you evaluate every step that you make, if you calculate it, Why? Why? Always ask why. Why am I doing this? What's the point? Why? Always ask why. Then you may actually reach a conclusion that a lot of the things that you do are purposeless, and you could easily eliminate them. You'll have an easier time eliminating them. Eliminating certain relationships, eliminating certain actions, eliminating certain things. And then there are a lot of things that are purposeful, but you don't spend enough time doing them, and you could spend more time doing that.

6:41:15ask yourself what's the point. Always ask yourself, why am I doing this? People simply don't ask themselves why they are doing what they're doing. They can literally work for a company for 20 years and still not know what the company does. What's the point of working for this company? Why are you there? What's your purpose? What's your mission statement? "I don't know, I'm just a secretary here." Okay, you're a secretary here for 20 years, and you still don't know what you do? I mean, if they wanted a cow, they'd hire a cow. They want you, a human being. You should ask yourself, what's the point? If Hashem wanted cows, He'd have a planet full of cows. He created you, a human being. So ask yourself, what's the point? Why are you doing what you're doing? If you ask yourself what you're doing, it already eliminates most of your issues, most of your questions. Why? Because you answer yourself. You answer yourself. You hang out with bad people, you'll become bad. You hang out with good people, you’re more likely to become good. It's a reality. Rambam says that the influence that the environment has on a person is so enormous that if he's surrounded by resha'im, he must move. And if all the places and countries that he knows of are only full of resha'im, then he must move to the desert. Having a neighbor who is a scorpion and a snake is better than having a neighbor who is a rasha.

6:42:37Now, of course, in America and most of the world, even in Israel, you're not going to be surrounded by Rabbi Akiva and his students. It's always going to be a mix, some decent, some bad. We're not referring to just people that are not Rabbi Akiva. We're referring to people that are actively trying to go against Hashem. Living in places like Tel Aviv, for the most part, is simply not allowed. Why? It's the number one city in the world full of homosexuality. I don't even know if there could be even a kosher restaurant in the place. I don't know if there could be a kosher person in the place. I'm sure it exists. I'm sure there's some that exist. But generally, it's very, very hard to believe that such a place could be permissible for anyone to walk around in. Where are you going to send your kids to school? What are you going to send your kids to school for? You have to send them somewhere else. Why live there then? So there are certain places you just shouldn't live in. Same thing, for example, in Manhattan. I lived in Manhattan for, I don't know, maybe 15 years or so. And even though most of my time was spent doing work, and there are different parts, there are different neighborhoods in Manhattan. Some parts of it are purely business, some parts are neighborhoods, and so on. The reality is, for the most part, Manhattan is not a good place to raise kids.

6:43:55Why? Because you have a lot of yetzer hara there. You have a lot of yetzer hara there. It's very, very hard to convince your wife to remain modest when people walk around being immodest over there 365 days a year. Very hard. Same thing with people who live on the beach. Where are you going to send your kids? How are you going to tell your kids to watch their eyes, and as soon as they go downstairs, the woman at the front desk is wearing a bikini? How? How do you expect it? So there are certain things you just, you're not allowed to do. You're not allowed to put yourself in danger. It's the same thing with certain people. If you know you have a certain friend that's very, very, you know, considered at least in his own definition, intellectual, but he's intellectual in his own stupidity. You know, the heresy about how we all came from monkeys, how we all came from nothing, and everything is nothing. Such a person should never, ever be allowed to speak, talk, touch, or even be near your children.

6:45:00You want to help him for some reason? You want to help him? You have a special place in your heart to help this guy or help this woman? No problem. Help them. But don't risk your kids or your wife or your husband. You help them. You want to take that on as your own case? By all means. Don't bring them next to your kids. Same thing if you have people over at your house. A lot of people want to do chesed. They want to invite people over to their house. You have to make sure to tell people to dress appropriately. Don't have one of these cousins walk around with a tank top and tattoos all over their arms and think your little tzaddikim kids are going to understand that it's not allowed. A lot of the things that kids end up doing is a result of the friends that the parents pick. Usually, the kids—my wife taught me this, God bless her, she's a very, very wise woman—she says most of the things that kids learn is from the so-called cool friends that the parents have. parents have these so-called cool friends that they bring over once in a while. They have tattoos, they wear different clothes, they act a certain way, and everyone—the parents—like them. So the kid says, "Oh, if they like this cool person with tattoos and earrings and nose rings and eye rings and this ring and that ring, if my parents like him, that means if I'm like him, my parents will like me too."

6:46:26So they start wanting to become like this guy that just came out of a truck stop. He looks like he murdered 18 people on the way to your house, but supposedly he's a half-Jew. And you're trying to do kiruv with him. You can't bring people like this to your house. If you are, you have to make sure that they dress appropriately. Meaning, they can't show all that stuff. You can't, you can't. There are certain places in... Certain Jewish neighborhoods, where you know the parents are very, very careful, if they see even a person with a tattoo, they run away. They don't want their kids to see it. I don't blame them. Why? Because to a kid, a tattoo looks very cool. He's not thinking that it's not allowed. He's not thinking that when he's 75 years old, the tattoo is not going to look cool anymore on his wrinkly skin. He's not thinking that. He's thinking the little dragon on the guy's arm looks cool. That's what he's thinking. So you bring those people to your house, you're asking for trouble. You're asking for trouble. Everybody likes to come look like it's a fish tank. Everybody likes to come look like... come, sit, eat, listen, learn. It's like a fish tank. Anyway, go. Next question.

6:47:50Sit, eat, go, the other side, not this side, women's side, women's side. What about a tattoo if it's a Star of David, like I have, that's okay? No, not okay at all. That's your problem, you have to have a problem. Other side, other side. No, next question. Last week or last year, it was too late. But anyway, that you mentioned that today, and about his knowledge, we know a lot of people kind of, you know, or he knew from that mistake. And one of the things, I think he probably saw him as a doctor or something like that, a great doctor. Also, you mentioned about the personage, the personage last week. Combination, combination, combination. There's an enormous amount of Torah knowledge that the Rambam had about medicine.

6:49:12that even until this day, experts around the world, especially so-called diagnosticians—diagnosticians are people who look for cures to unusual diseases—look at the Rambam, and he has a certain book of medicine, and they still implement it until this day. Until this day. So the amount of knowledge that he had about medicine was not just from the secular world. The majority of it came from the Torah world, from his knowledge of Torah. I have no idea. This thing does not simply want to work. there's not much time left on this battery. Same thing goes for all the Chachamim that dealt with medicine. There's an enormous amount of knowledge.

6:50:34And there are books that they've written and put together that have a lot of this medical knowledge that people can learn from. Part of it comes from the wisdom of the sages from previous generations. They use different Torah secrets to identify secrets about medicine and so on. There are certain diseases that are discussed in the Torah. There are certain cures that are discussed in the Torah. The Gemara is full of cures. I can actually give you a few examples. It's so annoying. That's fake tzidkut. That's exactly what I was talking to you guys about. Fake, that's it. People exerting themselves as if they're happy for absolutely no reason at whatever time it is in the morning. Instead of studying Torah, they disturb Torah. That's fake tzidkut. God bless. But unfortunately, the world today is such that people like to lie to themselves. What can we do? What can we do? All right.

6:52:24I have a section that I wrote one time in my book here that had some cures that are in the Torah. I can't seem to find it. Some cures are in the Torah. Some of them were in, I think it was Masechet Shabbat, that mention different things that a person can use in their life, and about 110 30 years ago, a certain doctor, an expert, went over it, and not just what I wrote, but a lot of the things that are written in the Gemara, and put a book together with all the different medicines that are mentioned in the Torah. He said, and then someone even revised it recently, and said that literally, with the exception of certain things that happened through modern science, advancements in modern science, it's extraordinary how right, how correct what was written in the Torah 2,000 years ago was before everything that's happening now. It's extraordinary.

6:53:47I couldn't believe how much knowledge, medical knowledge, the Torah had about medicine, even without... So the Gemara has a few small things. Gemara Masechet Shabbat, page 41a. Here's a few interesting health tidbits. I found them interesting. Breathing in hot air leads to sweating, which cools you off. So if it's hot outside, the last thing you want to do is breathe less. You think that if you breathe less, maybe you'll be less hot. That's your natural inclination, thinking that if it's hot, maybe you should go find a cool room. But if you actually want to cool off when it's really hot, take deep breaths. Take deep breaths; it'll actually cool you off. We'll check after. I'll measure it. I'll take my measuring tape.

6:55:02Okay. Next. Eating without drinking. If someone eats without drinking, it leads to intestinal problems. Someone who eats without drinking will eventually have stomach problems. Some people think that it's healthy to just eat and maybe drink another time. It's wrong. You have to drink when you eat. Some say you have to drink before you eat. Some say you have to drink after you eat. But either way, you have to drink. Why? Because the drinking is also, in essence, a lubricant that allows your food to travel efficiently and painlessly. And that's why if a person doesn't drink, and only drinks much later on, it creates a lot of stomach problems. Also, a very good thing to do in the morning... Before you drink your coffee, before you drink anything, drink a bottle of water. Take one of these bottles of water and down the bottle. That'll help your stomach an enormous amount. You could do it with lemon too. Eating without walking at least four amot (cubits)—meaning if you just eat and sit like an average American without moving around—leads to the food inside your body rotting, which will eventually create bad breath.

6:56:24Eating without walking at least four amot leads to the food inside your body rotting, which will eventually create bad breath. Eating and not moving at all throughout the whole day, after you finish eating, will lead the food inside your body to rot and will ultimately create bad breath. Eating while the body needs to be relieved. If you need to defecate, need to go to the bathroom. But you say, no, no, let me have another bite. Let me have another burger before I go. It leads to body odor. A lot of people have body odor. Why? Why do they have smelly sweat? Because they eat even when they have to go to the bathroom, even when they’re supposed to relieve themselves. Which, by the way, it’s 100% forbidden to stop yourself from going. You have to go. When you have to go, you can't say, no, no, no, another half hour I'll go. No, you have to go. First of all, you're not allowed to pray when you have to go. You're not allowed to learn Torah when you have to go. And another thing is it creates a lot of serious, serious health problems. Serious health problems. Also, you're not allowed to be with your wife, not allowed to do anything really. When you have to defecate, you have to defecate. The only time you're allowed to hold it is if you know for sure you can hold it for 72 minutes.

6:57:50If you know you can hold it for 72 minutes, then in essence, it means you don't really have to go. But if you have to go, whether to eat or to do anything, you have to go. Bathing in hot water is only therapeutic if it's coupled with drinking the hot water. Some people think that if you sit in a jacuzzi, it's therapeutic. And the Gemara says it's only therapeutic, it's only healthy if you also drink the hot water, like you drink tea too, while you're in the hot water. Again, if you sit in a jacuzzi, some people think it's healthy for you because it opens your pores. So the Gemara says it's only healthy if you also drink hot water at the same time. Not just sick. They had hot water since the beginning of time. Yes, the bubbles—no, they waited for you to create it. A hot bath must be followed by rinsing in cold water. If someone takes a hot shower, you should have a flash of cold water at the end. You should have a flash of cold water at the end.

6:59:17That makes it healthy. Oh, if somebody has a stomach ache, you could put an upside-down cup of hot liquid, tea, coffee, whatever it is, on top of the stomach, on top of the navel, and it'll heal the stomach ache. A mixture of oil and salt smeared on the palms of your hands and the soles of your feet will help a person get over being drunk.

7:00:22If they're drunk and they can't afford to be drunk, put oil and salt on your palms and on your feet. Then we're going to wait. We're going to wait for you to tell us. There's different remedies, too much details. Different remedies for swollen skin, different remedies for Kadachat, which is a Shem Yirachem, what kind of disease it is. Kadachat is when your entire body is inflamed. You feel like you're on fire.

7:01:25you write a verse on a small with different remedies different remedies different point is rabotai is that this is just one little tiny page in the Gemara is an enormous amount enormous amount of Torah that uh discusses these things, discusses medical knowledge, discusses, you know, everything, everything you want. That's why the Mishnah in Pirkei Avot, the last chapter of Avot, says that meaning uh, review it and review it because everything is in it, everything is in it. Even learning how to behave like a human being and allowing a shiur to work is also in it. The problem is that if you spend your time dancing to silly music instead of learning Torah, then you're not going to know how to become a tzaddik. You just pretend you're a tzaddik. There's a lot of pretending, a lot of pretending in the world. What can we do?

7:02:49What can we do? Dancing is not good? Not right now. Right now is the bad thing to do. Right now it's Chilul Hashem. If it doesn't make a difference, you're ruining a shiur Torah. It's Chilul Hashem. Over there? It's disturbing people here. The shiur Torah was for so long, and we learned Torah the whole day, the whole night. Everybody learned Torah here. They all learned Torah here. They're disturbing the shiur Torah now. Next. Chamsa. Yes. Yeah, and he said there, it's not, it's not, it's from like, Islam or something, it has no connection to Jews. Well, everybody else in Mizrachi is a tzadik, but there's a lot of things he says that, he says, every, every time he says, I was confused because I see people who religiously have it, like, on their wall, on the hand, and then they have like, you're not allowed to put ayin and you put chamsa?

7:03:57That's from Breslov, that's from Tzfat. Chamsa, a lot of people, there's no actual real source of it in the Torah. It comes more from tradition, from the Western world, from the Middle East, he's right. It comes a lot from the Western world. Whether it was Jews that founded it or others that founded it, that we're not 100% sure. But no, he's 100% right that there are issues with parts of it. And that's why a lot of, you know, you'll see, for example, you're not going to see a Rav or the Rosh Yeshiva walking around with a chamsa on their neck. You're not going to see them. Usually, people that have it are, you know, they have it culture-wise. The same thing with a lot of things. In general, I don't, you know, the source of Chamsa is, in essence, supposed to connect the Chamsa to Yosef HaTzadik. Yosef HaTzadik, Yosef HaTzadik, the Gemara in Masechet Berachot

7:05:08says that Yosef HaTzadik was above Ayin Hara. Above Ayin Hara. And if a person does a certain hand signal, goes like this and like this, a certain hand signal, and you say, I am a descendant of Yosef HaTzadik, who is above Ayin Hara, Then there's the combination of the hand signal that Yosef HaTzadik used to do, and reminding, in essence, that you are a descendant of Yosef HaTzadik, will protect you against Ayin Hara. So the hand gesture and combination of the Ayin Hara protection is where this Ayin Hara Chamsa could have come from, because it's a hand, and also has the eye on it, which is in essence protecting against Ayin Hara. whether it did or it didn't, we don't know. But in essence, what I'm telling you is that most people that will have these things on their head, like he has it, or they have it on their walls, or things like that, is simply because of a cultural thing. They like the looks of it, they like the feel of it, but you're generally not going to find Talmidei Chachamim with those types of things, unless they simply are just putting it for looks, not because they think it's going to protect them from Ayin Hara.

7:06:32No Talmid Chacham in the history of Am Yisrael actually thought that something that's going to go on their wall is going to protect them from Ayin Hara. So regular people think, because like I said, regular people don't have Da'at Torah, they're constantly looking for something physical, a physicality that will represent the Torah, a physicality that will represent Hashem. Trying to humanize G-d has been something that people have been trying to do since the beginning of time. You know, they make statues, they make images, all types of things. Write words, make pictures. People constantly try to humanize G-d, because if they can humanize G-d, then they say, oh, maybe if I could pray to that, I'll have more kavanah. But that's avodah zarah. So the line between serving Hashem and serving an idol is very, very thin. It's very, very thin. And that's why a person needs to have a real understanding of what da'at Hashem is, what da'at Torah is. Star of David is okay. I have the same one with the Star of David. There's a cloth inside of it. Five years ago, there was a cloth here. I have had it for many, many years. It says,

7:07:45Star of David is the Star of David. It's a picture. Same thing with the picture of the hand. There's nothing wrong with the picture of the hand. There's nothing wrong with the picture of the Star of David. The Star of David has no source in the Torah, but it has no source in the Torah, though. It's not from the Torah. It's not from the Torah. It's not from the Torah. It's more custom. I understand. You can see the letters. I saw the same shiur. I'm not telling you this off the top of my head. I understand. You have all the letters. All the letters. I get it. I understand. It has a lot of nice pictures, a lot of symbolic things in it. Bottom line is, there's no source for the Magen David in the Torah. There's only tradition that that's what it was. But some people don't even call it Magen David; they call it Magen Shlomo. And some people say it wasn't even that; it was something else. The point is that, yes, it has symbolic value. I use it all the time. Anytime I want to point something out, I'll write Magen David in different places in my books. There's nothing wrong with it. But to say it has some pasuk in the Tanakh or some picture in our holy books from many, many years ago that has Magen David is not true. It has no source in the Torah. But custom-wise, it's like a custom, like anything else.

7:09:08It's a custom. But that's what defines us. That's why everybody... No, what defines us is the Torah. The Jews... They have the Magen David on them. That's what the Goyim chose for them, not the Jews. The Magen David symbol is for Jews. Sit there. I'm saying there's nothing wrong with it. But it has no source in the Torah. Why are there a lot of people who disagree with people in Judaism... Like, when Hashem will come... Right. It will not be... Because, like, let's say... I didn't say silly music. You danced to silly music at the wrong time. The music used right now is very silly. It's a mistake. It could even be Tehillim. It would be wrong to do it now because it disturbs the shiur Torah. Shiur Torah is more important than this entire Beit Knesset. Some people say simcha is more, it's better than simcha. They're wrong. They don't know what da'at Torah is. I can open the Leshit right now and prove to you that if you don't learn, if you don't do a mitzvah with simcha, you don't need to do the mitzvah. But you're doing a mitzvah, that's Torah. But you don't do it with simcha. The whole point of a mitzvah is doing it from simcha. And then it's pasuk mem zayin, the sefer Devarim. And right away it says mem chet. So if you want to have mochin, and you have to have one, you have to be happy all the time.

7:10:32Yes, but you're not allowed to have simcha at the expense of somebody else. You're not allowed to disturb a shiur Torah because you feel like dancing. You can go and have your dancing somewhere else. It doesn't have to be disturbing a shiur Torah. If it's disturbing a shiur Torah, it's bitul Torah, it's chilul Hashem, and several other sins. In addition, okay, they finished. We didn't finish. Next. Okay, go ahead. They asked several questions, go ahead. Okay. Being happy and crying are not independent of each other. Being happy and crying to Hashem are not independent of each other. You can be happy and cry to Hashem at the same time. One second.

7:11:51No, it's recorded on the other machine. Don't worry. Don't worry. It's recorded on the other camera. So, anyway, I'll answer the question. I'll answer the question. Being happy and crying to Hashem are not independent of each other. You can be happy and cry to Hashem at the same time. One second. This thing has full charge. Being happy and crying to Hashem are not independent of each other. It's one and the same thing. You cry for one thing, you're happy for something else. This thing has a full charge. Being happy and crying to Hashem are not independent of each other. It's one and the same thing. You cry for one thing, you're happy for something else. So, happiness, unlike what most people think, is not something you could just find in the street. It's not something you're going to get from a song. It's not something you're going to get from dancing. It's not even something you're going to get from learning a good shiur. Happiness is a state of being. Happiness is something that you always are, even when there's disaster all around you.

7:13:01All around you is disaster. Why do you have happiness? You're happy because you're connected to the Source. You're connected to the truth. You're connected to Hashem and you have a full understanding and belief that everything that's happening in your life is coming from the Source of all sources and that everything that's happening in your life has a purpose. Meaning that this is just another step. There's like this one big game. Let's, for example, I don't know, call it Monopoly. Okay? Now you know that in order to get from the beginning all the way to the end, your goal, let's say for example, you had this game and you had to get to the end. You had to get to the end. No matter what, even though on the way to getting to the end to collect the $200, you ended up going to jail. You ended up landing on somebody else's property and paying them $200. You ended up having a lot of problems on the way. As long as you know that you're on the way to the end, you're on the way to getting to the main thing, you're still going to stay focused. Why? Because you're...

7:14:09your eye is on the prize, the prize to get to the end. So even though I'm gonna have a couple of accidents on the way, a couple of headaches on the way, a couple of annoying people on the way, all that stuff, you know, it's part of the journey and it has a purpose. You have to land somewhere. It's, listen, if this Landing six is gonna land you on such-and-such Street. Either way, I have to pass here in order to get to the end. I can't just do it; there's not enough numbers on the dice for me to skip everything. I have to land somewhere. But this is just part of the journey. When a person understands that difficulty is part of the journey, and in essence, that difficulty also has a reward, also has a value, that's actually the real possession that he has, and... That difficulty that he has, he's going to come to Hashem and he says, "Listen, Hashem, I may not have been so right, I may not have been so righteous, but look at the difficulties that I have." And Hashem says, "You're right, these difficulties are worth a thousand years in Gehinnom. These difficulties are worth, you know, a thousand years; it's worth a lot in Shamayim. Therefore, I'll deduct it off of your payment for that."

7:15:25mishaps that you have. You realize how much value they have. The Chachamim in the Gemara said that if a person knew how much difficulty was worth in Shamayim, he would pray for it. He would pray for difficulty. So when a person understands that his life has a purpose, his journey has a purpose, his difficulties have a purpose, automatically he's happy. Even though he's dealing with difficulty and annoying people and annoying times and annoying problems and everything's annoying, the bottom line is, he knows it's all part of the game. It's all part of life. It's all part of the game of life. This is necessary. It's a necessary step. It's a necessary "evil," if you will. Now, sadness, on the other hand, is when you have a problem believing. You believe... I know, the crying part. Where does the crying fit in? I got you. Sadness happens when you have Choser Emunah.

7:16:31When you believe maybe this is not part of the plan. Maybe this is a mistake in the plan. Maybe I made a mistake. Maybe this. Maybe that. You start questioning the plan. You don't like the way the plan is playing out because you don't like the way pain feels. You don't like the way the cactus feels on your skin. So you say, maybe I should go look for a different flower. Yeah, but that's the only one that's available. You don't like it, so that's the problem. You start questioning the plan. So where does crying come in? Crying is not necessarily supposed to be a representation of your sadness. Crying is supposed to be a representation of you opening your heart to connect to Hashem really as you really are, not as you fake to be to everybody else because everybody has two versions of themselves. you don't like it, so that's the problem. You start questioning the plan. So where does crying come in? Crying is not necessarily supposed to be a representation of your sadness. Crying is supposed to be a representation of you opening your heart to connect to Hashem really as you really are, not as you fake to be to everybody else because everybody has two versions of themselves. who they are and who they are next to their friends. Who they are is vulnerable, is nothing, is sometimes good, sometimes bad. Sometimes they're confident, sometimes they're not confident. Sometimes they're happy, sometimes they have ups and downs. Who they really are and who they are next to their friends—they always have a show on, they always have their game face on.

7:17:47Why? Because you don't want to show people that you're vulnerable, that you're sad, that you're upset, that you're depressed. You don't want to show people this stuff, not everybody at least. So a person doesn't want to show people these things, so he's, in essence, a different person in front of people. Now, when you cry to Hashem, you're opening your heart, your real version of you, and you're telling Hashem, "I'm crying to You, I'm connecting to You with the only real version of myself." i'm connecting to You. I want You and I'm crying to You so You can help me serve You. So You can help me do better because I'm realizing that the only way that I'm going to succeed is with You. The only way I'm going to succeed. That's not representing, you're not crying because you're sad. Now sometimes you're upset at your problems and you cry to Hashem because you want Hashem to help you and you want Hashem to fix your problems. You want Hashem to fix your problems.

7:18:47There's no problem with crying for Hashem to fix your problems, but you should know that the reason why you're crying for Hashem to fix your problems is because you yourself don't really understand 100% why you have your problems. You’re not seeing value in your problems. I'm not saying you should pray for problems. I'm not saying you shouldn't cry when you have difficulty; you should cry. But anytime a person complains about their problems, I It's simply because they have difficulty getting their head around why they have this problem, and they forget that this is all part of the system. So a person should always cry to Hashem for Hashem to give them clarity. to give them an understanding of why what's happening is happening. Give me clarity on what the right decision is to make. Should I go to this house that's nice and pretty and good, or the other one that's full of cockroaches? The other one that's really nice, but the neighborhood is not the greatest in the world.

7:19:56But it's nice. It's a nice house. The one that's full of cockroaches, well, everyone around me is tzaddikim. But the house is full of cockroaches. Do I really want to live around cockroaches and rats? What do you want from me, Hashem? Make the decision clear. Make it clear. Is it more important for me to do this? And you pray for things like that. Not pray to Hashem, "Listen, Hashem, make sure You deposit a million and a half dollars in my bank account by Monday morning so I can pay all my bills, my problems, my this, and then I'll be the best Eved Hashem in the world." So the reality is that a person needs to pray for the right thing. And a lot of times, we don't. A lot of times, we limit Hashem. And the Gemara in Masechet Moed Katan says that someone was crying in the Beit Knesset. And Rava saw him and said, why are you crying? And he said, I'm crying because I want to marry this girl. Rava says, okay, so what's the problem? Marry the girl. No, she doesn't want to marry me.

7:21:02Oh, she doesn't want to marry you? Then don't pray for it. Don't pray for Hashem to make you marry this girl. If she doesn't want to marry you, I warn you, don't pray for Hashem to help you marry her. A year later, Rava comes back to the same Beit Knesset. He sees the same guy crying. He says, B'ni, why are you crying? He's still crying for that girl. He goes, no, Kvodo HaRav, you're never going to believe it. He says, what? He says, I pray for Hashem to get the girl. He goes, yeah, you still crying about it? He goes, no. Now I'm praying for Hashem to either kill me or her, whichever comes first. Because He made me marry her. He gave me what I prayed for. And now she's a nightmare. He says, yes, but I told you, B'ni. I told you, B'ni, don't pray for Hashem to give you that girl. Why? Why don't pray for the girl? Why? If you pray to Hashem with something specific, you are, by default, limiting Yeshuat Hashem. You're limiting and restricting the salvation of Hashem. You're limiting it. Why? Hashem is endless, limitless, unbelievable. He can give you salvation in an infinite number of ways. But if you tell Him, "No, Hashem, I only want this way,"

7:22:27Hashem knows it's not good for you this way, but you don't stop praying. And you pray, and you pray, and you pray, and you pray. Hashem says, "Listen, I know it's not good for you. But if you want it, here, come on, enjoy," and you end up getting it. Hashem ends up giving it to you. That's why the Pasuk says, what David HaMelech teaches, is that there are certain prayers that Hashem... ...hears our cries, but He fulfills the prayers of those who fear Him, and He hears the cries. I'm a bit confused. Wait a minute. He fulfills the prayers of those who fear Him, but then He hears their cries. If He already fulfilled them, why are they crying? I don't understand exactly. I'll tell you later. I don't understand. Why, if He fulfills their prayers, are they crying? And if they're crying, maybe He didn't fulfill their prayers. So Rabbi again says something extraordinary. He says, sometimes a person prays to Hashem. He says, "Hashem, I want..."

7:23:53crying to You. I want to get to the shiur on time. But I can't get to the shiur on time because my car broke down. So please, Hashem, give me a new car. Hashem says, "My son wants to get to the shiur. He wants to get to the shiur on time. The problem is I know that if I give him a new car, he's going to crash it. He's going to have a lot of problems. I'm not going to give him a new car." So what I'm going to do, I'm going to give him a new friend that has a car. And he's going to give him a ride to the shiur. Meaning, those who fear Him, He fulfills their prayers. What prayer did He fulfill? He fulfilled his real prayer. His real prayer, he wanted to get to the shiur on time, so He sent him somebody to pick him up for the shiur. But his cries, his cries for the actual car, He just listens to them. He doesn't answer them. Why? Because it's bad for him. It's bad for him if I listen to what he says. It's bad for him if I listen to what he says. So why do you need a gate then? No. So it says, of course, when you cry to Hashem about something, you're going to get it. But when it's not good for you, that's why you need gates.

7:25:19Next question, next. How do you bear? Okay, so. The couple went to, came to Rav Ovadia one time and said, "Rav, we just had a baby and want you to bless us to have a baby who becomes a Talmid Chacham." And he says, "You’re too late." And they said to him, "No, no, no, Rav, the baby was just born." We want you to bless us to have a baby that becomes a Talmid Chacham. And he says, you're too late. You're too late. He said, no, no. Again, everybody thinks that the rabbis are stupid or deaf. And repeated it again. The rabbi says, yeah, you're too late. You're too late. Why too late? He says, in order for the baby to be a Talmid Chacham,

7:26:47You have to do teshuva first. You have to work on yourself first. So the first and most important thing for a person that plans on getting married one day and raising a family is first and foremost to work on their own middot. Work on their own character traits and learn how to be a ben Yisrael, how to be a decent human being. Because if he's not a decent human being, all he will create will be bad. His marriage will be bad. His children will be bad. His life will be bad. Everything will be bad. If he's not a decent human being that has good middot, that's under control, that knows how to control himself, knows how to speak, knows how to listen, knows how to empathize and put himself in somebody else's shoes, knows how to be merciful, knows how to be a decent human being, everything that will come out of him will be psoleit, will be like waste.

7:27:47So before evaluating other people, a person needs to evaluate himself. And never judge a person harsher than you judge yourself. If you're going to judge somebody else, judge yourself like that first. If you don't like the way she talks because she uses a certain language, do you? If you don't like that she sleeps so much, do you? If you don't like that she does this and that, do you? If you do, don't judge anybody. You have no right. And that's what the Gemara that confuses a lot of people says. It says there's nobody left to rebuke people anymore. That's what the Gemara really means. The Gemara that really says it, says there's nobody to rebuke real people anymore. And this is implying that people don't check themselves. everything, and they want to rebuke everybody on everything. No, you're only allowed to rebuke on something that you rebuke yourself on. You're only allowed to advise people on things you advise yourself on. But if you don't follow your own advice, the Gemara says it was better the umbilical cord in your mother's stomach choked you to death.

7:29:11If you teach things that are the opposite of what you do, it was better off you died before you came to the world. Why? Because you're a Chilul Hashem walking. So a person needs to first and foremost work on themselves. Be a decent human being. Learn Mussar and apply it. The Chazon Ish says that there's a lot of people that learn Mussar. And they say do, do, do, do, do, do, but they're am ha'aretz. They're nothing. Losers. Fakers. Why? Because they learn the words. They read the words, but they apply nothing. It's like reading a Harry Potter book. They read, yeah, yeah, yeah, emunah, bitachon, yeah, control, ah, ah. As soon as the one little thing in their grandmaster plan falls in the wrong place or a place they don't want, all of a sudden they become Esav. What happened to emunah? What happened to bitachon? What happened to good middot? What happened? Did you forget it on the shelf? Go get it from the shelf. What, you need a book in front of you in order to have good middot?

7:30:21So, a person needs to understand that real Mussar is something you have to meditate on, you have to think about it, you have to, you could call it, it's something you have to really deeply think about and see, how can I apply this in my life? How can I use this Kodesh Kodashim advice? the sages in my life. How could I use it? It's so far away from me. It's so far. It's so difficult. It's so this, it's so that. If you start learning really with your mind, you start learning how to be careful, stay away from trouble. You already eliminate 90% of your problems and Once you actually stay away from trouble, then all you've got to do is control yourself during that 10% of the time that just happens in life. But that's more possible. The way you do it is you learn omek hadin (the depth of judgment). You learn there is a consequence for your actions, a consequence for going against Hashem.

7:31:43If you understand there's a consequence of going against Hashem, and you understand what it means. Not just, you understand there's Gehinnom, there's fire, there's this. I'm talking about understanding how that disconnect from Hashem, how horrible it feels. How horrible it is to be a person that goes against Hashem. Because that makes you a kafuy tovah. Nobody likes a kafuy tovah. Imagine Somebody feeds you, dresses you, buys you stuff, gives you everything, every day. In the morning, gives you food. In the afternoon, gives you more food. At night, gives you more food. Gives you new clothes every other week. Gives you a ride, gives you a car, gives you everything you want. Imagine such a person. And then, one day, says, "Listen, I don't feel like getting anything else from you anymore." I don't feel like getting anything else from you anymore. You tell this person, "I don't feel like getting anything else from you anymore." Why not? "I got something better. I got a better offer down the street." What about all the things I did for you all this time? "Yeah, thanks, but no thanks. Thank you, but no thanks. I got a better offer." This is how the business world works. You take a guy, you take a woman, you build them up, they start from nothing, they start as a file clerk, they start as a secretary, they start as a mediocre salesman, and all of a sudden you build them after a year or two, and you pay for them to learn.

7:33:11you build them up, they start from nothing, they start as a file clerk, they start as a secretary, they start as a mediocre salesman, and all of a sudden you build them up after a year or two, and you pay for them to learn. Every time they make a mistake, it's not like you dock them from their paycheck. You keep paying them. You pay for them to learn. After two years of mistakes, they finally know something. And after they finally know something, they say, okay, thanks, but no thanks. I'm going to a different company. Why? They pay me more money. Yeah, but we paid for all the mistakes. Yeah, thanks. Thanks for paying for all the mistakes. That's an ungrateful person. Now you, it's easy for you to understand it in the business world. When we go against Hashem, we're a million times worse. Hashem gives us a lot more than clothing, a lot more than food, a lot more than a ride, and a lot more than a job. Everything and anything that you have in your life is only due to Hashem. Nothing is due to you. You want to check something else? Hold your breath.

7:34:32Hold your breath until you can't anymore. Half a minute, a minute, two minutes. If you're a real professional, four minutes. But most people usually around a minute, a minute and a half. That feeling, that feeling that you get right before you take that breath. I don't mean like, oh, you know, it's uncomfortable. I'm talking about when you can't take it anymore. can't take it anymore. I have to take it. That feeling, that's one breath. That's one breath. That's just one breath. Fixed your whole life. Imagine how many breaths He gives you every day. Free. Imagine you didn't have that one breath. What kind of torture you would have. One day you didn't breathe for a minute. Big deal. Look, you almost want to die. Why? Because you were missing one breath. He gives you millions. Yet, what do we do? We go and do things against Him. There's no worse Kafui Tovah than that. There's no worse ungrateful person than that. For that, we cry. For that, we cry. For that, we say, "Hashem, please."

7:35:48Remind me of this in my weak moments. Remind me of this during the times that are difficult. During the times the Yetzer Hara is there and he's attacking me. Remind me of this. Remind me that You are that breath. You are that one breath when I can't breathe. You are it. You're the only thing. You're the only one. You're the one and only. You're everything. Remind me of that. Keep me going when it's difficult, when the phone is ringing, when everything is a problem. Remind me that in the end, I should still thank You endlessly. Why? Because You are that one breath. This is what a person must remind themselves day and night. If you remind yourself like this day and night, number one, it'll help you become much happier. Because naturally when you're a more grateful person, you're happier. If you don't know how to say "thank you," you're never going to be happy in your life. If you don't know how to be grateful, you will never, ever be happy in your life. Why? Because someone who's not grateful has nothing to be happy about. If you don't know what to be grateful about, then what are you going to be happy about? First and foremost, learn how to be grateful.

7:36:59Second of all, it's also going to help you cry to Hashem. Why? Because you realize He's giving you so much. You don't even deserve that, but you still want a little bit more. Who's not going to cry to Abba for that? Who's not going to cry to Abba for that? Abba, I know you give me a lot already, but please, you gave me this one problem too. I don't like this problem. Can you take it away? Abba, please. I love you. You love me. You're connected to Him. You're really, mamash, connected to Him. Why? Because you can't stop thanking Him. And also, by the way, when a person thanks Hashem a lot, it encourages Hashem to give him more. And by thanking Him, I mean a few things. Number one, you continue getting closer to Him by doing His will. Whatever it says, you do, not whatever you feel like. Whatever it says, you do. You don't have your own religion. You don't have your own way. Oh no, this is my way. You do your way, I do my way. There's no such thing as your way, my way. If your way is not Da'at Torah, it's wrong.

7:37:59Simple. There's no such thing as your way, my way. No, this is my Rebbe, this is your Rebbe, this is this, it's all shtuyot. All shtuyot. If it's not Da'at Torah, if it doesn't say this is what you're supposed to do, if what you're doing is against the Shulchan Aruch, you have a serious, serious problem. If you don't follow Shulchan Aruch, you follow the Rambam, you follow something that's against it, I don't know, I don't know what, you follow Christianity or something, then it's not against it. But the reality is that if you want to have Da'at Torah, you have to follow. If what you're doing does not follow Da'at Torah, you have a serious problem. But our Torah has such a vast amount of rules that it even gives you warnings about things that are not even halacha. For example, The Torah says that in the old days, it was a custom, not halacha, but a custom that when somebody would drink a cup of water, or any liquid, if they left it for a little while and came back—not overnight, overnight they would not let them drink it—if you left a cup or a bottle of water overnight, open, uncovered, they would not let you drink it. Even if you walked away from it...

7:39:18Even if you walked away from it, the Chachamim would take a little bit of the water and would spill it. Spill a little bit of water. Why? They said maybe a shed, maybe a sheid, a demon drank a little bit from it, and it has poison in it. demon poison in it, so pour it out. Now, this is mystical teachings, but it's actually part of our basic day-to-day law. So, there are some people out there that don't like to talk or think or believe in the mystical parts of Judaism. And I think there's no bigger fool than those people. The reason why is because the mystical parts of Judaism are Judaism. It's everywhere. Akedat Yitzchak, Adam HaRishon, Noach. Mystical parts of Judaism are part of our Halacha, it's part of our Torah, it's part of our Masoret, and so on. It's all part of Judaism. The problem is, when a person only focuses on that, he only focuses on the demons, he only focuses on the Mashiach, he only focuses on the Segulot, he only focuses on all the things that are supernatural, that person is bound to become an Am Ha'aretz.

7:40:35Why? Because those things are a topping to the day-to-day. They're not the day-to-day. The day-to-day is knowing what the law is. What does Halacha say? Halacha says that if you don't have good middot, we're not even allowed to learn from you. Not even allowed to learn from you. If you, for example, have a lot of Torah, you studied for 25 years already, but you still act like an animal, we're not even allowed to learn from you. Why? you don't follow your own teaching. You don't follow your own teaching. We're not allowed to learn from you. So you may know a lot of Torah, but if your Rav is not like a Malach Hashem, he's not like an angel of Hashem where he represents good middot, he's not a Rav. A talmid chacham, supposedly someone who knows the entire Torah, with bad middot, neveila sucha tova mimeno. That animal in the middle of the street is better than him. Why? He doesn't follow his own teachings. So, a person that's going to be a father, a person that's going to be a mother, a person that's going to be a husband, a person that's going to be a wife, a person that's going to be a teacher, a person that's going to teach anyone, even if it's themselves or one other person as a chavruta, first and foremost needs to understand the work starts at home. It starts with you. It starts with you fixing your middot. All this exterior nonsense that people focus their whole life on, growing beards and hats and dancing and all,

7:42:05and all the strings and all that stuff, it's all nonsense. It's all nonsense unless it's connected to real Avodat Hashem. If it's connected to real Avodat Hashem, where you're really growing the beard because you're becoming a Chassid Be'emet, you really are happy and not just pretending to be happy. You're really learning Torah because you're going to fulfill it, and not just to tell people, "Yeah, I learned three hours today." You're really doing what Hashem says because you want to become Malach Hashem, then all of those things could be good. But if it's just for show, you don't even get sachar for it. You don't even get sachar for it. You don't even get a reward for it. These are some of the biggest issues that we have today. Today we have a lot of people that are focusing on the exterior. A lot of people are focusing on the exterior. I told you, I saw today. What was the exterior? I saw today the woman that walks around with a kisui rosh (mitpachat) with a tank top. I mean, the level of foolishness in this generation is hard to understand.

7:43:21No, she had, I don't know, I think pants. I think she had pants. I don't know. As soon as I saw the tzniut issue, I looked away. But she had a kisui rosh. So, I mean, people are much misguided. She's misguided. That's what I'm saying. According to Torah, she's considered a prutza. But at least you put it in kisui rosh. OK, put it in kisui rosh. So at least you have the meat is kosher on the baking and cheese. Nobody knows. Good luck with that one. Next. Reality. Avraham Avinu, it says, according to what you said, that a person should look at himself first of all and change. I don't wear tank tops. Hashem could tell him, tell him, but He told him, first of all, work on your middot. First of all, change yourself and then do the...

7:44:29And also the one thing you said about, it says in Devarim and Rashi, which is, it's high. And Rashi, it's. So what she says, what does it mean tamim? Yeah, complete. Tamim means like don't investigate whatever happened. Complete. If people learn this pasuk and follow this pasuk, that's all. Like, tamim, or whatever Hashem does, it's the best. Yeah, we talked about it a few hours ago. And what about the parashah? I really wanted to check, but we were busy learning. The what? You said that Moshe would see him only when he was doing his klachim. Yes, Hashem said to him, go to him in the morning. You would go see him on purpose? Yes, during that time, yeah, go open the Me'am Lo'ez. He would do it just to annoy him. No, to specifically show him that he knew that he's a liar and he's not God. I mean, once, twice, but every time he came to see him when he was doing this? Every time he mentions that Hashem says, go see him in the morning. It specifically means that during the morning he would catch him doing his thing. Literally, you said, without pretense, literally. Okay, okay, it was beautiful. Moshe Rabbeinu also did what he did to Pharaoh.

7:45:52i like it when you say, according to what you say. But me? I'm dust. Who am I? I'm a nobody. I love. They say. No, I said you call these. So I didn't say that. I didn't call. Yeah, but it's not like I said it. Also, I learned it just a few hours ago. Everybody did it, but not much is discovered, like shown, like exposed. Explain about it, what it is. And it's not just to talk to Hashem. How can you believe in something? He also said, learn the inyanei of Hanarot. If you have a son and he just texts you, wanting to talk to you... I can say, hey, Hashem, thank you so much, and go pray. Also, when you pray Shemoneh Esrei, it's davening. From your heart, you have to speak to Hashem. When you pray Shemoneh Esrei, without Shemoneh Esrei, you will never reach anything, because in Galut, you will not be able to reach anything, because...

7:47:06But after that, which is the Lebanon, you need to do the Deoraita. The Deoraita is coming from your heart. Come from your heart, Tefillah, from your heart. Yes, you go from your heart. That's what I learned like two hours ago. I'll show it to you. Yes. It's nonsense. It's nonsense? Nonsense. So you're saying about Levi Balaam, it's nonsense? I'm saying, whoever said that Hitbodedut is Deoraita, it's nonsense. It's adding a mitzvah to the Torah. It's complete nonsense. Bring whatever book. It doesn't make a difference. You can bring Rabbi Berlin himself. I'll tell him nonsense to his face. Why? Because it's not Deoraita. It's not Shulchan Aruch. It's not Deoraita. What are you talking about? It's Deoraita? It cannot be mitzvot. It cannot add mitzvot to the Torah. What are you talking about? Hitbodedut is Deoraita? Who said this nonsense? Who teaches you this stuff? Dardasim? Sh'tuyot! Sh'tuyot! It's not Deoraita. It's not Deoraita. Who says Deoraita? Deoraita is Shulchan Aruch, Habibi. Ain't no Shulchan Aruch. Ain't no Shulchan Aruch. No such thing. No such thing as Deoraita to do it. No such thing. No such thing. Good to do? Do it. To tell people Deoraita, that means you're going to gain on for not doing it. Sh'tuyot!

7:48:32You think it's a different story. Rabbi Nachman can think whatever it is. But it's not Deoraita. It's not Deoraita. Deoraita means God said it. That's not true. That's not that. Read Masechet Berachot, what it says. Read Masechet Shabbat, what it says. Read Masechet Avodah Zarah, what it says. It doesn't, you're mistranslating what he says. The fact that you're manipulating Rabbi Nachman's prayer words is a different problem. But to say that he is the writer is 100% shtuyot. You learned the wrong Torah, I'm sorry. You should learn it in a different language. Maybe you'll understand it. It's wrong. Bring whatever you want. It doesn't make a difference. It's wrong. Next question. No, you don't need to recite it. You can think about it. You can just think about all the people on the list and all the people not on the list. Yeah.

7:49:49that, um, sometimes, yeah, it repeats certain areas. If you're going to travel 2000 amot, 2000 amot is if you're pretty much driving anywhere in America. So, if you're going to drive, let's say, 15-20 minutes, you have to do it. Now, if you are, for example, going to, um going to the store and expect to come back, then you could do one tefillat derech and you could add one word that says that you already have the intention of going and coming back right away. But if you're going to go for a while, let's say, for example, you're going for a whole day, you're going to work. Going to work in the morning, that's one tefillat derech. On the way home, you have to do tefillat derech again. Also, that gives the impression that it was outside of town. Okay, and everything is out of town in America, though. Here, there's nothing that's not out of town. As soon as you get on the highway, you're out of town. Being in town is going to the local deli that's five minutes away. But going to work, usually for most people, is a 15-20 minute drive. A 15-20 minute drive in a car that drives 60 miles an hour. We're talking about some serious distance. So we can't go by, let's say, Broward and Miami-Dade County? We can't go by that? No, it's supposed to be distance. Bottom line is, if you're in your car for 10 minutes, you've passed the distance. Much more than that. Much more than that.

7:51:17It's another opportunity to bless Hashem and for Hashem to protect you on the way. There are plenty of people who wish they had that blessing before it was too late. So you should definitely do Birkas HaDerech. What time is it? Six. Six? What time did I say it was going to be finished? I said seven? Special test this year. Special test. You guys help me work on my middot. Listen, you cannot make up rules, you cannot make up things. People want to make up things. People want to pretend like everything's okay. People want to pretend like if they do certain things, that's what's going to make them happy. I'll tell you this:

7:52:19Unless you're doing, unless you are a chassid that knows and follows and listens to the entire Shulchan Aruch, you're fulfilling it, you're learning Mussar every day, you're working on your Middot, all of that stuff, a lot of the things that Rabbi Nachman of Breslov said, you haven't even begun it. Because if you guys remember, I did a couple of shiurim about Rabbi Nachman of Breslov. I read you guys from Likutey Moharan. and I explained to you guys what he says about how to serve Him and how people serve Him are two different things, two different worlds. They just pick and choose the things they like, pick and choose the things that fit their strengths. Rabbi Nachman of Breslov was kodesh kodeshim, and he was able to summarize certain teachings in the Torah in a phenomenal, genius way. but a lot of the students that he had at that time followed him and continued to follow him. But unfortunately, the further you are from the source with no leader, the further you are from reality. This is also the same problem with Chabad. Before,

7:53:39The recent Lubavitcher Rebbe, Chabad was going on already for a couple of hundred years. No problems. Every time they had a new leader, a new Chabad leader, a new Rebbe, and he would pass on, a new leader would come on. He's on. No problems. Chabad continued to grow, continued to prosper, continued to influence the world. Everything was great. When did everything fall on its face and become purely a business? After the most recent Lubavitcher Rebbe died and left no one behind. And they idolized him to such an extent that they don't even allow anybody to replace him. Even his own real talmidim cannot replace him. They refuse to let them. Even talmidim, no one can replace him. They're never going to have another Lubavitcher Rebbe. There's never going to be another Chabad Rebbe. Never. So at that point, once that happened, there's no leader, everything falls apart, and you have a problem. But they are the biggest problem. What do you mean the biggest problem? Chabad, all around the world, you get stuck without tefillin in Thailand. The most Zikui Harabim in the world is Chabad. Everywhere in the world is Chabad. Everywhere. You go to Thailand, Jerusalem, Boston, I've been to places, there is no atzma'ut and shlichut.

7:54:58And I found a Chabad where I can eat kosher food. I can put on tefillin. I wish you to have 1% of the zikui harabim that they do, right? So you say, Rabbi, you say that Chabad fell down? I had a woman here yesterday in the sukkah who has nafla ma'adelech. And she said, you know what? Chabad proved the most. If I would ever go back to somewhere, it would be through Chabad. You know how much Chabad does? Me, thank God, Hashem helped me. People tell me, are you present? No, I'm not present. I'm i'm everything, i'm Jewish. I don't care about, I don't care, i'm Jewish. But what the, the only one that gets close to the next generation is Chabad. Anywhere in the world there is, if there is a failure, it is one of the most, the one thing I always say they don't see from the sukkah, I know why, but out of the letter... And right now what I wanted to tell you, they told me, don't tell him, he's not impressive, he won't understand. And then one of the most, and then one of the most, you know what he said? He said, tell him, Rambam said tefillah yeshiv, according to Ramban, tefillah yeshiv. And look what it says, Rabbeinu Omar sheh tefillah mitoch ha-siddur, zeh mishehu shechiber lecha, vezeh lak tefillah de-rabbanan. Efshar lehitpallel tefillah be-darga yoter gvoha, ha-tefillah sheh ata mitpallel me-atzmecha, hi tefillah de-oraita. Kol bakasha sheh adam mevakesh me-atzmo, hu kiyum mitzvah de-oraita.

7:56:25God forbid, we're not saying that we're not supposed to pray three tefillot a day. That's first of all, but that's because they wrote it. So thank God we had the Chachamim that took the prayer. We're not on the level. But it's the Rabbanan. You hear that Rabbi Berland says it. So I didn't invent it. I learned it a few hours ago. And I've been learning that. He doesn't say what you say, though. Here, he says that. But it's not hitbodedut. That's not hitbodedut. You're saying hitbodedut. It's two different things. Worlds apart. Hitbodedut. Hitbodedut.

7:57:47But it's not the same thing. The law will not work. Without it, you can't reach happiness. Rabbi Nachman from Breslov revealed to us that you will do the best things in the world. You will return the whole world in repentance. If you don't do the hitbodedut, I will return the whole world in repentance and I will be left behind. Why? Because I didn't do the hitbodedut. Good luck. Go do it. Let us learn. I never reached anything higher. Okay, so let us learn. You go do it. But it's not me. That's what I'm saying. Okay, so you go do it. Okay, so you and German and all the other guys. Everything that you teach me and I say is because I learned from you. She taught me. I can learn from a Goy. When it says, I see it on Facebook. If you're happy, keep dancing. If you're sad, start dancing. She's a Goya, but I learn a lot from that. But it's not because I said it. All the generations did it. It's hard when he could not get children with Rivka. He brought Rivka down, a lot of Moshe Avital said it.

7:58:51He brought Rivka down and did it with her, next to her. Because if you want to face a problem, you put the problem next to you. He brought Rivka down, said to her, "Stay right here," and told Hashem, "Hashem, please give me children with her, please, please, please." So what does it mean? Just for you to be on yourself. Because if I'll stand outside on the street and I talk to Hashem, somebody passes by. It's not hitbodedut. It doesn't mean we have to stand on the breast of Hashem. The breast of Hashem is so much Torah. We learned Gemara, we learned Likutei Moharan, we learned Mishnayot. everything. It's not about standing on the cars and dancing and jumping. But you cannot have a tefillah without kavannah. So why do we sing niggunim before we pray? It would not go out before the chazzan would sing. So people think at the end, everybody will be right.

7:59:52It says, and it's, that's the level that Moshe Rabbeinu reaches, the highest level of his. He tells Him, "I'll erase the whole, and I'll make you go." He tells Him, "No, no, no." He doesn't tell it to Donald Trump, or... That's why he wasn't mentioned in Sefer Chof. You can't see the name Moshe in Sefer Chof. Moshe Rabbeinu had this Why does everybody call Rabbi Nachman "Rabbeinu, Rabbeinu, Rabbeinu"? You don't call Avraham "Rabbeinu," Yitzchak "Rabbeinu," or Yaakov "Rabbeinu." Wait, so Rabbi Nachman isn't on the same level as Moshe Rabbeinu? No, but it's a gilgul. Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai. Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, he brought the Torah back to... So you're saying Rabbi Nachman is like Moshe Rabbeinu? You're saying it's a gilgul of Moshe Rabbeinu? You don't think it's a gilgul? You don't think so? What about Noach? Noach was a gilgul of Moshe Rabbeinu? What? What? What?

8:01:14Nitzotz, habibi, learn about gilgulim before you mention it. Nitzotz, nitzotz. What's nitzotz? Nitzotz means spark. Okay, spark. What's spark? There's a fire. Okay, there's a huge, giant bonfire. Lag BaOmer. Lag BaOmer. Lag BaOmer. Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai. Right? Now, if you see the big fire, once in a while you see a little spark that comes out of the fire into the air and then just disappears. That's a spark. So every generation has a spark of Moshe Rabbeinu that could be. Nachman, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, whoever you want it to be. A spark. Not a Gilgul of Moshe Rabbeinu himself. For what is Moshe Rabbeinu going to come back? Are you out of your mind? Where did you learn this? Why would Moshe Rabbeinu come back in a gilgul? It's torture. What's the matter with you?

8:02:37Okay, there's a reason. But there's a reason. Noach didn't finish his tikkun. Why would Moshe Rabbeinu, whom Hashem calls the man of God, come back as a gilgul from 200 years ago? What's the matter with you? What shtuyot are you living? What Torah are you learning? Eliyahu never died. So you're going to say he's a gilgul also? Eliyahu? He didn't die. Eliyahu HaNavi never died. Is he a gilgul also though? Maybe he's a gilgul of Rebbe Nachman, maybe Rebbe Nosson? No, I mean, Achman, it's Meramez, Shtuyot, come on, do me a favor with this stuff. Okay, but he's not calling people Rabbeinu. Rabbeinu, you call a lot of people, a lot of people call me Rabbeinu. Does that mean I'm Rabbeinu Nachman also? I'm a Gilgul of Rabbeinu Nachman? I'm a Gilgul of Rebbe? I'm a Gilgul of, maybe I'm a Gilgul of Esav, maybe. What Gilgul? What are you talking about? It's Shtuyot you're talking about. Where do you come up with this story? In a jackbox? Where do you get this story? It's Shtuyot, nothing. You didn't get it from the Torah, Habibi.

8:03:42he didn't get this from the Torah. That's also not what you said. It's not what you said. It's not what you said. It's not what you said. Like I said, you want to do it, do it. But to say it's an obligation for a Jew, it's not true. Well, that's what Rabbi Nachman says, and I follow the tzaddik. I think Rabbi Nachman is smarter than all of us in the room. And Rabbi Nachman was the grandchild of the Baal Shem Tov. And Rabbi Nachman is Kodesh HaKodashim. 80,000 people go to his grave in Uman every year. And like people, it's something that's unexplainable. And I don't want to do it all my life. And I'm grateful. So go do it. What do you want from my life? Who's telling you not to do it? What do you do? You do Kiruv. You want to help? I don't do anything. I'm just going to learn Torah. To help somebody else. I don't need any help from you. Not you specifically. Neither do they. They're my students, not yours.

8:04:50Don't have students. I'm not trying to be Rabbi Nachman. I'm just trying to learn some Torah. That's it. I teach some Rabbi Nachman once in a while. You don't have Torah from Rabbi Ovadia. You have Torah from Rabbi Ovadia? Yes, it's called. It doesn't say Torah from Rabbi Ovadia. It doesn't say Torah from Rabbi Ovadia. Let me continue, Mashiach. I've been teaching for eight and a half hours straight. You're just ruining the last half hour. We were learning Torah until this nonsense started. You can see it in black and white that I didn't invent it. You can show it to the camera also that I didn't say it out of my mind. No, what you said and what you didn't say. Not everybody agrees with that opinion either, by the way. Everybody, that's the tikkun of the olam. When Mashiach comes, Hashem will do it for you. Isha Elokim, man of God.

8:06:10Moshe avdi. Moshe avdi. After he died, yeah. Moshe isha Elokim, meaning whatever Moshe said was what Hashem said. He had no opinion. He had no opinion. Whatever he said, you could rely on it. That's why he only repeated what Hashem said. Moshe avdi... There's different types of Eved. There's Eved that is a servant. He doesn't want to be a servant, but you caught him stealing. And in reality, he doesn't have the money. He spent it already. So the mitzvah in the Torah says if he stole something, and he doesn't have the money to pay back, he has to become a slave. He has to become a slave for a certain amount of years. until you release him. But as soon as you're not looking, as soon as you give him an opportunity to go away for a weekend, he's out of here. Why? He doesn't want to be a servant. But then there's Eved Hashem, the servant of Hashem. Servant of Hashem, like David HaMelech says, "I am Your servant, the son of Your maidservant."

8:07:28What does it mean? It's a different type of servant. I heard this from Rabbi Oren: a different type of servant where this servant, this slave, was born to the servant that he has. So for example, you have a servant that stole, but you gave him a wife, a shifcha, that was also your servant, and they had a kid. They're the kid. That kid, that's it, he's yours. Doesn't belong to him. He's yours forever. Now, if you want to free him, it's up to you. But him, he's never going to be freed like his father, who only has a certain sentence. So David HaMelech says, "I am Your servant, the son of Your maidservant." Meaning, I'm like the one that can't be freed, but I don't want to be freed. So when Hashem says Moshe Rabbeinu, Moshe Avdi, Moshe was the original eved. Moshe was the original servant where he chose to be my servant, meaning he completely annulled his entire opinion, his entire desires. All he wanted is what I wanted.

8:08:48He wanted to be the servant that's not only the one that never goes, he just decided, this is it. I was created to be a slave for Hashem. I was created to be a servant of Hashem. Different, same essence, same servant of Hashem, but a different adjective to describe the kedusha and ma'alah of Moshe Rabbeinu. People make me laugh sometimes and cry sometimes. When I leave, I cry with the stuff they say about Moshe Rabbeinu. Moshe Rabbeinu is a gilgul of this one, Moshe Rabbeinu is the Rebbe, Moshe Rabbeinu is their cousin, Moshe Rabbeinu is this. People have no idea, no idea who Moshe Rabbeinu was. In fact, the Kedusha of Moshe Rabbeinu was so big, so extraordinary, that even the Torah itself does not give us the real details of who Moshe Rabbeinu was. If we understand that in the times of the Gemara, if you were a Tanna,

8:09:57that was named in the Gemara, that means you were able to revive the dead. That means you could look at a dead body and say, "Live. Come back to life. Come back to life." Rabbi Yochanan did it a few times. In the times of the Gemara, 1500 years ago, 1600 years ago. They were almost 2000 years after Moshe Rabbeinu. go to the Zugot, the 500 years or so before that. Not only were they able to revive the dead, they remembered the entire Torah. Much, much more. A million times more than we have in the entire world. Let's say we have, for example, a million books. They had a billion books in their heads, all by memory. All by memory. That's a few hundred years before them. Elisha, Elisha the student of Eliyahu HaNavi, after he died already, he died; they buried him. He died, there was a war, there was a war, and one of the soldiers died, and they threw him into a hole. They made a hole in the ground. They threw him into the hole, not realizing that Elisha HaNavi was buried there, and his dead body, the soldier's dead body, just touched the dead body of Elisha HaNavi, and he came back to life. Meaning, it's not that he was alive like the Tannaim, and he said, live. No, no, he wasn't alive. He was dead. He was dead. Left his neshama in Gan Eden and everything, but somebody touched the body, came back to life.

8:11:11died, and they threw him into a hole. They made a hole in the ground. They threw him into the hole, not realizing that Elisha HaNavi was buried there, and his dead body, the soldier's dead body, just touched the dead body of Elisha HaNavi, and he came back to life. Meaning, it's not that he was alive like the Tannaim, and he said, live. No, no, he wasn't alive. He was dead. He was dead. Left his neshama in Gan Eden and everything, but somebody touched the body, came back to life. This is almost a thousand years after Moshe Rabbeinu. A thousand years after Moshe Rabbeinu. Eliyahu HaNavi, Eliyahu HaNavi, his teacher, just not even a generation, just his teacher, his teacher, saw that everybody was not going with Hashem, started worshipping idols. He goes, you know what, it's not going to rain anymore. Eliyahu HaNavi, just one day, said, it's not going to rain anymore. Hashem, I decided. He didn't ask Hashem for permission. Hashem, what should I do? No, no. He said, from now on, it's not going to rain anymore. Eliyahu HaNavi, Eliyahu the Prophet, said it's not going to rain anymore. It stopped raining for three years. Why? Eliyahu HaNavi said so. And until Eliyahu HaNavi decided for it to rain again, it didn't rain. Of course, all that's from Hashem; it's all the will of Hashem. But this Eliyahu HaNavi, this is a thousand years after Moshe Rabbeinu.

8:12:39So you understand, we get closer and closer to Moshe Rabbeinu. We're getting, this is not supernatural at all. This is like a different world. And you're saying somebody from 200 years ago is Moshe Rabbeinu? Somebody from 25 years ago is Moshe Rabbeinu? You wouldn't know what to do with Moshe Rabbeinu at all. If we knew, if we had a shoe, a slipper that Moshe Rabbeinu wore once in his life, all the money in the world wouldn't be able to afford it. It would be like the Luchot HaBrit. It would be like the Ten Commandments, a shoe that he used once in his life. No, no, no, he's the Gilgul of my Rebbe. Come on, no. With these two yot that people make up. Why? Because, like I said many times, people fall in love with their Rebbe so much, they forget their Rebbe is the Rebbe. Kvodo bimkomo, no problem. He's not Moshe Rabbeinu, I'm sorry. You have the fire, And then you have the nitzotz, the little spark that goes away after half a second. But the fire lasts a whole week. It lasts a whole year. Okay, so the spark is there. You're comparing. It's craziness. It's just craziness. It's kefirah. That's why it's in our 13 principles of faith that you have to repeat every day. No one is ever going to be like Moshe Rabbeinu.

8:14:00No one. No such thing like Moshe Rabbeinu. There never was, there never will be anything. It's part of the 13 principles of faith. So to say, "my rabbi is Moshe Rabbeinu, gilgul Moshe," this is so crazy. It's against the 13 principles. And that's what we have to understand. There's a foundation, there's reality, and it is not what people want it to be. So hopefully today we got a little bit of chizuk to be avdei Hashem the way Hashem wants it, not the way we decide for it because we mistranslated a few things and we decide that the words add up here and they add up there. The reality is, Rabotai, you can see what's real and what's fake with your eyes. You can see what's real and what's fake with your eyes. Why? You see, okay, you say you have all these books, you know all this stuff, okay. What's the representation of it? Show me a representation of this Torah of yours. Talking is not a representation. That's why Hashem did not give Moshe Rabbeinu the gift of gab. He was not only a stutterer, he was also a stammerer. He had no speaking ability whatsoever.

8:15:26But yet Hashem says, teach Am Yisrael the Torah. Why? So no one ever says, you convinced the people because you're such a good negotiator, you're a good speaker, you're like Obama. Teach them the Torah as the Torah is. And that's what he did. So speaking does not make anybody righteous, does not make anybody, doesn't make anything. actions. The Gemara says, if your teacher, your Torah, your rabbi, has middot like a malach, ask him for more Torah. If not, you're not allowed to learn from him. Not that you shouldn't, you're not allowed. If he doesn't do what he says, at least try to do what he says. No one does everything they say, not everybody's perfect, but if he doesn't even try, he's just a hypocrite. Not a lot to learn from. Not a lot. Not a lot. So, these are the things, Rabotai, these are the things that all of us need to know. All of us need to know. Why? Because there's a lot of confusion in the world. And people are constantly trying to, like, I don't know, recreate the Torah in their own way. They all mean well. It's all nice and everything. But in reality, we have one Torah. We have one Torah. We prefer to

8:16:53eliminate our own opinion. We prefer to stick with what the Torah says, what the sages say, and there's a rule in the Torah. The greatness of Am Yisrael deteriorates with every generation. Meaning, as much as you like anybody, whether it's me or somebody else, whether it's the Rebbe or Rebbe Nachman or whoever you want, They can never be greater than somebody before them. Never. They can't even be on the same level. It's a rule in the Torah. When an Amora, an Amora in the Torah, the ones that are written in the Torah, when they have something, they cannot say that the Tanna that came from before them is wrong. They cannot say. Say, listen, the Tanna is right, I just don't know how. Let me find out how. I cannot say the Tanna is wrong. Why? The Tanna said it. This is one generation difference. One generation. We're not even talking about 500 years, 1,000 years. One generation difference. Father and son. The Amora can never say that the Tanna is wrong. Can never say it. So we're going to say, oh yeah, but the guy from 20 years ago, he's the same thing as the one from 3,000 years ago. You have to be high.

8:18:20It's so far from the truth. You have to be high. I don't know what you are. You have to be high. It's just not true. That's why we're so aggressive about it because it's completely ludicrous. It's like saying, I'm Moshe Rabbeinu. It's completely demented. It's like, what do you mean? It's just 3,000 years after. You cannot be, even if you wanted to, even if you're the most righteous person in the generation. I'm not talking about if you're a Rasha, I'm talking about even if you're the most righteous, even if you're Gadol HaDor, even if you're the biggest rabbi today, you're Rav Kanievsky, you cannot be Moshe Rabbeinu. You cannot even be a Talmid of Moshe Rabbeinu. You can't even be a Talmid of Rabbi Akiva unless you revive the dead. Show me one person that can revive a cat, forget the dead. We can't. We can't. We can't. We don't have the ability. So to just throw Moshe Rabbeinu's name like it's just somebody, it's silly. It's not the Torah. And these are the things that we have to know because we're going to have to teach our kids. Like I told you, your kids are going to do exactly what you do. If you idolize a rabbi, your kids will idolize a rabbi worse than you.

8:19:38You say the Rebbe is the greatest and forget to mention Hashem, they'll turn the Rebbe into Mashiach, they'll turn the Rebbe into G-d, they'll turn the Rebbe into whatever. But you say, Hashem, Moshe Rabbeinu, Rabbi Akiva, old Talmidim, and so on and so forth. And eventually, yes, our Rebbe is good too. The Baal Shem Tov was great. Okay, that's different. But if the whole focus is on just the one Rebbe, that's what the Gaon of Vilna was very scared of. That's where the Gaon of Vilna went against Hasidut. Why? Because people started focusing so much on the Rebbe, they forgot to mention the original Rebbe, Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi. They forgot to mention the original Rabbeinu, Moshe Rabbeinu. They forgot to mention the Creator of the world, Hashem Yitbarach. Why? They got focused on something they can see. Focused on something they can see, and that's why. The Gaon of Vilna went hard against Hasidut. Hard against Hasidut. He said the closest religion to Judaism is Hasidut. Chabad and Breslov. Why? Because he saw. He saw it through his own wisdom that it's very, very dangerous. It's a very thin line. Now, of course, a lot of good things happened from Hasidut. A lot of big chachamim. A lot of big things happened. As a matter of fact, we're almost finished with a book about all the different places that the Baal Shem Tov, the father of Hasidut,

8:21:05taught about Gehenom. So b'ezrat Hashem we will bring that out soon. Also the Baal HaTanya and several other ones that talk about the Musar of Am Yisrael, the real stuff that talks about Yirat Shamayim and not just about dancing. And the reality is a lot of people think that Chassidut is dancing and singing and doesn't really talk about Gehenom. This book will prove that not only are they wrong, but not a single person that ever said that is even 1% of a Chassid. Why? Because they write it in countless places. They talk about Ge'enom, they talk about punishment, they talk about horrible, horrible things. If you look at the Baal HaTanya, chapter 46, Shem Yirachem what he says, Shem Yirachem what he says, it's worse than the shiur I gave you guys. No, but you're never going to see a Chabadnik talking about that. Why? You tell him Gehenom? No, no, Gehenom is just embarrassment. What about your teacher? Your teacher, the Tanya HaKadosh, said Gehenom is not just embarrassment. He says it's fire. He says it's ice. He says it's a lot of bad things. How come you don't say it? He never read it.

8:22:16Never read it. Oh, what about, you know, but the Baal Shem Tov, he just, everything is good, everything is good. No, that's not what the Baal Shem Tov said. The Baal Shem Tov said in many places, if you don't do this, they're going to burn you in fire. If you don't do this, they're going to burn you in more fire. They said this in the truth. But today, people manipulate. They take this one and that one and that one. It's like they go shopping. They go shopping, different sayings, and they make it into their own convoluted Torah. And unfortunately, this is what causes confusion. So I apologize if I said anything wrong in any way or another. That's what's great about you. You learn sometimes Mara de-Atra, this and that, and at the end, they hug and kiss. I just... Offended? Nobody's offended. Nothing is personal. I'm a big fan of your classes. I... Nobody's offended. Offended, not offended. Let me just tell you, if I said anything that's wrong, I apologize. I'm going to go to the Beit Din, which is the big day for all the Jewish people with the Din Torah, everything's going to get decided. And a lot of things, you know, I don't want to say about it. I just didn't say it to be, I'm not taking it personally. I'm just saying what I think and what I learned.

8:23:28I know that you should teach. If you learn Torah only for yourself, you're nobody. If you learn only for yourself, you're nobody. Everything I learned, I try to tell other people because that's your obligation as a Jew. I really didn't mean to start a fight or whatever. It's not about a fight. If you teach him wrong, it's wrong. I just want to give advice to people that I love, which is all my Jewish brothers. Because me, I'm 35 years old. I've been doing this for 22 years, 21 years, back and forth, back and forth. And I did everything, everything. And I never reached the highest levels. and it's just me, it's just not me. I have a book that all the Litvish, the big Litvish. I will sit with you one day; I can do it with your class, like Yosef Mizrachi did with Kornbluth. I promise you, here on the camera, that if it's gonna be a win or a lose, you're gonna lose.

8:24:32you would do it with your knowledge and you're honest. You won't be able to stop; you won't be able to stop if you will go to the center. In two, three weeks, two months, you will be saying that's the prayer, that's the singing. People feel that they are waiting for you, they are waiting for me. I just want to say that I just said what I feel, not because somebody brainwashed me. My brain was filthy, I needed to wash it. But all my life, I learned and I know that it But it was just like, talk to Hashem. Talk to Hashem. So I wasn't trying to be a smart person. Oh, this is wrong, this is right. And I don't believe in... Four times like he said, and I think it's holiness of holiness, but that's the Jews. So you need to stay away from... And you know how great the Baal Shem Tov is. And you know how great Rabbi Nachman is. And I'll be much... Moshe Rabbeinu is one of the Shimon Baruch Ha'ilon, but there's a lot of Gilgulim we don't know. I learned from that Pasuk in Shemot, Lamed Bet, Bet Lamed Bet, that there is a remez. I'm not sure who the Gilgulim are. I don't know. Only Hashem knows. But from my small brain, I just started realizing that it's also in Pasuk, Lamed Bet, Shemot, Lamed Bet.

8:25:49And that goes on this higher level. And that's exactly what Rabbi Nachman is. In this late generation, there's nobody that did what he did. And it's not because I'm trying to be a fanatic of the rabbi, or I'm trying to do, I just try to tell people what I, like if I have a best friend and he asks, if my best friend asks me, what do you think I should do? And today there was a guy, Yaakov, Yaakov, Yaakov, that's right here. He tells me, what do you think? With all these questions, I'm like, go do it, go do it. i don't know how to do it. I'm like, what do you mean how? You know what? If you don't know how to do it, I don't know what to say. Go outside and just thank Hashem. What do I have to thank Him for? I told him, thank you Hashem for having a car, for having a place to eat, for having pants, for having a shirt. You know how many people don't have shoes? You know how many people don't have a car? You know how many people don't have a place to pray? Alright, you're right. So a person doesn't need to ask for things. Just thank Hashem. Thank Him for everything you have. You will spend hours just talking to Hashem and thanking Him. In these six or seven hours you teach here, you know how many people died? People say, "I don't have anything to thank for." Would you honor me with your thoughts? You have to stand outside and be thankful for even breathing, for existing in this world, that you are here. So I feel that it's a must, and I really would love to see all Jewish people discover it, because it's such great joy. Because when you stand outside and talk to other people, people come to Rabbi Nachman and say, "I have this problem, I have that problem." Rabbi Nachman said, "Did you look at the sky today?" What do you mean, did you look at the sky? Did you look at the sky?

8:27:16Look at the sky, you see Hashem, you see Emunah. What do you need? I have a half hour left. I got your message. I just don't want to feel like I'm trying to, like, oh, don't do this, don't do that. That's when the Chassidus wants everything. They literally, oh, don't do this. And they sit 10 hours; they learn Torah, pilpulim, pilpulim, pilpulim. Go tell them Emunah. They have a little thing. Oh, I know what to do. What do you mean you don't know? You just learned Torah for 10 hours. You don't know what to do because you didn't do hisbodedus. Because you didn't talk to Hashem. Yes, and you will see that anybody here who will do it in a year or two years, will say it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Because that's what the Gedolim did. Who am I? I don't know. I'm small. But all the Gedolim did it. I would say, well, everybody should talk to Hashem. It's simple. It's pshat. How can you not talk to Hashem? Is it more important to learn Torah? Huh? Is it more important to learn Torah? If you learn Torah and you don't know how to talk to Hashem, then you learn Torah for nothing. If you learn Torah, you don't have the clear opinion. So we're still trying to learn. Who do you learn Torah for if you don't believe in Hashem? You learn just to show. You need to learn lishma, not to learn just to show. We're trying to learn lishma. Nobody's paying us.

8:28:40Half an hour. Half an hour to go? Half an hour to go, b'ezrat Hashem. We have a lot of questions. I could go for a lot longer, but I don't think that it's possible. I don't know what planet people come from. There's so much passion. Yeah, but it was real. I thought it was real. If it was real, then I could do something with it. But it's not real. It's real nonsense. I know a lot of people like that. A lot of people, unfortunately, what they say and what they do to different things, it's all ego.

8:29:44middot would never ever even utter a word in a shiur Torah. When they realize that the entire world was created and continues to exist simply for learning Torah, if a person never did a thing other than learn Torah in his entire life, it was worth it for Hashem to create the world for him. So, anyone with a minimum level of understanding of Torah would understand that the whole thing is meant for you to work on yourself, to perfect yourself in order to serve Hashem at the highest level possible. If the Torah that you're learning is not making you a better-quality person with better middot, then your Torah is called Torah lo min haShamayim—meaning your Torah is not from heaven. It's your opinion that you call Torah. You used a few quotes, a few verses,

8:30:44And you make it seem like it's Torah, but it's not Torah. Why? Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, the same one he mentioned five, six, seven times, also says, middot mushchatot, a person that has terrible middot, lead to thoughts that are mushchatot. The ideas that are corrupted. A person that has bad middot has corrupted thoughts too. You cannot have kosher thoughts if you have bad middot. Cannot. It's not possible. It's not possible. The two do not mix. It's like oil and water. So unless a person fixes their middot, anything that they say or do always has a negative source to it. They may not mean it negatively, but unfortunately, it has a negative impact. So that's why... One of the things that a person needs to know is that they have to always review how this Torah is affecting them in real life, not in Shamayim that you can't see. In real life. How can they socialize? How can they? But you look at the G'dolei HaDor, you look at Rabbi Ovadia...

8:31:58You look at the Lubavitcher Rebbe. You look at Rav Tzadka. You look at all the giants, whatever generation you want. It didn't matter if they were in a Halacha book, an Emunah book, or whatever book. The Gedolei HaDor, they all had one common denominator. They all had amazing middot. You're never going to see a single Gadol HaDor with bad middot. Never happened in the history of mankind. Cannot be. The amount of fear of Hashem that they had is hard to understand. The Steipler Gaon, Rav Yaakov Kanievsky, his son is the current Gadol HaDor, Rav Chaim Kanievsky. Thirty years ago, one of the Ozrim, one of the helpers of the Steipler Gaon, he was still alive; he died in the 80s. In his last years, in his last years, mamash, maybe his last 10 years or so, he was his helper. And maybe even longer, 20 years, 30 years. But in his last years, this story took place, meaning at this point, the current Rav Kanievsky is already around 50, 60 years old, during the story that I'm telling you. His father is in his late 80s or 90s, whatever.

8:33:27And when they were praying in the Beit Knesset, Rav Kanievsky of today, the younger one, would sit in the middle of the shul. His seat was right next to the bima, in the middle of the shul. But his father, the Gadol HaDor, the giant of giants, HaRav HaKadosh, would sit on the side. They wouldn't sit next to each other. He would sit on the side, next to his helper. So one time, or every time, actually. On Yom Kippur, right before Neila, Rav Kanievsky, the younger one, would go and stand next to his father. He would stand next to his father. So the helper asked him, How come you get out of your chair, you get out of your seat, you don't sit next to your father the whole time, the whole tefillah, the whole year, but in Neila, two hours before Yom Kippur is over, you leave your chair, you leave your spot, and you go stand next to your father? Why? Rav Kanievsky says, he's 50, 60 years old at the time. He's a giant. He's not a new talmid.

8:34:52Already wrote many books, already known that he's going to be the next Gadol. It's not like no one knew who he was or something. This is a giant of giants. He says, I was too scared to be by myself on Yom Kippur during Ne'ilah before Hashem closes my din. So I went next to Abba. says, "I was too scared to be alone on Yom Kippur, so I had to go next to Abba. You see Middot like this, what are you scared of? What sin did you even have time to make? You write, you read the entire Shas, the entire Bavli, the entire Yerushalmi, the entire Shulchan Aruch, every Midrash, everything for 80 years already. When do you even have time to make sins? Forget what sins did you make. When do you have time to make sins?"

8:35:54I'm scared. Why? That's real middot. Those are real character traits. It's not the talking, the excitement, all that. You know how excited I can be for you guys. I train 135 salespeople to be the most excited people in the world. But that's not what you need. You need honesty. You need emet. Speakers, you could find a dime a dozen. You know how many good speakers there are in the world? They make millions and millions of dollars. The reality is, rabotai, you need to see what's kasher, what's tamei. How do you know? What affects the person is what he says. Is he doing it? Not doing it. If he's doing it, Good direction. Not doing it, lo kasher. Next. Next. All the excitement, all the show, only newbies buy into that stuff. Only people that don't know anything, they buy into it. Oh wow, seems like this, seems like that. People all the time. I remember when I was in the business,

8:37:05My clients would sometimes call me and say, "Oh, yeah, your former employee called me. He wants to start an account with me, and I should close my account with you and send it to him. And he seems really excited, and he seems this, and he seems that." I said, "Yeah, you could do whatever you want. It's your money. But remember, he worked for me. And I taught him everything. And he's in the business for exactly six and a half months, nine months, a year. I'm in the business 10, 12 years, 15 years. So, good luck with your life savings. To give, why are you going to give it to him? Because he's excited on the phone. That's why you're going to give it to him, because he's excited on the phone. And it's dead. People buy into it all the time. People make the mistake all the time. But the reality is that anyone that thinks to themselves, I need more, I need more." For exactly six and a half months, nine months, a year. I'm in the business 10, 12 years, 15 years. So, good luck with your life savings. Why are you going to give it to him? Because he's excited on the phone? That's why you're going to give it to him, because he's excited on the phone. And it's sad. People buy into it all the time. People make the mistake all the time. But the reality is that anyone who thinks to themselves, "I need more, I need more." It's a lot of people that make people excited. A lot of people sell people stories. A lot of speakers in the world today. Very few people tell the truth. Very, very few. Why? Because the truth hurts. Truth obligates you to change. So this is hopefully enough chizuk to get us to look and find the truth this next year. Get some good judgment. Baruch Hashem, we succeeded in, I think, studying most of the time.

8:38:27I tried my best for Hashem, whatever Hashem gave me the merit to do. Anything else critical? You have something in your hand? Yeah, no, I wrote a lot of questions. A lot of questions? We don't have, you should have asked them eight hours ago. Well, maybe we can talk a little bit about the benefits of an Eruv. Eruv, Eruv just allows you to carry. Without carrying, you simply cannot function on Shabbat. You want to go to Beit Knesset, you want to take your tallit with you. If you don't have an eruv, you cannot take your tallit. If you want to go to Beit Knesset, you want to bring your siddur with you. If you don't have an eruv, you can't bring your siddur. Okay, so you're going to say, okay, so I'll leave it there. I'll leave it at the Beit Knesset. Okay, fine, so let's say you pass that one. Now, if you're married, you're probably going to have kids. If you have kids, your kids are probably in a carriage in the beginning, right? You don't have an eruv. You can't go outside with a carriage. You can't go outside with a carriage. Okay, no, but my kids already walk there. They don't need a carriage. Okay, so your kids want to walk, but they want to carry a bottle because they want to drink because they're hungry.

8:39:35You can't carry the bag with the drink because the kid's hungry. You have to go back home every time the kid wants to take a sip of the bottle. Every time the kid wants a little orange juice, you have to go back home. Meaning that the furthest you can go is outside your house. The furthest you can go is to your backyard. That's the furthest you can go. So this is, you know, an eruv is part of the life of being a Jew. And a person needs to know that in order for them to be part of a Jewish community, the benefit is that they're part of an eruv. They're part of an eruv. Next, how much, what's the difference between someone being patient with himself in regards to what he wants to learn Well, they have to spend, just like they understand that they failed. They understand that they failed. In this test, they have to find out why did I fail? What was the trigger that made me fail? And if they review every failure like they would review a failure in a big project, let's say if they build a missile and the missile failed and it blew up, what do they do? They spend millions and millions of dollars analyzing what failed that caused the missile to blow up. So if he sees himself that he only failed because he wasn't patient enough to review the problem before he addressed it.

8:40:58...in this test, they have to find out, "Why did I fail? What was the trigger that made me fail?" And if they review every failure like they would review a failure in a big project, let's say if they build a missile and the missile failed and it blew up, what do they do? They spend millions and millions of dollars analyzing what failed that caused the missile to blow up. So if he sees himself that he only failed because he wasn't patient enough to review the problem before he addressed it... He only failed because he did this or he did that. So then he should identify what is the trigger, what is the common symptom that causes him to fail. And once he starts analyzing it and really delves into himself, it's a lot of self-reflection. The reason why, for example, the Chachamim simply did not have time to socialize with people, and even when they did, it was simply to learn with them and not just to socialize with them. It's because either they're learning Torah or they're reflecting. They're reflecting on themselves, working on themselves. All the stuff that people call hisbodedut, they did it, but it was very, very different than what they call hisbodedut. They didn't go into some forest to go talk to Hashem. They didn't need to go to the forest. They would open the book and talk to Hashem through the book. They'd sit at their desk and talk to Hashem that way.

8:42:16All these things of people going into the forest, it's because they like to be in the forest and smoke and get high or something. It's not because you need it in order to get closer to Hashem. You don't need to go into a forest. The only thing you get in a forest is maybe some snakes. That's what you get in the forest. The reality is that a person needs to do cheshbon nefesh, needs to do self-accounting, evaluate themselves, and see where they stand, see why they are constantly failing, and what they are doing. Listen, there are plenty of times that I want to fail. It's not that I'm going to fail; I want to fail. A few times it happened tonight, by the way, as a secret between us. I wanted to fail in my middot and lose my mind, but it's not going to help anybody, especially not me. So you have to suck it up because you evaluate what damage will happen as a result of your failure. When a person evaluates what damage could happen as a result of their failure, they realize it's too big. It's not worth it. The damage is too big in order for it to be worth it for me to fail here. And so that's the first thing: the person identifies where they failed and why. So the next time they could isolate that one issue and say, listen,

8:43:33that one thing is not worth it. It's not a fair trade. It's not a fair trade, and it becomes easier to overcome the test. Next, I wanted to answer this question a long time ago. Someone No, you can't do a blessing on washing your hands. The blessing for Torah study you have to do. Because you said if you want, I have to double-check because I think I already said it. In case you can't do it, you have to have somebody else do it for you so you can actually start studying. Oh, that's interesting. I've never heard that one. And then that's why I'm... No, traditionally, halakha is if you don't sleep through the night, then you wash your hands.

8:44:51three times, but no blessing. You still say, "Thank you, Hashem, for bringing back my neshama," even though your neshama technically never left. But when you do it at that time, you do not do a blessing, but you still have to do birkot ha-shachar and do blessings for the Torah. We have been learning straight. We haven't stopped, really, the night. But as soon as you guys finish, before you pray, you have to do birkot ha-shachar. You have to do birkot ha-shachar. You know. But the blessing of what? for the Torah? No, the Torah you just do once a day. Just do it once in the morning. In the morning. Yeah, no, no. That stuff you don't do. Yeah, the phone died again. The camera is about to die. I think we got...

8:46:20for the Torah? No, the Torah you just do once a day. Just do it once in the morning. In the morning. Yeah, no, no. That stuff you don't do. Yeah, the phone died again. The camera is about to die. I think we got...