3nd Annual HoShana Rabah ALL NIGHT TORAH (TeShuva Suggestions & Pitfalls)

0:16To our special event, this is our third annual event. For the last couple of years, we had eight to nine hours where we went the whole night. We learned, asked questions, answered, and addressed complaints—more questions than answers. So tonight we'll do the same thing with a special edition, which is Be'ezrat Hashem, the movie that a lot of people, myself included, have been waiting for. The movie that's motivated, Baruch Hashem, even before becoming a movie, tens of thousands of people to do teshuva. My personal life story, I always tell people that the only reason I tell my life story is simply because if I can do teshuva, anybody can do teshuva. No one has an excuse. No one has an excuse. That's the reality. But everybody has an excuse until they learn the shiur. I spoke to a few people before Shabbat, and it's sad that you see that the problems that I hear from people that are frum, religious from birth, are identical to the problems that I hear from people that are not frum. Same exact problems.

1:41Divorce, kids going crazy, husband going crazy, wife going crazy, job going, every health problem. It's identical problems. You know, it used to be that you would say, yeah, you know, religious people have a certain type of problem. It's not the same thing, you know, us in the secular world, we live this way or in the other way. You know, secular people have this problem, but us religious people, no. Today, I'm telling you, signed and sealed, anyone that deals with the public will tell you the same exact thing. The problems of the secular world are identical to the frum world. And the problems of the frum world are identical to the secular world. There's no difference. Parents are telling me that their kids are cursing them out. Now you would think, this is coming from some avaryan, some gangster, you know, because it's probably his parents are gangsters. You find out the parents are a rabbi and rebbetzin. But the kid came out a gangster. That's the way he behaves. How come?

2:43On the opposite end, you see people saying, listen, I don't know what I'm doing with my life. I'm confused. My husband is leaving me. My wife is leaving me. This, that. You think, okay, yeah, it's because you didn't keep Torah and mitzvot. I used to. How come you stopped? He goes, no, you know, we made a little bit of money. We started becoming less religious. And little by little, things changed. So you see that a lot of the problems that we see, from regular religious people, from people, people that are Shomrei Torah and Mitzvot, identical to secular people. Which only adds more chizuk to what we say, what Torah says. Everyone needs to do teshuva. Everyone. from regular religious people, from people, people that are Shomrei Torah u'Mitzvot, identical to secular people. Which only adds more chizuk to what we say, what the Torah says. Everyone needs to do teshuva. Everyone. There's no such thing as a person that does not need to do teshuva. Even if you're inside a kollel, learning 20 hours a day, you need to do teshuva. And guess what? The guy that's in a kollel 20 hours a day, he knows he needs to do teshuva. That's what you learn after you learn for 20 hours a day. If you learn for 20 hours a day and you still didn't realize you have to do teshuva, there's something wrong with your kollel. There's something wrong with what you're learning. A wife sent me a message, telling me, "Listen, my husband learns in a kollel, but sometimes he acts like a gangster."

4:00Throwing stuff around the house, breaking stuff. I said, take him out of the kollel, send him somewhere. Send him to work. Send him to work. It's the same thing. Why are you going to learn Torah? It's a bizayon of the Torah. Because people are going to think it's the Torah's fault that you're acting like a gangster. What happened? You see, oh, he doesn't like to learn Mussar. Oh, what does he learn? He learns Halachot. Good, Chazal says, if you don't learn Halachot, you can never be a Talmid Chacham. But they also say, if you don't learn Mussar, your Halachot are going to be wrong all the time. Why? Because you have to have Yirat Shamayim. So in about 15 or so minutes, we're going to film the movie. It's going to go live, b'ezrat Hashem, on our other channels, on Facebook Live, on YouTube Live, on the website, b'ezrat Hashem. You'll be able to watch it here, b'ezrat Hashem. Also, the people that are here are also going to get one of the benefits of coming to a live feature. It's not only seeing my face, but also you're going to get some free popcorn and some other snacks that the group of tzadikot brought, b'ezrat Hashem.

5:03We take tips. No, just kidding. No, it's free. Baruch Hashem, everything is free. But the key is to understand, really, my hope, really, is that at the end of watching this film, everyone, myself included, arrives at the conclusion: I can do it. I need to do it, and I can do it. I need to do teshuva, and I can do teshuva. That's the point. We've been working on this film, Sonny, God bless him. But Hashem has been working and toiling over this for almost two years, a year and a half, almost two years. On top of that, we have the subtitles for the movie for anyone that's watching it online. If you don't speak English as your first language, you have subtitles in Hebrew, subtitles in Spanish, subtitles, I think, in Dutch, French, Portuguese, and Russian. Korean subtitles are coming; they're on the way, b'ezrat Hashem, by next week. 70 languages we're going to put it in. Why? Because the story is relevant to everyone. If you have money issues—too much money, too little money—the story is for you. Health problems? The story is for you. Marriage problems? The story is for you. Intermarriage? You're married to a non-Jew? The story is for you. Completely off the derech? The story is for you. You think you're on the derech? The story is for you. You've never heard the word derech? The story is definitely for you.

6:33Anything, any type, any walk of life. Any walk of life, it's related. You could find something. Maybe you're not going to like the whole story. Maybe you can't stand my face. And that's why Baruch Hashem, Sonny worked really hard to make sure my face is not as visible. There are a lot of other digital images on there. But the key is, rabotai, is for all of us to mamash arrive at the conclusion that we all need to do teshuva and we all can do teshuva. Now, this is different clips from different lectures that I've done over the last four or five years, with a lot of added music and digital effects and so on. To be honest with you, I don't watch my own lectures. I don't watch my own lectures. I'm a very critical judge of myself. So every time I watch a clip of myself, I always get upset. Ah, I could have said this better. Ah, what a chamor. I start cursing myself. Ah, I don't know what I'm talking about. Even though it's a good clip, everybody else likes it. But me, I'm like, ah, I could have said this better, that better, so I don't watch it. I tell myself, like, why do I need it? I'll watch some Talmid Chacham, I'll watch. A lot of people like my clips. But this movie I watched. I watched it many times. And, uh...

7:49made me live it again, the whole experience that we went through. It made us live it again. My wife and I, the Rabbanit and I, watched the movie again. We watched it throughout the times that it was being made, fixing this, fixing that, you know, the editing. But after it was all said and done, we just sat down, and for an hour and a half, we were both sitting there, and both of us were in tears. Both of us are in tears because to you, it's an interesting story. To us, this was our life. So a lot of the things that you'll see are very, you know, we lived it. We lived it. Some of the things that we said in certain lectures, we didn't say in other lectures. So, for example, the most popular version of the personal story was the original time that I said it in New York. There's been tens of thousands of views and people that have watched it, but there have been many other times that I have told the story. Each time, I've tried to say other things, also adding some new parts to the story or different chiddushim and so on. So what we try to do is take those parts from other parts and add them to this movie. So anyone that hasn't watched the personal story, or even if you have watched it, you'll have some surprises.

9:10But the key is, rabotai, to know that there is a Creator. The Creator wants us to comply with His Torah, and He expects us to do it, and you can do it. Now, one of the things that I learned right before the chag with my Rav, who will testify to this, is in Sefer Yehoshua, Yehoshua Ben-Nun. This week's parashah, Zot HaBracha is not only the last parashah in the Torah, but it's the parashah where our dear Moshe Rabbeinu dies. He leaves this world and he goes to the next world, and the leadership is taken over by Yehoshua Ben-Nun. Now, many times people don't really learn the rest of the Tanakh, especially in today's world. But there are many, many interesting things to learn from the rest of the books, whether it's Yehoshua or it's the book of Shmuel or Kings. There are many things, but we looked a little bit into Sefer Yehoshua, the very following book after the Chumash, the first book after the Chumash. And in a very famous story, the story of Yehoshua ben Nun sending the Meraglim, sending the spies to Eretz Yisrael,

10:39to check who's there, who's not there. And over there we meet a very special woman named Rachav. Now, the Gemara in Masechet Megillah says, Rachav was so beautiful that anyone that would have said her name three times, seed would leave their body. Seed would leave their body. One of the chachamim said, "I said 'Rachav, Rachav, Rachav' a million times, and nothing happened." He goes, "Yeah, that's because you never saw her. She was so beautiful. She was one of the most beautiful women that ever lived. So beautiful, just the name is enough." But Rachav didn't start that way. Rachav didn't start as a woman mentioned in the Torah in a favorable way. How is she mentioned? In Chapter 2 of the book of Yehoshua. we, uh, see that Yehoshua bin Nun sent the meraglim and, uh, once they arrived, they realized these, uh, these spies, these Israeli spies, realized that the king of Yericho found out that, uh, these people are here and they're being hosted by a prostitution house. So she didn't start off in a very good way.

12:06And in chapter 2, verse number 9, it says, she says: the King of Jericho sends people to question Rachav: "Are they with you, these people, these spies, these Jewish spies? They're with you. Bring them in." And she denies it. She's hiding them. So they asked her, "Why? Why are you hiding us? What are we doing for you?" So she says to them—to the Jews, she says to the men—"I know that Hashem has given you the land and that fear of you has fallen upon us, and all the inhabitants of the land have dissolved before you because of you." For we have heard how Hashem dried up the waters of the Sea of Reeds for you when you went forth from Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were across the Jordan, to Sihon and to Og, whom you utterly destroyed. She says to the Jews, "We heard, we heard how great your God is and what He did for you, and that's enough. Whatever He says, we're going to do."

13:36Chachamim said at that moment, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, "You heard and therefore you believe? That's enough for you just to hear what I did. You didn't see like the rest of Am Yisrael. You heard and therefore you believe? You're like Yitro. You will marry who? Yehoshua bin Nun. She ended up becoming the Gadol HaDor's wife. Yeah, but she was a prostitute. A non-Jewish prostitute. Does it make a difference what your past is?" you heard about Hashem and now you're gonna do what He says? That's enough. You did teshuva. But then you see something very interesting. Initially, Rachav speaks to the men. It says she speaks to the men. But then if you fast-forward to chapter 6, verse 17 It says, so in chapter 6, verse number 17, it says the city, this is a time where now they leave, they escape, and now all of Am Yisrael is coming to Yericho to destroy it.

15:02But now these spies, they go to the house of Rachav. Rachav, the former zonah, the former prostitute. And say, well, we have to protect her. Why? She protected us. We promised her that because she protected us, we're going to protect her. Protect her and her household. And it says here, the city, it and all that is in it shall be consecrated property for Hashem. Only Rachav the innkeeper shall live, innkeeper really is another word for zonah, she and all who are with her in the house because she hid the emissaries, she hid the mal'achim, the angels, who we sent. So now we see that the same people, first they were called anashim, men, now they're called mal'achim. Mal'achim we know is emissaries but also means angels. And then later on in the same chapter, we see that in verse number 23, it says, so they entered the youthful ones, the spies, meaning don't think it's somebody else, the same exact spies, same meraglim from the beginning. They were called anashim, then they were called mal'achim, now they're called ne'arim. Ne'arim means they were youthful. And they brought out Rachav and her father, mother, brothers, and all that was with her.

16:23It says, so they entered the youthful ones, the spies, meaning don't think it's somebody else, the same exact spies, same meraglim from the beginning. They were called anashim, then they were called mal'achim, now they're called ne'arim. Ne'arim means they were youthful. And they brought out Rachav and her father, mother, brothers, and all that was with her. They brought out all of her family and placed them outside the camp of Israel, meaning they delivered on their promise. Chazal asked two questions. Number one, why are they called Meraglim? Why are they called, I'm sorry, why are they called Ne'arim? So the answer is, Rashi says they are called Ne'arim because to save her, they worked really fast, like youthful people. Youthful people run really fast to go do a mitzvah. You want to do a mitzvah, do it right away. You want to do teshuva, do it right away, today. Don't wait until tomorrow. You watch the movie, you see, it gives you chizuk, start today. Don't say, oh yeah, starting next week, I'm going to do this. No, no, today, do something now. Ne'arim, but then it says, wait a minute. Okay, so Ne'arim we got, Meraglim we got from the beginning, but what's the Malachim? Why are they angels also? It says something extraordinary. Chachamim explain because she was so beautiful, because Rachav was so beautiful, the fact that the Meraglim did not sin with her when sleeping in her house, in the eyes of Hashem, they became like angels.

17:50That's a Baal Teshuva. What's a Baal Teshuva? Somebody keeps Shabbat. Somebody keeps kosher. Kosher, you go to any store and buy kosher. You go to Walmart, you get kosher. You go to any store, you can buy something kosher. Doesn't make you a Baal Teshuva. What? Keeps Shabbat so you slept all day. Big deal. What? You read a book? Okay, a lot of people read books. What makes you a Baal Teshuva? Because you read a book. What's a Baal Teshuva? There's plenty of Reshaim. They read a lot of books. What's a Baal Teshuva? Baal Teshuva, Chachamim say, is someone that's given the same exact test as he had in the past, but this time he passes it. You slept over that one of the most beautiful women in the world, who at the time was also one of the most promiscuous. Meaning you didn't have to convince her. And you didn't sin? You are like malachim. Why? Because only malachim think like that. Only malachim don't sin. You didn't sin; you're like malachim. This, rabotai, should give every single one of us a little bit of chizuk to understand that, yes, HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants each and every one of us to do teshuva, but that means that the

19:06Journey is not necessarily going to be so easy. It's not just simply keeping a few mitzvot and therefore you're a Baal Teshuva. Simply keeping a few mitzvot and therefore you're a convert. Simply keeping a few mitzvot and therefore you're going to Gan Eden. It doesn't necessarily work that way. There are tests, there are tests along the way. Baruch Hashem, you'll see that part of the story, which will start in a minute, is many tests that I went through myself and... test before the teshuva, test during the teshuva, test after the teshuva, and Baruch Hashem, we continue to go through those tests today. Teshuva doesn't necessarily fix all of your problems. What teshuva does is it gives you an answer for them. Teshuva also means "answer." When you finally do teshuva, you have the answers for why you have so many problems, why you're living in this world, why you're going through this, this, and that, and why you need to do even more regardless of what your background is. Teshuva, in essence, is going to tell you, if you want answers, go look into the Torah. If you have problems, go look into the Torah.

20:18Why? Because the Torah is going to tell you why Hashem gave you each and every single problem. And teshuva is going to fix that problem. Each and every one of them. And there's another one, and another one. But b'ezrat Hashem, this movie, b'ezrat Hashem, will give a lot of us chizuk, will give a lot of us answers, and then after the movie, you guys can ask me as many questions as you want, and then we're going to, b'ezrat Hashem, continue our learning until 6 o'clock in the morning. This is the minhag of Hoshanah Rabbah. where we learn all night because right now is the last moment, the last opportunity for each one of us to really take on teshuva before the final seal for our judgment of Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah is over. The original judgment was on Rosh Hashanah. The appeal was on Yom Kippur, but the notes still haven't been given to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, if you will. There's still a chance to change something. How we learn tonight. So make sure you stay up, make sure you stay aware, make sure you stay awake. And we can learn and take on something serious tonight. So let's turn off the lights, turn off the movie. I'm sure the movie online is starting as we speak. We're going to leave the feed going. Yeah, we'll leave just a live one. We try to give them out everywhere and anywhere we can.

21:43Everywhere we can. Here we have different countries. We send them to Nigeria. We send them to Holland. Send them all over the UK. Baruch Hashem. Trying, trying, trying, trying, trying. We're ready? It's live? It's good? Okay. So, Baruch Hashem. Hopefully, you guys enjoyed the movie. Hopefully, it gives more people chizuk to do teshuvah. Tonight, like I said, I brought a bunch of books. Anyone that has specific questions, hopefully we'll have the answers in the books. But we can start with any questions you guys have about the movie, about anything. I think you had something to say. You had something? Oh, you want to tell me after? Yeah. Shabbat, go ahead. After? Okay. Okay, I'm still gathering his thoughts. Shabbat. In the case of Yehudah and Tamar, we see that Yehudah is intrigued by Tamar and he's confused into having relations with her. How come in the Torah we don't see any rebuke against Yehudah for going with someone he thought was assur to him? Well, technically it wasn't assur. So Yosef wouldn't have a problem with going with Eshet Potiphar if it wasn't assur?

23:03So, as far as the difference is, Tamar was pretending to be a prostitute. And technically, before the Torah, there was permission to do that. Plus, more than that, even after the Torah was given, it would have been allowed for Yehudah to go because Yehudah was a king. Kings have different rules. Kings have different rules, like, for example, David HaMelech married 18 women. You're not allowed to marry 18 women. You're not allowed to even marry two. But David HaMelech was allowed to marry 18. So kings have different rules. Plus, it was before Matan Torah. In any case, she was a prostitute. Regarding Yosef, she was a married woman. Eshet Potiphar was married. That's adultery. Adultery is not allowed, not for a Jew or a non-Jew. It's part of the seven Noachide laws. So it wouldn't be allowed for him. So that's the other issue. But also, this was Yad Hashem. The whole thing was Yad Hashem. In essence, the Sefarim HaKedoshim say that Hashem pushed...

24:07Yehuda with Tamar and the reason why he did all of it was to hide the whole act from the Satan because as soon as he sees something like this, he goes away; he doesn't interfere because there's nothing that's going to come out of it. And that's actually how the Mashiach came to the world. Everything that has to do with Mashiach comes in an unusual way. And the reason why is because the Satan has to interfere. So, you look at, for example, one side of the Mashiach comes from Yehuda and Tamar. the other side of the Mashiach comes from Lot and his two daughters. Incest, also not allowed. Then you have the whole thing between David HaMelech and Batsheva. Also, not exactly the most kosher situation. Even though it was allowed, it wasn't viewed as allowed. So everything that has to do with Mashiach always comes in a very unusual way. And that's, in essence, one of the whole acts behind Yehuda and Tamar. But one of the biggest things that we actually learned from Yehuda and Tamar

25:07There's two things. One is that it's better to be burned alive than to embarrass somebody in person. Meaning that Yehuda had the option after Tamar came to him. They arrested her because they thought that she is becoming promiscuous, which, even though she was not married, she still was not allowed. She was still considered part of the family of King Yehuda. She wasn't allowed to be promiscuous. He didn't know it was his baby. So then Tamar showed him the stamp. Do you know who this belongs to? She didn't tell him, "This belongs to you. You're my baby daddy." She didn't say that. Why? She says, "Do you know who this belongs to?" Meaning, I'm giving you the option and either tell the whole world that it's you that's actually the father of these two kids and admit it, which means that they're going to burn you. This means that Yehuda has to admit, knowing that his people are actually going to kill him. Why? Because it's not allowed for him either, this whole situation. Or you let me burn, let me die, and no one's ever gonna know. Hashem's gonna know, but no one else is gonna know that you did it.

26:19So when Yehuda admitted it, and she did what she did, both of them, in essence, exhibited the same mesirat nefesh. She showed him that it's better to die, to get burned, than to embarrass him in public. And he said it's better to get burned than to live as a liar. So here we learn from Yehuda and Tamar, and that's why HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, "She is actually, I did the whole thing, I'm behind the whole scenes," and both of them, Baruch Hashem, were saved. So that's the first lesson. The second lesson we learn, actually, the two first sons of Yehuda are Er and Onan, which is one of the... first sources, not the first source, but one of the first five sources in the entire Torah that we learn about the sin of wasting seed, and how it's assur not only for Jews but also for non-Jews. The two sons of Yehuda, Hashem killed them, and they were both under the age of 13.

27:26Some say they were even twins, seven years old, meaning that they were so young that you would think, okay, they're young, Hashem wouldn't even punish them. No, this is the only sin in the entire Torah that Hashem punishes at any age. Any age, it doesn't matter what age the kid is. It can be seven, it can be seventy. You are never allowed to waste seed, Jew or non-Jew. So this is one of the things. Now some people, when they watch my shiurim about wasting seed, they uh they get upset because they know that they are uh not only uh a criminal here but they're addicted to the crime. It's very easy to get addicted to it. The Rambam calls it the most addictive addiction known to man; there's nothing more addictive than it. But they know there's something wrong. So then, if somebody wants to do teshuvah, what do they do? They start fixing themselves, they start watching their eyes. they start making sure that they do whatever they possibly can to start watching their brit. It's not something that you fix overnight. But the decision is made in one second. Are you going to continue watching the filth on the internet or not? That's a decision that takes one second. Are you going to continue watching TV or not? That's a decision of one second. Are you going to continue dating girls without being married? It's a decision of one second.

28:50...happens after you go to sleep on its own and so on and so forth. That takes a little bit of time because your body is already used to the damage that you've caused, but that takes time, and even that gets fixed over time. But the decision to do teshuva is one second. Doing teshuva takes a little longer. But then, what if somebody doesn't want to do teshuva? What's the first sign that somebody doesn't want to do teshuva? "I'm a good person. I keep the Ten Commandments. I'm a good person. I keep the Ten Commandments." Now, anyone that learns a little bit of Gemara goes to Gemara, Masechet... What is it? Masechet... Hold on, hold on, hold on. I have it with me. Masechet Nidda. Nidda, not Nedarim. Masechet Nidda. Goes to Masechet Nidda. Masechet Nidda, page 13b says there are certain commandments in the Torah. There are rules. Good, not good. And they talk about wasting seed. Wasting seed is not allowed. What’s the proof? Er and Onan. Yehuda and Tamar. Says yeah, what else is a proof?

30:07So Gemara Masechet Nidda, page 13b says, Rabbi Yishmael says, oh, what notinar? You don't even need. Maybe it changed, ematan Torah. Maybe it wasn't allowed back then at the time of Yehuda and Tamar, but then once we got Torah on Mount Sinai a few hundred years later, maybe it changed. So Rabbi Yishmael says, what changed? Not only did it not change, it became worse. It's part of the Ten Commandments. ten commandments you see, okay, don't, uh, idols, keep Shabbat, uh, Hashem is the only one, don't kill. Why? What are you talking about? Where do you see don't waste seed? Where’s the 11th commandment? He says, no, the Beit says in the Gemara, an average person would say, wait a minute, 'enough' means don't commit adultery, don't be promiscuous. So Rabbi Yishmael says, no, no, no. See, Chachamim, they don't learn Torah like regular people. If something is mentioned more than once in the Torah, there has to be a reason. Because Hashem did not even waste a dot. Everything is there for a reason. He says, look, the first time it says, don't commit adultery, is in Sefer Shemot, chapter 23, in the book of Exodus, chapter 23, verse 13.

31:22Second time it mentions "lo tin'af" when it talks about the sin and the punishment of adultery is in Vayikra (Leviticus) Chapter 20, verse 10. So what's the difference between those two lines? He says the first time it says don't be promiscuous. The second time it says don't be promiscuous and... with somebody else's wife. So how come the first time it says lo tin'af without the wife, and the second time lo tin'af with the wife? So Rabbi Yishmael says in the Gemara, from here we learn that the first time it says lo tin'af in the Ten Commandments is referring to lo tin'af be'atzmecha. Don't be promiscuous with yourself, with your hand or even with your leg. You want to warm your body up with your leg and so on and so forth. First time, it's referring to yourself. Second time, it's with other people. From here, we see that wasting seed is even in the Ten Commandments. So when people see this, they start waking up. They realize, okay, I have to fix it because I'm not even keeping the Ten Commandments. So that's another story. That's another thing that we learn from Yehudah and Tamar. Next. Ken.

32:33So that's a very common question that I've answered plenty of times. There is no plain mitzvah in the entire Torah at all about anything. Show me one place in the Torah that says tefillin. Put tefillin on your arm. Show me one place in the Torah that says put tefillin on your head. It doesn't say. It says totafot. What's totafot? What's totafot? Hold on. What's totafot? How do you know what totafot is? You go to the Gemara. Gemara says, "Cut the orlah." Cut the orlah. What's the orlah? Orlah maybe is your ear. I prefer to cut my ear than my ear. Maybe it's nails. I cut my nails a few days ago. It didn't hurt at all. You could do it at any age. I know what orlah is. Orlah, we know from the Oral Torah. The Oral Torah says the orlah is part of your member.

33:46Every single mitzvah in the Torah is spoken that way. To show you a few things: Number one, the Written Torah is meaningless without the Oral Torah to explain it. You must have the Oral Torah, and the Oral Torah explains that Zera Levatala is asur in a million different ways. Every single book mentions Zera Levatala that's written about the Gemara. Almost every Masechet, almost every Masechet in the Gemara mentions it. Masechet Berachot, the first time I read Masechet Berachot, I could have sworn the whole Masechet is about Zera Levatala. I said, I thought it was Berachot, I thought it was about blessings. Almost every page talks about Zera Levatala. You go to Masechet Shabbat, every other page, Zera Levatala. You go to this one, Sotah. It's all about Zera Levatala. I said, how come nobody knows this? It's in every Masechet. The entire Oral Torah is full of it. So that's the first thing we learn. The second thing we learn is we have to understand that the language of HaKadosh Baruch Hu is not the language that we speak. What is the word in the Sfat HaKodesh for male member?

34:57or for a female private part. I'll save you the time. It doesn't exist. There is no Hebrew word—Hebrew, not the Ivrit of today, the Zionists that created it, you know, 80, 90 years ago. No, I'm talking about Lashon HaKodesh of the Torah. There is no Hebrew word for the male member, and there is no Hebrew word for the female member. Why? Hashem doesn't speak that way. He calls it ervah, nakedness. To show you that it's not the member, it's what you do with it. Hashem doesn't speak street language like us. He doesn't speak like that. He speaks, in essence, in a very holy, pure way. And the Chachamim have to explain to us this is what He means. In one place, He says, "You be holy because I am holy." In the same parasha, He says, "Don't be kedeshaim."

36:03A man, he just said, because no, no, this first one means holy. The second one means referring to someone promiscuous. It's the same exact word. The second one, if you see the verse before and the verse after, it shows that he's referring to somebody promiscuous. But He doesn't say, "Oh, somebody promiscuous." He uses a different word, meaning the opposite of kadosh. The opposite of kadosh is someone who is promiscuous. So the Torah doesn't speak in a literal language simply because it's HaKadosh Baruch Hu speaking. But that's also why we need the Oral Torah. Without having the Oral Torah, we're not very different than chas v'shalom le'havdil, but we're not different than Christianity. That's what Christianity is. Christianity is the Written Torah without Oral Torah. They translate everything literally. So when it says, "we're going to create a man in our image,"

37:08Our image sounds like there's more than one God. So the Christians say, "Oh, see, it says our image, that means there's more than one God." If you look at our Oral Torah, what does this "our image" mean? It's that HaKadosh Baruch Hu wanted to give the malachim that He created before man a little bit of, you know, a little bit of chizuk because the whole of creation is in Torah. Malachim were servants, and really it was for man to fulfill the Torah. So they felt like, you know, what's the point of us? You can do everything by yourself, Hashem. Hashem says, no, no, no, I need you, I need you, as if He needs them. He's like, "We should create man in our image," as if they have a partner in creation. Hashem cares about all of creation. But the goyim, they think that "our image" means there's more than one God. They think JC Penney was there and all that garbage. Why? Because they don't have any commentary; they don't have any Oral Torah, so they translate things to whatever they like. Our Torah, without the written Torah, cannot be understood in its entirety. Part of the Oral Torah is also the vowel system, the Nikud. We don't know how to read the Torah without Nikud. Now, when you go to Beit Knesset, behind me there is a Sefer Torah. You open a Sefer Torah, and you see that it doesn't have Nikud, it doesn't have the dots. But the only reason that the Baal Koreh...

38:27that reads on Shabbat, Monday, and Thursday. The only reason he knows how to read it is not because he lived at the time of Moshe Rabbeinu; it's because he has a cheat sheet. What does he have? He has a book. He has a book that shows him what it says with Nikud, and he memorizes it. He memorized it. In English, they call it the Codex. And he memorized the language with the Nekudot. Why? Because without the dots, we don't know how to read. We don't know what it means because, for us, the dots in Hebrew, that's the vowel system. What is it like in English? The vowel system is based on letters, not dots. A, E, I, O, U, and then Y sometimes. So every word in the English language has one of those letters. There is no word in the English language without A, E, I, O, or U. Or Y. One of them has to be there. Without one of those foundational letters, the word doesn't exist. It's not English. So that means it's a foundation. In Hebrew, we don't have our vowel system. Our foundational system is not letters, but rather it's these different dots and exclamation points and so on.

39:48Now, in the written Torah, we're not allowed to put those dots. So how do we know how to read them? We have those as part of our Oral Torah. That's how we know how to read the Torah. Which means that reading the written Torah without the Oral Torah, you wouldn't even be able to understand the first sentence. Torah or even Mount Sinai says that Moshe came to Mount Sinai. You will understand Moshe. Imagine reading the word "Moshe" without vowels in English. So, Moshe, Moses. Let's say Moses has how many vowels? "M" is not, it's okay. "O" is a vowel, so you took out "O". "S" okay. "E" is a vowel, okay. So, what do you have left? You have "M S S". So, Moshe, Moses becomes... Missed. Good luck with miss. Good luck with miss giving you the Torah. Good luck with miss giving you the Torah and talking to Hashem. Who spoke to Hashem? Who spoke to Hashem? It's miss. They're going to throw you out of yeshiva. Miss spoke to Hashem. It's miss. You missed the target. Miss over there.

41:01can't read Torah without a vowel system. So Oral Torah is a must. And that's the mistake of the goyim and, unfortunately, sometimes the mistake of Jews. How about next? Yeah, I mean, just to add onto that, I think what really happens is that we have, well, it was meant to be that person purified that way so that only Jews can... Well, I mean, it does say that the Torah is for everybody though. It does. In several divrei Chazal, it mentions the minhag on Hoshana Rabbah to read the entire book of Devarim. In one of the parashiyot, it says that Moshe was commanded by Hashem to translate the Torah into 70 languages, meaning that He wants other nations to understand it because the seven Noahide laws are for everybody, for the rest of the nations. But they have to go back to the Jews to teach them how to do it, what to do, and how to do it. So Torah is for the whole world. It is for the whole world, but not the whole Torah.

42:14Not the whole Torah. There are specific mitzvot that are only for the Jews. There are specific mitzvot for non-Jews. But if it's taught by a Jew, you're in good shape. If it's taught by a non-Jew, you may be in bad shape. You don't know who this non-Jew is. That's why there are some organizations like Noahide organizations around the world that are doing the right thing. But sometimes these Noahide organizations are creating a new religion. They think they're doing the right thing, but they're creating a whole new religion. Actually, it's not even their fault. It's the fault of their leaders, which are sometimes Jewish. But there is this one guy who calls himself a rabbi, and there's a letter out against him. I forgot his name. It sounds Italian, like Corleone or something like that. But I don't think it's Corleone. I think it sounds like that. Anyway, this guy looks like, you know, a regular Chassid and everything, but he told the goyim that they're allowed to keep Shabbat and... Him and this other guy, this other rabbi named David Katz, told the goyim that they're allowed to keep Shabbat. They even wrote a whole book about it, World of the Ger, I think it's called. I got this book; I threw it in the garbage. Why? Because that's what it's worth. It's worth garbage. Why is a book written by two rabbis worth garbage? Because it goes against the chachamim.

43:37One of the foundations of Judaism is not just learning Torah by yourself. It's emunat chachamim. You have to have emunat chachamim. You have to have belief in our chachamim. That's the soldiers of HaKadosh Baruch Hu. If you're gonna come out here in the year 2019 and say that you know more than the Rambam, who says the Goyim are not allowed to keep Shabbat, that you know more than the Gemara, which says they're not allowed to keep Shabbat, and you're gonna give a chidush, if you will, and tell the Goyim they are allowed to keep Shabbat no matter what the Rambam says, no matter what the Ramban says, no matter what the Gemara says, guess what? Your book is worth garbage. That's what it is. That's what they wrote, a letter against them. It said, "Your book is worth garbage." Why? Because you're telling Goyim that they're, in essence, allowed to do things they're not allowed to do. Torah specifically says they're not allowed to do. And what's happening is that these Goyim are, in essence, creating a new religion. They're calling it Noahide, but it's not Noahide. It's a new religion. Now, the problem is that people don't think that Emunat Chachamim is a critical foundation of Torah.

44:45They think that anybody can read a book and arrive at the same conclusion. You and I read the same book, we arrive at the same conclusion. You and Rabbi Ephraim read a book, you arrive at the same conclusion. You and Rabbi Ovadia read a book, you arrive at the same conclusion. You can look at the Gemara, he reads the Gemara, same thing. The funny thing is, you don't do that with anything else. Like if I tell anybody here, that's not a scientist. I don't know what you guys do for a living, but let's say one of you guys is not a scientist. I tell you, hey, here's a science book. It's a science book that Einstein wrote, or Dawkins, or one of these guys wrote. Here, read this book and I want you to teach it just like he did. What are you going to tell me? I'm sorry, Rabbi, but I can't do it. Why not? E equals mc squared. Everybody knows. Every average kid doesn't know what it means, but they say E equals mc squared. You're right on board. What's the big deal? I'm not Einstein. Einstein, who wrote this book, has a clear understanding of the subject. Why? He wrote it.

45:49He understands it. He studied it for 50–60 years. Okay, so I'm gonna read this book. It's gonna take me three, four, five months, and you think I'm gonna arrive at the same understanding as Einstein after 50 years? No joke or whatever, think like that. It's the same thing with people today. The guy just started learning Torah five years ago, ten years ago, and he thinks he arrived at the same understanding as Rav Ovadia after 80 years. He thinks he arrived at the same understanding as the Rambam from 900 years ago. You have to be a donkey to think that. Unfortunately, we have a lot of donkeys. And the Chazon Ish, Chazon Ish, Alav HaShalom, says in his sefer Emunah U'Bitachon, he says when it comes to the honor of Chachamim and Emunat Chachamim, This is as much a foundation in Torah as anything else. How so? He says sometimes you have to elect a rabbi for a position. He says you're supposed to—what are you supposed to do to elect a rabbi for a position? What are you supposed to do? Go to the Talmidei Chachamim. Go to the real, well-known Talmidei Chachamim, real rabbis, and ask which one should we have as a rabbi?

47:09Chazon Ish says, already from almost a hundred years ago, what do people do instead? They have a vote. Which part of the people are Talmidei Chachamim? You know, one or two rabbis that are voting. But the rest of them are regular, average people on the board of directors. A guy that has a construction company—keeps Shabbat, but he has a construction company. He's not a Talmid Chacham. Another guy, he has a, you know, pet food company. Another guy builds chairs. Another guy cleans the floor. Another guy makes the chemicals for cleaning the floor. He says, now what happens? The rabbi says, listen, you have to pick this rabbi, Rabbi so-and-so, to be the rabbi here. But then one of these regular people comes and says, with a great argument that makes him sound as if he's been reviewing this issue for many years and knows it clearly and well, that you shouldn't listen to the rabbi. He's biased.

48:22This other choice is much better, and because he's such a smooth talker and so believable, everybody follows him. And the Chazon Ish says, I think it's chapter 19 in his book Chazon Ish, yeah, chapter 19 in section number 3. He says everyone who follows this average Joe's advice is considered 100% idol worshipers. Why idol worshipers? Now, by not listening to the Talmidei Chachamim, what do you do? You create a new Torah. That's idolatry. You create a new Torah. You say, don't listen to Talmidei Chachamim. Listen to your opinion because it sounds good. Even though you're not Talmidei Chachamim, it just sounds good what you're saying. Oh, you're creating a new Torah? Everyone is considered, he says, mamash avodah zarah. That's how dangerous it is to think that we are on the same level as Chachamim. You have to go to a Jew. You have to go to a rabbi. The problem is you have to get a kosher rabbi too. That becomes a little tougher over time. If they're a rabbi, usually it should mean it's kosher too. Yeah.

49:46You know, one time I saw an advertisement from Walmart: "Special for Hanukkah: Kosher Ham." I think I have the picture on my phone. "Special for Hanukkah: Kosher Ham." It says kosher; you would think the last thing would be ham. See, it was just big. I had to keep on everything reformed before the Reform pig and... so you would think sometimes these things are supposed to be, but unfortunately, we can never assume. There are a lot of mistakes, unfortunately. No, what else you got? More good questions? Same price. Why not? What's wrong with it being a religion? What's a religion, then?

51:02It's basically a sect that has beliefs. In Judaism, we don't have to believe anything. It's a system of knowledge. We know things, and it's like you don't have to believe in anything. Meaning you could be Jewish and not believe, and you could be Jewish and believe, is what you're saying? Right. If you stop believing in Buddha, you're not a Buddhist anymore. Judaism is, I think it's short-changing, real Orthodox. What's the difference? To develop this, what's the... Because I know there's one heretic named Manis Friedman. that likes to have lectures about how religion is a bad thing. So, for the sake of argument, what's the downside of Judaism being a religion?

52:06I think it becomes very robotic. Why? If I call Judaism a religion, the Gemara also calls it a religion, but I don't believe I'm a robot. How does it make you robotic? What does it lead to influence? What does it do? You're not necessarily wrong. I was trying to figure out what's the difference. The Gemara is like... I feel like it's not there. You're just doing it out of religious habit, which is like what you're talking about, like rabbis that you like. You went through so many rabbis who never approached you because they are just going in their room because their parents are frum, and it just becomes more like a cultural thing that you just religiously do. And your covenant is absent. Right. And I think that if you start understanding it more as, no, it's like I have a duty with the Creator. What do you want to call it then? A covenant. I mean, that's what a religion is. Not really, because I feel like it's more like... So if somebody asks you, what religion are you? What do you say? I have no religion. You have no religion? No religion. So you're nothing? Right. But being Jewish is being thankful. That's all you are. You're a thankful person. I mean, you'll be before Israelites. So at the end of the day, it's like I have a covenant and I have a relationship with God, which I, because of that covenant... Okay, so now, okay, so that's the follow-up question. Where's the source to what you're saying?

53:26Anything that's worth a grain of salt in Judaism has to have a source. Who said that's worth salt? Not Manis Friedman. Talk about somebody that actually is worth something. Who said that you're right? So you look at Gemara Masechet Kiddushin. It says that when is a person allowed to kick out his wife without paying a ketubah? married, yeah, married, okay, you've signed the ketubah, yeah, so you signed this. You should know this. If you don't know it, let's do a review. So what is that worth? Because if you sign a lot of money, you have to know this. You give the wife a lot of money. You can't kick her out without giving her money because if you just decide you don't want her anymore, it's not good enough. You have to pay the money. So how are you going to get rid of it without the money? To give you different reasons. One of the reasons is if she violates the dat Yehudit. The Jewish religion. She violates it. Jewish religion violates it. Dat. Dat is Judaism. Dat means religion. What does that mean, Chachamim say? If she's not modest and she doesn't cover her hair, you're allowed to kick her out without paying her ketubah. So what about if the guy is a Mechalel Shabbat?

54:52He doesn't keep Judaism at all. Can he still kick out his wife for not keeping, for not? For not wearing a kisui rosh? No, he can't. Why can't he? Because he is violating the dat Yehudit also. Therefore, you cannot use the dat Yehudit for your cause. But if you are keeping it, you're observing the Jewish religion, and... Then, obviously, if she doesn't want to keep the religion, then you're allowed to kick her out without paying her the ketubah. So here we see one place where that is mentioned. I thought that was more like the connection between... That literally means religion. Connection. I thought it was more like... Connection is a... bridge, like a bridge. That is knowledge, like that, that. No, not Dat. Da'at. Da'at is with an ayin. Dat is not Da'at. There's only dalet taf. Dalet taf. Da'at is dalet ayin taf. It's two different words. So Dat, the Yehudi, is religion. We also see the first person that's named Yehudi is Mordechai. The first time the word Yehudi is mentioned in Torah is Mordechai HaYehudi.

56:11So the Ben Ish Chai says, how do we know that Mordechai was a Yehudi? We know because he had payot. All the way, they were so big and puffy, almost to the floor. You could see him from far away. Oh, here's Mordechai HaYehudi. You could recognize him from his payot. That's what the Ben Ish Chai says. So we see that both Judaism and the word Dat are in the Torah. And it's in many, many other places, the word Dat. So, Judaism is viewed as a religion, not necessarily in order to make people robotic or that's how people treat it, but it also doesn't necessarily mean that it's the same thing as what other things are considered religion, meaning that although Christianity and Catholicism technically are considered two different religions by their believers, and Buddhism is considered a religion, and Islam is considered a religion, that does not mean that our definition of religion

57:13is the same as theirs. They're all considered religion; we just don't have the same definition. They all consider our Torah emet, but we don't have the same definition of what emet means. Emet means that it's all true. Everything has to agree. Emet is three letters: Aleph, Mem, Taf. Aleph is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, Taf is the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and Mem is exactly the middle letter. This shows you that the word Emet has to be Emet from beginning to end in the books of the Quran of the Islamic people, or the New Testament of the Christians and Catholics, and so on. We already know, and they already know if they've studied their own material, that it's full of lies. It's full of contradictions. It's full of mistakes. There are over 200,000 different versions of the New Testament. Obviously, they're not all correct. There are almost 9,000 versions, almost 10,000 versions of the Quran. Obviously, they're not all correct.

58:25There are things that it says in the Quran that contradict the Torah, even though they say the Torah is emet. If the Torah is emet, that means the Quran has to agree with it. But the Quran says that Haman was friends with Paro, even though they lived over a thousand years apart. It says that Miriam, the sister of Moshe Rabbeinu, was the mother of Yeshu, even though they lived over 1500 years apart. This is ridiculous. Mistakes. Same thing with Christianity. It has an endless amount of mistakes. We did a whole shiur about their mistakes. The point is that our definition of emet is different than their definition of emet. Further, like you said, if somebody wants to be a Christian, all they got to do is say, I believe in some JC Penny rock star guy, throw some water on him, feed him a cookie, and he's a Christian. That's it, feed him a cookie cracker you get from Walmart, throw some water you found from some pool, and that's it, he's a Christian. You want him to be a Muslim? Put one of these white outfits on him, pin a hijab on him, and he's a Muslim. That's it. No problem. Give him a little rug so he can fly on it. There, he's a Muslim. That's it. What do you need to be a Muslim? Nothing, pray five times a day, pretend like you're praying to Hashem. That's it. To be a Jew...

59:52there is the prerequisite and there's also the qualification. These are two different things. Qualification means you have a Jewish mother. If you have a Jewish mother, you're qualified to be a Jew. Does it mean you're a Jew? It's a prerequisite. What's a prerequisite? That means that without it, something doesn't exist. have to believe in the Torah and you have to follow it. Now, what's more important, the qualification or the prerequisite? Prerequisite is the must. Why? Because you can't be a Jew without a Jewish mother. Simply by adopting the Jewish laws, going to a Jewish Beit Din, telling them, "I'm going to comply with all of these laws," three kosher judges say, "You're good." You dip in a mikveh. If you're a man, you have to have a brit milah. If you're not a man, you don't have to have a brit milah; you go to a mikveh, and you're a Jew. Baruch Hashem. All you have to do is follow the laws: keep Shabbat, keep kashrut, keep taharat hamishpacha, and so on and so forth. Abandon all false beliefs, and you're a Jew.

1:01:07But if you don't, you don't believe this, even if you have the qualifications of a Jewish mother, in Shamayim you're considered an idol worshiper. You're punished as a Jew, but you're considered as an idol worshiper, meaning a sinner. So if somebody violates Shabbat as a Jew, even if their mother's a Jew and their father's a Jew, and they came from Jewish rabbis, it doesn't make a difference. One of the best proofs we have is Esav. Esav, his brother was Yaakov. Yaakov was Gadol HaDor, Kodesh Kodashim. Beginning of Am Yisrael. Yaakov's name is also Yisrael. Beginning of Am Yisrael is Yaakov. His father, Yitzchak. Gadol HaDor, Kodesh Kodashim. Grandfather, Avraham. Kodesh Kodashim. Beginning of Am Yisrael. His brother, Esav, Goy. Edom, Amalek. Why? But they're both twin brothers. If you said, listen, maybe they were born at different times, maybe the mom converted. No! They're both twins. One's a goy, one's a Jew. How come? Because to be a Jew, it's not just about who the mother is. It's what you do after. So, it's not that Judaism is not a religion per se, it's that our definition of religion is different than the goyim.

1:02:32The goyim say anyone can be. You want to be a Buddhist? Just go to Chinatown, buy one of these fat statues, and you're a Buddhist. You know how many Israelis have Buddha statues in their houses? And they go up to Shamayim and get punished for idolatry? One time I went to a guy in the beginning of our teshuva, on Yom Kippur. The guy says he was living next to my parents' house. He goes, listen, if you want, why don't you come by my house, stay over at my house? I said, okay, no problem. So I came by his house, and we went outside, and I see in his yard, he has a huge Buddha statue. I said, why do you have a Buddha statue? He goes, oh, I like it. I said, what, you're a Buddhist? He goes, no, I'm a Jew. I said, why do you have a Buddha statue? He goes, oh, I like how it looks. I said, you like how a fat guy looks? Go to the supermarket, you find a bunch of them. What's the matter with you? Why do you have a fat person naked on your lawn? You know how many people think this is going to help their life? And they're going to go up to Shamayim and get punished for it and Gehenom? It's an idol. Not to have in your house. Not to have in your car. All this false idolatry is going to get people punished. But they don't realize it. But Shogeg Talui, Hakadosh Baruch Hu is the Dayan. The Mishnah in Avot says, just because you don't know does not absolve you from the crime.

1:03:53not absolve you from the punishment. You should have known, you should have learned. So, Judaism is indeed a religion; it's just that we have a different definition of it. To call it something else, otherwise, we would have to have a source that it's not. Now, you can call it anything you want. The truth is, in the common person's lingo, it has to have something. You want to call it a covenant? By all means. But we call it a covenant. Yeah, the Torah calls the entire Torah a covenant. It's a Brit. But there are other things that are called covenant. There's the Brit Milah. There's the Brit of Shabbat. There's the Brit of Tefillin. There's the Brit that Hashem told Noach that He's not going to flood the world. He may burn the world, but He's not going to flood the world. That's why there's the Keshet. What is the Keshet? A rainbow. That's the Brit. There are several things that are called Brit in the Torah. Several things called Brit in the Torah. So, calling it "the covenant" is like, okay, which covenant do you mean today? Which covenant do you mean? Do you mean the Brit Milah? Do you mean the Brit of Shabbat? Do you mean the Brit of Tefillin? Which Brit? When you call a religion the Jewish religion, the average person knows what you're talking about. It's not necessarily limiting it down. You have to use something that's commonly accepted.

1:05:13It's commonly accepted by Chachamim, commonly accepted by the Torah. And now, in last week's parasha, it says that you have to keep the minhagim of your father. That's one of the mitzvot of the Torah, to keep the minhagim of your father. Meaning if you came from Ashkenaz, from the Medinot Ashkenaz, You know, different parts of Europe, about four or five hundred years ago, it already became solidified not to eat rice on Pesach. Because in those days, they were so poor that they would use the same sack they had wheat Later on, they would reuse it. Today, we don't reuse anything. Everything is thrown in the garbage. We produce more waste in each house than they did as entire communities back in the day. But today, everything is thrown out. Back then, they would reuse sacks. So the same sack they had wheat in, they used for rice. So that means they said, listen, because of the way a sack is made, we can't trust ourselves that there's not going to be a little bit of wheat.

1:06:19It's left in the sack after we put rice in it. That means that it could be wheat inside the rice. Therefore, we can't eat rice on Pesach. Now, today, there's no problem. You buy rice, you're not buying wheat, you're buying rice. The most you're gonna get with the rice is maybe a few worms, but you're not getting wheat. You're not getting wheat. But still, if you're Ashkenazi, you have to keep this mitzvah. You have to not eat rice on Pesach. Why? That's the minhag avot that you have. That's the minhag avot that you have. Now, what happens if an Ashkenazi woman marries a Sephardic man? An Ashkenazi woman has to take on what her husband is. Her husband is Sephardi; she becomes Sephardi. She becomes Sephardi. She has to keep. No, what about her whole life? She didn't keep. She was not eating rice. Now she's eating rice? Mitzvah. Why? Because now the minhag changed. What's the minhag? You became one with your husband. What if the Ashkenazi guy married the Sephardi woman? She becomes Ashkenazi. He stays Ashkenazi. It's always the men. Oh, but what about the feminist groups? Oh, feminist groups? We don't care about them.

1:07:32We don't care about the feminist groups. Why? That's the minhag avot. Minhag goes after the husband. You don't like it, pick a different religion. That's the way it works. People want to change things, customize it at times. Oh, but I'm a feminist and it should be power to the women. Okay, power to the women. Go power to the women on your own. I'm going to say something right now that is going to rub some people the wrong way. But it has to be said. I've said it a few times before, but there is a misunderstanding in Judaism. People think that there's something called a "Jewish look." I spoke to a woman two days ago, and she said that her daughter is having difficulties because she doesn't look like other Jews in America. So what does she look like? She looks Chinese. I said, okay, so what's the problem? Because she doesn't look like the rest of the Jews. I asked, what do Jews look like? What do Jews look like? Oh, I don't know, they're white. I said, who said? If you think that Jews look like American Jews, you're mistaken. The Zohar HaKadosh says something amazing. The Zohar HaKadosh says something amazing.

1:08:57He says, "What does a Jew look like?" He says, "Jewish people are the only people that do not have a look. Why not? We, as a people, are the only ones that don't have a look. We get affected by the air. Wherever the Jews are going to live, after a few generations, you see that their looks start changing." The way that the people over there look, that's why if you go to China, there's a kehillah that used to be as big as 5,000 people. It's much smaller today. They are 100% Jews, generation after generation after generation. They're not converts, 100%. They look Chinese; you can't tell. But the hundreds of Jews, you go to my students in India, in India... Bombay has a kehillah there of 3,000 people. You look at them, and they appear 100% Hindu. You cannot tell. My guys wearing a kippah, anywhere, you can't tell they're Jewish. You can't tell they're Jewish Indians. You go to Manipur. I have students in Manipur, India. You look at them, and they look Asian, and they are Jewish. Yes, they are more Jewish than you. What do you mean? You go to my kehillah in Nigeria.

1:10:19Black, as black as can be. People in America think, why, these are Jews, 100% Jews. Go to Eretz Yisrael, they look like me. You go to America, they look American. You look at Woody Harrelson or something. You look at Seinfeld. That's what people think. People think that Jews look like Seinfeld. But there's no such thing as a Jewish look. There's no such thing as a Jewish look. That's a reality. So if you look different First and foremost, that doesn't make you special. There's somebody else in the world that looks just like you. Number two, stop making a big deal out of it. The fact that you're making a big deal out of it gives people a reason to make a big deal out of it. Yeah, what about if people are making a big deal out of it that I'm black? Okay, so let them make a big deal out of it that you're black. What about if people are making a big deal out of it because I'm yellow? Okay, so let them make a big deal out of it because I'm yellow. Why is it? If everybody's going to jump, you're going to jump with them? What do you care? But then there's people like this guy called MaNishtana. He called himself MaNishtana. He's a black Jew. And he makes a big deal out of the fact that he's a black Jew. Now he's not a convert. He says, oh, people always think I'm a convert. He wants to make a big deal out of it. He's not a convert. Okay, so you're not a convert. Sorry for you. I wish you were a convert. You'd be better off. Why? Converts are higher than a natural born Jew.

1:11:41According to the Torah, a convert is higher than a natural born Jew. Look at the Rambam. Rambam says a convert is higher than a natural born Jew. You're supposed to love a Jew like you love yourself. You're supposed to love a convert like you love God. What's higher? You or God? So the guy says, no, I'm black and I'm persecuted. I relate to African Americans. What do I care that you're black? Why should I care that you're black? Why? Why should I care? Do you care that I'm not black? Do you give me extra credit because I'm not black? Maybe I should get special treatment because I'm not black, and you're not going to get treated because you are black. Or maybe you should get credit because you're black, and he's going to get credit because he has a blue hat on. Why do I care if you're black or not? You know who cares if you're black? Two people: one, racist people; two, the government. That's it. Government, we don't care. It's not part of our religion. Racist people, who cares what they think? Who cares what racist people think? Why do you pay attention to them? Why do you? Okay, so they're racist. Let them be racist. Let them jump off a bridge too. By you making a big deal out of it, what's happening is that you are becoming more racist than they are.

1:13:05you asking the world for extra privileges and special treatment, or even better said, to acknowledge that you're black or yellow or Chinese or blue or burgundy or whatever the heck you are, you're asking for special treatment, you are being racist. Why do you deserve special treatment? In Judaism, all that matters is, are you keeping Torah and mitzvot or not? That's it. I don't care if you are blue or green or burgundy. It doesn't make a difference. Once you die, guess what? No one's going to ask you, what color were you? How were your eyes? Were they like this or like this or like this? Who cares? You know who cares? The government and racist people. Are you going to invite racist people to your birthday? So why do you care what they say? You're going to invite racist people to your wedding? So why do you care what they say? People put so much weight on the stupidity of race. And what happens is, sometimes they want to convert to Judaism. And they come from a different tradition. They're Spanish, or they're black, or whatever they are. And they want to bring their baggage from the past.

1:14:21Oh yeah, we were slaves for 400 years. You were not a slave, my friend. You were not a slave. You don't even know a slave. Second of all, the second you became a Jew, you don't connect to Africa anymore. You don't connect to the people that became slaves. You don't connect to anything. You're a Jew. That's all you are. And that's why our definition of religion is different. When you're a Jew, it's everything. It's the whole you. It's your race, it's your nationality, it's your food, it's your mind, it's your life, it's your everything. That's what a Jew is. A Jew is from alef to tav. It's all of you. So there is no religion like that. There is no such thing like that. Why? Because people are generally religious when they feel like it. They're Christian in the church, Nazis outside sometimes. That's what happens in the church. What do you think, the Nazis weren't religious? Some of them were extremely religious, went to church every Sunday. But on Monday morning, they're back to slaughtering people. There's a book called "Doctors from Hell" about all the experiments that they did on people in the Holocaust. One of the things that they brought up in the trial in 1947 is that they had a collection of Jewish bones.

1:15:48Why? They decided to kill 115 Jewish people for no other reason other than to take their bones and put them in a museum. What do you think? These people that did this were not religious? They were religious Christians. Meaning, Christianity doesn't say to go kill Jews, put their bones in a museum, and kill them. It doesn't say that. As much as it's fake, it's not like that. But that means that when you're Christian, you can pick when you want to be. You can't do that as a Jew. If you're a Jew, you're a Jew all the time. Which means it doesn't matter if you're blue or you're burgundy or whatever you are. Stop mentioning your race and your color and your whatever. You like food, you like red food, you like Sephardi food, good for you. You like white food, you like food with no flavor. It doesn't matter. It doesn't make you more Jewish. You like bagel with lox? Good for you. I have a bunch of goyim that also like bagel with lox. It doesn't make you more Jewish. Gefilte fish? Not for me, maybe for you. Okay, you want to eat it? Go ahead. I have a Sephardi friend. He made his own dish. He's Sephardi from Tripoli. Gefilte fish is like the most Ashkenazi dish there is.

1:17:06He made a Sephardi version of gefilte fish. How? There's a dish, a Sephardi dish called chraimeh. Chraimeh is like this red sauce and it has, it's spicy, and you have fish, usually salmon or something like that. What do you do? The red sauce and everything, gefilte fish. I had it a couple of times; it's mamash delicious. It's unbelievable. I said, "Wow, what kind of fish?" He goes, "Gefilte fish." I said, "No, no, seriously. Come on, what is it? What is it?" He goes, "No, it's gefilte fish." I said, "Listen, no, stop it already. Shabbat, I can't get angry at you. Don't feel it." He goes, "No, it's gefilte fish." My wife says, "No, honey, it's gefilte fish." I'm like, "I don't eat gefilte fish. It's gefilte fish. You eat gefilte fish." I said, "Baruch Hashem, it's good to be gefilte fish. You want to eat gefilte fish? Eat gefilte fish. Who cares? It doesn't make you more Jewish, though." That's the thing. People that mention their race, unfortunately, show that they have very little knowledge of the Torah itself. The Torah does not care who and what you are. I have plenty of students from all walks of life: converts, natural-born Jews, all colors and sizes, tall, short, fat, skinny, male, female, children, all types. If you keep Torah and mitzvot, baruch haba.

1:18:31You don't keep Torah and mitzvot, also baruch haba. I'll try to hopefully get you to do teshuva. If someone is racist, that means that they are a sinner. That means that they're still committing the sin of sinat chinam, and that means that the Beit HaMikdash, if it was built, it would be destroyed just because of them. Meaning the house of God, if it was here right now, would be destroyed because of this person. He's racist because you're black, blue, green, or whatever you are. He's racist against you. He doesn't accept you in your yeshiva or in his yeshiva because you're not Sephardi. Guess what? The second he doesn't accept you and he practices his racism, the Beit HaMikdash, boom, destroyed. Now, if let's say any of us knew somebody and... that went into the Beit HaMikdash and bombed it. Put a bomb in there. Blew it up. You're still going to be friends with him? You're going to invite him for Shabbat dinner? You're going to let your daughter marry him? You're going to let your son marry his daughter? You're going to hang out with him? Are you going to value his opinion? Will you ever listen to him? No. Why? He just destroyed God's house. Why should I care what he says?

1:19:50Hence the reason here. Anyone that's a racist is a rasha. There's no reason for you to consider their opinion for a single second. But that doesn't mean that you need to let everybody know that you need special treatment because of your color or your food taste or you're bald or you're not. Guess what? You know what Rabbi Akiva is called in the Gemara sometimes? By some of his friends? Rabbi Akiva, Kodesh Kodashim. The bald one. Why? Because he was bald. Rabbi Akiva was bald. So they called him "the bald one." Why? He was bald. Did Rabbi Akiva get upset? No. Why? Because it doesn't matter if you're bald. They were trying to describe him. Probably there were a few other Rabbi Akivas. He was the bald one. Does Rabbi Akiva want extra credit? Maybe a commercial on TV? A hair club for men? What does he want? Nothing. Just make sure when you ask him a question, it's a real question about Torah, not about baseball.

1:20:52That's what matters in Judaism, rabotai. It matters what kind of Torah you follow. You follow Torah emet, baruch Hashem. It doesn't matter what color you are, what size you are, or what else you are. If you're going to make people care about it, if you're going to make people and remind people that you're black or you're Chinese or you look different than Woody Harrelson and Seinfeld, guess what? You are more racist than everybody else. It's not that they're racist. You are racist. And in essence, it's enabling the racism. It's not helping the racism. It's not helping racism by telling people, "Oh, black people should be treated differently. Green people should be treated differently. Sephardi people should be treated differently." No, it's actually enabling sinat chinam by telling us that since we all look different, we all belong in different classes. That's garbage. That's sinat chinam. It's complete nonsense. That's not what Torah says. Torah says, whatever you are, we accept you. I had a guy send me maybe 15 questions in a row about Ethiopian Jews. He says, are they really Jews? I said, yes. He goes, are you sure? I said, yes. 15 questions, the same thing over and over, just different words. I said, yes, they're Jews. Chacham Ovadia says they're Jews, they're Jews. That's it, finished.

1:22:11He says, "Yeah, but maybe they're not really Jews; maybe they really need to convert." I said, "How about this? They're more Jewish than you." He asked, "What are you talking about?" I said, "The Ethiopian Jews are more Jewish than you." He goes, "How?!" He got upset. He goes, "How are they more Jewish than me? My mom's Jewish." I said, "Yeah, your mom's Jewish. What about your grandmother?" He goes, "Yeah, she's Jewish." I said, "Great-grandmother?" He says, "She's Jewish. Great-grandmother's Jewish. Yeah, everybody's Jewish." He goes, "Yeah, who? What proof do you have that all this is true?" Proof do you have that your great-great-grandmother's Jewish or even your mother's Jewish or a grip? What proof do you have? It was all they told me. I said, "Ah, did any chacham do the research and go back a few grandmothers ago to verify that your great-great-great-grandmother's Jewish?" He said no. I said, "Ha, see the Ethiopians, they did have it. How about it? They did the research. They're more Jewish than you, so shut up. No, but you did the research, habibi."

1:23:18He says that great-great-grandmother all the way to the Beit HaMikdash is Jewish. No one did the research for you. You're not Jewish. They're Jewish. So what happens? They shrivel up and the questions die. Why? Because they realized that all of it was just sinat chinam, racism for no reason, just complete arrogance, thinking that they're better because of some shade of color. In Judaism, we don't have that. Racism, they have it unfortunately, but that's the way the world is. Don't jump just because people tell you to. Don't overreact just because people treat you a certain way. Sometimes people are mean. You're not gonna change the world. All you gotta do is change yourself. I went to a beit knesset one time, and it was a kehillah, a big kehillah of maybe a thousand families, Ashkenazi. And I went to go pray with them on Shabbat. Now they had some guy that was maybe 50 or 60 years old at the door, one of the members of the kehillah serving as a security guard. So I'm walking, and he sees me like an eagle, and he runs over to me. It's Shabbat afternoon, and I'm carrying my little tallit bag. He runs over to me. You see this older guy running to me, and I'm thinking, boy, do I know him? He's going to give me a hug.

1:24:42He comes up to me, and he goes, "Yes." I said, "I'm looking behind me to see if he's talking to somebody else." I said, "Yeah." He goes, "Can I help you?" I said, "No." I continue walking. I'm like, "What do you want from my life?" I just continue walking. He starts following me. He goes, "What are you here for?" I'm like, "To go to the Beit Knesset." "Oh. Which Kehillah?" I said, "The huge building in front of me." i'm not getting it at this point. What does this guy want from my life? He's bored. I'm the first guy that's outside. What does he want from me? Because he said, "Who's the Rabbi here?" I said, "Rabbi so-and-so." "Oh, so you know people here?" "I live here." "Oh. You're new here?" "No, I live here for a few years already." "Oh." I pray here all the time. I said, "No, how many questions can you ask me? I gotta go pray, I'm sorry." "Okay, okay." He blocked my way for a little while and then he went away. Why? Why are there 20 questions where you take every member of the thousand families and they get these questions? No, I got the privilege. Why? Because I'm Sephardi. So he thought I'm some terrorist or something. He thought I was Bin Laden. He thought I was Bin Laden coming to pray with them because he looks like, you know, white bread and I look like I'm from Hamas.

1:26:04the reality, Rabotai, we both look like Jews. Why? Because Jews don't have a look. Jews just don't have a look. If you think that your look is important, you are not practicing Judaism; you're practicing racism. You're practicing racism; it's not Judaism. Judaism does not care about your race. You may have customs; it's a different story. customs of your ancestors and so on and so forth, but your shade, his shade, our shade—all that stuff doesn't make a difference. If the people in your life make a big deal out of it, find new friends. Find new friends. Yeah, but it's tough? Okay, so that's your tikkun in life. Oh, but they didn't accept my kids in yeshiva? Okay, so that's your tikkun in life. That's your tikkun. What do you think, if you didn't have this tikkun, you wouldn't have it somewhere else? That's one of the things that's a problem for people to realize, is that they think that if they didn't have this problem, they wouldn't have problems. We just finished Rosh Hashanah. Rosh Hashanah, Rabotai, I'm sorry to tell you, all of your problems, myself included, were decided on Rosh Hashanah. How many problems we're going to have in this coming year?

1:27:17That means each person got his weight. So let's say, hypothetically speaking, each one of us got 20 pounds of problems destined for us to be spread out over the rest of the year. 20 pounds. That means that no matter what you do, you're gonna get 20 pounds of problems. So if you live in a racist kehillah, the 20 pounds of problems will probably come in the form of racism. But if you decide to move, you move to a non-racist kehillah. Okay, so Hashem will send you those same 20 pounds worth of problems in a different way. Could be money, could be health, Could be issues with the kids. Could be issues with your right foot. You could fall from a sukkah like I did and break your hand. You could do a lot of things. Point being, you got 20 pounds, live with it. That's the way life is. There's no such thing as escaping all your problems. The Torah does not absolve you from problems or make the problems go away. The Torah gives you answers as to why you have problems and how you can solve them.

1:28:24That's what the Torah is for. So, for all of those people that are trying to, like, revive the African-American Jewish sect, and the Yemenite sect, and the Caucasian sect, and the dark blue sect, and the white sect, and all these different sects, do us a favor, stop it. You're destroying the Beit HaMikdash with what you're doing. No one cares what color you are. If you're a Jew, you're a Jew. We love you, that's it. Chaval. So let's say there's a... So the minhag of my community has been for years not to put Kisui Rosh. Even the biggest chachamim, their wives, what I'm told at least, is they never put Kisui Rosh from the times of David HaMelech. No such thing. This is what we're told, so... Show me in a book. No one's going to write no Kisui Rosh in a book. If it's not in a book, it's worth zero. Judaism is based on what's in a book. Maran Yerushalmi says such and such saw the rabbi's wife doing this. Can she do the same thing? Yerushalmi says we don't learn from the rabbi's wife and what she does. We learn what's written in books.

1:29:50That's what Judaism is. We don't learn halacha from word of mouth or from hearsay or from seeing someone. We learn halacha from what's written in a book. What was the psak? What's the halacha? Halacha says, already from parashat Naso, from the written Torah, parashat Naso, a Jewish woman must cover her hair. For all of history, Jewish women covered their hair with a mitpachat. Only about 400 years ago, There was a chacham that came out and misunderstood the Gemara and said, no, no, you're allowed to cover it with a mitpachat. I'm sorry, with a wig. Misunderstanding the Gemara in Masechet Shabbat that says that you're allowed to wear a wig under the mitpachat. And there's been a machloket about this for 400 years. He never said, "Don't cover your hair." And he actually, technically contradicted all of the other chachamim. And 127 poskim, after him, went against him. Only a handful agree with him to some extent, but not in the same way. The point being is that no Jew, Orthodox meaning, ever said there's no covering hair, regardless of what the minhag is. There's no such thing as a minhag that cancels halacha.

1:31:07There's no such thing. So why? Because then the entire religion will go in the garbage. So you're gonna say, listen, my community has a minhag not to cover their hair. So I'm gonna tell you, my community has a minhag to drive on Shabbat. And he says, my community has a minhag to eat pork on Shabbat without the kisuy rosh. And his community says, no, no, my community eats pork on Shabbat, but they cover their hair. No such thing. There's no minhag that supersedes halacha. We have halacha, which is written in the book, finished. And that's what we have in Am Yisrael. Yes. So now that, whatever, this was minhag, this is what people were saying. So now people, the recent generations, they're growing in Torah and mitzvot, they decide to put wigs on. And it's hard to find in my certain community people who are willing to put a mitzvah. Yes. Would so I don't suggest anything. I just say what the Chachamim said. So the same exact question came to Rav Ovadia. Two questions came to Rav Ovadia. One question is: a guy goes on a shidduch and

1:32:30He is a ben Torah. She comes from a Beit Yaakov. But she comes from a house where she was taught that a wig is kosher badatz. She has to wear a wig. There is no chance in the world she's going to wear a mitpachat. So they ask Rav Ovadia, he asks him, "G-d, do I cancel the shidduch? Because I'm Sephardi, you know, we wear a mitpachat. Do I cancel the shidduch?" Second question. A woman comes and says, "I have an avrech, I want to marry him. The only problem is, I want to wear a mitpachat, but he wants me to wear a wig. Do I cancel the shidduch?" Meaning, it’s the same question from two different people. So Rav Ovadia answers the question. He says the guy that says to his wife to wear a mitpachat, but she wants to wear a wig, don't cancel the shidduch. Why? Because once she becomes his wife, he'll teach her a little bit over time and as he teaches her more and more and she loves him more and more, she will change her ways over time and do teshuva. You don't cancel the shidduch because she wants to wear a wig. And that's again under the assumption that the wig is kosher, meaning it's not from Avodah Zarah.

1:33:41which is, by the way, almost impossible to get, but that's a different story. Let's say it's kosher—don't cancel the shidduch. If your wife wants to wear a wig, let her wear the wig, and eventually teach her and show her a happy life, and she'll eventually change because she loves you. No problem, don't cancel the shidduch. What about if the husband wants a wig, I have this on tape. I have this on video. He says you cancel the shidduch and you throw this avrech in the garbage. His Torah is not Torah from Shamayim. His Torah is like Doeg HaEdomi. He has no share in the World to Come, this avrech. He's a rasha. Why? He says he doesn't want his wife to wear a wig because of some minhag. He wants his wife to wear a wig because he wants to look at women. He's a rasha. That's a person you don't marry. You don't marry a person like this under any condition. So that's the difference. It depends where it's coming from. It doesn't give permission for women to wear wigs per se, but in regard to your specific question about a shidduch, it's about what to do based on what the Chachamim said. And what would it be if the girl is not ready to wear a wig or to wear anything?

1:34:56But the boy wants her to. Do you cancel the shidduch on that? No. No, as long as she's willing to keep taharat mishpacha, as long as she's willing to keep kosher, she's willing to keep Shabbat, she's willing to keep Judaism, and she's going to be modest. As long as she's going to be modest. And the only exception is the kisui rosh. Not to my knowledge that you won't cancel the shidduch. But if she doesn't want to be modest, that's not a woman to marry. She doesn't want a man. She wants to wear tank tops and miniskirts. That's not a woman. That's a prutza that you live for the leaf of the green. You don't marry a woman like that. Even if her mother is Jewish and her grandfather is the Beit Din, it doesn't make a difference. You want a woman that wants to be modest because she understands that her responsibility is to her husband, not to Jose from the supermarket. And a woman that wants the attention of Jose and his friends at the supermarket is not a woman that's ready for marriage. As long as she wants the attention of other men, she's not ready for marriage. What about all of these women that are married but not modest? Guess what? They're not happily married. There's not a single immodest woman that's happily married. Not a single one. Not one in the whole world.

1:36:17That's a modest and happy at the same time in their marriage. Why? Because it's not possible for you to cheat on your husband regularly and be happy with the marriage. Even if your husband is the one that's telling you to wear these garbage clothes that you're wearing, still his neshama gets hurt by it. So it's not a question. But if the only issue is kisui rosh, this is a different story and... Again, a woman has to wear her kisui rosh, but nonetheless, it's not a reason to destroy the shidduch. Especially in a generation where she probably came either from a secular house, or a house that's like halfway secular. They keep Shabbat, but no one is really modest, so she's like the most modest in the family. So if that's the case, yeah, you keep her, you show her a happy life, and show her some of our shiurim, so she will start keeping kisui rosh. What else? Yes? It's not, it's not, it's not scientific, and it's not from excess. I understand, I understand. I'm a guy also, I get it. Okay, so there are a few things that you have to understand.

1:37:42First off, everything that science says in regards to this specific thing is theoretical science. Theoretical meaning it's educated guesses. When it comes to the seed and how much the body produces and things of that nature, it's all theoretical. There are no facts in the scientific world. That's one. Two, Hashem does not make mistakes. To say that the body of every man is making a mistake, meaning that unless they ejaculate, they're going to waste seed, that means that Hashem made a mistake in creation because He created a creation that cannot not sin. The worst sin in the Torah. Shulchan Aruch calls wasting seed the worst sin in the Torah. So it's not possible that Hashem is going to create people that they have to sin. meaning that it does happen. It can happen to even the best of them. The Gemara in Masechet Yoma says that before Yom Kippur they would take the Kohen Gadol and they would seclude him for a week. They would take the Kohen Gadol, the one that's going to go into the Kodesh HaKodashim, and they would take him away from his wife for a week.

1:38:52They secluded him, putting him in a special house, a special room inside the Beit HaMikdash. No women, no specific types of a lot of things. Why? So he doesn't waste seed before Yom Kippur. Yeah, but this is the biggest rabbi in the world. Even he could fall for it. Immediately, it's a challenge for everybody, not even intentional, unintentional, being in a dream. The Gemara says, but what it talks about... wet dreams. A lot of people go to sleep, and they wake up. Many more talk about it. So, there are a few things you need to know. Number one, if a person wastes seed on a regular basis, especially young men that are not married, young men that are not married and did not do teshuvah for wasting seed, and... Unfortunately, they waste a lot more seed than their parents and older people who are married. The reason why is because a married person does not have intimate relations three times a day, every day, whereas the average teenager can waste seed three times a day, every day. This means that they are making the norm of their body different from the norm of an adult.

1:40:11The average adult does not have intimate actions. The average adult has less. Again, hold on a second, I'll get you to relate to the whole other aspect. So, the average teenager that wastes a lot of seed has made his body used to wasting a lot of seed, and therefore, even after he watches my shiur about it, or several of my shiurim about it, and decides that he has to stop wasting seed, his body doesn't just necessarily stop. His body doesn't just necessarily stop. His body is still used to doing a certain thing. So even though he's not doing it actively himself, when he's asleep, he's more prone to that danger. Because his body, in essence, is producing this, and he doesn't have the same barriers and control as a person who's controlling it. So, it doesn't necessarily mean that he's producing more per se, but it means that his barriers for these things to happen are much weaker. His defense lines are much weaker. Second, the third thing is someone who learns Torah also learns that there are certain things, as a man, you have to avoid. First off, there is a...

1:41:24Way to sleep in Judaism, just like there's one of the initial halachot in Judaism on how to put on your shoes in the morning, there's also a halacha on how to go to sleep, how to go to the bathroom, and how to behave. So a Jewish person has to go to sleep on his left side. He has to go and sleep on his left side and, through the night, switch to the right side. He is never allowed to sleep on his back or on his stomach. So much so that the Shulchan Aruch says if you see your own father sleeping on his back, you're obligated to wake him up. You're normally never allowed to wake up your father. It's disrespectful, but if you see him lying on his back, you have to wake him up. Why? He may waste seed. So a person needs to know that he has to sleep a certain way. This takes a little bit of getting used to. Because when you sleep on your back or on your stomach, you're more prone to wasting seed. Either on your back, a certain reaction of your body, or the opposite, on your stomach, where your member is touching something constantly, which causes a certain reaction. The point is that you have to sleep uncomfortably—on your side. It's not comfortable to sleep on your side, but that's what you have to do.

1:42:42in order to protect your brit. The next thing is you also have to protect yourself from certain foods. You can't eat everything, especially not before going to sleep. You can't eat a big meal before you go to sleep. So the traditional American way of eating a big dinner is not such a great idea in the Jewish world. Eat it early, like several, six, seven, or eight hours before you go to sleep. Because if you're going to eat a really big meal, like chulent, an hour before you go to sleep, guess what? Some of that chulent will come back in different forms. Why? Because you're not supposed to eat big meals. Also, onions, spicy food, all types of specific foods. The Gemara talks about an entire list. Gemara Masechet Yoma, Gemara in Brachot, and several other places talk about specific foods you should stay away from. So it's not just that I decided to stop, therefore my body will stop. It takes time. The biggest thing of all, more than food,

1:43:43is watching your eyes. But watching your eyes doesn't happen overnight because everything that your eyes have seen is recorded permanently. So even if you stop today, you stop today, you saw the movie, got scared to death, you're gonna stop, okay, your mind doesn't delete everything you've been seeing for the last 20 years. You go to sleep, you see, I don't know, some woman in your dreams. You saw a woman in your dreams. What do you think? What do you think, a woman came by herself? No, that's something that you saw a long, long time ago. It doesn't get erased. When does this all happen? Your dreams start to change when two things happen. One, you allow your mind to not absorb this stuff for an extended period of time. You stop, you start watching your eyes, and become obsessed with watching your eyes. That means internet, television, billboard signs, the street, your business, all that stuff. You have to watch your eyes everywhere. If you don't watch your eyes, for sure you're going to waste seed. It's a rule. Watch your eyes in the morning so evil doesn't come to you at night. Meaning, if you don't watch your eyes in the morning, evil will come to you at night. Where is evil? Evil is there. If you don't watch your eyes, for sure you're going to waste seed. It's not possible for you not to waste seed.

1:45:09you watch your eyes for an extended period of time. That will make your past memories not deleted, but go into the back of your memory. So now if you leave it blank, that's not going to help you. So what's the second condition? You have to allow your mind to have a lot of Torah. That's what the Rambam writes: only people who waste seed are those who are empty of Torah, empty minds of Torah. If you have a lot of Torah, you're not going to think about all the shtuyot. So that also is a recommendation for why you should learn Torah before you go to sleep. Also, pray to HaKadosh Baruch Hu to help you through your sleep. You see that there was one of the parts of Kriyat Shema Al Hamita, a slow moment. He had 60 guards around his bed. What do you think, people were going to kill this woman? No, everybody was scared of him. He was scared of all the shedim, all of the demons that wanted to go against him to make him waste seed and...

1:46:09David HaMelech never slept for very long, not because of any other reason; he was afraid of wasting seed. The Gaon of Vilna never slept for very long; he was afraid of wasting seed in his dreams. Why? Because you lose control of your body. But if you watch your eyes and learn a lot of Torah, it's going to help you a lot. And obviously, you follow the halacha of how to sleep. But that's not all going to happen overnight. When you first stop wasting seed, the dreams will continue coming for a little while. Sometimes, even without a dream, it happens. Why? Because your body might not remember the dream, or your body is lying the wrong way. But after you stop for an extended period of time and you learn a lot of Torah and you pray to Hashem, Hashem will help you, will give you the siyata dishmaya to help you so that these things will happen less randomly, less often. Instead of happening every week, it starts happening every month. Then every quarter. Then it's once a year. And then it's perhaps, b'ezrat Hashem, even less. Now, there is something as a side note I have to tell you guys because already two people told me this happened to them and...

1:47:20I've never said it in a shiur, but this is in the Shulchan Aruch. If you had a wet dream on Yom Kippur, the Shulchan Aruch says, and the Yalkut Yosef confirms it, and other halachot confirm it as well, it's a dangerous sign for the year. Just like I told you, if you remember, there is something called dangerous dreams. If somebody dreams where they see themselves or somebody else losing teeth and... It's called a dangerous dream. But if you ended up having a wet dream on Yom Kippur, it's considered a dangerous dream, a dangerous situation for that entire year. The Shulchan Aruch writes, if he watches his Brit the entire year, And make sure not to waste seed, you know, on purpose, the whole year. He has a share in the World to Come. If not, Hashem is giving him a sign to kill him that year. That's what that sign is for. This happens. It's happened to a few people that I know. Baruch Hashem, one passed the year with everything going okay. The other two, I'll let you know next year.

1:48:39It's not a joke. It's mentioned in several sefarim. Hashem gives specific signs. Some Chachamim say, no, maybe this is not really relevant to our generation, but we're very careful of saying things like that because if you say this is not relevant, then next thing you know, Shabbat's not relevant. So, the generally accepted opinion about this is that anyone that we see during Yom Kippur, it's very dangerous. So that means that Hashem is, in essence, giving the person a rebuke. He's giving him a warning: "You have to be careful because I'm running out of patience, if you will." It's not a normal thing to have on Yom Kippur. Unfortunately, what happens sometimes is that people waste seed so much that they're so used to it that even when they don't, the body continues. This is not good, but this happens very often, especially among teenagers, and... Needless to say, it's a sign from Heaven that a person needs to do teshuva. Next question. A lot of mitzvot are related to farming, no? Some, some. Yes, some mitzvot are related to farming. Some mitzvot, you mean from the 613? From the 613 mitzvot that we have? Yeah, we have 613 from the Torah, 7 from the rabbis.

1:49:58Most of the mitzvot out of the 613 are not relevant to most people because they have to do either with just Kohanim or the Beit HaMikdash or farming or korbanot and things of that nature. Out of the entire mitzvot that we have in the 613, much, maybe a third, are relevant to people, but only about 20 or 25 are relevant to your day-to-day life, every day. Most mitzvot are only, yeah, most mitzvot are maybe once or twice, you know, they're random. For example, Shabbat. Some, like Shabbat. No. No, many mitzvot you can't do. Almost half the mitzvot you can't do. We don't have a Beit HaMikdash, so all of the mitzvot relating to korbanot, you can't do. That's almost half the mitzvot. Farming we can do, but not if you live in the exile. If you live in the exile, it's not relevant. Do communal farming, give a seventh to... it's not a mitzvah for the exile. It's only a mitzvah for Eretz Yisrael. Only if you live in Eretz Yisrael. So if you live outside Eretz Yisrael, you are...

1:51:16You're in exile even if you live in Eretz Yisrael, but nonetheless, you don't have the same obligation. So, you can't do the mitzvah for farming in Eretz Yisrael? No, you can't. It's not a mitzvah. It's not a mitzvah if you're not... You live outside of Eretz Yisrael. The mitzvah is to do it there. So, for example, let's say you have a business. And one of the employees says, "Listen, I made $100,000 today." And you're checking your accounts, "Where's the $100,000?" He goes, "No, no, I made it for the competition." But it's the same business. "Yeah, but it's not for my business. I need you to make the money for my business, not for the competition's business." So there are certain mitzvot that you can only do in Eretz Yisrael. And certain mitzvot you can do anywhere. Shabbat, for example. Shabbat is for everyone, everywhere. But that's only once a week. So even though it's a very important mitzvah, the most you can do is once a week. No, there are certain mitzvot that you can only do in Eretz Yisrael, but not outside. In Eretz Yisrael you can, yes. Is there any form of, I mean, I guess, kosher contraceptive? I mean, is that acceptable? Like, just, like they say, a leniency towards contraceptives these days, just for, I mean, city living, I guess? So, contraceptives are a very important topic because we see that in the Rambam, the Shulchan Aruch, and all of the Poskim, there is no leniency to have an abortion unless there's pikuach nefesh.

1:52:44unless there's a life risk, unless the mother is going to die if she delivers the baby. There's also no leniency, which means that you can't just have a kid immediately, right away sometimes, because if the woman is not healthy and her getting pregnant is going to put her in danger, then what do you do? If you can't kill the baby, what do you do? On the same token, there's no leniency as far as wasting seed. Not allowed to waste seed. So, What can you do? Now, wearing a condom is assur, it's not allowed. And the reason why is because a condom is a contraceptive that destroys the seed, so it's 100% wasting seed. Ejaculating outside of the woman's body is also 100% assur, 100% forbidden. No permission to do either one of those. Now, what happens when a man is married to his wife, they just had a kid, and a couple of months have passed after she delivered the baby. She now went back to the mikveh, she's tahor, she's healthy, and she's able to be intimate with her husband, but it's dangerous for her to have a child. So, what do you do?

1:54:06So, there are a couple of things that are allowed. Of course, you always have to get rabbinical permission. You have to have a talmid chacham that knows you well, tell you that you're allowed. But these are generally accepted things. One, at that time, a woman is allowed to take the pill because the pill does not destroy the seed 100%. And it's not destroyed on the male side; it's destroyed on the female side. And two, there's also a suppository or different types of gels. the woman can put in her area that will allow her to, uh, to be intimate with her husband but also decrease—not eliminate—the chances of this consummating into a child. That's allowed, but again, it's allowed under rabbinical supervision, meaning not that the rabbi has to go to bed with you. It says, believe it or not, you have to explain this stuff. One woman came to my rebbetzin, came to my wife, and told her, you know, I'm kind of nervous, I'm going to the mikveh for the first time. I said, why are you nervous? She said, why are you nervous? She goes, oh, they're going to check me.

1:55:14What do you mean she's going to check you? She thought that the bedika cloth, the woman over there checks herself. She didn't know anything about Taharat HaMishpacha, that you check yourself. Nobody touches you, chas v'shalom. So people don't know this stuff. What's common sense to the religious Jew is not common sense to the average person. so, and sometimes even religious Jews don't know because they don't learn all this stuff. The point being is that what rabbinical supervision means is that you have to go to and ask for permission to be allowed to use this. You can't just use pills or different types of creams or suppositories for women whenever you feel like it. because you don't feel like having a kid. You have to be allowed to not have a kid, meaning that having a kid right now would be dangerous. So, perhaps she just had a baby a couple of months ago, so it's commonly accepted for you to wait a year to two years between children.

1:56:16How do you decide whether it's going to be a year, two years, or even less? All depending on the health of the woman. If her physical and mental health are okay, she could have a baby right away if she wants. There's no "she has to wait a year or two years." If she's physically and mentally healthy, she could have a baby right away. But if she's not, she's a little older perhaps and it takes her longer to recover, or she's younger but she's weak, or whatever the case is and it takes her two years to recover. The Gemara says it could take up to two years for a woman's body to recover from giving birth. So, you have up to that two-year mark. You have to get verification again from that Talmid Chacham that knows who you are. Says okay, you're allowed. We'll review again in six months. We'll review again in a year. Not just like a blanket statement, "Good luck. Have fun. See you in two years," like your passport you check once every ten years. No, we don't do that in Judaism. You have to regularly meet with this Talmid Chacham to make sure that everything is still okay, that she still is not able, and so on and so forth. But if a person, if she's physically able and there's nothing mentally wrong with her, but she doesn't have emunah and...

1:57:26or her husband doesn't have emunah because he says, "Listen, we already have a boy and a girl. Why do we need another kid? For her, it's like, can't we just get a dog? It's cheaper." That's forbidden. That's forbidden. You're not allowed to just not have kids. You're not allowed to just not have kids. You're supposed to have kids. You're supposed to reproduce. Now, it's a bigger problem if you don't have both a boy and a girl. There's more leniency for people that have a boy and a girl because they fulfilled the mitzvah of Pru Urvu. Pru Urvu is having a boy and a girl. But if you did not fulfill the mitzvah of Pru Urvu, you have much, much more stringency, meaning much more limitations. The point is that you have to go to a Talmid Chacham who's an expert in this field, not just anybody who has a shul. Your local rabbi may be a nice guy, may know a lot of Gemara, may know a lot of different things, but this may not be his expertise. You have to go to somebody that is very good at this specific area and is not a pushover. Also, you have to have Yirat Shamayim. He's not going to tell you whatever answer you want to be told.

1:58:32Because it's a very, very touchy subject and it's very dangerous. Baruch Hashem, there are a few people that we've helped over the years with this issue. And Baruch Hashem, it's helped them a lot. Because, again, it's a subject that's not very easy to talk about. It's not very comfortable to talk about it sometimes. But nonetheless, it's a very, very critical part of Judaism. Also, another issue is that you have to make sure that your wife is not scared of you. If you are a husband that scares his wife, the Gemara says, for sure your wife will end up violating the entire Torah because of you. Why? Some husbands want to be macho, so they like to yell at everybody in their house. So their whole house is scared to death of them. As soon as the husband comes to the house, everybody is scared to death. Everybody becomes like soldiers. So this is a problem. Why? Because what ends up happening is that the woman has to go to the mikveh every month. Now, sometimes stuff happens, and she forgets, or the place is closed, or something happens, and she doesn't go. And if she's scared of her husband

1:59:48She's not going to tell him the truth. "Oh, listen, honey, I didn't go to the mikveh today. Well, I'll go tomorrow." Why? Because she's scared he's going to, you know, hang her like a picture. Because he can't touch her until she goes to the mikveh. So what happens? She tells him, "No, no, everything is good. Let's have fun. Right? Let's have fun. Mitzvah, mitzvah." What mitzvah? It's Hashem yerachem. Touch a niddah, it's issur karet. He touches his wife's finger even when she didn't go to the mikveh, it's karet. So now when the wife is scared of the husband, she's not going to tell him. Same thing is, if a wife is scared of the husband, she's also going to violate Shabbat, the Gemara says. Why? Because sometimes something happens and the plata gets turned off by itself. If she's scared of the husband, what's she going to do? She's going to turn it back on on Shabbat. Why? Because she's scared if he wakes up in the morning and the food's not ready, he's going to yell at her. she's scared of him. So what does she do? She sees in the middle of the night that the food is not hot because the plata turned off or it broke, or something happened. She'll turn it back on and violate Shabbat for him. Guess why? That’s assur. That food becomes assur; it's like eating treif. So, a husband needs to know that, yes, you're supposed to make sure that your house is led with yirat Shamayim, but yirat Shamayim, not yirat the husband.

2:01:06Not supposed to be scared of the husband. Supposed to, you know, have your house in a certain way. But nonetheless, this also means that your wife has to be comfortable to talk to you and to the Rav about these specific issues that are uncomfortable. but if you have one of these relationships where your wife doesn't talk to you about anything about her because she feels like every time she says something to you, you start acting like a little boy and treat it as if it's disgusting or you don't really want to know what's happening with her private part because you only need to know what to do and not necessarily what happens there. This is a problem. Why? Because she needs to talk to somebody. Now, David HaMelech was the rabbi. Even though he was the king, he was the rabbi in the community that would check the Bedika cloth. A woman sometimes checks And she doesn't know, she doesn't know if she's niddah or not because it's a certain shade of color that's questionable. So what happens when it's questionable? You have to take it to a Talmid Chacham. You have to take this bedikah cloth to a Talmid Chacham and usually do it anonymously, where you leave it in a certain area. You leave, you come back the next day, and you pick it up. No one knows it's you. Most Jewish communities have this. So David HaMelech was the one that would check the bedikah cloth.

2:02:25to show you how great this mitzvah is of being a talmid chacham in a specific area and knowing what to do and how chas v'shalom, never to be disgusted or anything like that. Again, this may not necessarily be the most ideal conversation for a husband and wife, but nonetheless, it's very important for the wife to feel comfortable with the husband about these issues or at least for the husband to provide a community and a place where the wife is not uncomfortable or by herself because what's going to happen is that the wife will eventually end up becoming so, you know, nonchalant about it. She'll end up not going to the mikveh at all. Now, if people don't think this is a problem, there was research that came out of the Modern Orthodox community in 2017... And that said, out of his research, 48% of modern Orthodox Jews, meaning those who are so-called religious but modern Orthodox, do not go to the mikveh.

2:03:32That means that 52% go to the mikveh, 48% don't go to the mikveh. That means that half the kids coming from the modern Orthodox world are coming from niddah. This is a disaster. This is like you brought an idol into the Beit HaMikdash. The issur niddah is so critical that it's the only thing that the beit din will give a person a get on the spot. Meaning, if a guy comes to the beit din and says, listen, I don't want to be with my wife anymore. Why? Why don't you want? Ah, she makes me angry. Well, sorry, that's not a valid reason to get her divorced. Go back, fix it. Go to a rabbi, he'll give you some counseling. Go back to your wife. Oh, I don't like my wife. Why? She spends too much money. That's not a valid reason. Go try it again. Oh, I don't like my wife. She doesn't want to keep Shabbat. Sorry, it's not a valid reason. Get her to do teshuvah. Come to Rabbi Yaron Reuven's shiur with her. She'll do teshuvah after a week. But what if you come to your rabbi and say, listen, Beit Din, my wife doesn't want to go to the mikveh. On the spot, they give him a get.

2:04:42On the spot, they give him a get. Why? Without her going to the mikveh, there's no marriage. There are exceptions to the case that have been done rarely, but generally speaking, that's the way the Beit Din is. Beit Din sees a wife who doesn't want to go to the mikveh, there's no marriage. No marriage at all. Why? Can't touch her finger even. Which means that if people... are openly admitting to being Shomrei Shabbat, but at the same time not going to the mikveh, we have a very, very serious problem in the religious community, in the non-religious community, in the whole community, because when a person is with his wife and she's niddah, it creates a very problematic child. Plus, a very problematic Olam HaBa. So, in regards to contraceptives, in regards to that whole issue, there's a shiur I did called "Kosher Intimacy." Watch that shiur because intimacy is something that a person needs to be very careful with. We're not goyim. We're not people that just do whenever we feel like it. We're not animals. It's even important to know

2:05:51that there are certain consequences for doing certain things. For example, I heard from Rav Meir Eliyahu that the Gemara says, actually, I think Azar says, that the Rambam writes that it's not allowed for a man and his wife to be together during the day with certain exceptions. If he's a Talmid Chacham and he knows how to darken the room, and he knows not to do it ever again like that, there's a permission to be together during the day. But that's only for a Talmid Chacham that knows the certain exceptions and only a one-off situation. But generally speaking, you're not allowed to be with your wife during the day. But he says, what if somebody does it during the day but follows the halacha, darkens the room, It's the same thing as if it's dark outside; it doesn't make a difference. The room is so dark you don't know if it's dark or it's light. There's nothing. He follows suit and he's with his wife during the day. The Sefarim HaKedoshim say, okay, you could do it, but just let you know that if a kid comes out of it, that kid will suffer his whole life—all types of suffering, money problems, health problems, all types of problems. Why is it the kid's fault? It's not the kid's fault.

2:07:13He did something in his previous incarnation that he deserves to suffer. You did something in your current incarnation. So that's why you get the kid mix and match. Like a puzzle. Like a puzzle. You did this, okay, so that's the kid that's going to come to you. Fits. That's the kid that comes. So there are certain things that are allowed but not recommended. There's a mitzvah where there's a woman that if there's a war, ...you conquer the enemy. You know, when you're in war, everybody's a bunch of guys, everybody's got their hormones through the roof, and one of the soldiers sees a beautiful woman. They're not looking and asking, "Are you dating anyone?" They just killed her husband, you know, two minutes ago. So there's a mitzvah that says that if you see a woman that's beautiful at the end of a war, after you've won the war, and...

2:08:13You see a beautiful woman, her husband is dead, family is dead; you are allowed to convert her and marry her. So David HaMelech, one of his 18 wives, was like this. But then, the son that came out of it was Avshalom, who tried to kill him when he grew up. So David HaMelech cried to Hashem, "Hashem, how come You gave me such a kid who wants to kill me?" Hashem tells David HaMelech, look what you did. You married a woman that's a woman as a result of the battle. He goes, yeah, but Hashem, You allowed it. You wrote in the Torah, it's allowed to do this. He says, yeah, I wrote it's allowed, but it's not recommended. Look at the very next thing that I put in My Torah, right after the issue, the explanation of the woman from the battle, right after I say, what? I say that there's going to be a wayward child. The reason why they're connected to each other is because if you do this with this woman, a wayward child will come from there. So yeah, there are certain things that are allowed but not recommended. Not recommended. And this happens a lot in life. There are a lot of things that are allowed but not recommended.

2:09:27...and that's what a person needs to know. That's how you measure your Yirat Shamayim and also your Torah knowledge. If you're going anywhere that has a kosher sign, you're probably doing a lot of things that are not recommended and sometimes not even allowed. You know, sometimes you go to a wedding and it says kosher on the kitchen, but the only thing that's kosher is the sign itself. The food itself is not kosher... know because they don't know anything, and they cook on Shabbat. The owner is a Mechalel Shabbat; no one really watches where they get the meat. Maybe they got a discount from the Arabs, and that's what happens. So, the only thing that's really kosher is the sign, not the food. It's certain, thank you, that you can't eat there. Well, if it's fruits, back to the farming. Are you in the farming business? Oh, okay. So, two reasons.

2:10:47First reason is the common-sense one: business is business. Meaning that no matter whether you're Jewish or not Jewish, everybody's going to do what they want to do for a living. You can't force people to work certain trades, and you can't tell people, listen, we're going to have this, and everybody has to buy from you. Because if the goy has a better price by more than 16%, you're allowed to buy from the goy. Meaning, if halacha is 16%, so let's say, for example, I have something that's $100, but the goy has it for $120. If I'm a Jew, I'll explain it again. If I'm more expensive than the goy, you still need to buy from me up to 16%. But if I'm more than 16% more expensive than them, you can buy from the goy. That means already there's a disadvantage. Why? Because you're not competing with just Jews; you're competing with goyim also because there's a price issue, it's a business issue. The second reason, which is more critical, is that if it's vegetables and fruits, which is the main thing from farming, it doesn't need to be kosher because the way that you're eating it is the same way that it came from the earth. No one is messing with the actual fruit, with the apples.

2:12:13If it was cut, it's a different issue. You need to cut off a certain layer and so on. Kosher steak versus non-kosher steak depends on where you buy it. No, it depends on where you buy it. If you're going to Uruguay or Argentina to buy it, it's going to be much cheaper. If you buy it in America, it's probably five or six times the price. But that's not going to change the price. Having a Jewish farmer is not going to change the price. In fact, it may increase it. It may increase, and the reason why is because the processing of kosher meat is drastically more expensive in order to make kosher than non-Jewish for a few reasons. Number one, the killing process of non-Jewish meat is, aside from being very vicious, very fast. Okay? They have the cattle go through a line

2:13:15okay, that cattle is almost like systematic. They shoot the cattle in the head; they don't necessarily care if it died or not. They just wait for it to die. They either shoot it in the head or smash it over the head, or sometimes just chop off their heads, and that's the way. So, that process means that it allows them to process many, many cows, many, many sheep, and many, many chickens. The chicken line has one knife that goes through hundreds of chickens in one second. In Judaism, it has to be one at a time. One at a time, which means that they have to stop, they have to put the cow in a certain position. The cow can't move because if it moves too much and the knife doesn't cut the full nerve here, doesn't go through the entire nerve, that's it, it's not kosher. It's treif, you have to sell it to the Arabs. So the processing of a single cow, by the time you finish one cow, you could have finished probably 500 non-kosher ones. So that's the second thing. The other thing is also after the shechita is the processing of salting the meat. That takes a while and a lot of money. The non-Jews don't have such a thing. That's why when you eat a non-kosher steak, it's much more bloody. Kosher steak, there's no blood. Why? It's not allowed to have blood.

2:14:34the liquid that's red that you see from the kosher steak when you put it on the grill, it's not blood; it's just water with some coloring. It's not real blood. The blood itself has already exited, the thing was salted and so on for several days before it ever arrived at your butcher's place. So, and there's many, many other processes that it has to go through. Also, the cow itself has to be healthy; it cannot be like the goyim have it. For example, if the goyim—and this was actually recently in a documentary— ...on a news station, they admitted that when their animals, whether it be a cow or a pig, are found after slaughter to have cancer cells, they just cut it off and sell it in the market. If you find a cancer cell in a cow as a Jew, you have to throw it out; you have to throw it in the garbage. You can't sell it; it's treif. You found one of these things; it's treif. You find a hole in one of the lungs; it's treif. So that means that a lot of cows go to waste. A lot of sheep go to waste for different reasons. In a non-Jewish world, whatever is not good, okay, we'll just chop it off and sell it as good. They don't care. So the processing is very, very different. The battery is dying. So you're saying it's still a market.

2:15:48So what I'm saying is that there is a lot more money that goes into processing kosher meat than non-kosher meat. Plus, there is a lot of politics. You can't just go into the market and decide, "I'm going to open..." Kim, just connect it to the thing. Oh, it died already? Oh, okay, so press share, I guess. Oh, give it to me. Give it to me, I'll... I didn't even notice that it's done. It just happened? okay, so actually, yeah, whatever, just put the thing on it. We'll start in a minute; let's allow some people to join us online.

2:17:16So, in regards to kosher meat, there's a lot of politics that goes into it. I spoke to a certain gadol in Judaism recently, maybe like four or five months ago, and, uh, he asked me if I want to go into the kosher business. I said, "Why would I want to go into the kosher business? I have enough problems with my life. What do I know about the kosher business? All I know is how to eat. What do I know about the kosher business?" So he says, "No, today's Judaism," he tells me. He told me, "All right, he goes, today’s, uh, Judaism, whoever has..."

2:18:17The control of the kosher, of the kashrut, has the power. That's how it is. Meaning, it's not about how much Torah you know. In the political world of Judaism, unfortunately, you have a kosher body, you have the kashrut, you have control of the kashrut, you have the power. You're the most powerful rabbi. So... If I ever get hungry for power, maybe I'll go into the kosher business. But anyway, it's a very lucrative business, but it also means that not just anybody can go into it. You may have a good shechita, good this, good that, but if you don't have a couple of gedolim, a couple of big rabbis vouching for you, no one's going to buy from you. Even if your shechita is good. Even if everything you're doing is good, even if you're a frum Jew, if you don't have a couple of big rabbis vouching for you that your food is good to buy from, no one's going to buy from you. So it's a problem. It's a problem. Also, there's a monopoly there. But that's why there are so many different kosher bodies. In kashrut, there are a lot of kosher institutions. So anyway, there is money to be made.

2:19:43But there's also a lot of politics that go into it. And I actually know a couple of people who became irreligious. They left the religion because of what happened to them as a result of owning kosher restaurants. It's a very, very sticky issue. Next. It's not about the money. It's not about the money? It's always about the money. Moshe Rabbeinu had Yitro come to him, and Yitro suggested to Moshe Rabbeinu to pick a certain type of people that are going to be the judges. He says they have to be successful people, they have to be people that have Yirat Shamayim, and they have to be people that hate money. So Moshe picked the judges and says these judges were successful people. Wait a minute, what happened to the other two qualifications of hating money and having Yirat Shamayim? Chachamim say he couldn't find anybody. Emes Lamai couldn't find anybody that didn't like money. So if in the Dor De'ah, the generation of knowledge, you couldn't find people that hate money,

2:21:07Needless to say, we have a lot of improvement to do ourselves. No one is going to go to a business purely for chesed. Everyone needs to make a living. How much they consider making a living and how obsessed they are about money is a different story. I actually do know a farmer that recently contacted me. He's a Jewish farmer, and he runs a certain type of farm like you're mentioning. that he, in essence, there's a communal price, and it's a discount. It's almost like the community determines the price, and it's a kosher place. And that's wonderful. It's just unrealistic for it to go commercial, for it to become much bigger on a national scale, because It's not just about your intentions. It's also about the market. It's about the people themselves, the customers. There's a lot that goes into it. Everybody has to do teshuvah, if you will. Not just you. Your customers need to be like you. It's not so easy. It's not so easy. As far as meat? Yeah.

2:22:29far as meat? Yeah. There's a famous rabbi that already for years in Eretz Yisrael has been going against the kashrut There's a famous rabbi who has been going against the kashrut in Eretz Yisrael for years. because of what you're saying, because the shechita is so difficult to do when it's mass produced, when your average butcher is slaughtering hundreds if not thousands of animals per day, birds per day and so on, how could he do it and still have the same...

2:23:30care and success as he did with the first chicken and so on, or the first cow and so on. So, there is a rabbi that went against it, and there is an element of truth to what he's saying. No one is going to tell you outright that everything is wrong. But at the same token, there's a certain amount of faith that you have to have in a system. If the company itself is a big company that has supervision, that has rabbis, they're supervising the Coca-Cola and supervising the chicken. and supervising the cow, and supervising the candy, and supervising everything. If you have certain people that are supervising it, and you haven't seen any recurring problems from this place, that's a different story. You have to trust the system to a certain extent. You have to trust the chachamim to a certain extent. Now, the bigger problem is there's really not that many big companies

2:24:42sell meat. It's usually smaller local guys, and that's actually the bigger problem. The reason why I say that's the bigger problem is because many people that own these supermarkets and stores are not religious Jews. So what happens is that you're buying your local meat from your local kosher store that's owned by a non-religious Jew, and you're trusting that his meat is kosher. Technically, you can't. Technically, you can't trust him. Why? He doesn't know anything. Oh, yeah, but I have a rabbi. Yeah, you have a rabbi, or if you have a real rabbi, he would have told you that you know what to have the store. Why? Because you're mechalel Shabbat. If you're mechalel Shabbat, I can't trust your kashrut. If you violate Shabbat, I can't eat at your house. Why? I can't trust your food. I

2:25:53If you're a mechalel Shabbat, I can't eat at your house because I can't trust you. So the bigger problem is not the big companies, the empires of the world. There aren't many of them, and generally, they have checks and balances where I think it's okay. I haven't heard any problems from them. The bigger problem is not the bigger companies because even if you want to avoid the bigger companies for all the reasons you mentioned, fine, no problem. No one's going to tell you yes or no. But I say that there's a much more common problem, a much more common thing to fall... is that the local stores, many times, local supermarkets, are owned by secular people. And that is a serious problem. Because those people, you cannot trust them. You could invite them to your sukkah, say hello. You could invite them to your birthday party. You could say hello to them on the street and even give them a hug. But to buy their food, that's a problem. Why? If they don't care enough about their own neshama to keep Shabbat, what makes you think that they care about your neshama to make sure that their food is kosher? If some Arab, some Muhammad, came to them and said, "Listen, we just chopped off a nice donkey, but we actually already had a double. We don't need the second donkey. Why don't we sell it to you?" And it looks the same. Nobody can tell the difference after it's skinned. It could be a donkey, it could be a cow.

2:27:11You can't tell the difference. And that's actually what happens in Eretz Yisrael. In Eretz Yisrael, there are certain people that have kosher stores that sell donkey meat they buy from the Arabs. Why? Because 10 cents on the dollar. So imagine you're gonna make, instead of making one dollar per steak, one dollar per chicken, you're gonna make 15. Unless you're a tzaddik, you're gonna fall for it at some point. Over here in Florida, many of the places are owned by secular people. There are certain stores I wouldn't buy bubblegum from. Bubblegum I wouldn't buy from them because of how secular the people are. It's not about being secular; some people are anti-religious, like they hate the religion. There's one place by my house, the mamash, the owner hates the religion and That place I wouldn't buy bubblegum from, and they have a rabbi there. I wouldn't buy anything from him either. Why? Because I know that rabbi is a rasha. But again, this is what happens. You have to go to places where you know the people are religious. Now, if you don't have a place where you know who the owner is, who has yirat Shamayim, and so on, guess what? Hashem created the internet. Order online and...

2:28:27You could buy from this kosher place in Monsey, this kosher place in Brooklyn. You could order from them. It's more money, but nonetheless, you could get the kosher meat delivered to your house if you want. But the point is that you also don't have to eat meat. That's another thing. So the point is that you need to eat meat as a Jew. Because number one, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says in order for you to be really happy on Shabbat and Yom Tov, you have to eat meat and drink wine. Meaning that meat is very much a serious part of Judaism. You cannot just decide, "Oh, no, I want to be a vegetarian because I don't trust kashrut." Go find kosher places. Go find kosher places. We ordered recently, a month ago, from New York, from Monsey. There are some kosher places here also, but we prefer to order from New York recently. Absolutely. There's always demand. If you're going to pay for it, there's demand. People are going to create it. But especially something like this. So, there is, but you have to, again, not all the internet websites are kosher. You have to make sure, you know, not because they say they're kosher doesn't mean they're kosher. There's one place that

2:29:46Advertises kosher organic meat? I wouldn't buy bubblegum from them. Why? His wife's wig is longer than the exile. Buy meat from somebody like this? Are they kosher? He looks like he's a runway model, and she looks like she was on the same stage as him. These people are not kosher. How's the food gonna be kosher? Forget about wigs. No wigs. The point is, look at how you present yourself. How could I trust you with food? I have to buy from you? I buy from somebody that looks more like a religious Jew. Doesn't necessarily have a beard, a kippah, and a hat, but looks like a Jew, doesn't look like a goy. So, meat is very much a part of Judaism. I stopped eating meat for a while a few years ago, and... and my rabbi told me I have to eat meat because he saw that I was getting weaker. I didn't have much strength, and so on, so I started eating meat again.

2:30:48Actually, the day he told me, I ordered the burger just because he said it. I had to do it, so I did it, and it helped me a lot. Eating meat is very much a part of Judaism, not only because it says you have to be happy on the holidays—you have to eat meat and drink wine, and unless you eat meat, you cannot be happy according to the Torah—but also for health reasons. For health reasons, there is a certain amount of strength that you get from meat that you're not going to get from other things. So it's not good not to eat meat unless you cannot find kosher meat. Now, you cannot decide for yourself that kosher meat doesn't exist. The gedolim, the gedolei hador, have to say there's no more kosher meat. You can't decide for yourself that there's no more kosher meat if the gedolim are still continuing to give their hashgacha on specific types of meat that are going into your market. You have to trust them. You can't just say, "Oh, no. I don't feel like trusting them." You have to have a better solution. There is a tzaddik in upstate New York.

2:32:07serious talmid chacham that had issues with different kashrut, and he decided to start a shechita himself. He specializes in ducks but also does some other stuff too. Now, he starts doing dairy as well. But the point is that he didn't just run away from the problem and say, "Okay, so we're just never going to eat meat again. We're not going to trust anyone again." You have to have a solution. There are plenty of solutions. There is kosher meat and it is available for shipping. And if there's enough of a problem really in a community and you really care because your local market is owned by secular people or it's questionable, and so on, get you and a bunch of other people to go to the head rabbi of the community and say, "Listen, let's go to the kosher body. Let's go to the kashrut and tell them, 'Listen, this is unacceptable.'" You know? Yeah, but even if you start a chicken farm, it doesn't mean people are going to buy from you. Anyone can open a chicken farm. It doesn't mean that they're going to buy from you. From anybody. It doesn't mean... Kosher doesn't work that way. Kosher doesn't...

2:33:24Kosher doesn't work that way. There's politics that go into it. There's a lot of money that goes into it. There's a lot of cheshbonot that go into it. It's not as simple as it should be. In the old days, everyone was a farmer. Everyone had their own chicken. Everyone had their own animals. Everybody was their own farmer. We're not going back to that. We're not going back to that. Because we live in a convenience-based age. We're in an age of convenience. Everything is based on convenience. You want everything on demand. You want food, press the button on your phone, and it comes to your house in 30 minutes. You want food, put it in a microwave, and one minute later it's finished. You want food, somebody makes it right away, finished. If the guy's late 15 minutes, you complain, and you get half your money back. That's the way people are. You want a solution, you have a question, you go to the internet, you go on Google, you type the question, you want a solution. People send me questions, and if I don't respond within five seconds, they send me a question mark, like I'm Google. Did you look at my question? Yeah, yours and a thousand other people, habibi. Yeah, I got the question, I just didn't get back to you right away because I have a thousand other ones also. Oh, okay. Five minutes later, another question mark.

2:34:39What happened? Is everything okay? Yeah, everything is okay. I just didn't get to your question. A day later. I didn't get to it. Sometimes I don't get to it. Did I do something wrong? What did I do? You have to tell me. I have to choose. Nothing. You didn't do anything wrong. I'm just busy. I'm just busy. But sometimes when people go crazy with this stuff, I stop responding. I have this one person recently. It was, I don't know, something. I didn't respond for like two days, three days. When I got back on this messaging system, I saw that she wrote like mamash a megillah. a whole, like, three pages' worth of stuff about how come I'm not responding, it's unfair, it's not this, and I saw that she has this whole relationship in her mind of what her connection is and how she's supposed to. I said, "Oh, this person I can't talk to anymore. She lives in an imaginary world. Not responding even after 30 days? Why? Because you're crazy. Thank you very much for letting me know you're crazy."

2:35:48But the point is, we live in an age where people want things on demand. You want things on demand. That means everything on demand. You cannot meet the kosher business. Kosher business can't be that way. This person, this person, this person has a chicken farm. The shechita goes over there. When you become a gadol hador, you can have your community do that. You get the chicken from the store. When you become a gadol hador, you can have your community do that. I'll come to your community. I'll move to your community if you have it. What about different kinds of communities? What's going on with that? What does it mean, different kinds of communities? Maybe it's a bad term. Jewish sect. I mean, sects, I mean by section. Like, for me, sect is a section. No. It's like Orthodox, Reform, this, this. What's going on? Why is it different? For me, I call them different kinds of Jews. No, you're right. There are different sects within Judaism. But... No, there are different customs. The way you determine what's right and what's wrong is what agrees with the Torah and what disagrees with it. The Torah says that you're not allowed to drive on Shabbat because that's considered fire.

2:37:18One of my students is an engineer. He knows a lot about cars. And he gave me a study that he did, showing that if you drive your car just 15 miles, you're not lighting one fire; you're lighting 6,000 fires. So that means that if you drove to shul to do the mitzvah of going to shul, you made maybe a million fires on the way. It's like you went to save one kid by slaughtering six million on the way, so it's not allowed. So now, any sect of Judaism, any rabbi, any person that tells you you're allowed to drive on Shabbat, that automatically you know is fake. That's not Judaism; that's idol worship, that's something else. So that means Reform, Conservative, Modern, or whatever they call themselves. Anyone that tells you you're allowed to drive on Shabbat, or doesn't say anything about it, pretty much half the kehillah drives on Shabbat, you already have a problem.

2:38:22That also means that there are certain parts of Chabad and Breslev and other Chassidus that are very, very lenient and accept everyone. Also, there are certain problems within them. Why? Because some of them are really strict about Chabad, which is good. Some of them are too loose to the point where they don't tell anybody what to do, ever. So the guy has been going to shul for 20 years, still driving to shul on Shabbat. A shul like that is not a shul. A shul like that is like a doghouse. There's no religion there. So now, the key is, what does the Torah say? The Torah says you don't have to drive on Shabbat. So automatically, just with Shabbat alone, you've already canceled out most of the places. The second thing is, what are the rest of their teachings? What do they teach? Do they teach you that Hashem is your friend, or do they teach you that Hashem is God and you have to comply with what He says, or else you get punished? If they constantly tell you that Hashem is your friend and you can pretty much do whatever you want because Hashem understands and Hashem needs you, then guess what? That's not a place of Torah. Like one of the people sent me something recently about Manis Friedman. Now,

2:39:35This guy has been a well-known speaker in the communities for many years, and unfortunately, leading people astray for many years. Why? Because he tells people that Hashem needs you, that Hashem needs people. To say that Hashem needs people is kefirah of the Torah. It's a heresy in the 13 Principles of Faith. Because Hashem is complete. Hashem is complete; He doesn't need us. He never will need us. That will never change. To say Hashem needs us is a mistake of all mistakes. Second thing this guy says... This world is the main world. The next world is not good. The ultimate is that for the Moshiach to come here and all of us to come back here. All of us to die, but then come back here because here's the best world. This is complete nonsense. Also a violation of the Torah. Olam HaBa is the whole point. The person came to this world to toil, not to live up this life. This is not a place of pleasure. It's a place of work, this world. A place of tests.

2:40:52Then this guy also says that there's no suffering in Gehinnom. The only thing, if a person is wicked, all that happens is that when he goes to the next world, his soul doesn't know how to be a soul. So it's confused for a year, but then it goes to heaven anyway. That's, again, 13 principles of faith. There's reward for the righteous, and there's punishment for the wicked. Without reward and punishment, there's no Torah. If you think you're going to go to Gan Eden, the same place as Moshe Rabbeinu, while you drive on Shabbat, while you go out with Goyot, you think you're going to the same place as Moshe Rabbeinu, you're crazy. No one in their right mind would think that, but Manis Friedman tells people that for 50 years already. Now, the problem is that he says a lot of stupid things. But the generation is becoming stupider than the things he says. So what happens? They believe him. They believe what he says because he has a nice long beard, and it makes their life easy. It makes their life easy. They can just do whatever they want because Hashem needs them, after all. They start treating Hashem like He's their buddy. And there is not a lecture that he gives that does not have kefirah in it.

2:42:09I mean, this garbage that comes out of this guy's mouth drives me insane, and people send me these clips all the time. So one day, I saw him. He did a lecture here in Florida. And this lecture was about life after death. And this was the lecture I tuned into. It was like 5 o'clock in the morning. And I saw this lecture. And I fast-forwarded to see what he says. It was an hour and a half. Or an hour and 20 minutes. I tuned in. I just wanted to see what he has to say about it. Forget Gan Eden. Gan Eden. You can say whatever you want about Gan Eden. There's nothing there. Okay, fine. What does he have to say about it? What happens? I fast-forward to one hour and 17 minutes. Meaning 90% of this lecture is about absolutely nothing. you get to the end of the lecture, hour and 17 minutes in, he tells you, "Oh, your soul doesn't know how to be a soul, but it's okay. It's just confused, but everything's okay. And there's no such thing as suffering. Why would you think that God would punish you? That's a vicious God." So, I made a comment that what he says is, and I provided a handful of sources.

2:43:19All types of different things. Let's say the opposite of what he's saying. The next day, someone calls me. I pick up. It's like, "Hi, Rabbi Reuven." "Yes, hi, this is," I forgot his first name, Friedman. Manis Friedman's son. I said, "Yeah, how can I help you?" He said, "I was wondering if you want to apologize." ...said, "For what?" And he replied, "For making that comment about my father in the video." I said, "If your father stops lying, then I'll stop making comments. But you should tell your father that I started with one comment. It's going to get much worse if he doesn't stop with his nonsense." He goes, "Why? What are you talking about?" I said, "Why does your father lie about what happens in Olam HaBa? Why is he making stuff up, and so on and so forth?" So anyway, he says, "What are you talking about?" So I start, we go, off the top of my head, Baruch Hashem, I had siyata dishmaya during this conversation. We go into a conversation, we spoke for maybe 20 minutes, half an hour. I give the guy no less than 50 sources about where his father is wrong about reward and punishment and so on and so forth. I said, "Okay, can you give me one source that says what your father says?"

2:44:45He says, "No, I don't remember these sources by heart." He's a rabbi, the guy. You don't remember the sources by heart? Why did you become a rabbi? Go sell toys. "No, I don't remember by heart, but no, it's okay. You have to understand." I'm like, "No, no, it's not okay. What your father is doing is kefirah." He says, I said, "Why does your father continue lying?" And then he says something to me I'm never going to forget for the rest of my life. I tell him, "Why does your father continue to lie? Tell him to stop lying. He doesn't have to talk about hell. He doesn't have to talk about Gehinnom. Just don't talk about it. Talk about whatever else you want. Just don't talk about this. Don't lie." His son says to me, "So what if he lies a little bit? Look at the results." I looked at the phone. I said, "What?" Did he just say this? I wish I had recorded this conversation. I would put it all over the internet. I would spend every single dollar people donate just to publicize this.

2:45:46I could not believe my eyes, my ears. I said, what? I said, excuse me? What do you mean, so what if he lies a little bit? He goes, so what if he lies a little bit? Look at the results. I said, what results? The fact that you guys are making a fortune? He goes, no, not the money, not the money, but just look. A lot of people are coming to the shiurim. I said, yeah, a lot of people are becoming kofrim. And that's pretty much how we ended the conversation. I told him, listen, your father is making a lot of people sin, and it's only a matter of time before I speak his name out. I go against him. And I didn't say, I talked about him a few times in the past, but I never mentioned his name until today. Apparently in Siyata Dishmaya, HaKadosh Baruch Hu said that Rosh Hashana, that was his din. He's gonna start off the year with his shiur. But that's really what it is. You look at his shiur, You don't have to trust me. Don't trust me, actually. It's better you don't trust me. Take any of his shiurim, any of his shiurim, pick one. I don't have to tell you which one. Any of his shiurim. Take it. Tell him, "Is what he says true? Can you find me a source for everything he says? Anywhere you want. Any shiur you want."

2:47:02Every Talmid Chacham will tell you to know everything he says. There's a lot of sheker in it. Why? Because that's what sells. That's what sells. It sells because it has an element of truth. He mentions Adam HaRishon. So that's true. There was an Adam HaRishon. He mentions Chava. So yeah, there was Chava. But he also says that Hashem wanted them to sin. Oh, that's the lie. says there was Adam. He says there were the first two people. But then he says that Hashem wanted them to sin, like He created them so they could sin. So, this truth and this falsehood—that's it. So people will hear that and think, "That's Christianity, that's Christianity." Every lie has to have a little bit of truth, and that's unfortunately what's going on with this guy. Yes. How many years? How many years did Chava live?

2:48:18I don't remember the exact years. I know that Adam HaRishon, like you said, lived 930 years. But as far as Chava, I believe she lived the same amount of years as him. I just don't know; I can't quote you a source off the top of my head that it's exactly the same. But I know that during the time after the sin, he left Chava for 130 years. And during that time that he left Chava in order to do teshuva, he actually ended up making more sins. He wasted seed throughout all of those years. So Chava, no, Chava didn't die. When he came back to her, they had a son together. They had, what is his name? They had Kayin, Hevel, and, how do you call him? Shet, Shet, Shet. That's his name, Shet. So they had a son after that. But they also had other kids. They had other kids after that. Because it says at the end of his life, it says that he had boys and girls and so on and so forth, meaning that they brought more people into the world for an extended period of time. But as far as the exact length of her years, I believe they lived the same amount of time. I just don't know for sure. I can't quote you a source off the top of my head.

2:49:50Same, same, same. Same. Possibly less, but I think it's the same. I know they were both, you know, they were both very big people in comparison to us. But they're in Me'arat HaMakhpela. Hashem buried them standing up because they're so big. And they're standing up. What else? What else? How much of the Torah is metaphorical, how much is literal? There's a rule in the Torah that the Torah never goes away from the simple meaning. Meaning that even if there are further understandings that you have from it, that does not cancel out the simple meaning, the pshat. Which means that the entire Torah is literal.

2:50:57Anyone that tells you that the Torah is metaphorical is a kofer baTorah. This happened with, what's his name, the guy that used to be the Chief Rabbi of the UK. He's a famous guy, Lord something. What's his name? Lord, huh? Oh, Mirvis? No, not him. Not him, he's just pro-homosexuality. That's the other guy. The guy before him. The guy before Mirvis. Sacks, Sacks, Sacks, Sacks, Lord Sacks. He was in a debate with some famous atheist, and the atheist asked him a question: "Is the Adam and Chava (Eve) story true?" It sounds so unbelievable. Sacks said, "No, it's just metaphorical. It's not a real story." So that's kefirah. What he said is kefirah. When someone, we publicized this actually about two years ago, a year ago, this clip of him saying this. I never knew that he was a heretic until I saw this. He said that this and many other things are metaphorical. There's no source for what he says in the Torah. And of course, his fans continued supporting him because they're stupid.

2:52:20Ignore the facts, but people that want the truth say, "Oh wow, I can't believe that he said what he said," and some of them ask them, send them a question. One guy happens to be a person that listens to us. He sent Sacks a question: "How come you said what you said? That's against the Torah." In this debate, I... with the atheist. Why did you say that Adam and Chava are metaphorical and that unless the Torah agrees with science, it's not really valid? Like that's kefirah. To say that science is superior to the Torah, are you stupid? What are we doing now? So the guy sent him this question in nicer language than I'm using. The answer was worse than the problem. Sack sent them. No, I didn't want to debate him on that topic. So I just decided to just give him that answer and move on to something else. If you're not wanting to debate him on that topic, what are you doing on that stage? You big Chilul Hashem that you are. All you did is confuse millions of people that are watching it. You were the head rabbi of England and

2:53:32You can't allow yourself to make such comments. That's why the Mishnah says, you must be careful with the words that come out of your mouth. So, which means that if the Torah says something, it means it literally. If the Torah says that Hashem opened the mouth of the donkey and the donkey spoke, that means the donkey spoke. not, oh, it's like figuratively speaking. It's just that maybe, maybe Bilam knew what the donkey was feeling inside, and he understood. No, no, no. The donkey spoke. That's what it means. I mean, Hashem says the donkey opened his mouth, and the donkey spoke to Bilam. That's what it means. The donkey spoke. You have a problem believing that Hashem can make a donkey speak? Why is making a donkey speak any more difficult than creating a human being where his brain functions? Any more difficult than allowing your stomach to actually eat the meat that you eat, but not the meat that's in your body? You ever ask yourself that? How come your stomach doesn't eat itself?

2:54:47You eat a steak. You eat a cow's stomach. You eat something kosher from this guy's kosher store. Okay, you eat it. That piece of meat goes into your stomach. Those acids start ripping that meat apart, turning it into nothing. Whatever is good, you keep; whatever is not good, comes out of your body. How come those same acids don't eat the stomach? The answer is that they do. But HaKadosh Baruch Hu created your stomach in such a way that it regenerates and heals itself so fast, faster than it's hurting itself. This can never be something that can be done with evolution. Why? Because evolution means that it has to be perfect on the first shot. Perfect on the first shot. That can never happen with such a thing. stomach. If he eats it, the stomach can never get to that level of development. Then have the stomach that's eating it at the same time reproducing? Not possible. Point being, Rabotai, is that there are many, many things that the Torah has that are hard for people to understand. Another thing that's very interesting scientifically is that when you see an egg, if there's blood in the egg, where's that blood coming from?

2:56:18If there's blood in the egg, you're not allowed to eat it. It's developed. Developed from what? It started. It started from what? Give me a real answer. No, it started. What's the question? Where's the blood coming from? Okay, now there's an egg. Yeah. Okay. The nafka mina is this: If there's an egg, if the blood, if you open the egg, okay, and there's blood in the yellow, you have to throw it out. If the blood is in the yellow, you have to throw it out. If the blood is in the white, you could just cut out the blood, if you know how to do it properly, cut out the blood, and then eat the rest. But you're not allowed to eat blood. The question is, where is the blood coming from? Is it coming from the white, or is it coming from the yellow, or what is the blood? Yes, same question, same regarding the egg, or regarding something else? Oh, so let me finish the question about the egg first. Finish the egg first. Where's the blood coming from? Okay, so I'll ask you a follow-up question. Which one is the egg? The white or the yellow? What do you mean, the whole thing? The whole thing is the chicken? No, which one becomes a chicken? The yellow is the chicken, and the white is what? The beak?

2:57:38No, no, give me some more answers. I want to make you guys laugh a little bit. Protein, the enzymes, the enzymes, okay. No, no, no. So then, what's the chicken? Who's the chicken? The white, the yellow, the shell? What's the chicken? I'm asking you, maybe you know. I don't know; the yellow is the chicken? No. Netanel, you ate some chickens before, no? Which one is the chicken? Who ate the chickens? No, no, here we go. Here we go. What's the chicken? It's the blood. How am I here? The rest of you guys are sleeping. The chicken is the blood. Meaning what? Meaning that the white and the yellow are not the chicken. What are they? They are what the chicken is going to eat. for the next, yeah, yeah, like you knew. Yeah, yeah, he's saying yeah. He said every option under the sun. Now he's saying yeah on this one too. I love this guy. Meaning that the chicken, which is what the blood is, actually, believe it or not, the chicken is going to eat.

2:58:55yellow and the white. Why is it like this? Because since it's in an egg, the chicken cannot get any nutrients from its mother throughout its development. So, Hashem creates it with all of the nutrients that it's going to need until its birth inside the egg. That's how perfect the creation is, which means that whenever there's blood, that means that the chicken died. But the point is that the The white. I actually used to always think the yellow is the chicken, and I felt bad when eating the yellow for about half a second. The yellow is not the chicken; the yellow is just food. I guess that's too different from egg and cheese. I ate egg and cheese every day for a few months, but that's not the chicken—neither the white nor the yellow. But the point is that the Torah has nothing that you shouldn't believe. Everything that is in the Torah is that's in the written Torah is literal, but there are also different things to learn from it. There's the literal meaning, there is the secret meaning, there's the mystical meaning, there's different parts. There's behind the scenes. So I'll ask you guys a question. I actually just learned this chidush. Everyone heard of Parashat Balak.

3:00:24where Am Yisrael is about to get cursed by Bilaam, because he was hired by Balak. Bilaam comes to curse Am Yisrael, but Hashem does not allow him to curse the nation and turns his curse into a blessing, right? He tries this three times, but it doesn't work. Then he tells Balak, Go send your girls to him. Go send your girls to Am Yisrael. And if they sin with the girls, Hashem will punish them Himself. And that's what he does. That's what Balak does. He sends the Midianite and the Moabite girls to the camp of Yisrael. And Am Yisrael, Hashem yishmor, sins with them. And then what happens is that it says that Pinchas takes the leader, Zimri, kills him while he's making a sin with Kozbi because he was the leader of the Shimon tribe. So the question is, who is this Zimri? Now we know that Zimri is the leader of the Shimon tribe and

3:01:44But if he's a leader, that means he has to be a holy person. He has to be a big rabbi, the Gadol HaDor. How could the Gadol HaDor make such a sin? It's a big question, right? What does that have to do with Zimri? Zimri still made a sin. Pinchas didn't make a sin. You're right that Pinchas is Eliyahu HaNavi. but he still didn't make Zimri sin. We need to know who this Zimri is. How did he get to such a position that he is first considered on one end the Gadol HaDor, considered one of the biggest rabbis in the world, but at the same time he's making a sin that killed 24,000 people? Why? Because after he did it, everybody followed suit and Hashem started killing everybody.

3:02:44no, no, repeat that again. Okay, right, I like your answer, but it's incomplete. Okay, so you're right that they The women from Midian and Moab made the Jews sin. They enticed them, and right before they were intimate with them, they took out their idol and showed it to them. They said, "Okay, if you want to be with me, worship this idol, bow to this idol." And that's what the 24,000 people did, and Hashem killed all of them. That's how they got people to sin, but it still doesn't explain...

3:03:45How did Zimri get such a job? Meaning, he had to be considered one of the Gedolei HaDor before this whole thing happened because he was the leader of the Shimon tribe. Meaning, he had to be a big rabbi. So how could you be a big rabbi selected for such a job and at the same time make such a horrible sin? Okay. No, no, no. What else? What other guesses do you have while I undo my cast here? He wasn't really? No, the Gemara says he was. Wait till you hear who he is. Huh? Yeah, a little money? That's the issue with Korach. Korach had a lot of money. The Gemara says the reason why Korach got the 250 different rabbis in the world to follow him is because he had a lot of money. He donated to them, so they went after him.

3:04:47against Moshe Rabbeinu. But the Gemara in Masechet Sanhedrin says, who is this Zimri? Zimri was also in page 82, Masechet Sanhedrin. Moshe Rabbeinu was very rich. You're right, you're right. Not as rich as Korach, but he was very rich. Yeah. So who is this Who is this Zimri? The Gemara in Masechet Sanhedrin says Zimri was also the son of the Canaanite. The son of the Canaanite? What son of the Canaanite? Says Zimri. was the son of the Canaanite. Who is the Canaanite? He has three names, Zimri. He has three names. One of them, he was the son of the Canaanite woman. Who is the Canaanite woman, the Gemara says? The Canaanite woman is Dinah. Dinah, who married Shimon. Dinah married Shimon after Dinah was raped by the Canaanite, Chamor. She got raped by him. She felt so terrible, she gave away the kid.

3:06:07Osnat, the girl that was born from that, was given to Potiphar. Yaakov Avinu sent the girl to Egypt, and Potiphar raised her, and she ended up marrying Yosef. Now then, Dinah was so embarrassed by what happened to her, she wanted to leave the house; she didn't want anything, she was depressed, so Shimon married her. Shimon said, "Don't worry, I'll marry you, everything's going to be okay." But forevermore, she was called in the Torah, she was called the Canaanite woman. Why? Because she was raped by a Canaanite. But she was married to Shimon. They had a son. Who is the son? Zimri. Zimri is the son. Meaning that Zimri was almost 300 years old. Because how, when did this all happen? We were in Egypt for 210 years. We were in Egypt for 210 years. They had the child before they went to Egypt. This whole action of Parashat Balak happened at the end of the 40 years we were in the desert. Which means that at least 250 years passed, plus whatever time happened before they went to Egypt. Which means he's at least 250, 260 years old, Zimri. He knew Yaakov Avinu. He was Kodesh Kodashim.

3:07:23That's why he was the leader of the Shimon tribe. So the Gemara says, how could somebody so holy, who knew Yaakov Avinu, commit such a sin? Because at the time, they were seeing sinners, different sinners. On page 82a, it says they saw there were different sinners committing Avodah Zarah. And Moshe Rabbeinu gave them the death penalty. Whoever was an idol worshiper received the death penalty. Some of them were from the Shimon tribe. So the people from the Shimon tribe went to their leader, Zimri, and asked, "Are you going to let us just get killed by this Moshe Rabbeinu? He doesn't even invite you to the Beit Din. Meaning, okay, whatever, idol worship is no problem. But how come he doesn't give you any kavod? He's killing your people without even asking you. He doesn't even invite you to the Beit Din. He thinks nothing of you." So Zimri got offended. Why? Moshe, but I've been around for longer than you. I know Yaakov Avinu. You don't know Yaakov Avinu. You're a youngster next to me. You're 80 years old. You're a little baby. I'm almost 300 years old. How could you not ask my permission?

3:08:37He got offended. He says, "Ah, he doesn't invite me to the Beit Din. Let me show him how you make a psak halacha in front of him." What? He brought the queen or one of the princesses of the Midianites, brought her right in front of Moshe Rabbeinu. He says, "Moshe, hey, I'm going to be with her. It's allowed, right? You can't tell me it's not allowed, Moshe. Why? Look, you married Tzipora. Tzipora was also a goya. If you're allowed Tzipora, I'm allowed her." Moshe Rabbeinu was so shocked by what just happened here. This old man is doing this in front of everyone, embarrassing Moshe Rabbeinu. His brother was willing to be burned in fire not to embarrass somebody in public. Yehuda, his brother, or his grandfather, his uncle, was willing to die in a fire not to... This guy's embarrassing Moshe Rabbeinu in public? Moshe Rabbeinu started crying with the rest of the Chachamim. They didn't know what to do.

3:09:40The guy went and did what he did and says, "Moshe, weren't you the one that taught us that if somebody is with a goya, a zealous person is allowed to kill them if they're in the middle of the act?" Moshe Rabbeinu said, "Yeah, you remembered it, you enforce it. You remember this halacha, you enforce it." And the reality is that Zimri was wrong. Why? Because Moshe married Tzipora before Matan Torah. Before Matan Torah, you were allowed. And anyway, Tzipora came to Mount Sinai and converted. You are now going with Kozbi after Matan Torah, when you're not allowed to do it anymore. She has to convert first. She's not converting, and on top of that, she's an idol worshiper. You're not allowed. That's a death penalty. That's a death penalty. Why? Because your ga'avah, Zimri, even though you used to be holy, your ga'avah got the best of you. You forgot to judge correctly. You forgot to judge correctly. Sometimes you have so much ego, even though you're a talmid chacham, you judge incorrectly. Why? Because you're biased. You're biased. That's why it says,

3:11:01that the Chachamim would always make sure that they don't have any bias in their judgment. One time, there was Rabbi Yishmael. Rabbi Yishmael had a guy deliver food to his house every day, and one day he came early. He says, "How come you came early today?" He says, "Oh, Kevod HaRav, today I have to go to the Beit Din, I have a trial, and you're actually one of the Dayanim." Rabbi Yishmael says, "Oh, in that moment, I removed myself from the Beit Din." Because now I'm biased. Why? Because he's my neighbor. He delivers my food. I'm biased. But Rabbi Yishmael says, I followed the case behind the scenes and I constantly found myself siding with the guy that's my neighbor. Why? Because I like him. I like him. You're not allowed to like him. You're not allowed to do that. Point being, Rabotai, is that bias is a problem. So even a chacham can fall into his own trap because of ego and things of that nature. But from here we learn that the pshat was that Zimri was the head of the Shimon tribe. But it's not just some guy. We see that the Midrash and the Gemara talk about it further, who this guy was, why he sinned, what happened. It's not just some criminal. Like sometimes we see stuff in the Torah, it's like, oh yeah, this guy is a rasha. If he's mentioned in the Torah, it's most likely he's not a rasha.

3:12:27My name is not in the Torah. His name is in the Torah. There's a reason for it. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Yes. And Dinah got punished because she went to see what the non-Jewish girls were doing. And Hashem rebuked her by saying, why do you care what the non-Jewish girls are doing? It's nothing to do with you. Meaning not non-Jewish. There wasn't Judaism per se. Meaning there were the non-Israelite people. Non-family of Yaakov Avinu. No? Question? Netanel, finally you woke up. Give me a question. Yaakov is also Yisrael. Chicken and the egg? Okay, the pshat. Okay, it's different layers of each pasuk. I

3:13:44Okay, the pshat. Okay, it's different layers of each pasuk. The main thing is to make sure that, more so than reading things literally or not literally, you understand where you stand. The most important part of learning Torah, by far, is to understand this is something that's not going to hit you so well. It's going to feel like a smack, a little bit. What I'm about to tell you is going to be more difficult to accept than even Gehinnom. The main thing is to make sure that, more so than reading things literally or not literally, you understand where you stand. The most important part of learning Torah, by far, is to understand this is something that's not going to hit you so well. It's going to feel like a smack, a little bit. What I'm about to tell you is going to be more difficult to accept than even Gehinnom. But this is really a rule. If you're going to learn Torah, and expect to use this Torah to get to Olam HaBa, to use this Torah to do mitzvot, to do the right thing as HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, the first thing you need to know when you learn Torah is that you are nothing. That's the first thing.

3:15:06Yes, HaKadosh Baruch Hu created you in His image. Yes, you're somebody very special in HaKadosh Baruch Hu's eyes. Yes, you're something special; every Jew should love you. But in regard to your Torah knowledge and where you stand next to the Chachamim, you're zero, virtually. This means everything that you're going to read... In order to understand it, you have to find a source. You have to go and see what the Chachamim say about this verse. What does it mean? You have to read every single verse in the Torah as if you are in first grade, reading it for the first time, even if you've read it a thousand times. Okay, what does Rashi say about this pasuk? Oh, Rashi says that Hashem started the Torah with the letter Beit. Why? Because Aleph represents Hashem, who is singular and unique. Beit, on the other hand, signifies the world. This means that your personal opinions or interpretations cannot be separate from what the sages have taught. There is only what the sages have said and how much of it you understand.

3:16:26which means that if you've read something in the Torah and you understood it to mean something, before you go declare, "Oh, this is what it means," you have to double-check that you're right. Meaning, you have to take whatever thing you found, whatever you thought you found, and go find it somewhere Go find some chacham that said what you said, or that agrees with what you said, or at the very least, find a way that what you said doesn't disagree with what the chachamim said. Because then sometimes you're going to get a chiddush. Sometimes there are certain chiddushim that each one of us has, and when you go up to Shamayim, they're going to ask you, "Okay, what about the chiddushim that we had designated for you? If you didn't learn enough, you didn't bring these to the world. You get punished for it. Why? Because you're the only one that's going to bring these to the world. So if you didn't learn Torah, that means there are certain aspects of the Torah that will never come to light."

3:17:33It's your fault. On the other hand, you have a chiddush. To make sure it's a real chiddush and not some craziness, you have to double-check that whatever you found agrees with what the chachamim say and doesn't disagree with them, even more importantly. So that alone, that thought process and that system will eliminate 99% of the problems. The reason why is because if you see all of the different people that go against the Torah, that say things that we call them out for, generally speaking, you'll see that none of them say things that have a source. To say that God needs you, no one is saying that. To say that there is no gehinom, no one said that. To say that there's no punishment, no one said that. All of the stuff that we publicize and make people's names known as the resha'im, I'm not doing it for my credit. I'm not doing it to get any more brownie points. Trust me, I get more headaches out of those things than anything else.

3:18:40But the reason why is because people are falling into the trap of thinking that what he said is actually a fact, when in reality it is as far away from fact as possible. Because there is no Chacham that agrees with what he says. The same thing is with other people who talk on the internet or other places where they mention a lot of things from their own mind. But they think it comes from the Torah. They think that it comes from some place. And that's the problem. It comes from their ego. Sometimes there are people that will even mention a Gemara source and distort it so much to make you think that what they're saying comes from the Torah. Why? Because they know that the average person watching them or in the crowd doesn't learn Torah, is not a Talmid Chacham, and doesn't really know what they're talking about anyway. And you mention a source, and you mention a Gemara, a Masechet Sotah, a page; does it or not? Oh, that sounds good. Wow, he has a source for what he says. Because they don't know the difference. They don't know the difference. So the more wicked a person is, the more likely they are to use sources and distort them. Like this one Rasha.

3:19:58It's Itzhak Shapira. He's a Christian. His mom and dad, unfortunately, are Jewish, but he's 100% a Christian. He's married to a goy. He's a missionary for Christianity, but he calls it, you know, Messianic Judaism. He shows you that he has a Sukkah, but he's taping the show on the chag when they're not allowed, and shows you that he's celebrating the holidays, but he's telling you to go worship some idol. Crazy person. Now, this person will mention sources in his videos, so the average person will fall into the trap of what he says and think that what he says is true. But not a single Talmid Chacham would ever do it. Why? Because they know the word he says is taref, it's nonsense, it's garbage. So he preys on the ignorance of people. takes advantage of the ignorance of people. He tells you that his JC Penny is everywhere in the Torah. He's in every parasha, he's in your siddur, he's in your hat, he's in your shoes, he's in a toilet (probably the toilet he's right about). He's everywhere, he kept everywhere. You could find a JC Penny. He has him everywhere. It's just complete nonsense, and he'll mention different sources that people don't even know what he's saying, like "Wow, look! Ah...".

3:21:23Wow, so amazing. JC is here. He's there. He's everywhere. He's in a toilet. He's in boiling feces. What is that? What are you talking about? But that's the problem. People don't know, and he preys on ignorant people. That means that our job, Rabotai, is at the very least not to be ignorant, to the point where we can understand the difference between a lie and the truth. You may not know everything, At least not in the immediate future, but you need to get yourself to a point where you can understand what's a lie and what's the truth. How do you know what's a lie and what's the truth without being a big Talmid Chacham? You need to find somebody that is a Talmid Chacham that agrees with whatever it is that you just heard. Meaning, if you just heard that Manis Friedman, he just said there's no punishment. Okay, no problem. You want to believe it? No problem. Find a Talmid Chacham that says what he says.

3:22:24Don't take my word for it. Go find somebody that says what he says. That wrote in a book. Go find a Chazon Ish that wrote it. Go find a Ben Ish Chai. Go find a Baal Shem Tov. Go find a Lubavitcher Rebbe that wrote what he wrote. You're never going to find it. Oh, if you can't find it and it doesn't exist, therefore you don't need me to tell you he's a rasha. You already know it. This doesn't exist. It's not in our Torah. So before you go, "Oh, no, it's not nice that you say this about all these people. It should be unity and all this liberal mentality that people have." Hold your horses for a second. You want to believe that there's no Gehenom? You want to believe that you're allowed to waste seed? You want to believe that you could worship idols? You want to believe all that stuff? No problem. Find one big chacham that says so. Not a chacham that's alive. It's a chacham that's dead. chacham that already is in olam haba. That everyone verified he died a chacham. If he's still alive, who knows? Maybe tomorrow he becomes a Christian. Who knows what he is? We had a Kohen Gadol become an idol worshiper. Someone who has already left this world, that's psak halacha, gadol hador, verified. This is what you said. You could find it. You have something to rely on. You have something to rely on. You can't find it, you have bupkis.

3:23:46You go up to Shamayim and you say, okay, Gehinnom department, no, no, what do you mean? There was no Gehinnom, Manis told me. Sorry, Manis is in the same, he's in seventh level. You'll see him, you'll see him on the way. You'll see him. Yeah, but Yitzhak Shapira said, oh yeah, you'll see Shapira also. You'll see him from the next department. You'll see him. You'll see him over there. He can say hi. Why? It's all bupkis. It's all bupkis, and we spend a lot of time—it seems like what we're doing is picking fights every week. But unfortunately, all of this stuff comes to me when people ask me these questions from all over the world because most of their Torah comes from the internet. That's how they met me also in the first place. They watch a lot of shiurim, and naturally, people are not settled with one speaker, one rabbi. They always want to test things around. So where do they go? They go to usually what's recommended or what's popular, and unfortunately, the people that I mentioned are usually the most popular. And what happens is that they send me things; they watch things that say the opposite of what we say.

3:24:58He said, wait a minute, you said this, this guy says the exact opposite. Can I just rely on him? He says, I'm allowed to do whatever I want. You're saying I'm not allowed to do whatever I want. Can I just rely on him? I said, yeah, you can, as long as you can find a source for what he says. If you remember, I provided a source. I provided many sources for what I said. Did he provide anything? No, no, there's no source. Can I just rely on his word? I said, yeah, in Gehinom, no problem. You could rely on it, you could lean on it, you could skateboard on it. You could do a lot of things on it, but it's not going to help you in life. So that's why, Rabotai, it's very important to know that you don't necessarily need to be a big Talmid Chacham to know whether something is a lie or it's truth. What you need is to find what is being said by somebody else. And don't necessarily rely on the fact that, okay, this guy said it and he mentioned a source, so that means somebody else said it because he may be manipulating the source. You have to literally go see what it says in black and white and understand it the same way and verify it, especially if it's something big.

3:26:19If it's something small, like, I don't know, it's a midrash or something like that, that says Moshe was 80 versus 82, or he was a Kushite, or he was in Midyan, something like that, that doesn't necessarily have any nafka mina, doesn't necessarily change your life, it's not small, but it's not going to change your life, okay, you don't have to necessarily check every single fact that you have. But if this is something that's going to change your life, you have to double-check. You have to double-check. You can't just do things on your own, yes? Who checked Rashi? No one can check Rashi. Every generation is lower than the previous generation. So the entire written, all of the Midrashim, all of the commentaries, everything that we have today was already given to us at Mount Sinai. For a very long time, for over a thousand years, we weren't allowed to write down the Oral Torah. Until Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi came, and he saw that the generation was deteriorating so much that if we didn't write down the Oral Torah, we were going to lose the Torah. So he wrote the Torah, he wrote the Oral Torah, he wrote the Mishnah.

3:27:40then they wrote. After that, they started writing other things. There was also the first major written commentator on the Written Torah: Onkelos. Onkelos the Ger (convert) was the first official commentator. He was the first official written commentator. There was other commentary. There were all of the other Chachamim, the Gemara, also commentary, the Midrash HaGadol, the Zohar, the Gemara. There are many, many other commentators, but the one major accepted commentator on the Chumash was Onkelos. That was many, many years ago, about 2,000 years ago. Rashi came about 900 years ago. But what Rashi says is nothing new. He brought what he said from different places. Everything was taken from different places—from his rabbis, from the Gemara, from the Kabbalah, from different places. So, everything that we have in the Torah

3:28:52is given to the person from their rabbi, from their rabbi, from their rabbi, from their rabbi, all the way to Moshe Rabbeinu. That's why every person needs to know who their rabbi is, and who their rabbi's rabbi is, and who their rabbi's rabbi is, to know how they can track the knowledge they are getting today to Moshe Rabbeinu. You have to know that what you're saying, what you're living based on, goes back to Moshe Rabbeinu. If I tell you there's a Gemara, oh, okay, no problem. As a Gemara, I can open this Gemara, see the same thing of what he says in the Gemara on this page, no problem, I know that goes back to Moshe Rabbeinu. If I say there's a Midrash, if I mention the name of a Midrash on this page or that number, I say, okay, this thing, I can take this all the way to Moshe Rabbeinu. But if I say, oh, I had an idea that's unique, that's a chiddush, that's a new insight, and it says XYZ, then you say, oh, hold on, Yaron, I like it, it's a nice chiddush, but which cookie did you get this out of? Which cookie did you get this out of? Where did you get this from? Did you ask your rabbi? Your rabbi said it's okay, your rabbi verified with the other thing? Oh, okay, no problem. If your rabbi verified, everything is good, we can track this to Mount Sinai, no problem. and it says XYZ, then you say, oh, hold on, Yaron, I like it, it's a nice chidush, but which cookie did you get this out of? Which cookie did you get this out of? Where did you get this from? Did you ask your rabbi? Your rabbi said it's okay, your rabbi verified with the other thing? Oh, okay, no problem. If your rabbi verified, everything is good, we can track this to Har Sinai, no problem.

3:30:07But if we can't verify, no one can verify this is true. Please, next time, leave it in the cookie. No, there are many reasons. There's just one reason. There are many reasons. No, there... There can be a chiddush, a new insight, as long as the new insight doesn't contradict the others to the point where it negates it. It's rare that it happens, but generally all of the new insights have to agree to a certain extent with the basic meaning of what it says. Now, certain things, for example, why the Torah started with a bet, whether it's because Hashem... Why can't they negate? Because sometimes, if, let's say, for example, the Torah says that you're not allowed to eat milk and meat because it says you shouldn't cook a kid in the milk of its mother. And it says it three different times. One reason is because you're not allowed to eat it. The second reason is because you're not allowed to cook it. The third reason is because you're not allowed to sell it. Meaning you're not even allowed to own a non-kosher restaurant. So,

3:31:28You say, no, I have a new insight that the reason why it says it three times is because you're really not allowed to cook kids. Not a kid like a deer, but like a kid. You're not allowed to cook a little child. That's a new insight. Okay, thank you very much for your new insight, but your new insight goes in the garbage pail. Why? Because it contradicts everything we just said. We're talking about milk and meat. You're talking about cannibalism. It's two different things. So that has nafka mina, that has significance. If you translate it differently, that has a significant difference versus if you say, "Oh, the Torah started with a bet because Aleph belongs to Hashem," and you say, "No, the Torah starts with a bet because Hashem likes bet better." Okay, so Hashem likes bet better; your new insight doesn't contradict anything, doesn't really matter, doesn't change any law. So you could be right, and that's not a problem. But if your new meaning, your new insight changes the law, then there's a problem. Then we have to make sure that it doesn't contradict the thing. But if it's just simply an addition to the story, an addition to things that doesn't change the law, there's more leniency there. There's more leniency there. With all this access to information that we have nowadays, is it becoming more acceptable as long as it's always...

3:32:46in accordance with the dynamic conflict of the Torah, like to like study, let's say, or not even study, but just like, let's say, watch things on, you know, just to use it as a supplement to almost expand your mind to understand the Torah better. Is it okay these days? Because I know before it was kind of frowned upon because we were in a time where people were just not really ready to receive that amount of, but I feel like the world's moving at a very rapid rate. Information's traveling a lot faster. We're getting access to a lot more information. Are we getting closer to an age where it becomes more acceptable to go into these deeper studies? so the Gemara says in Masechet Shabbat that the Tannaim, in order to be a Tanna and to be named in the Gemara, you have to have the level of Kedusha that you can revive the dead. Meaning, if somebody died, you say "live" and they go back to life. It's a pretty cool talent. If you get that talent, you definitely get a circus.

3:34:00J.C. did not revive anything. J.C. just got himself in the game. Um, I J.C. had lived in a generation where he had the ability to do it. His rabbi, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Perachya, was able to revive the dead. He was one of the biggest, holiest men that ever lived. And J.C. was a Talmid Chacham at some point until he became addicted to lust, addicted to women. And he used the Shem HaMeforash, he used the real name of Hashem in order to make all types of magic tricks. But nonetheless, what he did was nothing special. If you look at the Gemara, what he did that the Christians applaud and make a big deal out of was like every basic thing for the average Tanna. It wasn't even something special. Anyway, in order for somebody to be named as a Tanna, they have to revive the dead. Sometimes in the Gemara it says, someone said such and such.

3:35:17So if someone said it and we're using it in the Gemara, that means this person was a big chacham. So how come they don't at least mention his name? No, we can't mention his name. Why can't we mention his name? He's not qualified to be mentioned in the Gemara. Why? He can't revive the dead. If he can't revive the dead, his name does not belong in the Gemara. That's what the Gemara Masechet Avodah Zarah says. Now, The Masechet Shabbat, tractate of Shabbat says, the Tannaim, these people that Klal Yisrael did, says the ones before us, the generation before us, were so holy that if they were like angels, we are like men. But if they are like men, we are like donkeys. Meaning, they were so holy, their kedusha, their knowledge, their insight is definitely better than ours. So if they were men, we're donkeys. But not even a special donkey, they say. Like there was one of the Chachamim who had a donkey who was keeping Shabbat. He said, we're not even like this donkey; we're like a terrible donkey. We're a donkey that doesn't even know kashrut, nothing. A regular donkey, you buy from the Arabs for five dollars. Nothing.

3:36:34This is a Tanna talking about it 2,000 years ago. If they are like donkeys, what are we even now, 2,000 years later? We don't even know a little bit. So that's the first thing: we're definitely not improving. Even though we have access to a lot of information, it doesn't mean very much. Having access to a lot of information and knowing a lot of information are worlds apart. The second thing is, is that the fact that we have access to a lot of information is a kitrug against us. It's a case against us, it's a prosecutor against us. And the reason why is because one of the main things that the Chachamim show us is that when they wanted to learn something, they would travel to go learn it. Sometimes they would travel weeks or months just to go learn for one day. The Gemara in Masechet Chagigah says there was one Chacham who would travel an entire year, just to learn for one day. Six months one way to get to the yeshiva, learn at the yeshiva of Rabban Yochanan for one day, and then go back home for six months. They made fun of him at the yeshiva.

3:37:56In front of the yeshiva, you're just getting a reward just for walking. You don't actually learn. Rabban Yochanan says, no, no, no. His Torah is better than all of you because of how much sacrifice he makes for it. So he knew that the Torah, and the knowledge, and the wisdom, and the sources, and everything, are over there in yeshiva. He has to travel six months for it. That's what he's going to do. We have it in our phones, and we don't even press the button 90% of the time. There's a prosecutor against us. Second thing, or third thing, there are rules to what to learn. What business are you in? Real estate. So imagine you hire somebody. "Hey, Tom, okay, I want you to sell real estate for me." Now, I'm going to pay you a commission and a salary and this and that to go sell real estate for me. And the guy says, or the woman says, no problem. You go and do whatever you do. You come back a month later. You say, okay, so what did you do? How many sales did you make? How many houses, how many apartments, how many zoos? What did you sell? And they say to you, I'm sorry, I didn't sell anything. Why not? Business is tough. You say, okay, you know what, a month, no problem. I'll give you another few months. You come back a few months later, and you ask again, so what did you do? How many houses, apartments, zoos? Did you sell something? No, nothing yet. Okay, you know what, sometimes in the beginning...

3:39:09what did you do? How many sales did you make? How many houses, how many apartments, how many zoos? What did you sell? He says to you, "I'm sorry, I didn't sell anything." Why not? "Business is tough." You say, "Okay, you know what, a month, no problem. I'll give you another few months." You come back a few months later. "No, no, no. So what did you do? How many houses, apartments, zoos? Did you sell something?" "No, nothing yet." "Okay, you know what, sometimes in the beginning..." It takes a while to break the ice. Okay, no problem. I'll give you till the end of the year. End of the year? Okay, no. What'd you sell? How many houses? How many? What'd you sell? Nothing. Now you're upset. Why? You just paid this guy a whole year's salary. He sold bupkis for you. What'd he sell? Nothing. He says, what'd you do the whole year? He tells you, "Listen, I don't think you should be upset with me. I learned how to become the best sweeper in the office. Every day I sweep the office. I also learned how many times the fish opens its mouth every hour because I watch the fish tank all day. I'm watching it and I see, I calculate, it's exactly 15 times per minute."

3:40:19I learned that the sky is always blue on Wednesdays, and I learned that the TV is never on when I come into the office. I learned that the garbage men come here every Monday and Thursday at 6:30 in the morning. He tells you all of this useless information that he learned the whole year. He says, "When did you have time to learn all this?" "That's what I've been doing all year." When did you have time to sell? He goes, no, I haven't sold anything. Did you send anybody any emails? No. Did you go show anybody any houses? No, where's the time for that? I'm watching the fish. Did you do anything that's related to the job? No. Well, I have to watch the fish. I have to sweep. I have to watch the garbage men. Wait for them for hours. You should be happy with me, he says to you. He says, you're fired. Why? All of this stuff that you did may seem nice, may seem this, may seem that, but that's not what you're paid to do. You're paid to go sell real estate.

3:41:21before a person goes and delves into the mystical, into the Zohar, into the Sefer Yetzirah, into all of the things that they're not paid to do, they have to become an expert in what they are paid to do. What are they paid to do? Learn the Chumash. Shulchan Aruch says, you have to read the Chumash twice alone and once with commentary. Two, you have to learn Gemara. You're not at a level to learn Gemara, you have to get yourself to the level of learning Gemara eventually. Why? You're never going to become a Talmid Chacham without learning Gemara. As a man, you have to learn Gemara. Women don't learn Gemara. Three, you have to learn halacha. You don't even know the alef-bet of Shabbat. When are you going to learn? You know all the halachot of Shabbat by heart? So how do you know you're keeping Shabbat? You know all the halachot of sukkah? Sukkah, you just had Sukkot. You know all the halachot of the sukkah by heart? Ninety percent, ninety percent of the sukkot that I saw in the streets are not kosher. Ninety percent of the sukkot here in Florida and probably everywhere else are not kosher at all. They don't have any walls.

3:42:33they buy these pop-up sukkot, they put some strings around, they call it a wall. It's not a wall. Why is it not a wall? Because the Gemara says, and the Shulchan Aruch says, and all the Poskim say, in order for it to be a wall, it can't move with the wind. Those ropes, they move with the wind. It's not a wall. You can make anything into a wall. You can make a person into a wall. You can make an elephant into a wall, as long as it doesn't move. But if it's a string or it's a fabric and it moves, it's not a wall. All of these pop-up sukkot, all they have are these strings or these fabrics that move with the wind. Guess what? It's not a wall. So you just sat in a sukkah for a week and it's not a sukkah. It's a tent. No mitzvah whatsoever. Did you know that halakha? The key is most people don't even know this halakha. So you're gonna tell them, "Oh, go learn the Zohar. Go learn the other things." They don't know anything. So that's the key. First, we have to learn the basics. The basics are what am I responsible for knowing for sure, or else I get punished for not knowing it. So I have to learn halakha every day. I have to learn chumash every day. I have to learn Gemara every day. Once a person has become baki, meaning an expert, in these issues,

3:43:49And also, he learns Mussar every day because, without Mussar, without Yirat Shamayim, he's not going to be able to do anything. That's why Chachamim say that if a person learns halacha without learning Midrash, all of his judgments will be wrong. Why? If he doesn't learn Midrash, he doesn't learn Yirat Shamayim. If he doesn't have Yirat Shamayim, all of the halachot will be biased. He'll only choose what the halacha is based on what he wants. Where do you learn Yirat Shamayim from? From the Midrashim? From the Mussar books. They talk about Gehenom, they talk about what happens to people, how HaKadosh Baruch Hu punishes them. That's the stuff that you need to learn in order to have Yirat Shamayim. To know what punishment is. To know that there is punishment. You want to just learn halacha? Okay, you can learn halacha and become an Am Ha'aretz anyway. You can become an expert, know all the halachot by heart, but all of your judgment will be wrong. So now, that's why the Chazon Ish specifically mentions in this book and many others, all the Chachamim say you have to learn all bodies of the Torah. But first, focus on the things you're responsible for. Because if you are working, you're a businessman, that means that you're not learning all day. That means that if you're really, really serious about learning, you probably got four hours a day that you're learning.

3:45:09So that's not a lot of time in comparison to 24 hours. So out of that four hours, let's say an hour you have towards the Chumash, another couple of hours you have towards the Gemara, and another hour you have for Mussar, let's say. It doesn't leave that much room for extra learning as far as things that you don't really have to study. If you have more time, if you've already done all the stuff that you need to do and completed it, and now you still have an extra 20 minutes, you want to go delve into it? Chabibi, go do it. you have a rabbi who tells you you're able to do it, that you should do it, that you're at a level to do it, go enjoy. But if you're not covering what you need to cover already, don't worry about how many times the fish opens its mouth. That's not your job. And that's what happens a lot of times. A lot of people send me these different questions about, "Oh, can I buy this book? It's a special Midrash from 2,000 years ago from Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus that talks about different things." Yeah, you can buy it, but Did you read all the other stuff yet? I've got people telling me, showing me their library of books. They send me pictures of their library of books. You know what the first question I ask is? How many of them have you read exactly? How many? Very rarely does anyone even read half of what they have.

3:46:27Buying books today is very easy. Reading them still remains hard. So that's the key. You have to read. You have to read the material. And once you do that, you will see that there's a lot of content that is really interesting, intriguing, and stimulating. You'll find it in the Gemara. Kabbalah and mysticism are in every part of the Torah, from Bereishit all the way to V'Zot HaBerachah. There are many, many mystical things depends if you look at the midrashim. If you look at, for example, someone who wants to delve into more mystical aspects, specifically to connect it to the weekly parasha, just read midrash by midrash. It's an entire collection of about 50 books. The first two books of the Torah, Sefer Bereishit and Sefer Shemot...

3:47:38Bereishit and Shemot was written by the original author Rabbi Yaakov Culi. I love a Shalom. It was Kodesh HaKodashim about 300 years ago or so. It was written in Ladino. Then later on it was translated to English. Then it was translated to Hebrew. He used to fast from week to week. He would fast for a week at a time, writing these Midrashim. Later on, it was continued by other Chachamim. But anyway, each thing that he writes Each parashah, each pasuk, he takes, he uses five, six, seven hundred sources. So when you're reading his Midrash, it's as if you're reading everything it says about it from all scopes of the Torah, from the Zohar, Shulchan Aruch, everywhere, or Midrashim and so on. It's very, very extensive. There's also another Midrash that gives nice chidushim, short but sweet, by Chizkuni. There's Midrash HaGadol. There's many, many other things that you can delve into that go over the different behind-the-scenes aspects of each parasha, but also teach you the law along with it. And that is definitely something that each one of us should do.

3:48:52But still, it doesn't absolve a person from their main responsibility, which is that they need to still learn the daily halacha, they still need to develop their brain and learn Gemara, they still need to learn mussar, all of that other stuff. But Midrash is definitely something you need to learn a little bit too, especially if you've already learned the Rashi on this parasha a couple of times and you're pretty versed in it. You want to make it a little bit more, then you go into other Midrashim also. The Ramban, the Rambam. There are many, many other commentaries on it. Yes, behind you. There's a shiur on Gehinnom, but is there one coming up on Gan Eden? Shiur on Gan Eden. I saw the comment that was made. When is Gan Eden made? We're thinking about doing it. The problem with talking about Gan Eden... is a Chacham, I believe, that made a shiur about it. The problem is that most of what I'll say most people won't be able to connect to. The reason why is that sometimes we think about doing a shiur, we think about doing a series, and we decide against it. Why?

3:50:21Most people won't connect to it. It's sad to say, but it's above their pay grade. Most of the people that come to the shiurim on a regular basis advance very quickly. But the people that don't come, or people that watch online, advance very quickly, and they are able to, but the new person is... that shows up on a regular basis, though press play, most of the time will not be able to connect to the shiur. Why? Because this is something that's deeper. So, some of the deeper topics are hard to teach because they won't connect to the vast majority of people. They will only connect to the regulars. We don't want to limit the teachings to just a few people. We want every shiur to be something that every single person can connect to, whether they're religious or not religious, whether they're a veteran or a rookie. We want every shiur to be something that everyone can take something from.

3:51:27And some of the deeper topics are very, very hard to teach because most people will not be able to connect to them. So, for example, the issue of Gan Eden. The biggest thing that you do in Gan Eden is you learn Torah. That's what you do in Gan Eden. 99% of people are going to tell me, "Why is this Gan Eden?" Why is this Gan Eden? Because they don't learn Torah here. They surely don't want to learn Torah over there. They don't know what the sweetness of Torah is in this world. Needless to say, they have no idea why it would be a reward. If you actually learn the Torah that you can learn, you enjoy the Shechinah. You enjoy the Shechinah. That's the ultimate thing that you do in Gan Eden: you enjoy the Shechinah. What does it mean to enjoy the Shechinah? We have aspects of understanding, but they are almost insignificant. And the reason why is because we do not understand what good means. Most of what we think is good is actually bad for us. You know, we think of good as something material. The problem is, too much material, regardless of what it is, is not good for you.

3:52:47If you have money to the point where it's too much, it becomes bad for you. You lose the value of money. It could lead to a lot of arrogance and other problems. You spoil your kids too much; they end up becoming rotten because of it. Even if you have good knowledge of how to treat money, they don't, and so on and so forth. Physicality, you know, is specifically designed for the wife to be off for almost half the month. The reason why is because even being intimate with your wife, even though you're allowed to be with your wife, it's the best thing to do. That's one of the main things to connect the marriage and so on and so forth. Too much of that will ruin the marriage. Too little of it will also ruin the marriage. There are specific instructions of how, when, and who. You're not allowed to avoid it. You're not allowed to, you know, make a fast or something like that, like torture yourself. No, no, we're not going to do it this much. You're obligated from the Torah to be together. Obligated. If you're not together, you have a serious problem. On the day of the mikvah, it is an obligation to be together. Anytime the wife wants to be together, you have to be together, or it’s grounds for her to leave you.

3:54:07That's what you sign in the ketubah, by the way. One of the few conditions that a husband signs in the ketubah is that he will be with his wife whenever she wants. Not the opposite. People think it's whenever I want, she's going to be with me. No, no. It's whenever she wants. The obligation is on the man for the woman, not the woman for the man. The woman doesn't have to be with the man. Sexist? No. The Torah has rules from God. As far as sex, people who think in terms of gender, race, or color simply don't learn much. There are certain rules that protect the man. There are certain rules that protect the woman because of who and what they are. You know, there's the obligation to provide parnassah on the man. But you'll see in many houses that the husband is a Talmid Chacham who learns in a Kollel and the woman brings the money. How come the woman brings the money if the man is obligated? Because the woman agreed, that's it. She's not forced to do it. If the woman one day comes back home from work and she tells the husband, "Husband, listen, enough with this Kollel. You have to go to work." Guess what? He has to go to work.

3:55:16Why? That's what the Ketubah is about. The Ketubah says the husband is obligated to provide, but if she agrees to go work and he goes to study, no problem; she gets Olam Haba for that. So the point is that there are certain rules in the Torah to protect each gender, the kids, the husband, the wife, and so on and so forth. The Torah itself is the guide for how you're going to live. how you're going to do right, how you're going to do wrong, and so on and so forth. But a person who just picks and chooses what's good and what's bad for them is bound to make many, many mistakes. And that's why I always tell people, before you decide to take action on something that you've heard from somebody who spoke, whether it's on the internet or live or whatever it is, double-check that what they're saying is right. Like, for example, one of the easiest ways that each one of you can verify that all of these rabbis, regardless of whether I mentioned them or I haven't mentioned them, that say that there's no punishment, that say that Hashem is like your friend, that say that there's no Gehinnom, one of the ways that you can verify and have them admit that they're wrong is simply take your machzor, your machzor of Yom Kippur to them.

3:56:40Take the machzor. But have a translation. Not just the machzor in a language you don't understand. If you don't understand Hebrew, like it's your first language, don't take a Hebrew version. Take an English version. And tell them, "Okay, listen, Rabbi, you told me there's no punishment and all that stuff. Okay, so how come in the Amidah, during Yom Kippur, we say that we're going to get punished because we're more guilty than any people? We're ashamed. We're going to be banished. We're heart-stricken. We're going to be destroyed. We're going to be laid to rest. What?" But have a translation. Not just the machzor in a language you don't understand. If you don't understand Hebrew, like it's your first language, don't take a Hebrew version. Take an English version. And tell them, "Okay, listen, Rabbi, you told me there's no punishment and all that stuff. Okay, so how come in the Amidah, during Yom Kippur, we say that we're going to get punished because we're more guilty than any people? We're ashamed. We're going to be banished. We're heart-stricken. We're going to be destroyed. We're going to be laid to rest. What?" How come we're saying this in every Amidah? That we're sinners, that we sin this sin and that sin and we're going to get punished. How come? How come we say this in all these prayers? If you read the Amidah and actually understand it, you start crying. The service for Yom Kippur starts, the service for Yom Kippur starts, and now we are permitting the criminals to pray with us. That's how the service starts. That's what you say in the beginning.

3:57:38The first song before they start praying says, okay, as a conclusion, now we're allowing all the criminals, meaning all the sinners, to come pray. Why? Is everybody a tzaddik and there's no punishment, there's no nothing? How come we're criminals? How come it talks about all these different sins? It talks about wasting seed, it talks about Chilul Shabbat, it talks about murder. All these sins, it goes here for the sin that we committed before You under compulsion, for the sin of ignorance, for sins that we made against You openly, for sins of illicit sexual relations, for deceit, for sinful thoughts. You even get punished for sinful thoughts, and... For sins of the mouth. For malevolent intent, even if you intended to hurt somebody. That's also a sin. What do you think? It's nothing? You get off free? For being too aggressive. For defiling the lips. You cursed. You cursed somebody. It's a sin. Following the evil inclination. Hashem, how much do we follow the evil inclination? All day we're following it.

3:58:50For sinning knowingly and unknowingly. Meaning whether you knew the sin or you didn't know the sin, it's still a sin. You murdered somebody; you still murdered. Even if you said, "I'm sorry," it doesn't bring back the guy to life. You're not a Tanna. For denial and falsehood. Meaning you heard the truth, Mashal, but you denied it. No, no, no, no, no. For evil talk. For gazing. Oh, you looked at that cute girl. Okay, Gehinom. Yeah, the rabbi, she was cute. Okay, both of you then. Both of you. Willful transgressions. Usury. You lend people money, charge them too much interest, all these cash advance businesses. What gain are you going to get? Utterance of our lips. Sin secretly. Nobody knew. That's the worst sin, the open sins. Acting in a condescending manner. You think you're better than people? Why? Because you're black, because you're white, because you're green, because you're purple, because you're a woman, because you're a feminist, because you're a masculinist, you're gay, you're whatever the heck you are. You think you're better? Okay, that's a sin too. Excessive chatter. You talk too much about nothing. Sin.

4:00:14For striding to do evil. This is in your tefillah. You all read this on Yom Kippur? For striding to do evil, meaning it's not even the sin of going to the club. It's just walking there. The fact that you walked from the car to the club already is a sin. Forget about what you did once you entered. Just the walk from the parking lot to the place is a sin. Oh, unintentional sins, confusion of the mind. Why are you confused? Why didn't you go to shul? How come you didn't go to shul? You go to shul three times a week. Why by your own? How come? Oh, you're busy? What are you doing? Watching basketball? Are you working? Okay, so in Gehinnom they're going to have you working. It's shul for free every week. How come you don't come? I'm tired. Oh, you're tired? But they asked you to go to the game. They asked you to go to the meeting. You weren't tired.

4:01:17weren't tired for that stuff? You're confused, right? Because you didn't know. It says, I mean, oh, you were disrespectful to your parents. What did you do to your parents? What did you say? Your mom said something to you, and you said, why not? Come on. It's what you said on Yom Kippur. This is what you said on Yom Kippur: "Hashem, I did this, I did this." Well, you admitted to it. You didn't even deny it. You said, "Hashem, I'm guilty of this, I'm guilty of this, I'm guilty of this. Please forgive me." So, ask Mr. Barbie Doll Rabbi: "Hey, Rabbi, if there's no Gehinnom, how come I just admitted to all these sins? If there's no Gehinnom anyway, how come I admitted to all these sins? What's the point? If I'm going to go to Gan Eden anyway, what's the point of admitting?" Again, no, there's a lot of places that talk about the fact that there is a serious, serious amount of teshuva each one of us has to do. Now, if you look at the Ne'ilah, Ne'ilah of Yom Kippur, it has, we do a vidui. It has a confession.

4:02:42It's called vidui, and it talks about all the sins that we committed. And a person says, "Wait a minute, but I didn't murder anybody. Why am I saying I'm sorry for it? I didn't rape anybody. Why am I saying I'm sorry for it? Maybe I should skip this word." Chachamim say, "No, no. If you are in a generation that has to say it, that means you did it too, either in this life or the previous life. That's why you have to say everything." But the type of stuff that says, "We're guilty because we robbed, we gossiped, we caused wickedness, we denied the truth, we committed adultery, we're deviant." We caused grief to our parents. Which one of us didn't cause grief to our parents? We committed an abomination. Now again, grief to your parents is assuming your parents are not people that are causing you to sin. Your parents are tzaddikim. If your parents tell you, "Make me coffee," you have to make coffee.

4:04:04Give me a ride. You have to give him a ride. But if your parents tell you to violate Shabbat or go against the Torah, you're not allowed to keep it. You're not allowed to listen to them. But if your parents are tzaddikim and they told you to do something, and you didn't want to do it, or perhaps you made them upset, it is not good. Some of the sins you can get forgiven, some of the sins, no. But there is a condition and... So the Gemara says, who gets forgiven for the sins that we just admitted to? And what I mentioned to you is probably 25% of what you admitted to. What I admitted to. The sins are much bigger. So who gets forgiven on Yom Kippur? The Gemara in Masechet Yoma, and also Masechet Ta'anit, and also the Mishnah in Avot.

4:05:05All say the same thing. Someone says, "I'm going to sin and then do teshuva. I'm going to sin and then do teshuva." They're not allowed to do teshuva, and even Yom Kippur doesn't help them. Meaning, If a person says, "I'm sorry, Hashem, for stealing, for robbing, for wasting seed, for Chilul Shabbat, for this, for that," but he doesn't change anything, he goes back to doing it again. He's saying, "I'm sorry for violating Shabbat," but he already has a vacation planned for next weekend, or for three months from now. He's saying, "I'm sorry for wasting seed," but he's not planning on breaking up with his girlfriend. He's saying, "I'm sorry, Hashem, for dishonest business dealings," but he's not planning on quitting his job. Meaning, his words are meaningless. That person, Yom Kippur doesn't help him at all. All he did is a diet plan. He fasted for no reason. It helps his diet maybe for a day; he doesn't gain any calories. If he does teshuva, he can wipe out all of his sins.

4:06:27But if he doesn't do teshuva, he doesn't change his actions. He's not planning on changing things. He's planning on continuing to be the same cow that he was last year. He's planning on being the same criminal that he was last year, with no plan of attack, with no intention whatsoever of fixing his life. Guess what? Nothing. Yom Kippur does nothing for him. In fact, it becomes the prosecutor against him. What is it like? The Gemara says that there was once a king, a strict king. If you violated what he said, it was a death penalty. So, a bunch of people ended up in prison, all decreed to get the death penalty. As they're waiting, waiting, waiting, one of the guys starts messing around, runs into the wall, and discovers that the wall is weak, and there's a hole that was repaired, and it becomes an entire cave. He goes through the cave, and he realizes, "Oh, this cave is an escape route out of this jail cell. Let's go, guys. Let's go." He gets out. A bunch of people follow him. messing around, runs into the wall, and discovers that the wall is weak, and there's a hole that was repaired, and it becomes an entire cave. He goes through the cave, and he realizes, "Oh, this cave is an escape route out of this jail cell. Let's go, guys. Let's go." He gets out, and a bunch of people follow him.

4:07:51By the next morning, the guard comes and sees that all of the people escaped the jail except one. The guard says, "What happened?" He goes, "Oh, they all ran away. But I stayed here because I don't want to go and disobey the king. The king wants to punish me. I want to show him that I'm loyal to him. I'm here." Okay. brings him to the king. This guy that stayed in the jail cell is happy about himself. Why? He stayed in the jail cell. As soon as he sees the king, the guard tells him the story, and the king tells the guard, "Take the stick and start hitting him until I tell you to stop." He hits him on the head. He hits him on the back. He hits him on the legs. Now the guy's like, "No, why? Come on. What's going on? I'm supposed to get rewarded here. Why am I getting punished?" He's hitting him and hitting him and hitting him. The guy's bleeding everywhere. He's getting wounds everywhere. Eventually, the king says, "Okay, enough. Do you know why I'm hitting you?" The guy responds, "I think it's a mistake."

4:09:07I should be rewarded for staying behind. Everybody else ran away. And the king says, "You fool. I gave you an escape route even though you didn't deserve it. And you're too stupid and stuck in your own ways to even take the escape route. That's what you get punished for—for being so stupid and stubborn." HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave us Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and today Hoshanah Rabbah as an escape route for all of the sins that we've committed. We don't deserve it. We're sinners. We admitted it. None of us denied it. We're not coming to HaKadosh Baruch Hu on Yom Kippur saying, "Hashem, we're not sinners." No, that would be a lie. We're saying, "Hashem, we are sinners. But please forgive us." We're only children. We're like half-retarded. We don't really know how to bet so much. We have some bad rabbis. We have this. We don't know. We have this. Hashem says, you know what? I'll give you an escape route. Where is it called? Teshuvah. It's called Teshuvah. That's the escape route because even though you're a sinner, I'll give you a way out by doing Teshuvah. Change your ways. But when you don't take advantage and you don't change your way, you get punished even more.

4:10:29Why? Hashem says you're so stuck in your way, you didn't even take the escape route. I gave you an opportunity. You violated Shabbat for 50 years. I gave you an opportunity to start fresh. You didn't take it. You've been going out with a goyah for already two years. I gave you an opportunity to start fresh by leaving her and starting fresh. You didn't take it. I gave you an opportunity to be kosher in business because you heard it. It's not allowed to be in this business. You can start fresh. You didn't take it. Why? Because you're stuck in your ways. This, Rabotai, is a problem. It's a problem that happens every day because Hashem gives us many, many ways to get out of our own way, and we don't listen to Him. This is a mistake, and that's why He tries to give us a wake-up call at least a couple of times a year and on Rosh Hashanah, on Yom Kippur, to at least think about all of the things that we need to fix without relying on any rabbi, without relying on anyone, by simply putting it inside the machzor. Any person that understands what they're saying on these holidays understands that Hashem takes sin very seriously.

4:11:49Many times we go to the Beit Knesset only a couple of times a year, and we read the Hebrew but don't understand a single word. This is a waste of time. Why? The guy makes a bunch of sounds. He has no idea what he's saying. The worst is that sometimes you see the guy that hasn't come to Beit Knesset the whole year, but somehow he finishes the tefillah faster than the rabbi that's been praying the whole year. How? You haven't read Hebrew for a year. How did you pray so fast? You started Amidah, 30 seconds later he's finished. Everyone else, 15 minutes later, they're still struggling to finish. This guy that prayed once a year, he finished in 30 seconds. How? Why did you even come to shul? Why bother coming? What, to pray fast? Go fast at home. Go fast all year round. That, Rabotai, is a problem. When a person does not read the tefillah, he doesn't even give himself an opportunity to learn that Hashem takes sin very seriously and that he has to say "I'm sorry" for it and change his ways.

4:13:02This, Rabotai, is critical. It's critical for us to understand that when we do not follow the Torah like it says, we're going to make a lot of mistakes, and many times we're going to continue living by those mistakes because of our own arrogance. Many times, people today sin because of their own arrogance. They think they're smarter than the rabbis. They think that they're smarter than the poskim. They start deciding something based on whatever they think is right. They ask you a question; you don't give them the answer that they want, so they go to somebody else. Or they ask two people a question without telling the other person that they asked another person the question. We don't even know how to ask questions. We don't even know how to accept answers. These are all problems. If you don't have emunat chachamim, you're never going to succeed in your life. you don't have faith in our chachamim, you're never gonna succeed. You think that you know better than your rabbi. If he's your rabbi, then you definitely don't know better than him. If you think you do know better than him, then find another rabbi. But the key is to know that sometimes our biggest enemy is ourselves. Our biggest enemy is just ourselves, in that we don't let ourselves grow. I

4:14:27So focused on money, so focused on those types of things, that we don't allow ourselves to really grow spiritually. No, what else? Yes, are video games allowed? A better question would be, why would they be allowed? Why would a video game be allowed for fun? Okay, so... The most common video games today teach people to murder. First-person shooter games, where your average game involves shooting people for fun, lead people to think of human beings as simply a video game. The reason why the guy from Germany was videoing himself while he was shooting at the door of a synagogue... The most common video games today teach people to murder. First-person shooter games, where your average game involves shooting people for fun, lead people to think of human beings as simply a video game. The reason why the guy from Germany was videoing himself while he was shooting at the door of a synagogue is the same reason why the guy in Australia did the same thing when he shot up about 50 people in a mosque while recording himself. He started seeing the world through a video game. He had shot so many millions of people in his video game that he thought that killing a person in real life was the same as killing a character in a video game. This desensitizes people. is the same reason why the guy in Australia did the same thing when he shot up about 50 people in a mosque while recording himself. He started seeing the world through a video game. He had shot so many millions of people in his video game that he thought that killing a person in real life was the same as killing a character in a video game. This desensitizes people.

4:15:53So, those first-shooter games, those games of shooting people, are never ever allowed. Now, what about the other games? Now, when you have other games, there are many games that are like action games, whether it's the Lara Croft type of game with some immodest woman jumping on mountains and in caves, or other types of games like Sin City and all these other games that are full of immodesty, full of pollution of the mind, where they teach you it's okay to be a gangster. It's okay to kill people. It's okay to go to immodest places. Obviously, there's no permission in the Torah to do that either. War, in general, is not a good thing for people to learn because, again, number one, most likely you're not going to use it in your life. Number two, teaching yourself that murder is okay is not exactly a good thing to teach. The next thing is also when you see even games like Minecraft or other games like sports games.

4:16:57soccer, basketball, football. The bigger problem with these games is that, aside from being a minhag hagoyim, where you're thinking that sports is okay for a Jew to spend hours and hours following and playing, you're teaching the Jew to be a Greek. The whole concept of sports came from Sparta, Sparta. the same people that helped destroy the Beit HaMikdash, that's who invented these sports and coliseums. So, playing sports in these types of places on a regular basis or on a video game is worse than playing them in real life, because in real life at least you get some exercise out of it. In a video game, you get nothing out of it other than wasting time, which leads to the most critical point of all. So aside from destroying your mind and teaching you that it's okay to hurt people, aside from destroying your mind and making you addicted to sports and the like. Also, the most critical part is that it wastes an enormous amount of time. You can sit in front of a video game for 12, 18, 20 hours straight without a break. But if you put a book in front of this kid, maybe you'll get 20 minutes and...

4:18:20Which means that these video games are really Satan's doing, ruining the people of Israel by wasting their time. Even if the game is kosher per se, like a game of just building houses or building bridges, you're not going to spend 20 minutes on this game. because you only started after 20 minutes. What are you going to do? You're going to spend 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 hours a day on this stupid game. But you tell the guy, why don't you watch a show? Nah, it's too long. It's 2 hours. Oh, playing a video game for 5 hours is not too long. But watching a show for 2 hours is too long? No, it's not allowed. Who made it not allowed? You. You made it not allowed. By the fact that you're not able to learn at least as much as you play, that means that you are wasting. If you didn't play, you would learn. That's bitul Torah. Bitul Torah is worse than everything else. The Gemara in Masechet Berachot says anyone that has suffering in his life should check his actions. And if he doesn't find anything, all suffering comes from bitul Torah. He's sick, he has cancer, bitul Torah. His wife's leaving him, bitul Torah.

4:19:34He lost money, bitul Torah. He doesn't know what's going on, bitul Torah. He's confused, bitul Torah. Somebody stole from him, bitul Torah. Meaning, what's bitul Torah? You're wasting time and not learning Torah. That's what bitul Torah means. So, video games are one of the most addictive ways for us to do the bitul Torah sin. Because even if the game itself is kosher, which is almost non-existent, you're still wasting an enormous amount of time, yes. Which? Chess. Chess, in general. Because you're using your mind, it doesn't have anything unkosher in it. You're allowed to use it to a certain extent, but not become obsessive over it to the point where you're playing more chess than you're learning Torah. Within reason, yes.

4:20:46There's actually, I believe, Chabad has a minhag that on the 24th of December, they make that the day that they actually play chess. Because they think that it's not good to learn Torah that day, so they play chess. That minhag is not exactly accepted by the rest of Am Yisrael, but nonetheless, if you're playing chess, it's much better than the rest of the shtuyot people do. But again, chess is not a popular game today like video games are. There are millions and millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of people playing video games. And it's probably that the number of people who play chess is still in the thousands. Video games are better for people who want to waste their time. Yes, more fun, yes. But mentally, you know, again, that's what the Satan does. The crazy guy always started as not a crazy guy.

4:21:59The crazy guy always started as not a crazy guy. The murderer was born a baby just like you. Hitler was born a baby just like you. He didn't murder. So how did Hitler become Hitler? How did the mass murderer become a mass murderer? After all of the spoiling of his mind, all of the spoiling of his ideology over a period of time, little by little desensitizes the person more and more and eventually becomes a murderer. If you notice, We did a little bit of research a long time ago about serial killers. Serial killers and people that are mass murderers, you're never going to find a normal history behind them. It's not like people think that one day the guy just loses his mind, just decides to kill people. Anytime that they do research on these people, the closer you look into them, the more you see that these people left a trail. When they were kids, they liked to kill little animals. Anytime you see a kid likes to kill animals, it's a very, very dangerous sign. Why? Because initially he likes to kill a little rat. Feeding it to piranhas, he gets a thrill; he likes to see his piranhas eat the rat alive. After a while, he says, "Okay, let me shoot the birds with a BB gun." He thinks it's fun to shoot birds with BB guns. A few times, he kills somebody, then he starts shooting cats. Then he starts flinging cats. Guess what? You don't stop this kid; he eventually targets humans.

4:23:14Feeding it to piranhas, he gets a thrill; he likes to see his piranhas eat the rat alive. After a while, he says, "Okay, let me shoot birds with a BB gun." He thinks it's fun to shoot birds with BB guns. A few times, he kills animals, and then he starts shooting cats. Then he starts flinging cats. Guess what? If you don't stop this kid, he will eventually target humans. why? Because every time, the beast that he kills gets bigger. The old one, the smaller one, is not enough anymore. He becomes desensitized. He becomes desensitized. Same thing, for example, one of the, uh, one of the people came to him and said to him, "Listen, uh, I can't believe it, but, uh, my son just got caught." You know, robbing a place and killing somebody, people say, "Yeah, it's your fault or probably your father's fault because no rabbi was religious with this." Because maybe you or your father, most likely your father, one time somebody knocked on the door looking for him, and your father said, "No, no, tell him I'm not here." He taught you to lie and...

4:24:33he said, "I'm not here," but in reality, he was there. He taught you to lie. That lie became bigger with you because it's not enough just to lie. So with you, probably when you were a kid, they asked you, "Did you go to school?" No, you didn't go to school, but really, you went, or you went, but didn't go. You lied about this. Next thing you know, you stole an apple. Your kid saw and learned that stealing apples is okay. So your kid went to the next level. Why? Because doing what our parents did is not enough. We always try to top it over, top more, make it worse. So that's what happens. When we waste our time, it's not just that the video game itself is a problem. It's a few other things. Number one, it's wasting time not learning Torah. Number two, it's when we do learn Torah, how can we focus when we have all of these soccer balls and footballs and bullets and lions and all types of crazy mystical worlds happening in our brain? How could we be focused while we're learning about, you know, what's the right halacha to make a challah or to make a tanur for Shabbat? How can we focus about this tanur when Lara Croft and BB guns and all this other stuff is jumping in our mind? How? How can we be focused? You can't learn Torah and you have all this junk in your head.

4:25:44you know, what's the right halacha to make a challah or to make a tanur for Shabbat? How can we focus on this tanur when Lara Croft and BB guns and all this other stuff is jumping in our minds? How? How can we be focused? You can't learn Torah when you have all this junk in your head. You can't. It's impossible. Why? Because you're thinking, maybe I should have played this hand, laid down this hand, folded this hand, called this hand, raised on that hand. You're thinking, that's what I learned also myself. Playing poker, for example. I used to play a lot of poker before I did teshuva. My father, God bless him, he told me, listen, you're either going to play poker or you're going to work. Business. I said, why? I can't do both. Why? I'm a businessman. What's the problem? He goes, you can't. You cannot gamble and work at the same time. I met a lot of businessmen at the poker table. I said, yeah, they're not at their best. They're not at their best. Why not? Because when you play a mind game like that, it doesn't go away by itself. That means if you played on the weekend, you played on a Sunday, and you won or you lost or whatever it is, after you finish playing the game, it doesn't go away. It stays in your mind. So even on Wednesday, when you're trying to do a business deal, you're still thinking about what you should have done on Sunday and what you're going to do next time. The game never leaves. Needless to say, if it's 20 minutes ago you played a video game.

4:26:57and you won or you lost or whatever it is, after you finish playing the game, it doesn't go away. It stays in your mind. So even on Wednesday, when you're trying to do a business deal, you're still thinking about what you should have done on Sunday and what you're going to do next time. The game never leaves. Needless to say, if it's 20 minutes ago you played a video game. If you start opening a Gemara trying to learn something, yeah, Chazak u'Baruch to you for opening the Gemara, but good luck trying to understand anything. Why? Because the game didn't leave. That soccer match that you lost against your friend on the video game stays in your mind. That football game where you didn't kick the field goal stays in your mind. That level that you didn't beat, and he shot you before you shot him, stays in your mind. It doesn't leave, so you can never get focused. You can never move ahead. It's always in your mind until the next time. The rest of your world becomes numb. Nothing. So that's one of the reasons. Wasting time is another reason. A third reason is the fact that a lot of these games are immodest or literally teach you how to be a criminal, which desensitizes you to reality. For the average person that's addicted to these video games, you want to check if you're addicted or not and if it's out of control?

4:28:23You want to really check whether it's out of control or not, whether you can be considered Abu Dazra or not? Now don't stop playing. Better. Better. Tell somebody that you really love: your mom, your dad, one of your brothers, sisters, whatever. I need to test myself. How? I'm not going to stop. I'm going to play, play, play for however long I'm going to play. play, but I want you at some point during this week or during this month, that in the middle of me playing, you come and pull the plug from the electric. Ruin my game. After I have a nice four- or five-hour waste of life session, I want you to pull the plug and ruin everything I did. If you react like an animal, you're addicted. That's Avodah Zarah for you. You're not allowed to play ever again. Why? You're not allowed to react to anything like that. If you start crying like one of these psycho kids because your game didn't save or somebody ruined your game or something like that, guess what? It's Avodah Zarah. You don't have to play at all. It's like cocaine. Not allowed. Not even one time. Not even one hit. And every guy that's playing video games is saying right now as he's watching this, ah man. Why? Because they know they're all like that.

4:29:47You ruined my game. I just played five hours. You know how much time I invested in this? Exactly. Exactly the point. That's why it's not allowed. That's why it's the biggest reason. Because it's a way for the Satan to numb your mind. To make it absolutely do nothing productive. Because even if you beat the game and you're the best in the world in this game, who cares? Who cares? Guess what? There's more fun in the Torah. Sure you can. If you're gonna play something, It's better, even though it's never a recommendation to go become some NBA player, to go shoot a few hoops or run down the street 500 times or exercise a little bit or even kick a ball against the wall 500 times than to play these video games. What do you mean? The shooting games? Like an air gun to shoot people. I mean, listen, if it's really soft...

4:30:59I mean, it's not necessarily soft as air. If it can hurt somebody, that's not allowed. If it hurts somebody, that's not allowed. If you've got goggles on, it's like you signed up for it. Right. Well, that's the thing. If you have equipment and the risk is lesser, then there is more leniency there. But if it's something that can hurt somebody, like BB guns and things like that, that can hurt people, then it's more dangerous. You're not supposed to take danger. Plus, it's better to train shooting at other things, not at targets, not at people. I understand. So a moving target could be digital also. doesn't necessarily need to be people, but again, if they're wearing equipment and it's under a controlled environment, there's more leniency to do that. It's much better to do that than to waste nine hours a day playing some football game because you want to become the best Madden player. Should you? Yes. Will you? That's up to you.

4:32:03Put it this way. It's not an easy quit. It's not an easy quit because... right, because I agree with you. Every kid your age is addicted to video games, Jew or non-Jew. Video games are very addictive. Hence, the Yetzer Hara worked very hard to make sure that every house, Jewish or non-Jewish, thinks that it's perfectly fine to have video games. The first thing you can do for sure... Eliminate all of the non-kosher games. All the shooting games are not kosher, all of them. What does that mean, Counter-Strike? You're the SWAT team? Yeah, but you're killing people, right? Killing people. I like the chiddush that you gave that the enemy is Amalek, but I bet you that the enemy doesn't feel like he's Amalek. He's a real person. Right. It's another person. He doesn't feel like he's Amalek. He feels like he's a person and you're the enemy. You're the enemy and he's your enemy. I know. Hence the reason why it's worked really hard. I got you.

4:33:23You're asking me what's allowed and what's not allowed. What you can do is up to you. What you should do is up to the Torah. The Torah is going to tell you what's allowed and what's not allowed. You're not allowed to make yourself desensitized. You're not allowed to shoot other people. You're not allowed to put yourself in a mindset where you're going to be in front of a screen for a set amount of hours every day in order to kill a bunch of digital people that are really behind other people that are wasting their life. Let's say a quick download. cutting down is also good, but your target should already be, from today, to eliminate it altogether. When my rabbi told me that it's not good to smoke, I smoked. I was a smoker for 20 years, so that's a physical addiction, not just a psychological addiction. He told me that it's not good to smoke because it's not good for your health. I had every excuse in the book to tell him that it is good for my health. Why? I was a smoker. So I told him, listen, I'm already sick anyway. What difference does it make? Two, I'm smoking mainly when I'm learning Torah. In those days, I used to learn a lot more Torah. I used to learn for 15, 16, 18 hours straight. So, to learn that much, I felt like I needed something in my hand constantly to keep me up.

4:34:44So I told him, it's helping me learn Torah, Rabbi. It's a mitzvah to smoke. Mitzvah. And aside from the smoking, it's a mitzvah to learn Torah. I told him, look, there's a bunch of tzaddikim that smoked. Rav Kaduri, alav ha-shalom. The Steipler Gaon. They smoked cigarettes. Wow, what's the problem? And he says, yeah, that's before they knew and it was verifiable that it was bad for you. So I still have the first two excuses. In the beginning, I had a lot of excuses for why I should continue smoking. The real reason was that I didn't want to stop. Well, I liked smoking. I knew it was bad for me. I knew it was terrible for other people. Anyone that's a smoker should know that they are a walking stink bomb. They may not be able to smell themselves. Not maybe. They cannot smell themselves. But the minute you stop smoking, you realize how bad you smell. Just before Sukkot, I went to buy a lulav, and I ran into this rabbi. I smelled him and said, "Oh man, this guy needs to take a shower. What's wrong with him? How do you walk around as a rabbi smelling like this? What did you dip in? Cow dung?" I couldn't believe how bad he smelled.

4:36:08I couldn't believe it. I'm like, wait a minute. Now I'm thinking this rabbi always smells. Every time I see this rabbi, he smells. Why does he always smell? After we finished the transaction of buying the lulav and etrog, he went outside to smoke a cigarette. I said, ah, so that's what he smells like. I thought, where do I smell this horrible smell from? After he started smoking his cigarette, I'm like, oh, that's how he smells. He smells like cigarettes. I used to smell like this for 20 years. Yeah, I smoked cigarettes for 20 years. So if you smoke, you should realize you are a walking stink bomb for everybody. Aside from hurting your health, aside from smelling not good, you're also ruining your teeth. Trust me, you don't want to end up with teeth like mine. My dentist is buying a house because of my teeth. First, he's giving me a root canal on every tooth. Then he's telling me that I have to take them all out anyway and be with dentures like old people. That's what happens when you smoke. So, on top of all of this, that you're destroying your body, you're destroying your physique, you're destroying everything else, worst of all, worst of all, is you're doing something that's not Ratzon Hashem. Hashem does not want you to smoke. Why? He didn't create you smoking. He does not want you to smoke. Now, this was the thing that got me. All the other ones, I had an excuse for.

4:37:37Boy, I like smoking. I like smoking cigarettes. It made me happy. Throughout my misery, it made me happy. Boy, I was sick all the time. I was in pain all the time. I was spending half my days in the bathroom, the other half in the hospital. I was a nightmare of life. So I said, at least the smoking is something I like. Leave me alone. But then I realized, eventually, okay, aside from it not being good for me... This is not what Hashem wants me to do. Why? Because He wrote in the Torah not to do it. And I said, okay, even though I want to do it, and I have all the excuses in the world to do it, if I love Hashem, or at least I'm trying to love Hashem, at the very least, I should stop doing what He doesn't want me to do. So, but how do you stop a 20-year smoker? It's not only a physical addiction, it's a mental addiction. I'm used to something in my hands. I'm used to something on my lips. I'm used to something everywhere all the time, smoke everywhere. I actually like to smoke. The smoke itself, I liked it. How do you stop? It's also a physical addiction. So one of my students told me, listen, why don't you take one of these vape thingies? I said, what is this vape thingy? Is it gonna do anything for me? He goes, yeah, you press this little vape thing, it's gonna, I told him, I'll try it. So, but how do you stop a 20-year smoker? It's not only a physical addiction; it's a mental addiction. I'm used to something in my hands. I'm used to something on my lips. I'm used to something everywhere all the time, smoke everywhere. I actually like to smoke. The smoke itself, I liked it. How do you stop? It's also a physical addiction. So one of my students told me, "Listen, why don't you take one of these vape thingies?" I said, "What is this vape thingy? Is it gonna do anything for me?" He goes, "Yeah, you press this little vape thing, it's gonna..." I told him, "I'll try it."

4:38:54I'll try it. Three days later, I stopped smoking. In three days, I stopped smoking. So now some people tell me, yeah, these vapes are not good. A lot of people are addicted. Yes, if you're not vaping, don't do it. But is it better than smoking cigarettes? Of course, it's better than smoking cigarettes. No one told you to put crack in it. The kids that are dying from it and ruining their lungs, it's because they're putting extra junk in it or they're overusing it all day, thinking it's like an IV. No one told you to smoke it all day. No one told you to pull it 50 million times. Once, twice, three times a day, finished. What do you need? Five million times? What happens? Kids that don't have any understanding of limitation, what do they do? They take these Juuls or these vapes or whatever they are and they pretty much leave it in their mouth the whole day. Of course, it's going to hurt you. If you eat all day, it's going to hurt you. You smoke all day, it's going to hurt you. Anything that's unnatural, if you do it all day, it's going to hurt you.

4:39:58So that's the thing. If you're not doing anything, don't stay not doing anything. You don't smoke cigarettes, you don't vape, you don't do any of that, don't start. This is not a recommendation to do it. But if you smoke cigarettes and you're thinking, maybe I should stop, but I can't stop cold turkey because I'm weak and I'm a loser like your uncle who couldn't stop cold turkey, I could do vape first, then quit. Okay, do that. Why? Because it's the lesser of two evils. It's the lesser of two evils. But don't pretend like the evil is not evil. Don't pretend like it's good for you. Don't start telling people, "Oh no, this vape is healthy. This marijuana is healthy for my brain." Who are you fooling? Who are you fooling? Like some people tell me, "No, no, when I smoke marijuana, it's healthy, it's good for my brain." I say, "Yeah, it's good for your brain to forget everything. That's what it's good for. It's good for you to think that this is good for your brain because you're stupid because you're a smoker." So you can't pretend evil is not evil, bad is not bad. If you're not doing anything, stay not doing anything. But if you have one that is bad, one that is less bad, then obviously go to that with the intention of stopping altogether. But that's the key. So, the point I'm trying to get to with the video games for everyone: it's not a physical addiction, but it's definitely a very, very heavy mental addiction.

4:41:20Because it sounds like there's no other fun in the world outside of video games. It sounds like the Gemara can never challenge it. It sounds like life cannot be without video games. I promise you it can be. How do I know? We've been living 5,780 years without it. Perfectly fine. I had very cool games when I was a kid, and I played those games. very good. You have to understand, when you don't know what you don't know, what you have is everything. In my generation, when we were playing Nintendo and Genesis, and even Commodore 64, which you probably don't even know what that is from 30-something years ago... Those games were like the greatest thing in the world because we didn't see anything better. Nothing better existed. You view it backwards, oh, Nintendo, who would play that? It's a waste of time next to the PlayStation 19 that they have now, whatever it is, and Xbox, and pretty much it's all virtual reality to the point where the person shows up at your house sometimes.

4:42:26Didn't have that. So back then, we didn't know if there was something better. You're looking back, thinking this is better, so that's why I wouldn't play this. But when you see it firsthand, it's the best thing in the world. So when the first football game came out, the first Madden came out on Sega Genesis, we were addicted to it like it was crack. We played it all day, all night. It was a complete waste of life. I was the best in the game, by the way. You know how much I'm gonna get for it? Zero. You know how much credit I'm gonna get in my life? Zero. You know how much knowledge I gained in my life from it? Zero. Nothing. It was a complete waste of hours and hours and days and days of my life. All of these games. I was a kid too. I wasted my life doing it. And I promise you, I wish I had those hours back. Because it's a completely unproductive waste of time. You don't gain anything from it. And it could easily lead to you ruining your life. Because you waste so much time doing this, you're not able to do some things that are really important, whether it be learning Torah or even just doing your job.

4:43:35Many people become complete losers in the rest of their lives because of their addictions to their hobbies and video games and the like. They don't want to work because they want to play the video game. They don't want to date because they want to play the video game. They don't want to do anything in life because they want to play the video game. They ruin their lives because of these video games. Many people ruin their lives with these video games, many more than people think. So it's not good for you. But I know that many people... Too addicted to it to stop cold turkey, even though that's the best way to stop. Most people are not going to do it. So I would say, at the very least, eliminate all of the games that are completely assur. Every game that has shooting is assur. Every game that has shooting is assur. First thing in the world, you go home and you break it. Don't sell it. Don't give it. Just break it. Why? It's assur. It's not allowed. There's no permission at all for you to kill people, even if that person is digital. No permission for you to desensitize yourself to the value of life. No permission. You don't need to know how to kill people. You're not a soldier. If you were a soldier, fine. You need to know how to kill people. Why? Because you're a soldier. Today, who's going to become a soldier in America?

4:45:01one out of every 10,000 people, who's gonna become a soldier? Response of who, of what? The point is there's no skill that you're learning from this game that's valuable for your life. There's nothing you can use from this game. All it could do is create bad. Okay, so you should stop. understand. Like I said, the first thing you should do is understand that the most important difference between you and an animal is that you have free choice. You can choose between right and wrong. An animal works on instinct. An animal, if it were addicted to video games, couldn't stop. You can. If you cannot stop, that already means that the addiction is worse than we can even talk about. It means it's really bad. Why? Because you've gotten to the point where you can't see yourself outside of this addiction. So it's not good either. You're not allowed to be addicted to anything like that. Unless it's the Torah. So that's also another reason why it's not good. But aside from that, a person should eliminate the games that are completely not allowed.

4:46:22And then, since those games are usually the ones that he likes the most, like in your case, that already is going to eliminate much of his or her interest in the machine altogether, which is the goal. The goal is to quit altogether. You cannot go on a diet by eating a burger three times a day. You cannot go on a diet by eating steak even once a day. Why? You can't eat a huge meal that's three times the servings of a regular person and think it's a diet. A diet has to be less. So that means that you have to make some big strides. You have to make some big strides. This is a necessary part of life. If you see that you can do it, that already is going to give you more chizuk to do it even more. Next time, if you see that you can't do it, it also teaches you something that shows you how great the problem is. Hence the reason why you need to do it as soon as possible. But the point is that a person should stop with the ones that are forbidden games absolutely and then, little by little—hopefully quickly—eliminate the rest of the games. But he needs to replace that time with something else and...

4:47:49So you should have some type of good addiction to replace it with. A good addiction could be a combination of learning, or some other kosher game, whether it be chess, as Kvodo said, or exercise of some kind in a kosher place. Don't ever go to these co-ed gyms; they're not kosher. You're not allowed to exercise in such a place. If you're going to go to a gym, go to a gym where it's just one gender. If you're a male, go to a male-only gym. If you're female, go to a female-only gym. Yes. In Jewish communities, it's called kosher gyms. In non-kosher communities, it's called just that, a gym. Usually, the women's gyms are more common than male-only gyms. But the male-only gyms are usually for bodybuilders. They're the most serious gyms.

4:48:49The most serious gyms are where the most serious guys go. The guys that go to the coed gyms usually go there for showing off. The guys that go to exercise go to the ones where they focus on what they are doing, not on seeing or meeting girls. Anyway, a person should replace this addiction with something else, something that's more physically and mentally healthy. What about halacha? Why? Okay, she learned. Yes. No. Yes. No. Yes. No. Allowed? Not allowed? That should be easy. Well, chumash. There you go, so there you go. Start with Bereshit. Start with Bereshit with commentary. Read if you have a Chumash in your house; you have one of these. Make it a law in your house that you have to read the weekly parashah with all the commentary that's on the page every week. That already is going to take some time and is going to open your scope to the Torah world a millionfold.

4:50:07Because for the first time in your life, you're going to actually understand the story behind the story, why we're doing what we're doing, what we're trying to emulate, who we really are, grandparents. And it opens up your whole world. Without knowing the Chumash, a person can never become a Talmid Chacham. You have to know Chumash. So a person needs to know Chumash, that's why it's a law in the Shulchan Aruch that you have to read the Chumash, even if you've read it a thousand times already, still it's halacha that you have to read the Chumash, each parasha, twice with commentary. Even if you've read it already, like Rav Kanievsky. Rav Kanievsky completes the entire Talmud, Bavli, Yerushalmi, Zohar, all of these major collections of books every year. He, Gadol HaDor, Sar HaTorah, is obligated to read the Chumash just like you. Just like you. Every Jew is obligated to do it. Why? Without knowing the Chumash, you're never going to become a Talmid Chacham. So if you haven't read the Chumash from beginning to end, you're in for a surprise. It's going to be a fantastic new development for you. Plus,

4:51:21Heard this from Rav Shain, shlita. He says that there are certain angels that a person creates when he reads the weekly parasha that are unlike anything else that he learns. There's a certain type of kedusha and different things that he creates to his favor when he reads the weekly parasha. So, never take the reading of the Chumash lightly, even if you've read it a thousand times. Take it very seriously because there are certain things that you're creating that's part of your world, your spiritual world that you need in order for your week to function. I can tell you from personal experience, that anytime I've skipped or missed my weekly Chumash reading, the rest of the week was either complete garbage, or it was just a really, really difficult week where the rest of my learning was almost like it didn't exist. The shiurim were lower. Everything was different. The Chachamim are not saying this just to get fans and to get likes on the internet. Meaning that when a person learns the weekly parasha, there's a special significance, that he is creating and becoming part of the Torah itself.

4:52:44So if you haven't read it already from beginning to end, you're going to have a fantastic, fantastic development this year. Anyone that has read the Chumash with commentary already several times to the point where they're very well acclimated, the next thing I recommend is to read Midrash Me'am Lo'ez. Midrash Me'am Lo'ez, you read the weekly parasha with the Midrash Me'am Lo'ez, It'll take you a lot longer than a week most of the time unless you're an avid reader. But it'll open your eyes to a Torah that you never even knew existed. It's like a different world because you'll see how from a single word, a single word in the Torah, they can literally write a million books. Yeah. That's it. I mean, incidentally, B'Siyata D'Shmaya, we're actually about to start Bereishit as a nation anyway, because we're finishing the Torah this week. But either way, even if it wasn't, I give the same advice to people all year round. If you're going to start the Chumash from the beginning, first time out, always start with Bereishit. It doesn't matter where everybody else is. Why? It's good for you for the first time out to read it from beginning to end. From beginning to end.

4:54:07One time somebody came to me, this guy Jonathan, a nice kid, Jewish kid, but completely had no idea what Torah is. After I was already in the teshuva world for a little while, and I was giving lectures already, one time he came by the house I was in. I was staying at my parents' house, and he saw that I had a bunch of books with me, and one of them was the Chumash. And he looked at the Chumash and he asked me a question. I gave him an answer. I showed him the Chumash and I showed him this book and he's like, "Wait, so you read this whole thing?" And all I did was smile, like I'm smiling to you. Why? Because to a person that never read the Chumash and never learned Torah, reading this whole thing sounds like a big deal. Little do you know that every Jew is obligated to read this whole thing twice a year. Twice. Why? You have to read each parasha twice every year. Each week, you're supposed to read the parasha twice and once with the commentary on it. So, that means that you're reading the whole Chumash technically twice every year. Now, if you've read it once, it's also good. This year, upgrade to two. That's what the halacha is.

4:55:30meaning that why is Am Yisrael throughout all of history you see that the Chachmei Yisrael were absolute geniuses with no comparison in every field. Chazon Ish—you read this book from the title, it seems like some modern book that some local rabbi wrote. What's the big deal? Emunah and Bitachon—there are a million books about Emunah and Bitachon. I was reading this book one time, out loud, and the Rabbanit was listening to me. She didn't know it's this book. She says, "Wow, what you're reading sounds boring and deep." I said, "No, it's about Emunah and Bitachon." She goes, "Eh? I don't know, Bitachon, it's Chazon Ish. Really?" She goes, "What did you just say?" So I explained to her what I just read. We had a conversation. I read something that was like one paragraph. We had a conversation for 40 minutes about it.

4:56:34That's how beautiful it was. You read this book, you read one page in this book, even if it takes you an hour or it takes you two minutes, you see that the depth of his knowledge, this is not knowledge of a human being. It cannot be a knowledge of a human being to write such things that are so deep that you literally have to know the creation. It's pure genius. Now, I told my wife, I told the Rabbanit, honestly, I don't see the point of writing a book. I have a book right now. It's written already. It's in Hebrew. They took it from my lectures in Hebrew. I have a bunch of lectures in Hebrew that I've done over the years. They took it and they wrote down what I said in the lectures. And we're going to translate it to English. And then I have... Series of books from some other lectures that I gave from Na'vot and so on. If I stop giving lectures and just focus on books, I probably have, I don't know, 20 or 30 books that I could write from all this. But I haven't even published one book.

4:57:40I'm thinking about reading this book and other books, and every time I read another one of the Chachamim, whether it's from a hundred years ago or eight hundred years ago, five hundred years ago, I say to myself, what's the point of writing a book? There's nothing new that I could bring to the table. What can I, little old me, bring to the table that's new? Everything that I'm going to tell you, I'm going to bring it from some other book. What's the point? The point is, I'll tell you the point. My rabbi told me, he goes, no, no, it's not about you bringing anything new. It's that people are not going to buy the Chazon Ish's book. People are not going to buy Rav Ovadia's book. Why? They don't even know who they are. They think maybe they're too righteous for them, or they're too big for them, or they're too old for them. But the few people that watch you, they'll buy your book. and end up learning Rav Ovadia, Chazon Ish, Ben Ish Chai, and so on and so forth. They'll read what you say. And that's the point of why people still write books today. Yes? Yes, Chafetz Chaim. Chafetz Chaim. So, that's the thing. When you write a book, it's not necessarily about bringing new insights, new chiddushim. It's about bringing something true to the world, to bring light to something that perhaps most people don't know.

4:59:00You're gonna remind them of it, or perhaps you're gonna enlighten them about it. That's the key. That's actually part of the book. Part of my book is about Gehinnom. We translated a part of the Reishit Chochmah, which is one of the primary sources of details that we know about Gehinnom. We simply Just translated it. We did not write anything on it. We just took a couple of pages from the Reishit Chochmah and translated it word for word into English. So that's part of the book. It's worse than literal; it’s meaning it’s not only the literal, there's even more to it because there are other books that give even more details and... Like you see in that book, it talks about, for example, the chibut hakever in one section, what happens in the Gehinom in one section. So if you read that section, you think, oh, okay, so you just get beat up by Dumah and that's it. No, no, no. You go to the other section over here, it tells you, no, no, it's not just Dumah. It's this one, it's that one, it's this one, it's one about the other. So you see there's more. It's not just everything on one page. Same thing with teachings about Gehinom. There's the brief teachings, and then there's the more elaborate teachings.

5:00:19More detailed. More detailed will take entire books. So we took something that was relatively short, a couple of pages, and translated it. And it's needed. It's needed for people to know that this stuff is real. When are we going to publish it? I don't know. But the key is to understand that when you're writing a book, As long as what you're saying is true, as long as what you're saying has sources from the Torah, it's valuable. And if you're going to bring a new insight to the world, that's also valuable, as long as it agrees with the rest of the Chachamim. It doesn't disagree. What else? We have about an hour or so left. Yes? My personal opinion on Moshiach? I don't really have much personal opinion about it aside from the fact that I hope that Hashem gives us more time before He sends us Moshiach. Now, as a Jew, one of the 13 principles of faith is that you're obligated to believe that the Moshiach could come on any day.

5:01:34Chachamim say, how could it be on any day if the Prophet says that before Mashiach comes, Eliyahu Hanavi has to come first, three days before? So how could it be any day if Eliyahu Hanavi has to come three days before? That means that the The best case scenario, it's in three days from now. Meaning if Eliyahu Hanavi comes now, it will be in three days from now that the Mashiach will come. So technically it's not every day. Chachamim say, no, no, there are two opinions, there are two possibilities. Either the Mashiach will come three days after Eliyahu Hanavi, or the Mashiach and Eliyahu Hanavi will come at the same time. Meaning, Eliyahu Hanavi is going to come and say, "Eh, rabotai, meet Mashiach." It will be at the same time, which means that Mashiach could come on any given day. So if Mashiach came today, we'd be in trouble. And the reason why is because it says in our tefillah every day, we read a tehillim, it says that the Mashiach will come and help all of the people that have done teshuvah from being criminals.

5:02:47meaning the people that used to violate Shabbat, did not fix their middot, wasted seed, committed all types of crimes against Hashem—all of the people that did teshuvah and fixed themselves, the Mashiach will come to save them. Meaning that if you haven't done teshuvah and Mashiach came, you're finished. You're in serious trouble. Why? Because Mashiach is only here to save people that have done teshuvah, people that have helped themselves. Which means that if Mashiach came today, Am Yisrael will be in serious trouble because almost 90% of Am Yisrael and at least 80% do not even keep Shabbat, the basic foundational mitzvah of Judaism. Which means that if the Mashiach came right now, all of those people that violate Shabbat will be destroyed. So, we do not want Cousins and our brothers and our sisters and our parents sometimes and all these people that we know to be destroyed. We want them to do teshuva. So my only personal opinion is that I wish that Hashem gave us some more time so we could share this movie with more people and help them do teshuva and help more people do teshuva. So that way, when Mashiach finally does come, he can save all of Am Yisrael, not just part of it. And that's actually what happened in Egypt.

5:04:09It says that only a fifth, only 20% of Am Yisrael left Egypt. So Chachamim asked, "What happened to the other four-fifths, the other 80%?" The answer is that Hashem killed them. Hashem killed 80% of Am Yisrael in Egypt because they did not want to do teshuva. They didn't want to do teshuva, so Hashem killed them, which means that only 20% of Am Yisrael left Egypt. They left Egypt sad, even though they were slaves. You're supposed to be happy now. You're free. All of them left sad. Everybody left Egypt sad. Why sad? Their cousins, their brothers, their sisters, their friends, their neighbors, their grandfathers were killed. Every house had a person that they knew die. So their son goes, "Yeah, I'm happy to be free, but how happy can I be that 15 family members died? How happy can I be that 15 of my friends died? How happy can I be that my entire neighborhood died?" So, we don't want anyone to die. We want everybody to do teshuva. The problem is that people are not going to do teshuva without two things: one, them wanting to do teshuva.

5:05:33Person must want to change in order for change to happen. My mom, God bless her, prayed for me for years. Every time she would go to a different rabbi to ask about me—I was sick, I was losing, I was this, I was that. She got similar answers: "Yeah, get him to do teshuva, get him to keep mitzvot." She says, "What? Keep mitzvot? He doesn't keep anything!" Maybe he comes to shul a couple of times a year for Yom Kippur. She goes, "Tell him to do it." Can't tell him anything. It was very, very closed. She went to a mekubal in Netanya, in Eretz Yisrael, one time. One of these mekubalim that doesn't look at women, doesn't meet with women. But she started crying from outside of his house. And he says, "Your son needs to do teshuva. Then everything will be okay."

5:06:35All the people come to his office, all these rabbis come to his office, none of them tell him anything. She went to one of these rabbis. They used to come to my office at least once a week. This Rasha Merusha French rabbi. And she told him, "How come you don't tell him to do teshuva? How come you don't tell him to keep Shabbat?" He said, "It's not my job." She said, "What do you mean it's not your job?" You're from Chabad. You're a Hasid. You guys keep mitzvot. He goes, "Yeah, but it's not my job. It's not my job to tell your son to do teshuva." She goes, "So what's your job? Whose job is it to tell my kid to do teshuva?" He says, "It's not my job." She goes, "Why? You just collect money? That's all he did." After I did teshuva, the same Rasha Rabbi contacted me, said all because he saw that I was publicizing things against wigs and things like that, and he says, "The biggest mistake you made in your life was making teshuva. You used to be a good person." He says to me, "The same Rasha." Now this menuval spoke against me, wrote against me. How many times I paid his rent and mortgage, and...

5:07:58You know how many times I sent food to his kids? He'd come to my office every week. He wouldn't leave my office without a few thousand dollars. Zift of a person. Now, this is the type of stuff that I had to deal with. When Netzach Hashem didn't help me, Hashem had to do it. But when Hashem talks to you, it hurts. So the point is that Even if somebody would have told me, there's no guarantee I would have done anything about it. Maybe yes, maybe no, but no one told me anything. But then one day, someone did tell me. Oh, Rabbi Fein told me. And at that time, I knew I needed help. I needed help. I needed to help myself. I needed to change something. My life wasn't going in the right direction. I was in the hospital every week. Life was terrible. So I had to change something, so I was willing to help myself. So, rule number one of teshuva, the person has to be willing to help themselves. If the person is rejecting all information, he's anti-Torah, he's anti-change, he is so arrogant or she's so arrogant they're not even willing to listen to anything, you can't help such a person.

5:09:14Even if you mean well, even if you're a nice person, unfortunately, there are certain people that have closed their own doors of teshuva. They do not want to hear it. You start talking to them, and it's like they're allergic. They run away, they start yelling and screaming. They get all violent and crazy. People like that, you can't help them. Why? They don't want to help themselves. They don't want to help themselves. If somebody doesn't want to help themselves, you can't help them. So that's rule number one. That's the most important thing that a person needs to know: you go after people who are willing to help themselves. Don't go after the toughest fish. Don't go after the great white shark thinking that you're going to convert this Catholic missionary, or that you're going to convert your cousin who is a Christian Messianic Jew. Don't go after those people. Go after the easy prey, easy people, easy customers. There's plenty of them. The people that are just completely ignorant, don't know anything, but they're not against it. Go try to help those people. Why? Because most of those people are not rejecting it. They're not empty. They're willing to help themselves. They're willing to listen to something new. So that's the first thing. So the first thing that will help people do teshuva is they have to be willing to do teshuva. What's the second thing?

5:10:45The Gemara says Am Yisrael was in Egypt for 210 years before Hashem freed them. And if it wasn't for Moshe Rabbeinu, we would still be in Egypt to this day, 3,300 years later. Why? First of all, why is it that no one came before Moshe Rabbeinu? 210 years, there were plenty of tzaddikim. You had the 12 tribes, all tzaddikim. You had many other people that were tzaddikim. Moshe Rabbeinu's father, Amram, was Kodesh Kodashim, one of four people that never sinned. So it's not about righteousness. We had plenty of tzaddikim. that no one came before Moshe Rabbeinu. 210 years, there were plenty of tzaddikim. You had the 12 tribes, all tzaddikim. You had many other people who were tzaddikim. Moshe Rabbeinu's father, Amram, was Kodesh Kodashim, one of four people who never sinned. So it's not about righteousness. We had plenty of tzaddikim.

5:11:45So how come nobody came for 210 years? Better yet, another question: how come nobody would have come for another 3,000 years? Today, we would still be in Egypt. Why? No? It doesn't mean literally. I mean it's like the root of the slave mentality. Okay, so you can explain the 3,000 years with that. What about the first 210 years? You can't answer. Okay, so we have half the answer. It's good. What's the other half? Why did nobody come to save Am Yisrael for 210 years? You realize every day in the morning, Paro would take 150 Jewish babies, rip them apart, take their blood, make a bath for himself. At night, another 150 babies, rip them apart, take the blood, fill up the pool, another bath. Every day, 150 in the morning, 150 at night. 300 babies per day.

5:12:49He would slaughter just to make a bath for himself because he had a skin disease. And his necromancer said that the only cure was Jewish blood. So, imagine you live in a neighborhood where all of your neighbors lost kids to this rasha. Why don't you do something about it? Why don't you do something about it? No? Who can tell me how come nobody came for 210 years? No one really cared. No one really cared. Thank you. No one really cared. In other words, in other words, oh, we have a battery issue.

5:14:21Good. So, how come we were in Egypt, getting murdered on a daily basis, and nobody came to help us? Anyone that saw the documentary that I recommended some time ago about the Holocaust probably got the shock of their life. You see how there were millions and millions of dead people, and... Brothers and sisters were murdered in cold blood, and some of these books that I've read and am reading are even worse. They are even worse than those videos. What happened in Egypt is even worse than what happened in the Holocaust. So how come nobody came to help for 210 years? And what does that have to do with Teshuvah?

5:15:22The answer is, like Netanel said, no one cared. What does it mean no one cared? How could you not care? Your brothers and sisters are dying in the middle of the street. Your brother just had a kid. The Paro just killed him for a bath. He didn't even enslave him. He didn't even do anything with him. He just used him for the blood. That's it. Go kill an alligator instead. What are you killing a person for? What does it mean nobody cared? Nobody cared, rabotai, meaning that no one was willing to sacrifice their life for the sake of Am Yisrael. No one was willing to put their life on the line and make themselves uncomfortable. in order to save Am Yisrael. Until Moshe Rabbeinu came and said, no problem. I'm gonna die for the sake of Am Yisrael. No problem. A Jew is fighting and getting beat up by an Egyptian. I'll kill the Egyptian. Yeah, but then Pharaoh is gonna kill you. No problem. Two Jews are fighting. You're gonna make peace between them. They're gonna tell Pharaoh against you. No problem. Let Pharaoh kill me for the sake of peace between these two Jews.

5:16:35You're going to go meet Pharaoh and tell him there's going to be plagues coming against him. Yeah, Pharaoh is going to kill you. No problem. Let Pharaoh kill me. Why? For the sake of Am Yisrael. Moshe Rabbeinu for 40 years, 40 years sacrificed his life. Put his life on the line day in, day out. For what? For Am Yisrael. For the sake of a bunch of people that were ungrateful until he died. They only remembered to say thank you after he died. That's what the Gemara Megillah says. They only realized how great Moshe Rabbeinu was when he died. From there, we learn that it takes us 40 years to learn the real meaning of what our rabbi actually said. You came to the shiur today; in 40 years from now, you'll understand the shiur. You came today, you understand something today, but the real meaning of what we said in the shiur, in 40 years from now, you're gonna remember it. In 40 years from now, you're gonna understand it.

5:17:36That's how, that's what the Gemara says. Moshe Rabbeinu, the only one who actually cared enough to put his life on the line. What does that have to do with teshuva? What it has to do is that if you want to help people do teshuva, First, make sure it's the right customer. He wants to change. She wants to change. They're open to change. They're open to new information. But two, get ready to make sacrifices. Get ready to make your life uncomfortable. If everyone here, everyone that's watching online, made it their mission in life... To help Am Yisrael do teshuva, the nation as a whole would be much better for it. Why? Because when people sacrifice, Hashem makes the world go round. When people don't sacrifice, nothing good happens.

5:18:46You cannot help your friends and family and your brothers and sisters that you don't even know, who are part of Klal Yisrael, do teshuva without making any sacrifices. Some people have the gift of gab; they speak. They tell people, "Do teshuva, do teshuva," different chidushim, different things. But most people don't have the ability to speak. So what do they do? You have to use whatever ability you do have. What do you have? Why don't you have the ability to speak? Because I work on computers, I work on houses, I have a different talent. What's your talent? Okay, how can you use the gift Hashem gave you in order to help people do teshuva? You know how to cook? Okay, make food for the shiur to entice people to come to the shiur. You know how you have money. You make good money. You make a good living, more than what you need. Okay, use that money to help people do teshuva. Donate to B'ezrat Hashem. We're going to use that money to print more CDs, to make more movies, to get more kids to come to the shul, and so on and so forth. That's how you help people do teshuva. Use your money. 99% of people, that's the only way they can help people do teshuva, by using their money.

5:19:57some people have talent. Some people know how to make music. Some people know how to make digital images. Some people know how to do different things. But for most people, it's purely money. But that's perfectly fine. How much money sacrifice? Meaning, if you have a lot of money but you're donating a couple of hundred dollars a month, that's not a sacrifice. It's not a sacrifice. Sacrifices that hurt a little bit. You don't need to make a million dollars a year. You don't need a million dollars a year to live; you don't need that much money. So that means you donate more if you make a little less. If you make fifty to a hundred thousand dollars a year, you're not going to donate fifty thousand and leave yourself with zero. But you can still donate ten thousand; you can still donate five thousand. Most people think they donate enough. If you do the math, 99% of people don't donate anywhere near enough. And even the ones that donate a lot of money don't donate anywhere near enough. And the reason why is because there are rules to donations: how much you're supposed to donate, when not to donate too much, when not to donate too little, and so on and so forth. But the point being is that you have to make sure that you are going to use your money effectively.

5:21:23effectively, because for most people, it's the only way they can help Am Yisrael do teshuva. Most people cannot help any other way. They don't have time to speak. They don't have the ability to speak. So, you have to use your money. But either way, a person needs to know that the only way to get people to do teshuva is to sacrifice and Every single person that watches this movie or this lecture, or all the other lectures, decides to take on sacrifice this coming year. Guess what? Each person is going to bring another 10, 20, 30, or 40 people back to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. If you have 10,000 people that follow the shiur and each person brings 10 people... Back to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, either through money or otherwise, you're talking about another 100,000 people did Teshuvah. It's an enormous number. You do that over 10 years, you can reach millions. Million, not million, millions. Why? Because it's not just 100,000 every year and it goes up 100,000 every year. No, it's cumulative. It's 100,000 the first year. But now, since you have 100,000 plus the people,

5:22:46Plus the people. Now, it's cumulative. It's even more than a hundred thousand the second year, and it's even more than a hundred thousand the third year, and so on and so forth. You could literally get all of Am Yisrael that way. But that means that everybody has to care. Everybody has to care seriously to the point of helping Am Yisrael. But they have to care with their money, they have to care with their time, they have to care with their whole life. They have to make it a priority in their life, and... No, we have about an hour. 45 minutes. For 6:15. Yes, that's the name. No, no. I spoke for six hours. It's okay. It's okay. We'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. It's okay. No, no. I have to study for another hour. I have to study for another hour.

5:23:48we'll see, we'll see in an hour. We'll sit, we'll sit. We'll see in an hour who's, who's, who's still standing. In an hour, an hour is a lot of time. After even, we'll see. So the shiur... Is there a reason why it's cold here? No, it's the first time it's been cold here in months. The air conditioner's working. No, I actually don't notice that it's cold. For me, it's hot. I'm constantly drinking hot coffee, but cold. No, what else? What else? We have another hour. It's another mitzvah.

5:25:15No, so each Jew is obligated to wear a tzitzit anytime he has a garment with four corners. Right. But some Jews like mitzvot so much they want to do more than one mitzvah. So there are some mekubalim that wear more than one tzitzit. Sometimes they wear two, sometimes they wear twenty. Like Rav Kook in Tiberias, he wears like twenty, twenty-five tzitziyot. Every day, all the time. There's another Rav in Eretz Yisrael, I forgot his name. He wears probably about 15 tzitziyot. 15 tzitziyot. So there are many different people that like mitzvot, and they try to do more than one. But for the average person, one tzitzit is good. Do you have tzitzit on now? Tzitzit, if you have, I have some in my car, give me another tzitzit. Tzitzit is definitely an easy mitzvah. They say that the Gaon MiVilna, I believe it was. Arizal or Gaon MiVilna? I think I confuse them sometimes. He, on his, yeah, I think it was the Gaon MiVilna. On his deathbed, he was crying. I said, Kvod HaRav, why are you crying?

5:26:45He says, "I'm leaving a world, such a beautiful world, such an easy world. What easy world? Every other day somebody is sick. Every other day somebody loses everything they have. Every other day somebody dies. Every other day somebody has problems. Who doesn't have problems? What easy world? What easy world? What easy world?" He says, I'm leaving an easy world where a woman can make a Kiddush Hashem, the biggest mitzvah in the world, by wearing a kisui rosh, mitpachat. That's it. That's all she has to do. She's considered like Yitzchak Avinu. She walks the street with a mitpachat. It's Kiddush Hashem. Why? It's so hard. Everyone else is prutzah, doesn't wear this, doesn't wear that. You walk around the street with a mitpachat, you're making a Kiddush Hashem. Such an easy world, you can make Kiddush Hashem for nothing. You put on a mitpachat, a beautiful mitpachat that looks like your head is full of diamonds. Kiddush Hashem. Easy world. He goes, easy world, I can put on tzitzit; every second in my life is a mitzvah. Every second I wear tzitzit, it's like I fulfilled the entire Torah. Easy world, he says. When I go up to Olam HaBa, if I give them my Olam HaBa for one of those mitzvot, I can't do it. Easy world.

5:28:08Easy world. They call them Gaon. Gaon, they don't call us Gaon. Barely they call us Yaron. What Gaon? Understand? So the point is that a person who understands the value of a mitzvah should take advantage of it. Take advantage of it. One is Rashi Tefillin. We have two, yeah, one is Rashi and one is Rabbeinu Tam. But when you put on Tefillin, the first one that you put on with a bracha is Rashi. When you put on Rabbeinu Tam, you don't make a bracha. Not allowed to make a bracha on Rabbeinu Tam. Allowed, yes, but it's not generally how it's done. Some people do it. and they get extra-small tefillin, where they put both tefillin on at the same time. But generally, it's better to just put them on separately. That's the way I've learned from my Rav, that's the way that I do it, and that's the way many of the Talmidei Chachamim that I've seen do it. I've seen it where people put on both tefillin at once, but it's very rare and uncommon. One of the stories that's a famous story about Rav Ovadia...

5:29:36He had a gabbai that would give him his tefillin, and one day the gabbai made a mistake because the tefillin look exactly the same on the outside. You can't tell the difference on the outside. The only difference between Rabbeinu Tam and Rashi is what's inside, and it's not that the words are different; it's just the order of the parshiyot that is different. So even inside, unless you know what's in this one, you don't even know the difference. But needless to say, on the outside, they look the same. Unless you bought from two different sofrim, two different styles. So anyway, the gabbai made a mistake and gave him the Rabbeinu Tam, which means that Rav Ovadia made a bracha on the Rabbeinu Tam. And after he put on tefillin, he told Kavod HaRav, "I'm so sorry, I made a mistake, I gave you the Rabbeinu Tam instead of the Rashi." So Rabbi Ovadia says, "Okay, please, next time be more careful with it. Be more careful with it." And he put on the tefillin and he did it. But then the person that saw this says Rabbi Ovadia stayed in the shul all day and cried all the way until night. He did not stop crying for saying Hashem's name in vain.

5:30:51He cried for the rest of the day because he said Hashem's name when he wasn't supposed to. How many times do we say Hashem's name when we're not supposed to? Because the halacha is to make it on Rashi. The halacha is to make it on Rashi. That's what was mentioned by our holy fathers. And I said the halacha is to put on Rashi. But because there's a significance to putting on Rabbeinu Tam, you could put it, but because it's not the halacha to follow Rabbeinu Tam, we don't make that. We have to know that there is a difference between the two. Now, there is a midrash about this. They asked Moshe Rabbeinu. Rabbeinu Tam came to Moshe Rabbeinu, brought Moshe Rabbeinu's neshama down. Moshe, what's the ruling in Shamayim? Moshe Rabbeinu said, no, Rashi is right. Rabbeinu Tam said to Moshe Rabbeinu, I'm sorry Moshe Rabbeinu, you're wrong. We have to bring HaKadosh Baruch Hu. We have to ask HaKadosh Baruch Hu Himself what's right.

5:32:04HaKadosh Baruch Hu says Rabbeinu Tam is right. But since the Chachamim chose Rashi, Rashi is right. Ma'ala of the Kedoshim from a thousand years ago, we don't have any idea of what's going on here. What does it mean to bring Moshe Rabbeinu's neshama, talk to HaKadosh Baruch Hu? We barely know how to talk to ourselves and each other. Somebody tells you something you don't like, you start yelling at them. You don't even know how to talk to each other. Hey, talk to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, Ruach HaKodesh, all types of things. So anyway, but the berachah is on Rashi, but not the berachah on Rabbeinu Tam. But there is a known thing that someone that's very makpid on this mitzvah of Rabbeinu Tam, at one point in their life, Hashem will make them fail one time. where they're going to forget and make an accidental mistake. They'll do it one time. But Hashem wants you to do it one time, meaning as if you did it one time, it's enough. But anyway, this Rabbeinu Tam Tefillin is good to get if you have already been a Baal Teshuva for some time and are already comfortable with the basics. It's not something that a brand new Baal Teshuva should do.

5:33:31should do it, but I don't think it's a good idea to start it on day one. First, get acclimated to what you're obligated to do, which is the Rashi. Once you're good with that, you know when to do it, how to do it, you're good with praying with the minyan, and so on and so forth, then later on you could add it. I didn't put on Rabbeinu Tam right away after I did teshuvah; it was a few years later. And the reason why my rabbi didn't tell me, he didn't tell me I have to do it right away. He told me, you know, first Let's perfect what we're obligated to do, and then we add. Because when a person just starts out, they are so overwhelmed with all of these new mitzvot that they're doing, that if you tell them something more, they may realize this is not even necessarily the same level of obligation. They might start thinking that even the Rashi is not an obligation. You know, if the guy doesn't put on tefillin every morning, he usually does it in the afternoon, or he does it right before dark, he's not even really sure what's going on, he's not really so makpid on everything else, it's better not to tell him to put on Rabbeinu Tam. First, focus on the basics. First, go pray with a minyan. First, go learn shnayim mikra ve'echad targum, learn some, you know, first, do what you have to do.

5:34:53Become an expert in what you have to do. Then later on, we add the other stuff. It's not a shame; you'll have plenty of time to add other things. But to just throw the whole kitchen and the sink and everything else at somebody early on is dangerous. It's dangerous. Same thing with the tzitzit. I don't recommend for anybody to wear more than one set of tzitzit. And the reason why is because most people don't even wear one set of tzitzit. So now, if you walk around with two sets of tzitzit, you're going to make Judaism look hard to people. I asked my Rav, "Can I start walking around with a couple of tzitzit, two, three, fourteen, fifteen?" He said, "You can do it, but don't ever tell anybody." I asked, "Why not?" He goes, "No, no, no, you're going to make Judaism look too difficult for people." Because they're going to think that you're the average. They're going to think that they're supposed to reach you. You’ve got the 15 tzitzit. You’ve got the 2 tzitzit. You’ve got all these tzitzit. They're not even doing one. You're going to make it look like it's too far away. They're not going to do anything in the end. You want to do something that's above the law? No problem. Don't tell anybody. Quiet, secret, nothing. So, listen, there are plenty of things that are extras that you can do.

5:36:09But I'm telling you, I've yet to meet, I've yet to meet anyone that can handle the basics. The basics. I can tell you, we have only a half hour left, I can tell you some areas that people are failing miserably in the basics. One, ideology. Most people have a warped ideology. They think that they could dip into different types of chochmot. Chochmat ha-goyim, chochmat ha-kofrim, chochmat ha-koim. They think that they could delve into different things. So sometimes they'll listen to Tony Robbins and his friends and different goyim over there. They'll listen to some Christian teaching on a Sunday because he's a good speaker. They'll listen to some motivational speaker. They'll listen to Torah but also listen to these people and poison their mind, thinking that their mind is unaffected by this. Then they're gonna listen to all types of kofrim like Manis Friedman and Dweck.

5:37:17and Kasuto and all of these reshaim, and I go, "But it makes me feel good about myself when I listen to them." Okay, so you think that you can listen to them and listen to me or Rav Mizrahi or anyone who tells the truth, and that's gonna be okay? It's not gonna work. Or they think that they can watch the news, be avid news watchers. watch CNN, Fox, all of these garbage, filthy channels that are full of immodesty. There's not a single woman on the news that's modest. They think they could waste hours a day listening to the news, and their mind is not going to be affected. What, do you think that stuff doesn't take up your mind? Or better yet, they're going to watch sports. They're going to watch sports. They're going to watch an hour, two hours, three hours a day of baseball. An hour, two hours, three hours a day of basketball. Some other sport where a bunch of people are throwing a ball or kicking a ball or doing something with some ball. They think that that's not going to affect them. So what happens is...

5:38:25People don't realize that anything that you put in here stays. You read the newspaper, it stays. You watch a bunch of YouTube videos about nothing, it stays. You watch movies, that too much, it stays. You play video games, it stays. So that means that you have less room for Kedusha. Not only do you have less room for Kedusha, your mind is less pure now. So it cannot absorb the same level of Kedusha. You go watch a shiur from Manis Friedman and Dror Kasuto and all of the other reshaim, you watch them for a week, all of a sudden everything I said doesn't make sense to you anymore. You watch them for two weeks, all of a sudden you hate me, even if I saved your kid. You hate me. You hate everything I'm saying. Why? You watch me, you watch them for two weeks, you hate everything I'm saying. I have proof of this. I had a guy come to the shul two years ago, three years ago. Started doing teshuva. Then he asked me about Dror Kasuto. I told him, stay away from him. He says all types of things that are against the Torah.

5:39:51He didn't listen. He didn't listen to me. He continued listening to Dror. Little by little, he started hating me. When he was coming to the shiur, he loved me. But he started listening to Dror, all of a sudden, unnaturally, he started hating me, meaning the things that I'm saying. Little by little, he stopped coming to the shiur. He became closer with Dror. You guys saw him here a few times. A few years ago, he started becoming close with Dror. Dror told him, "You know, get married to this girl." He was dating a girl, and they were getting married or whatever. But the girl didn't want to be religious. She didn't want to be religious, but he wanted to be religious. Dror told him, "No, support her, support her. Support her in whatever she wants to do. Chilul Shabbat, no Taharat HaMishpachah, all the filth in the world; you can do whatever you want for the sake of Shalom Bayit." Not only did the guy become chiloni because of Dror, but on top of it, the woman left him anyway. Divorce. What happened? He wanted to come back to the shiur. Started coming to the shiur again. Started coming to the shiur again. All of a sudden, the best again. Okay, no problem. Why? Because he broke his heart. Made him get divorced. So he started coming to the shiur again.

5:41:13Started coming to the shiur, everything is good, but he continued watching some other reshaim, Manis Friedman and other versions of Dror Kasuto. Guess what happened? Within a few weeks, all of a sudden he hates me again. Stopped coming to the shiur. Why? You cannot have kedusha and tumah in the same brain. Not possible. At some point, you have to make a choice. If you're gonna allow your mind to see all of these fakers, it's only a matter of time before you hate everything I'm saying. Why? It's not possible for us to coexist. And when I say I, it doesn't really mean I, it just simply means the Torah that we're saying, which is from Chazal, which is from HaKadosh Baruch Hu. It's not possible for you to have two unlike—lie and truth—in the same place. Not possible. So when people have this mentality that they could just shop around and maybe on Mondays and Thursdays they'll listen to some kofer, but on Tuesdays and Wednesdays they'll listen to the truth and it's going to be okay, it's going to be an okay balance, it's only a matter of time before the whole tower collapses and all you have left is destruction. So that's the first flaw of most people.

5:42:37Their ideology is wrong. They think that they simply can have a life of truth with a little bit of lies in it. The Gemara in Masechet Sanhedrin says that Ben David, the Mashiach Ben David, is not coming Until the generation, is he fully righteous or fully wicked? Chachamim said, how can it be fully righteous, fully wicked? There's always going to be somebody wicked in a fully righteous generation. There's always going to be somebody righteous in a wicked generation. So how could it be? He says, no, no, not the whole generation. What it means is that when Mashiach comes, everyone is going to make a choice. Either you're fully righteous or you're fully wicked. There's no one in the middle anymore. Meaning, if you want to survive Mashiach, there's no such thing as a life of truth with a little bit of lies in it. Either you're Haredi, a hundred percent with HaKadosh Baruch Hu, or you're Kofer Gamur. Either you're the most religious person you know, or you're Haman and the rest of his friends. That's the choice all of us have to make. You cannot continue listening to the Resha'im and a little bit of Tzaddikim once in a while. It's not possible.

5:44:00You cannot read the Gemara but Harry Potter on the weekends. It's not possible. If you need to read something for your vocation, for your work, that's not a problem, as long as your job is kosher. If you need to meet someone for the sake of your work and it's a kosher job, no problem. But don't let your mind be occupied with all this sheker, thinking that it's good for you. So the first ideological problem is that people think that they can live their life and have truth and lies at the same time. They can watch movies and sports, but still be religious Jews. If you watch movies and you're watching sports, I'm breaking news to you: you're not even religious. You're on the way, hopefully. ...on the way, hopefully. But you're not religious yet. Why? Because you're filling your mind with tumah. You're filling your mind with shtuyot. You're not allowing yourself to become religious. You're on the way. It's good, but it's not there yet. Why? A religious person works so hard on his neshama, he doesn't allow poison to enter it. So that's the first ideological...

5:45:23Most people are obsessed with money and materialism in general, to the point that if Mashiach came, no one would want to leave. How many of us, if Mashiach came right now, would leave America and go to Eretz Yisrael to live in huts? What, you think you're going to live in a tower? Mashiach's coming. Let's see if you're going to live in a hut. What difference does it make where you're living? Mashiach is here. He tells you you're going to live in a desert. Mashiach is here. You're going to live in a desert? Most people are not going to say that. Most people are going to say, come on, we just finished remodeling the kitchen. Mashiach, can't you come next year? No, Mashiach, I just bought this house. Can't you come in a couple of years? No, Mashiach, I just opened a business. Do you know how much money I invested? Let me make a few dollars first. Most people don't want to leave America, don't want to leave Europe, don't want to leave their comfort.

5:46:29nobody wants to leave their comfort. That's the problem. People are too connected to materialism, too connected to money, too connected to this world. They forget that the whole point of this world is to work in order to get to the next world. They want to live. Somebody tells you, "Listen, either... You live or die? Which one do you want? Oh, I want to live. Why? Oh, I want to, you know, live. Why do you want to live? Why? For what? Oh, I want my family, kids. You know, I like life. Yeah, but what if we told you you're going to heaven right now? Go to heaven. Can't I go later? Are you a fool? Why do you want to live? Go to heaven already. Why can't you go to heaven? Most people don't want to. They want to live in this world because they think this world is the ikar. They think this world is the ikar. Oh, I want to stay here forever. I want to live forever, until 120. Why 120? Until I do teshuva. Take me already. Finished. Unless you have a benefit to the public. The public needs you. Reality is, you finish your job. What do you want to be in this world for an extra second? You're going to make a sin, ruin the whole thing.

5:47:58Most people don't think like this. They think, no, this world, I want to live here forever. Hopefully, I live till 200. Hopefully, I find a cure for death. Hopefully, I live forever. Ideological difference, a problem. Why? Because they're connected to the pleasures of this world. They're connected to the pleasures of this world. They don't want to leave it. They buy into it, they go into a house, investing into it as if they're going to live in this house for a thousand years. They put the foundation of the house as if this house is going to be beyond the Beit HaMikdash. They put so much effort into this world. Who wants to leave it? I see some people building houses next to my house. I say, is this a hospital or is this a house? How many kids do they have? You could fit an entire school. Why? You could fit an entire school. Why? Why are you investing so much in this? How are you going to leave this house? It's so beautiful. How is it so beautiful? How are you going to leave this house? So Mashiach comes, you're going to have to leave this house. How are you going to leave this house? You're investing so much of your effort, your time, your money, your sweat into this world. How are you going to leave it? Which means you don't want to leave it. You want to be like Manis Friedman. This world is the ikar.

5:49:25That's the problem. You go into your business, you're already planning investments for 30 years. Why? Who says you're going to be here in 30 years? What about now? What about today? What about mitzvot? What about Torah? What about limud? Do you plan your Torah for the next 30 years? That's the thing. Most people love materialism. The more you love materialism, the less room you have for HaKadosh Baruch Hu. The less room you have for Hashem altogether. The Gemara says that after the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash, Hashem only occupies a space of four Amot. What does it mean? Hashem doesn't have a body or an image of a body. What does it mean that Hashem occupies a space of four Amot? that the Shekhinah is occupying a space of four Amot in a sense that, Halachically speaking, if something occupies less than four Amot, which is six feet of space, it's considered as if it doesn't exist. So in order for it to be Halachically significant, it has to be four Amot or more.

5:50:39Hashem, in essence, is occupying the minimal after we destroyed His own house. He's occupying the minimal, meaning that He's still part of the world, but He doesn't have very much of it unless we give Him the room in our life. But if our life is full of materialism, full of building houses and offices and businesses and internet and binternet and all the shtuyot in the world, how do we have room for Hashem? Meaning, the more we are obsessed with materialism, the more difficult it is for us to connect to Hashem. So that's the second issue that people have. The minute they have money problems, they forget about Hashem. The minute they have a lot of money, they forget about Hashem. After I bless you and give you everything, don't forget Me. What do you mean, Hashem? If You give me everything, I'm going to remember, of course, that You gave it to me. No, Hashem says, after I give you everything, don't forget Me, meaning that it's a natural inclination of a person to get everything—all the blessings from Hashem—and to forget that it came from Hashem. Just the other day, I spoke to a woman; she told me that her daughter

5:51:54told her, don't mention Hashem in my house. Like an idol worshiper. I said, what kind of education did this kid get? What did you send her to? She goes, no, she went to the best Beit Yaakov in New York. She went to the best school. She grew up in the best frum school. Best. I said, how could it be? She goes, oh, you should see our house. It's so big, her and her husband. But they're getting divorced anyway. I'm like, what a miserable life. No Hashem, no nothing. All she has is money. What a poor person. She's so poor, all she has is money. She doesn't want Hashem spoken in her house. She says to her mom, don't mention Hashem in my house. The Gemara says somebody saw a little baby. after a lot of people were dying from starvation because they were idol worshipers. So Eliyahu Hanavi saw this baby and he said, listen, I can help you, I can heal you, just say Shema Yisrael, Hashem Elokeinu, Hashem Echad. The baby took out his idol and said, don't mention that name. Don't mention that name in front of me. My father taught me only this idol.

5:53:10Only this idol, he says. At that moment, Eliyahu HaNavi, with zealousness and his kedusha, caused the child to fall on his face and die on top of his idol. Some people say, don't mention Hashem in my life. Hashem says, no problem. I won't mention myself. People have too much connection to materialistic ideologies. Materialism is the second thing. There's no problem with being successful, but don't make it your whole life. The key to knowing how Whether you're taking your success, your materialism too seriously is based on how much tzedakah you give for the sake of Torah. Not how much you use to save some homeless guy, or how much you use to donate to the local zoo or the local hospital. All of these things have plenty of donors. The local hospital has plenty of donors. The local zoo has plenty of donors. Torah does not have plenty of donors.

5:54:25so how connected you are to materialism is all based on how much money you invest every single month into Torah. If you're giving at least 10% of your money for the sake of the publication of Torah, you're doing okay. You're doing okay. But if it's hard for you to give a hundred bucks... It's hard for you to give fifty dollars? If it's hard for you to give even a thousand, depending on your income, it's hard for you to give for the sake of Torah. You're in bad shape. You're in very bad shape. Why? What's the purpose of your life? To use your money to buy more cars? Do you think Hashem cares if you have one more car or not? Do you think you're going to get into Gan Eden because you have another iPhone, the newest version, and... Your sneakers are the newest Nikes? You think that's going to help you in Gan Eden? So that's the thing, a lot of people have a very hard time, very hard time donating money. And until they donate money, mamash, they take out your neshama. I had a few people, Hashem Yirachem, what a tikkun, what a kaparat avonot I have with this money situation.

5:55:43Has to be part of my tikkun. I mean, I came from all the money in the world, and now it's like I deal with tzedakah all day. Now, Baruch Hashem, I don't ask anybody for anything. Never did, never will. But it's from Hashem. But still, the point is we advertise different things on the internet. You want to donate for the sake of kiruv, and so on and so forth. So sometimes people ask, oh, where do I donate? The website, this, that. They ask questions. Now, no problem, you ask questions once or twice, no problem. But some people, mamash, torture me. Where could I donate? Website, bezrathashem.org, press enter. Go over there, home page, press donate. Oh, is it tax deductible? Yes, it's a non-profit organization, 501(c)(3). Is it tax deductible in all countries? In Canada, in Israel, in Bombay, in Gehinom, is it tax deductible? No, only in America. In other countries, I have no idea. I don't know the tax laws. Oh. Can you write me a letter? For what? So I can give it to the tax department. No, I'm not writing you a letter. Thank you.

5:56:59All the money is going to be used for kiruv, or is some of the money going to be used for other things like administration? What do you mean administration? It's not going to pay my salary. I don't take a salary. Oh, do you take any of it? Why do you care if I take any? No, I don't take any of it. But why do you care so much if I take it? What, you think I'm going to eat your money? You think it's not a mitzvah to give me tzedakah? What, you think the kiruv organizations are going to run by themselves? Can it all go towards CDs? Can it all go towards the, I don't know, movie? Can it all go towards the people in India that you mentioned in a shiur eight years ago? Can it all go towards the orphans and the homeless that you mentioned one time in a shiur six and a half months ago at two hours and 43 minutes into the lecture? What does your wife do for a living? Do you have another job?

5:58:05900 questions. Jeopardy called me, says give us some of the questions. You have so many questions they ask. And then finally, after they've asked 500 questions, okay, I just made a donation. They send me the screenshot of the donation: $18. You would have thought the guy's giving me a house. He's donating his net worth, a quarter of a million, a half a million. Tax-deductible, right? A quarter million, you need a tax deduction. Half a million, you need a tax deduction. $18? What tax deduction? For a sandwich? How about I give you $18? Leave me alone. But that's what happens. People make such a big deal of such things. Why? It has nothing to do with the tzedakah. It's hard for them to give. They want to be convinced and massaged. They're not used to the fact that you don't care if they give or not. Usually, they give and they get 1,500 chazak u'baruchs.

5:59:15If it's hard for you to give, it's a very, very bad sign for your neshama. Why? In so many words, HaKadosh Baruch Hu is saying to you, "I don't even want your tzedakah." That's not a good place to be. Why? Because you're too connected to materialism. How do you overcome it? Start giving, pushing yourself. Push yourself. It's hard. You've got to do it. Last but not least, we're almost done. Last but not least, we have the ideological problems, we have the materialism connection, but last but not least, Emunat Chachamim. One of the biggest tragedies that's happening today in the Baal Teshuva world. Not just in the frum world, in the Baal Teshuva world especially, people do not have any emunat chachamim. They do not have any confidence or any emunah, any faith whatsoever, in our sages, whether they're alive or they're dead. They don't have it. They think that they're on the same level. They go to a shiur of a rabbi, and they think they're on the same level as a rabbi. They read a book by the Chazon Ish, and they think they're the Chazon Ish.

6:00:43They read a few halachot from the Rambam, and they think that they are on the same level as the Rambam. No, you remember, the Rambam said this, right? Yeah, so, Rambam, I understand the Rambam. I understand the Rambam, habibi. You understand the Rambam? Do you even know how to write Rambam? Everybody thinks they can be the Rambam. Everybody thinks they can be Rashi. Better yet, everybody thinks they can be their rabbi. They think they asked their rabbi a question, and their rabbi analyzes the question like they analyze the question. They've been learning for a year, two, three, four years, and they asked the rabbi a question. The rabbi answers them a question, and it happens to be the same answer they thought it was, but they think it's for the same reason they thought. They think that their rabbi answers like them, thinks like them. Why? Because they have no emunat chachamim. They think that their rabbi is just like them. What? So he learned a few extra years more than me. What? He's learned for ten years. I learned for five years. Okay, so he's up by five years. What's the big deal? What's the big deal? Five years. What's the big deal? That's one of the biggest tragedies. The minute you think that your rabbi is on the same level as you, that minute he's no longer your rabbi. Stop taking advice from him. Go somewhere else. Find someone that is your rabbi. Why? Without a rabbi, you're not going to make it in life. But if you think your rabbi is just like you, you're in trouble.

6:02:04in the same level as you, that minute he's no longer your rabbi. Stop taking advice from him. Go somewhere else. Find someone that is your rabbi. Why? Without a rabbi, you're not going to make it in life. But if you think your rabbi is just like you, you're in trouble in serious, serious trouble. The reason why is because you're not going to take his advice seriously. If he says no, you're still going to have doubts in your mind. Why? Because you think he thinks like you. You think he says no for the same reason you think it's a no. You don't realize that he saw it 15 other ways. He's giving you a no not for the reason that you thought only. He's giving you a no because of 15 other reasons you haven't even learned yet. What you are learning, he already forgot. But since you think you're on the same level, because you're human, he's human, you put on your pants one leg at a time, he puts on his pants one leg at a time, you think you're the same. That's the problem. When people don't have emunat chachamim, the whole Torah fails. It starts with the local, kiruv rabbi, the local kehillah rabbi, the guy that's giving you chizuk.

6:03:14Kiruv rabbi, the local kehillah rabbi, the guy that's giving you chizuk, starts with him, you start disrespecting him, guess what? It's only a matter of time, you start disrespecting Rav Ovadia, you start disrespecting Rav Elyashiv, you start disrespecting Rav Kanievsky, you start disrespecting the Gedolim. Why? Okay, so Rav Kanievsky said this. Okay, but Rav Ovadia said something else. Okay, so Rav Ovadia said this. Okay, but Rav Elyashiv said something else. But Rabbi So-and-so said something else. Okay, I know he's not as well-known as Rav Ovadia, but he's still a big rabbi, according to me. You start determining who's big, who's small. Start picking and choosing as if you know what you're talking about. And then what happens? Eventually, you start disrespecting the Shulchan Aruch. Yeah, I know the Shulchan Aruch says this, but you know, not all the Poskim agree to the Shulchan Aruch. Like you're on the same level to disagree. Who are you b'chlal, you little ant? Who are you b'chlal to disagree? They were on a level to disagree. They were of the same generations. They were Gedolei HaOlam. They learned for 80 years straight, day and night. What'd you learn for six months?

6:04:34Calculate all the hours of time that you've learned your whole life. Maybe you got six months. Maybe a year. What do you have? Just got out of your diapers. What'd you get? What do you have? But that's the problem. You think they're humans. You're humans, the same thing. He's married. You're married, same thing. He thinks like you. That's the problem. You don't have emunat chachamim. All of the Torah that you're learning will go in the garbage and You will not understand what you're learning. You will not fulfill what you're learning. You will never make it in life. Why? That's one of the foundations of our life. If we do not have sages, eventually we'll say Moshe Rabbeinu was wrong. If you don't believe in sages, eventually you're going to say Moshe Rabbeinu was also wrong. One time, one kid said in my class, "Yeah, I think Moshe Rabbeinu, it was very foolish of him to say that." What generation did we get to? Even the people in his generation didn't say such stupid things. But that's what happens. Why? We do not respect Talmidei Chachamim. We think that someone is a Talmid Chacham because he read a few books.

6:05:57We don't realize the sacrifices you have to make in order to be a Talmid Chacham. We don't even know how to tell who's a Talmid Chacham and who's not. We think a Talmid Chacham looks a certain way. He has a beard. The longer the beard, the more of a Talmid Chacham he is. That's what people think. So that's one of the things that I see a lot, that since we do not respect Talmidei Chachamim... we become our own idols. How? Since we're not going to listen to him, and eventually we're not going to listen to his rabbi either, and eventually we're not going to listen to that rabbi, so who do we listen to this whole time? Ourselves. We make ourselves an idol. Oh, the rabbi says that the sukkah has to be This way? Yeah, but you know, some other rabbi said it's not a big deal. I don't know who, but I remember I read it somewhere, some other rabbi. Oh, he says that this is not halachah. Yeah, but you know, some other rabbi says this, this. You know, he says this, but yeah, maybe this, maybe that. Before you know it, you become your own rabbi. Your own posek, your own rabbi, your own gadol hador, your own Moshe Rabbeinu, your own Korach, your own Gan Eden and Gehenom, you own everything.

6:07:19Very dangerous to be like that. You want to be something in your life? First and foremost, put your head down, just like a servant. Just like a servant who made it a life mission for himself to give commentary. Every single time it mentions the word "it" in the Torah, what do we learn from it? Why? Because "it" is an extra word. It's unnecessary. This whole word, if we can use something else for it. Every time the Torah uses the word "it," it's to teach us something. Which means honor your mother and your father. It could say honor your parents. Honor your mother and father. There's an extra "and" here. So from here, we learn the extra word means honor your father, your mother, and also your older brother. "And" stands for an older brother also, somebody that's older than you. But then he arrives at the mitzvah of

6:08:39You must fear Hashem. You have to fear Hashem, but it has the word et. Who else can you fear other than Hashem? Rabbi Akiva, Kodesh Kodashim, comes to him and says, ah, from here, from this et, what do we learn? You must fear Hashem and the Talmidei Chachamim. How much should I fear the Talmidei Chachamim? Just like I fear Hashem. That's why you see all of the gedolim, all of the gedolim, when they talk about their rabbis, their eyes go down. When their rabbis are around, their eyes go nowhere. They become zero. They become nothing. Why? Because they know they're nothing. That's why I told you the first principle of learning Torah: realize you're nothing. As long as you think you're something, you're nothing. If you think you're nothing, maybe you'll become something. But if you think you're something special, you think that you're on the same level as your rabbi, you think you're on the same level as someone who's been learning Torah for much longer than you, because you have a good memory or whatever other excuse you have, you're never going to reach anything good in your life. Your Torah is not going to be pure, and your ma'asim will also be biased. And this is the third biggest, most critical thing that I see, and I see a lot of times, people disrespect others. They say, oh yeah,

6:10:09This guy, David, told me this. I said, who's this guy, David? He goes, oh, it's my rabbi. I said, you called your rabbi David? You call your rabbi by his first name? Oh, this guy, David, said this. I said, who's this guy? Oh, my dad. Oh, you call your dad by his name? You call your dad or your rabbi by his first name? It's assur. It's forbidden. Well, no, we're close. We're close. Okay, close. He'll be in Gan Eden, then you're not going to be. we're close. You have no respect. It's not the respect for him; it's the respect for the Torah that's in him. When a talmid chacham walks into the room, you have to stand up. This is something that's beyond people's understanding. They think it's ga'ava (pride). They think, "Oh, well, what's going on? If you know a lot of Torah, you deserve special treatment?" Why? You're the purpose of why the world keeps going.

6:11:10but if a person disrespects, you have a very, very serious problem. It creates a lot of problems in your life. So this, hopefully, is going to give us a little bit of a wake-up call, a little bit of an understanding of our purpose in the world, how much we have to do, but more importantly, that we all can do it. Wherever you are in your life right now, Know that, number one, if you're listening to this, there's a reason why Hashem is allowing you to listen to it. Because you need to learn something from it. If you're speaking it, there's a reason why you're speaking it, because there's something for you to learn from there also. But also, you can do it. If I can go from a life that's completely upside down, almost empty of God... Get to a point where God is the only thing I care about in my day and His nation. That means that every single person can do it; I'm not special. There's nothing unique about me. I don't have a special brain or a special anything. Simply, I realized HaKadosh Baruch Hu runs the world. I said, "Okay, if He's the one who runs the world, I'm gonna follow Him." Do I have difficulty? Plenty. I

6:12:33Do I have tests? Plenty. Is it easy? No. Do I do everything that I say? I wish, I hope so, I try. Do I always succeed? Absolutely not. Have I failed? Yes. Will you fail? Yes. But the key is to continue going. The key is to continue pushing, to continue doing teshuva, to continue realizing that you can do it, you can get better. This is an opportunity that HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave us, a get-out-of-jail-free card. He gave us Yom Kippur, He gave us Rosh Hashanah, but most importantly, He gave us Hoshana Rabbah as a last opportunity. Right now, each one of us, take a moment before you get up, think about it. If you haven't thought about it already, think about it. What am I going to do Now, not this year, not next week, right now. What am I gonna do now as far as to make a decision? To show HaKadosh Baruch Hu that I'm serious about doing teshuva. To show HaKadosh Baruch Hu that I'm serious about changing myself. You don't have to say it out loud. You don't have to say it to me. You don't have to say it to anybody. Say it to yourself and HaKadosh Baruch Hu will know. Make some type of commitment that this is something you're gonna take on. If you're not reading Kriyat Shema, it doesn't have to be something big.

6:13:56Anything, anything is different. You're not keeping Shabbat? Okay, keep Shabbat. Obviously, you have to join Am Yisrael first. But you're already keeping Shabbat. You're already keeping the basics. Okay, there are obviously some things you're not keeping. You don't say Kriyat Shema before you go to sleep? Okay, so Kriyat Shema. You don't learn Torah every day on a regular basis? It's random? Okay, so from now on, make your time from now on, I'm learning Torah every single day at this time to that time. You don't come to the shiur on a regular basis? Okay, so I'm going to come to shiur every week at least once. At least once a week, I'm going to come to shiur. I can't commit to three because it's a lot. Okay, once a week, I'm coming. I'm going to stay the whole two, three hours. Not be like one of these people that's just trying to get the $15, running away after an hour like they're doing me a favor. Something, something, take on something, take on something. I pray every day barely on time. Okay, pray on time. I disrespected the Torah, I disrespected the chachamim. Okay, I'm going to do something better this year. Rabbi says something, I'm going to become like an eved. What's an eved? I have no opinion. Rabbi says, I do. Hashem says, I do. No opinions. No disagreements. Why? That's the way to be.

6:15:19If it's in the Torah, there's a reason for it. Many, many bigger chachamim have delved into it and tried to see if there's a way out. Once it became a law, guess what? They said there's no way out. You have to do it. You have to fulfill this mitzvah. There's no other way. That's it. If there was a way out of the mitzvah of wasting seed, trust me, I'd be the first one to do a lecture about it. Why? Because I know every single person is failing at it miserably, either on purpose or not on purpose. Who wouldn't want to absolve an entire generation of the biggest sin? The reality is, there's no heter. There's no leniency at all. You waste seed, you have no share in the world to come. It's just a reality. It's not like my opinion. I mean, we see it on purpose, not the stuff that happens when you're sleeping. When you're sleeping, that will stop eventually too. When you do it on purpose, you're finished. There's nothing that will help you. No rabbi, no mekubal, no one can help you. If I could find a leniency, I'd be the first one to do a whole shiur just about the leniency. But there isn't.

6:16:41There isn't the same thing with everything else. We mentioned an issue. The key is to take time to think about it. We've been learning already now for the last six, seven, or eight hours, or however long it's been. Even if it's been eight hours or so, at least take on something. From now on, I want to do something. From now on, I'm going to say thank you to my Ima and Abba. Why? Because they're my Ima and Abba. That's the reason. Yeah, but they didn't do anything. Yeah. If you only knew. You try to be a parent. You try to be a parent. The only reason why Hashem made kids cute is so the parents don't kill them. You know how annoying you are when you're a baby? But you're cute so the parents don't kill you. You have to say thank you to your parents just for that. They can't sleep, they can't eat, they can't do anything. I look at my kids and say, you're so adorable. You're so lucky. I want to eat your face. I can't eat the food because of the kids, but they're so cute. Yishtabach Shemo wrecks my whole house. But then he says, I love Abba. I said, Yishtabach Shemo, wreck another house. He draws on the walls, little Ovadya. I say, oh, what happens to my house? He says, Abba is the best. I say, oh yeah, of course I'm the best. Yeah, go draw on the house, draw on my face, draw on everything you want.

6:18:09He breaks something. I said, okay, fine too. They'll wreck the house, they'll burn it, but then they say something curious. Okay, Baruch Hashem, no, what can you do? But guess what? You grow up, you have to say thank you to your ima and abba a million and a half times. A million and a half times you have to say thank you to them. You have to call them. You have to be in touch with them. Chachamim would actually use themselves, one of the chachamim, I'm talking about Tanakh, he revived the dead. He would have his mom climb on him, climb on him so she could go to her bed. To have the zechut of what? Honoring his mom. He could have had a chair or a ladder or something for his mother. No, he says, no, Ima, climb on me to climb to your bed. Why? I want to have the zechut of honoring my Ima. She didn't ask him to step on him. She said, you're Nasi HaTorah, you're the Gadol HaDor. you're the biggest rabbi in the world. He goes, I'm nothing. I'm your son. Step on me, go and climb to the bed. So take on learning the mitzvah of honoring your parents. The way you treat your parents is the way your kids are going to treat you. Take that on. Take something on. Something. But again, this all assumes that if your mitzvah has to do with one person to another,

6:19:38It always assumes that the other person is righteous. Like Lashon Hara. A lot of people are very scared of Lashon Hara. You're right, be scared of Lashon Hara. But if you said Lashon Hara about a Mechallel Shabbat, it's not a problem. The Chafetz Chaim writes in Hilchot Lashon Hara, Lashon Hara is only relevant to Amitecha, to your nation. Someone who is Mechallel Shabbat is not part of your nation. If you said Lashon Hara about a Mechallel Shabbat, it's not a sin at all. It's not a sin; there's no sin. Should you say Lashon Hara about them? No. You shouldn't get yourself used to saying Lashon Hara anyway. But the point is that all of the mitzvot, when they are relevant to another person, assume that the other person is part of your nation. If your parents are normal, decent human beings, you have to honor them like you're honoring a king. But if your parents are Zionist anti-Torah... And they tell you to go drive on Shabbat to go to Walmart and buy them some cookies. Guess what? You're not allowed to listen to your parents. Why? Because HaKadosh Baruch Hu is more important than your parents. If your kids tell you, Abba, Ima, I love you, but you have to take me to the beach on Shabbat. Guess what? That kid could go in the garbage. Why? Because HaKadosh Baruch Hu is more important than your kid. It's always Hashem. Hashem is always first, more than everybody else.

6:21:05But if everybody else you have in your life—your parents, your kids, your spouse, your whoever—is complying with Hashem, then you have an obligation to them also. You have an obligation to them also. So, there's a lot of things that we could all take on. I recommend each person take one thing. I could tell you a hundred. I gave you at least half a dozen choices just now. Take one thing, even if it's not part of the list. I just gave you just one. Why one? Because if you take five, you are most likely not to do anything. One, one you can do, or I can do something. So, b'ezrat Hashem, we take this seriously. B'ezrat Hashem, we take HaKadosh Baruch Hu seriously. Use this year to get closer and closer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. B'ezrat Hashem, get Am Yisrael to join us in to get closer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, to sanctify HaKadosh Baruch Hu's name, b'ezrat Hashem, and show everyone that if we can get better, they can get better; if they can get better, everyone can get better. B'ezrat Hashem, Mashiach, when he comes, will have somebody to save, b'ezrat Hashem. Baruch Adonai le'olam, amen ve'amen.

6:22:33...to get closer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, to sanctify HaKadosh Baruch Hu's name, b'ezrat Hashem, and show everyone that if we can get better, they can get better; if they can get better, everyone can get better. B'ezrat Hashem, Mashiach, when he comes, will have somebody to save, b'ezrat Hashem. Baruch Adonai le'olam, amen ve'amen.