4th Annual HoShana Rabah ALL NIGHT TORAH (AN INSPIRATIONAL NIGHT TO REMEMBER)

0:17Welcome to the Reuven Household Sukkah, Baruchim Haba'im, Ketivah Vechatimah Tovah. Fancy art, this is modern, uh, modern something art. We got some signs, but don't worry, it gets fancier. Ah, you didn't expect that with that wood, did you? So, we got some air conditioning units, we got some electric... Highlights. Beautiful. Kedusha all over the walls. Who wouldn't want to live here? So we have some other pet. We got some mitzvot. We got some tzaddikim. We got Yerushalayim and kedusha all over the place. We got some flowers, some fruits. Some fancy lights.

1:44Some special art. Soni is here. He comes with a sukkah. Same price. Some more Kever Rachel. We're at the Kotel now. We cut Kohanim at the Kotel. This is what Tzadikim Ashkenaz would say. This is what they taught our previous generation. Yirat Shamayim is the only thing that HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants. Not all this mumbo jumbo that people sell you these days. And then we have

2:45one of the Gedolei HaDorot, Rav Ovadia, looking at us, says, "I agree with the Tzadikim Ashkenaz." He's looking at him. I say, "Rav Ovadia, what do you think?" He says, "Baruch Hashem, of course. We also believe that. Sephardim also believe that. No difference. No machloket there." And we are at the Kotel, praying to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, saying "Thank you, HaKadosh Baruch Hu, for the shefa, beracha, hatzlacha, yishtabach Shemo." Then we have the Ushpizin, Ushpizin are coming to visit us: Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, Moshe, Aharon, David, Yosef. They're coming. They're coming. We have to make something nice for them to come. Give them some lights. Also, give them some more reasons to come. Tell them, listen, we're not playing around here. We're getting 60 million minutes of Torah every single year. And running even higher now. 300,000 CDs just in the last year. 200,000 halacha questions. A lot of stuff. We've got a lot of stuff over here, so it's a good reason. And then we have some more tzaddikim. Some more tzaddikim. Some more tzaddikim are telling us, what does Hashem say? Ein lo la'Kadosh Baruch Hu be'olamo, ela arba amot shel halacha bilvad.

4:07Kadosh Baruch Hu doesn't ask for much. He just has four amot. Why this four amot has halachic significance. It's the minimum of the minimum. A person shouldn't look to have a million-dollar house but a three-dollar sukkah. Have a million-dollar sukkah too. Have a beautiful sukkah also. That's what you have to have. A nice sukkah. Because Kadosh Baruch Hu says what? Only your house is nice? What about the sukkah? What about my mitzvot? So, we have, this is symbolic of the Leviathan. Leviathan, it's going to come after Mashiach. All the tzaddikim are going to eat from the Leviathan, Yishtabach Shemo, who will allow us to enjoy the Leviathan. That's his pet, says in Sefer HaYov. Some more mitzvot for the kids, for the adults, the big kids, the small kids. Some more ushpizin. our tzaddikim, Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, David, Shlomo, Yosef, Moshe, and Aharon. Do you love Rachel? Some special art on the walls, Art Deco, that we have. We have, come on, look at this Sefer Torah. Who wouldn't want the Sefer Torah up here? Ha, ha, ha.

5:37And we're trying again with this air conditioner situation that we have. In case it doesn't work out, at least we can learn some halacha. With the kids, with the adults, how to build the sukkah the kosher way, not the non-kosher way. There are a lot of non-kosher ways to do it. If you want to read, there's a ladder over here. This is going to be out at some point. Another air conditioner. Those of you who blessed us, yeshefa ve'hatzlacha. And we have to enjoy His mitzvot. We have to enjoy it. So this is, Baruch Hashem, our best sukkah yet. We'll have, Baruch Hashem, a few tables, a few guests, lots of Kedusha, Divrei Torah, lots of happiness. Baruch Hashem. And we're going to sleep here, Baruch Hashem, for once. We'll have our beds here. Comfortable. I want to make Sukkot all year round. All year round. The Chachamim say whoever spends effort to light up a Sukkah, HaKadosh Baruch Hu will light up his year. So Baruch Hashem, we have the merit to light up a Sukkah this year. Light up a Sukkah. Thank you to Sonny. Baruch Hashem, thank you to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. He allows us to do it.

7:09B'Shem Hashem na'aseh v'natzliach, shiur Torah, baruchim habaim to our Sukkah. This is b'ezrat Hashem a Mo'adim L'Simcha, our fourth annual, Hoshana Rabbah, all-nighter. So hopefully you guys are rested up and going to stay awake. Hopefully I stay awake. And if you don't stay awake, then I'll scare you back into an awake state. B'ezrat Hashem, you know, the shiur tonight will be dedicated for my dear Rabbanit, for a complete healing, good luck, long life, complete, full of Torah, mitzvot, ma'asim tovim, understanding the suffering. with the name of Hashem bless her with Bekol Mikol Kol, and also to my dear Rav, Rav Efraim Ben Shulamit, and Ezra Ben Yitzchara Bat Anat, also to Shaul Ben Farzaneh, Yitro Ben Avraham, Dabi Ben Esria, Doris Badjora, Oshri Ben Doris, Gabi Ben Doris, Elad Ben Doris, and also for a Refuah Shlema for

8:33Jonas ben Sherry Haley, and also to Chachavel Levi ben Malka. and also a special hatzlacha rabah for Marsha bat Julie and also the little baby Ayla bat Marsha. May Hashem save her from her kidnapper and bring her back home. We're still waiting for the little year-and-a-half-old baby to come back home. So, b'ezrat Hashem, I have a million and a half things to talk about, nothing prepared really. I have a couple of things that I printed out, perhaps maybe we can mention them. But what we'll do to try to make it more, you know, as we usually do, you know, not just a chill for you to just listen all night.

9:46It's a little, it's a stretch. So, you know, we'll talk a little bit, and then hopefully you guys have some questions. And we'll talk a little bit more, and then you'll have some more questions. The more questions you ask, the better the shiur is going to be. You know, in essence, try to make the shiur full of questions. But as I know you guys, Baruch Hashem, all too well, usually I have to spark you up a little bit to get you guys ready for the questions. Now, in regards to the temperature in the sukkah, this is the best I can do. There are four air conditioners in here. There's nothing else I can do. It's a little hot, but you can take off your jackets. Hashem will go all night for the Kedusha. The question is, why do we even do this? Why, why, why, why, why do this? The pshat is for the sake of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, for the sake of HaKadosh Baruch Hu's name.

10:55Everything you're supposed to do, everything you do is supposed to be for the sake of HaKadosh Baruch Hu. What is it? HaKadosh Baruch Hu needs you? No, He doesn't need you. He doesn't need me, He doesn't need you. But when you love somebody, you want to dedicate something special for him and you want to do something that's beyond the norm. Now, I don't know if anybody else has done it. Apparently, to my knowledge, no one else has. But to have a seven, eight, nine-hour shiur straight is not a normal thing and requires a very special amount of siyata dishmaya for us to survive, to talk for that long, to be awake that long, and so on. And for any of you guys that are still here in the morning, we'll be praying in the morning. And I was able to do the Hoshanot here in the Sukkah. And I was able to sanctify HaKadosh Baruch Hu's name even more. the question is, why do we want to do a big kiddush Hashem? Why not just do a half-hour shiur like everybody else? You know, you have organizations; they send you the flyers, and you see they have 20, 30, 40, 50 rabbis. Each one takes a half-hour slot, khalas, finished, go home. Although there's nothing wrong with that—it's perfectly fine.

12:09Baruch Hashem, in the last four years that we've been doing this all-night shiur, we had a special siyata dishmaya to do it, and it seems like it's a big kiddush Hashem. Because, number one, to have a shiur all night is a big thing. Number two, to have such a long shiur is a big thing. Number three, for it to have so many viewers actually interested to listen to every single minute of it is a very good thing, because you show how beautiful the Torah is. How beautiful the Torah is, that it literally can never end. And really, the only limitation is the speaker. The speaker is limited; the Torah is not limited. If someone goes on stage, gives a TED Talk or something like that, or has his own private event, and gets paid $100,000, $200,000, $500,000, or even a million dollars in some cases, usually they give him a spot of 15 minutes, half an hour, or an hour max, even if they're paying him. how come we do so much? Because we showed that the Torah has no end, and whatever we say tonight or anything we've ever said before—all few thousand shiurim that we've done—is still not even scratching the surface of what the Torah has to offer. So, when a person sees that there's so much beauty and wisdom in the Torah, he or she realizes, "Yeah, this is what I'm missing. I need more of this." And b'ezrat Hashem, this will encourage them to start learning every day.

13:37because that's the fuel. So for the sake of sanctifying HaKadosh Baruch Hu's name, you got to do something above the norm because we're in a generation that does not even know the basics of Torah. And as Rav Yeshayahu Pinto recently said, we're not only in a generation where there's a lot of haters of Torah, like the Gemara says, there's a chutzpah yisgei, rude people, people that hate Chochmah, they don't like Talmidei Chachamim, they hate the Emet, and so on and so forth, but Rav Pinto, shlita, said this is a generation where for the first time ever, you don't have to worry about the generation being a Tinok Shenishba. Because the rabbi is a tinok shenishba, he says. The rabbi is a tinok shenishba. Which is unbelievable. Now, if I said that, it's not a big deal. I say it practically every week. But although none of those beautiful words that he used, I wish I would have thought of that idea.

14:42but when he says it, you know he doesn't say things like that very often. So, when he says something like that after doing, you know, kiruv and helping a lot of people for 25 years already, he comes out and he says we're in a generation where the average rabbi doesn't know the basics of halakha, the basics of midrash, the basics of chumash, the basics of gemara, the basics of anything related to hashkafa. He says they know nothing; they don't know any basics. And yet, they're teaching people and calling themselves "Rabbi" because maybe they passed the test, maybe they didn't. But every Joe Schmo can call themselves "Rabbi." He says it's a generation of tinok shenishba. How do you know? You look at the students. The average Jew does not even know what Hoshanah Rabbah is. The average Jew does not even know why we have Sukkot. What did we just do for Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah? The average Jew doesn't know. Yeah, we say, "Yeah, but the Jew, he doesn't go to..." No, no, no, even if he goes to the knesset, he goes to the knesset, he doesn't know. And the reality is that we have a lack in the foundation, and we're all lacking. So sometimes...

15:59It looks like the Torah is lacking because people say, "Listen, you know, nobody, you know, few people are religious in comparison to the whole. So surely the Torah is boring, and maybe it's not relevant to today anymore. That's why nobody is reading it." Wrong. First of all, it's the best seller. No book has ever sold more. Second of all, there are quite a few people who are learning Torah daily and making sacrifices to learn Torah. And third of all, Torah is not lacking; your knowledge is lacking. you know, if your rabbi did not wake you up to love the Torah, you may want to think about getting a new rabbi. Why? Because that's his job, that's his job. Now, one of the sugyot, the complicated issues that I wanted to discuss tonight, is something I've mentioned in the past But I want to delve into it slightly more because of a new recent chidush, she'tabach Shemo, that came to me during the chag, and to try to give us an idea of what the chachamim mean when they say, and how can we apply it to today, when they say that someone who shows mercy to the wicked

17:20...will ultimately be vicious to the righteous. Because you would think if someone is merciful, even to someone who is a bad guy or a bad girl, surely they should be merciful and good to good people, to good nature. No, you see, because that's what people teach today. They say, no, you should love everyone. Hashem loves everyone, even though it's not true. But, you know, pretend. now in our Torah, we are about to finish or complete the Five Books of Moses, and we're going to start all over again. In a few months, we'll come back to this parasha in Sefer Shemot, where we're introduced to our leader of all time, the Navi HaNevi'im

18:21Ish HaElohim, Moshe Rabbeinu, we have no concept, no concept or inclination of understanding his gedulah, his kedushah. We have no concept, no understanding of how extraordinary he is and was, so much so that the Chachamim explain that nobody, nobody, even the Torah says several times, HaKadosh Baruch Hu himself testifies, he's the man of God, he's the only one that ever spoke to Me face to face, meaning he's the only one that spoke to HaKadosh Baruch Hu freely. Everybody else had to wait for their prophecy to come to them, either during their sleep, in a dream, or an epilepsy, or some type of meditation, whereas Moshe Rabbeinu could be walking around the street talking to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, like you and I are talking right now. This is also why HaKadosh Baruch Hu asked Moshe Rabbeinu to leave his wife, Tzipora. He's the only person in history that HaKadosh Baruch Hu told to leave his wife. Because bringing kids into the world, marriage, everything is Kedusha, it's mitzvot. HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, listen, I can't wait for you to go to dip in a mikveh every time you're with your wife before I talk to you. I gotta talk to you anytime I want.

19:45or Chavruta. HaKadosh Baruch Hu and Moshe Rabbeinu are chavruta. Can't wait. I want to talk to you right now. Can't wait for you. Go, mikveh. Right away. So Moshe Rabbeinu was asked by HaKadosh Baruch Hu to leave his wife. Moshe Rabbeinu is the Navi HaNevi'im, the prophet of all prophets. Anyone that tells you that their rabbi, their idol, their anything, is either Moshe Rabbeinu, automatically you delete everything that they've said before and after. Why? It's kefirah b'Torah. And now you're going to ask, wait a minute, hold on a second. If you're going to say that there's nobody like Moshe Rabbeinu, he's the prophet of all prophets... But then how could Miriam, Miriam HaNeviyah, his sister, ask the question plainly? Well, who does Moshe think he is, leaving his wife? She had a conversation with Aaron. What is Miriam HaNeviyah, HaKadoshah, a kofeiret, chas v'shalom? So what's the answer? Chazal explained simply. Until that point, it wasn't pasach b'halacha. It wasn't pasach b'halacha that Moshe Rabbeinu is the prophet of all prophets.

21:01What was the psak halacha? When was the psak halacha? Right after that conversation. Right after she said what she said, HaKadosh Baruch Hu came to Miriam and told her, oh, Moshe is not like you. You're a prophet, he's a prophet, but he's not a prophet like you. He is the prophet of all prophets. No one's ever going to be like Moshe Rabbeinu. He's the only one that speaks to Me face to face. At that moment, that's when it became halacha. So anyone that said it from that moment on is a kofer. But until that moment, you could say whatever you wanted. Not Kefirah. Question. She still got punished for it because it was considered Lashon Hara, even though she meant well. The point being is, Moshe Rabbeinu is a big deal. Such a big deal, the Chachamim explained to us that even Mashiach, Mashiach Tzidkeinu, which we wait for, is going to be almost like Moshe Rabbeinu. His prophecy is almost going to be like Moshe Rabbeinu. Almost. Not quite. Even Mashiach. Mashiach, Mashiach, waiting for him. This is since the creation of the world. Almost 6,000 years, waiting for this one tzaddik to come. And he's almost going to be like Moshe Rabbeinu. Almost. But he's going to be greater in chochmah than Shlomo HaMelech.

22:16Shlomo HaMelech, Chacham Mikol Adam, chachamim explained something that's impossible to understand. They said that Shlomo HaMelech was gifted a chochmah that's one level below God. What does that mean? I have no idea. What does that mean, one level below God? I don't know what that means. So now, how do you relate this to your life? If somebody comes to you and says, "I'm Mashiach. My rabbi is Mashiach." He died, he's alive, he died again, whatever, all these mumbo-jumbo heroes. He's alive, he's dead, he's Pikachu, anything. So listen, hold on a second. There are qualifications to be Mashiach. Is he a prophet? Almost like Moshe Rabbeinu. Can he give me a prophecy? Yeah, he said that some woman is going to be healthy and she became healthy. That's not prophecy, habibi. That's not prophecy. Oh, but he said that there's going to be a war. That's not prophecy. It's not prophecy. Okay, forget it. Let's go to something easier. Something easier. Easier than prophecy. Because you don't understand what prophecy is. We'll go to something else. Chochmah has to be more than Shlomo HaMelech. Is he smarter than Shlomo HaMelech? Oh yeah, he's a genius. He knows the whole Shas by heart. That's not Chochmah more than Shlomo HaMelech. I'm sorry. It's not. You know how much more than Shlomo HaMelech is?

23:33Shlomo HaMelech, after HaKadosh Baruch Hu put a disc in his head, became the smartest man of all time. All of a sudden, he goes outside, and as Rabbi Ovadia said, I saw him say, he said, he is the Tweeting of the bird. Tweeting, tweeting. But what's the difference between us and him? We're here. Why is he here? He has a conversation between a bird and his wife. Bird and his wife. They're having a conversation. No, you go. No, you go over there. Okay, I'll come back. What, did you do this? Do that? He understands what the tweets are. He understands the language of the animals and the birds. You're a Rabbi. You're Mashiach Sheker. He understands the language of the birds. He understands the language of the dogs. He understands the language of anything. He understands people. He understands all languages of all mankind, of all creatures, of all anything. He could bring the demons and show them to you like this. Let me show you, let me explain to you someone who wasn't even qualified to be like Shlomo HaMelech, what he was capable of doing. Maybe they'll understand.

24:44the Arizal was someone hard to understand, but maybe we'll understand a little bit. He had Ruach HaKodesh and Chochmah beyond our understanding. His dedication to Torah was insurmountable, and really the only reason why we understand much of the mystical teachings of the Torah is because he enlightened us with his clarity of what the Zohar is. One time, one of the talmidim came to him and said, "Rabbi, I don't understand! I'm studying, studying, studying, and I don't understand anything. How come?" says, if you're learning Torah, but you do it quietly. You know, like you're saying a secret. Like no one hears you, including yourself. Quietly. Gemara says, you're going to forget your Torah. You're going to forget your Torah. You know how many times I made that mistake? How sorry I am. I was tired. I was tired. I was tired to speak up. So I forgot.

26:01says, if you're learning Torah but you do it quietly, you know, like you're saying a secret, like no one hears you, including yourself, quietly. Gemara says, you're going to forget your Torah. You're going to forget your Torah. You know how many times I made that mistake? How sorry I am. I was tired. I was tired. I was too tired to speak up. So I forgot. you want to study. I'm just reading. Why? I'm just going to read, read, read to myself, right? Why do I have to just hold out? Right? It says you study to yourself, you're going to forget. Forget it. What's the point of studying that way? What's the point of studying? It says you forget. What do you mean I forget? It's not my fault I forgot. It's your fault. if it's not your fault because you did it out, you tried your best to remember your Torah, no problem, it's not your fault. But if it is your fault, how could you forget? Where was your mind? How could you forget? Were you crazy? They came to Rav Elchanan Wasserman. They told him, "How do you remember everything? How do you remember everything you learned? What are you talking about?"

27:13He goes, "You remember everything; you have the best memory in the world." He says, "I don't have a good memory." He goes, "So how do you remember everything?" He says, "I remember because I'm too scared of what the chachamim say, of what's going to happen to me if I forget. That's why I remember. It's not because I have a memory. I don't have a good memory. I have a terrible memory," he says. "But I'm scared to death of forgetting the Torah. That's why I remember." Somebody put a gun to your head and said, "Do you remember?" All of a sudden, you remember. All of a sudden, you remember. You remember your birth. You remember maybe your death. You remember everything that happened in between. You remember that your body, different organs are working now, and you forgot about them. You remember a lot of things. Well, once a man says, "This is much worse. I'm scared to forget. I'm scared to forget." So this student comes to the Arizal and he says, "I'm studying, studying, studying, but I forgot. I don't understand." Now, the Arizal, again I'm going to remind you, what I'm about to tell you is not a normal thing. You can try this at home, it's not going to work though. But the Arizal was not anywhere near the level of Shlomo HaMelech. Now...

28:28But even so, I'm not. Shlomo HaMelech, Shlomo HaMelech, Chacham Mikol Adam. Shlomo HaMelech was something out of this world. Even though the Gemara says Chacham Mikol Adam, but not Moshe Rabbeinu. The Gemara says not Moshe Rabbeinu. Moshe Rabbeinu is not really Adam. Not really Adam. Not really Adam. He's half angel, half man. He's not really Adam. You can't count him as Adam. Somebody talks to HaKadosh Baruch Hu whenever he wants, not Adam. Aleinu Lishaber will be Adam. And... So anyway, the Arizal is puzzled. He says, why are you asking such a question? You know why. It's because you were a goy. It's because it's haredi. What goy? What are you talking about? I was never a goy. No, I'm learning. The Arizal says you were a goy. No. This is kvod harav. I keep Shabbat. I don't need kollel. I'm also with a goya. He says, here, give me your hand. He gives him his hand. This is his hand. Goes like this. Puts the goya on the table. The image of the goya on the table. He goes, here, this is her. The guy starts crying hysterically.

29:52Why? Because the Gemara says, when a man, when a Jew, is with a Goya, she's glued to him like a dog. What does it mean, glued to him like a dog? There are several meanings. Number one, he has to be reincarnated like a dog. Another thing, she's over there in Beit Din of Shamayim, showing him, "Yeah, he was with me, he was with me." You know, the aveirot come with you to the Beit Din of Shamayim. Number three, she's glued to his neshamah, to his klipah. But you can't see anything. I can't see anything. We can barely see each other. The Arizal sees his klipah. He says, what do you mean? Takes it out of his hand. There you go. Shows it to him right there. There you go. After the guy stops crying, he takes the goya, puts it back in his hand. He goes, no, why did you put it back? He says, I can't take it out of you. Only you can. I can just show it to you. I can show you what you have on your klipah. Here you go. Here's the goya. Who are you lying to? Who are you lying to? I'm going to try this after the shiur. Maybe eight hours will give me some merits. And the Arizal, Rabotai Yekarim, was not as smart as Shlomo HaMelech. Shlomo HaMelech was able to talk to any creature. He was able to bring creatures from different parts of the world that other normal people never saw.

31:15He had a special eagle that was able to show him all types of parts of the world, including the spiritual world. Mashiach will be greater in wisdom than him. You ask your rabbi, your little fake Mashiach over there. No, your rabbi has an eagle. Your rabbi can talk to birds and cats and demons. Your rabbi knows all the secrets of the Tum'at Ha'ara. What does your rabbi know? Nothing. He doesn't know. What does he know? He knows what he tells you because he learned it 15 minutes ago. What does he know? What does he know? Mashiach. You know what Mashiach is going to be? The ridiculousness of people. It's very important to know. As soon as somebody thinks, even squeaks the words that somebody is Mashiach, automatically you have to pretty much distance yourself from this person because they're not a stable person. If anything, they need to be institutionalized. Why? It's a level of ga'ava, it's a level of pride that's not normal. Because that's, in essence, what it is.

32:27So, for all of these poor people that think that their rabbi, whether alive or dead, is Mashiach, they simply don't know what it means. Now, Moshe Rabbeinu is greater than the Mashiach. Greater than the Mashiach. You ask some of these people, "Who do you think is better, your rabbi or Moshe Rabbeinu?" They'll tell you, "No, my rabbi." These are shotim. These are sick people, drunk. Now, why do we say all this? let's now go to Moshe Rabbeinu. We're introduced to Moshe Rabbeinu. When are we introduced to Moshe Rabbeinu? Parashat Shemot, right? The same Arizal says that Moshe Rabbeinu was the Gilgul of Hevel. Hevel, Cain killed Hevel, and Hevel had to be reincarnated, come back later on; he was a perfect neshama, never made a sin. Eventually, he came back as Moshe Rabbeinu, and Cain had to come back as a reincarnation to fix his mistake. He came back as two different people: one, he was Yitro, and the other one, he was the Egyptian that Moshe Rabbeinu killed. Why those specific people?

33:45Tahridzad explains, he had to be the Egyptian, mida k'neged mida, measure for measure. He killed Hevel, so he had to be killed himself. Why did he have to be Yitro then? Yitro, one of the biggest tzaddikim in history. Including this one too, but another one, the one in the Torah. Why? Why? Because Kayin, why did he kill Hevel? He killed Hevel over a girl. He wasn't happy that Hevel was born with two twin sisters and he was able to marry both of them. Because at the time, for the sake of populating the world, you were allowed to be with family, the sisters. So Hevel was born with two twin sisters. Both were his wives. And Kayin was born with a twin sister. He was married to her. And he wasn't happy that he only had one wife. He wanted two. So he wasn't happy. He wanted two. So he ended up killing him and getting all of them. So because you killed him over a girl, you have to come back and reincarnate and give him a girl. So Yitro, what did Yitro do? Yitro, how do we mean Yitro? Yitro gave his daughter Tziporah to Moshe Rabbeinu. So that's how you fix this neshama. What a lot of people don't know is that Moshe Rabbeinu didn't go straight from Hevel.

35:13All the way to Moshe. There was a detour in the middle. A stop. What was the stop? Noach. Noach was the Gilgul of Moshe Rabbeinu. Moshe Rabbeinu is the Gilgul of Noach. How do we know? I heard this originally five years ago from a Talmid Chacham, Rabbi Mansour, in a shiur of his. He's baki in a lot of midrashim, and I love this. He does so much; I remembered it. He says that from the pasuk where HaKadosh Baruch Hu is talking to Moshe Rabbeinu in Sefer Shemot in chapter 4, verse number 10. Moshe Rabbeinu replies to Hashem. Please, my Lord, I am not a man of words, not since yesterday, nor since the day before yesterday, nor since You first spoke to Your servant. For I am heavy of mouth and heavy of speech. HaKadosh Baruch Hu is speaking to Moshe Rabbeinu through the burning bush that's not being consumed.

36:31Tell him, I'm God. Okay. You're going to free Am Yisrael. That's okay. He doesn't want to do it. Why doesn't he want to do it? He says, I don't have the merits. Who am I? All dialogue. Chachamim say, Moshe Rabbeinu argued with HaKadosh Baruch Hu for a week. I don't know how he could do it for a week, but Moshe Rabbeinu... And Moshe Rabbeinu says, one of the reasons why he doesn't want to go free Am Yisrael, he doesn't think he's the person, he says, because I'm not a man of words. Not since yesterday, nor since the day before yesterday, nor since the day before you spoke to your servant. Obviously, surely if you weren't a man of words yesterday, you probably weren't a man of words the day before yesterday. I mean, what's this extra emphasis that Moshe Rabbeinu is telling us? Nor during the first time you ever spoke to your servant. What do we see here? Chachamim give us a beauty here. They give us a diamond. This is all three incarnations. The first time you spoke to me when I was evil.

37:49Yesterday, the day before yesterday, I was Noach. I was Noach. And now, I wasn't a man of words, Moshe Rabbeinu. But what does it mean, not a man of words? What, everybody had a speech impediment? We didn't even have any conversation with Hevel to know he had a speech impediment. What, Noach had a speech impediment? No, he didn't have a speech impediment. So, what does he mean, "I wasn't a man of words"? In order to get Am Yisrael to leave Egypt, I have to talk to them. I have to rebuke them. I have to tell them the truth. You already know me. I failed at this in my previous incarnation. When I was Noach, you told me you're going to destroy the world, so I should get myself a little boat, right? Instead of me going out to the market and telling everybody, hey, hey, hey, hey. HaKadosh Baruch Hu is going to destroy all of you if you don't do teshuva. What did I do? I focused on the boat for 100 years. I went, anybody came to me, I told them, listen, you should do teshuva. Oh, you didn't do it? Okay, selamat. What can I do for you? That's why the flood is called Noach's flood. Why? It's his fault. What do you mean it's his fault? What did he do? He destroyed. You knew the truth. You didn't go talk to people.

39:13It's considered on you. So Moshe Rabbeinu says, I didn't speak much last time. I failed at this. That's why your tikkun, HaKadosh Baruch Hu tells him, that's why your tikkun is to do it now. To do it in this gilgul, you have to do it. So now, Rabotai HaYekarim, A person fast-forwards to today, fast-forwards over the generations, he sees there's quite a bit of a difference. Why? If you see what this Ish HaElokim, Moshe Rabbeinu, said during the entire Sefer Devarim, the entire Sefer Devarim, is a segula. Rav Pinto has been pushing over the last few years to read Sefer Devarim once a week. On Shabbat, it's a very big segula, but apparently, he says that it's not enough. So he's telling people that they have to do a lot more than just read Sefer Devarim because you have some people, they read Sefer Devarim on Shabbat, but they're Mechalel Shabbat. They read Sefer Devarim on Shabbat, but they go gambling in a casino. They read Sefer Devarim on Shabbat, but they're filthy, disgusting people. I met some of those people. Remember, you guys actually met some of them too. Remember that guy who used to come and bother us in that place?

40:31He would read Sefer Devarim every Shabbat, and then he'd take the money that he has, go to the casino, go torture people, go lie, go cheat, go this, go that. So Rabbi Pinto, in his wisdom, says, listen, it's good, we guide a lot of people to read Sefer Devarim, the Book of Deuteronomy, every Shabbat, but it's not enough. Why? People are reading it, but they're not learning it. If you learn it, you see what Moshe Rabbeinu said. Moshe Rabbeinu said some tough things. Moshe Rabbeinu rebuked us from the first word to the last word. Even the blessing was tough. Everything was tough. So much so that the Gemara in Masechet Megillah says HaKadosh Baruch Hu cried after He took the neshama of Moshe Rabbeinu. Why? He says, "Who's going to rebuke My people like Moshe Rabbeinu? Who's going to tell them the truth as it is, like Moshe Rabbeinu?" So you see what Moshe Rabbeinu told Am Yisrael for all these years, and then you see what the Chachamim have done over the years. You go to the Gemara, Masechet Megillah, Masechet Sotah, Masechet Eruvin, all of them. See what the Chachamim talk to Am Yisrael. See Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, also called Rabbi Eliezer HaGadol. There was a drought one year. This is in Ta'anit. I think you guys are doing Ta'anit now. There's a drought...

41:59And he said, okay, we have to institute a fast so HaKadosh Baruch Hu will have mercy on us and start making it rain. Fast and let's go to the shul, not just a diet, not a diet plan. Fast and go pray. So everybody goes to pray. Chaveirim have been walking us. He finished the prayer. Go outside, it's not raining. And he sees everybody's leaving. And they're all leaving. You know, they prayed, they finished. Chaveirim finished, go home now. So as they're leaving, he says, "Okay, listen, guys, just make sure each one of you makes the right measurement for your graves. Make sure it's the right measurement. Don't take too much space, not too little space." "What? What? What? What are you talking about graves? What are you talking about? We just prayed." We just prayed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We prayed. But it's not raining. So just make your graves, make your graves the right measurement. Everybody, the biggest rabbi in the world tells you, go measure a grave. He's telling you, you're going to die. He's not kidding. He's not being sarcastic. He's telling you, you're going to die. Okay. Bye. Bye. Nice to meet you. Don't start hysterically crying. The biggest rabbi in the world is telling you, you're going to die. What do they all do? Start crying, they go back into the shul. Start crying in the shul. All of a sudden, it starts raining.

43:18That's what HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants. HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants your heart. So you see Rabbi Eliezer ben Horkenos, one of the biggest rabbis in the world, the way he rebuked his people—not politically correct—telling them, "You're going to die." Somebody comes today, he says to people, "Listen, by the way, if you don't all do teshuvah, you're all going to die from coronavirus next week." They're going to lynch the guy. But the biggest rabbi in the world, no problem. No problem. You see, what some of the biggest rabbis in the world said in their books, Rav Wasserman, the Rambam, the Ramban, all these different things, you see, pach, pach, pach, one after another. Even in halachic books, responsa. You see, when they're talking about judgment, they're talking about din, they're talking about all these different things. Mussar, it's not just for Mussar, it's halacha also. The

44:21Two. The Torah writes, if you haven't seen your friend in a year, you have to say a special blessing. Why do you say a special blessing? Because you miss him? No. Not because you miss him. You didn't see your friend for a year, you like your friend, you see him for the first time, but you know he went on vacation. He went to, I don't know, he went to Hawaii. went to the katun, he went to yeshiva for a year, went somewhere. You didn't see him for a year. You see him, you say a special blessing. Why? Why do you say a special blessing? This is because since you haven't seen him in a year, surely during that time, Judgment Day has happened, and the fact that he's still alive is a miracle. You should say a special blessing. Judgment Day happened during that time you didn't see him, a year. It's a miracle he's still alive. This is a halachic book, it's not a mussar book. Halachic. So you see the Gedolim, how they talk? Different language than the people of today. Different language. Moshe Rabbeinu, everybody says Moshe Rabbeinu is the best, but they don't talk like Moshe Rabbeinu. They say the Gemara is the best, but they don't talk like the Gemara.

45:47I have some people that I know that are learning Gemara. One guy told me he's five masechtot from finishing the Shas. But the first time he ever heard about Gehinnom was from me. He said, "How is that possible? Which Shas are you learning? Was it the kindergarten Shas? Or does it have pictures in it? What kind of Shas is this? Was it a Shas of history book? Where do you think I get the information from? Or do you think I have special books?" So, would you skip half the Gemara? What would you do? Every Gemara talks about it. No, but the rabbi said this, this, this. Pick a different rabbi, what can I tell you? So, how come? How come there's all this difference? The truth is, Rabotai, our ego is so big in this generation, it's so huge in this generation. We think that we are more merciful than HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Why? We want to be nice to everybody. So we say, no, everybody is Tinok SheNishba. Everybody is Tinok SheNishba, everybody is a captured baby. Why? We have in the Gemara, in Masechet Avodah Zarah, they say that during those times, the Christians used to steal Jewish kids.

47:16take a Jewish kid, steal him, kidnap him, and raise him as a Christian. So the kid will grow up not knowing that he's a Jew. So the Chachamim ask, is he judged like a Jew? I mean, he doesn't know he has to keep Shabbat. He doesn't know he has to keep kosher. The Chachamim say, no, surely he's a captured baby. So then later on, Chachamim, especially at the time of the Rambam, The Rambam writes that the Karaites are not Tinok Shenishba. They know, but they choose otherwise. But there are some people that are Tinok Shenishba. However, some people completely distort what the Rambam says, meaning they take his words out of context and say, no, no, the Rambam says that anybody that's secular is Tinok Shenishba. Completely false. Go look at the Rambam, you see, completely false. Nonsense. But then they fast forward and they say this.

48:16In a book, and this again, I'm not picking on this book, but it just happened that I got this today, a question from somebody today. And it's a very common issue. And I figured, who sent me this today? Because apparently, he wants to talk about it today. There's no other reason for him to send it to me today. He's got this 500 times already. Why today? Now, what they're saying in this book is standard knowledge and teachings of today. And it's wrong. But it's in the book. book, but it's wrong, and I'll explain to you why it's wrong. In fact, our goal today is to explain to you why you want it to be wrong. As religious or as secular as you are, you want this to be wrong. Now, at first, you're going to think, "No, no, that's right. It's good. It's nice. It's very nice to people." But in the end, the hindsight is going to be that you're going to want it to be wrong.

49:19A book called Chafetz Chaim: A Lesson a Day, with commentaries by a couple of Rabbanim, Rabbi Shimon Finkelman and Rabbi Yitzchak Berkovits. Surely they're Talmidei Chachamim, but this is a mistake. Why is it a mistake? They write, on page 162 of this book, and the non-observant people. Meaning, this whole book is, in essence, supposed to be based on the teachings of the Chafetz Chaim, but the person reading it didn't understand that it's not the Chafetz Chaim actually writing this. It's their commentaries on the Chafetz Chaim's work. But the Chafetz Chaim doesn't say this, what they're saying. In fact, he says the opposite. And this is what they say. Based on the rules we have just studied, the rules of Lashon Hara vis-a-vis the totally non-religious Jew become clear. One, the average non-observant Jew today has been deprived of a meaningful Jewish education. Whether or not he has been exposed to Orthodox Jewish life, society has prevented him from taking Torah seriously.

50:42Rambam compares such a person to a Tinok Shenishba, a kidnapped Jewish child, whose kidnappers reared him with non-Torah ideals and whose transgressions are committed out of ignorance. Such a person may be in a category of both Amecha, meaning your people, and Amitecha, your fellow. It is our obligation to educate him with love, care, and sensitivity, and it is strictly forbidden to speak Lashon Hara about him. So here they pass it, and they say that this is in essence in the name of the Rambam and Chafetz Chaim, that it is forbidden to speak Lashon Hara about a Mechalel Shabbat, a secular person, because everyone's considered a Tinok Shenishba. If you don't go to Yeshiva, if you don't go to Lakewood, Monsey, Yerushalayim, Yeshiva, your father is half a rabbi or a full rabbi. No, no, you're Tinok Shenishba practically. You were raised by secular people.

51:45And I say that the Rambam said this in essence, and Chafetz Chaim said this; neither one said this, by the way. In fact, we read the Chafetz Chaim just the other day. Chafetz Chaim says everything that he's talking about in regards to Lashon Hara is only about someone that's considered Amitecha, and he gives a definition. What does Amitecha mean? Your nation in mitzvot, meaning he is just like you by keeping mitzvot like you. You keep Shabbat, he keeps Shabbat. Okay, if he keeps Shabbat, you keep Shabbat, now let's say Lashon Hara about him. But if he doesn't keep Shabbat, he's not part of your people. You can do whatever you want with him. You can talk Lashon Hara about him. But they say no. They say no. Second thing they say on this page, a non-observant Jew who did receive a meaningful Jewish education, has been taught Torah values and knows what he is doing is wrong but claims that observance is too difficult, is a rebel due to temptation. He is considered part of Amecha, your people, which means that Lashon Hara may be spoken of him only if it is for a constructive purpose. Someone that knows about Torah but is Mechalel Shabbat anyway.

52:59They're saying, no, it's too difficult for him, so he's still part of your nation. So you're only allowed to say Lashon Hara about him if it's for a constructive purpose. Wrong. Rabbeinu Yonah says to speak Lashon Hara about somebody like this is a mitzvah from the Torah. Why? He is considered a Sonei Hashem. He's considered like he hates Hashem, especially since he knows. Considered like he hates Hashem. So it's wrong. Now, the average person says, "Why are you so extreme? Why don't you just give them a free ride?" What do you care? Why do you care so much? Why don't you make everybody secular? That's Tinok Shenishbah. Why do you care so much that everybody is Tinok Shenishbah? What's the matter? How about this? After you understand this, you're going to want everybody not to be Tinok Shenishbah. First off, what is a Tinok Shenishbah? Tinok Shenishbah, we just explained, is a captured baby. Now, the Tinok Shenishbah that people talk about today, your average local heretic...

54:03thinks that it is a free ticket to heaven. This is wrong. Tinok Shenishbah is an illogic term of how you treat a person in this world, not in the next world. Meaning, if somebody is on purpose, and he knows the Shabbat exists, but he violates Shabbat on purpose, he's considered an idol worshiper. According to the Rambam, Hilchot Shabbat, chapter 30, halacha number 15, last halacha, he's considered an idol worshiper, and if he touches your wine, you're not allowed to drink it. Why? It's considered as if an idol worshiper touched your wine; you have to throw it in the garbage. You can't sell it, you can't do anything with it; you gotta throw it in the garbage. Because an idol worshiper, you see in Gemara Masechet Avodah Zarah, it says idol worshipers used to serve their idols, even to this day, with wine. So you don't know if he just picked it up to give you a drink, or in the same process he did a blessing for Yeshu or something. You don't know, so you don't have to drink this wine; you have to throw it in the garbage. If a Mechalel Shabbat Jew touches your wine—touches, I'm not saying drinks your wine, just touches your wine, picks up the bottle like this—you have to throw it in the garbage.

55:18But that's only if it's a yayin lo mevushal, uncooked wine. If it's cooked wine like the gefen, you know, grape juice, that's nothing. You can do that, you can drink it, you can do whatever you want with it. It's not real wine. But if it's good quality wine that's uncooked, it's not allowed. You have a wedding, you need two witnesses. If he's one of the witnesses, your wedding is not valid. shechita, slaughtering. You want to slaughter a cow. He's an expert shochet, but he's a mechallel Shabbat. He slaughters the cow in the best possible way in the world. He slaughters it, it's treif. Not allowed to eat it. Treif. Shulchan Aruch paskens like this, everything that I'm saying, Rambam and so on and so forth. Rav Ovadia. You want to lend the money? Average Jew, keep Shabbat, you lend the money, you don't have to charge him interest. Mechalel Shabbat, Rav Ovadia, Rav Ovadia, right? Charge him interest. Now you should. He said, charge him interest. Mechalel Shabbat. Why? Because he's like an idol worshiper. Not to hate him, just charge him interest. That's how much Mechalel Shabbat is a serious offense. Now, let's say somebody doesn't know anything. Never, he just found out he's a Jew last week or something.

56:39He grew up thinking he's a Christian, like some of the people that I meet here and there, and finds out he's a Jew. So he doesn't know anything. He doesn't know what he doesn't know, even. A person like this, there's not that many of them, but a person like this, he's a tinok shenishba, but for real. Him, if he touches the wine, he violates Shabbat, the guy. He doesn't really know what Shabbat is. But if he touches the wine, you're allowed to drink it. You're allowed to drink it. That's what a tinok shenishba means, meaning it's how you treat him in this world. But, Rabotai, if both of them die, whether it's the one that's doing it carelessly or doing it unknowingly, they die, neither one of them go to heaven. Being a tinok shenishba does not give you a ticket to heaven. There is not a single mechalel Shabbat in the same Gan Eden as Moshe Rabbeinu. Don't ever think that for a second. But that's the problem. The people of today, the reshaim of today, the heretics of today, the shepherds of today that call themselves rabbis sometimes. I'm not talking about these two. I think they just simply made a mistake. I'm talking about people that knowingly do this; they are just ignorant on purpose.

57:54And tell people, everybody’s tinok shenishba, they have a whole parking lot of people driving on Shabbat, carelessly, like Goldberg and company. Those people, these are the most evil people in the world. Why? They tell people, tinok shenishba, in essence, trying to tell them, listen, why, your mom didn’t keep Shabbat, and she died, don’t worry, she’s in a good place now, she’s in Gan Eden. Yeah, but she didn’t keep Shabbat. No, but she didn't know. She grew up secular. They give you the understanding that they're going to heaven anyway. This is Kefirah in the Torah. Kefirah in the 13 principles of faith. There's not a single Mechalel Shabbat that has ever entered Gan Eden. Why? It would be Kefirah. The whole Torah goes in the garbage. Tinok Shenishba is only a Halachic term of how you treat them in this world. Meaning, are you going to go to the extent of telling, listen, you just touched my wine? i'm not... It's your wine now. Don't... It's your wine. Can't touch it. Can't drink it. What do you mean? It's a $500 bottle of wine. It's yours. It's all yours, buddy. Can't eat. Can't drink it. Why? I just picked it up. Okay, you picked it up. Finished. But that's only if it's open, by the way. Not if it's closed. Now, on the other hand, the guy who just woke up yesterday and found out he's a Jew. He picks up the wine. No big deal. Okay, thank you. Give me the wine. Give me the wine. You want something?

59:14But you treat him differently because that's a reality. Now, why do we care that the guy that's driving to shul on Shabbat Is it a Tinok Shenishba or not? Why do we insist constantly—we've made at least two or three short clips about this topic—davka saying he's not a Tinok Shenishba? And just like Rabbi Elyashiv says, there's virtually no Tinok Shenishba in our generation today. There are some, but relative to the numbers, very, very few. Why do we care? because there is a rule in the Torah: if you are merciful to the resha'im, you will ultimately be vicious to the righteous. So how does anybody

1:00:17Including this book or anyone that makes this mistake on purpose now. I don't think they made this mistake on purpose, I don't know them, but anybody that says everyone's tinok shenishba blindly just because they got a secular education, yeah, but he knows Shabbat He has a Beit Knesset three blocks from his house. He goes to shul even once a year during Yom Kippur. He's still Tinok Shenishba. Yeah, he doesn't really know the whole thing. Why? He's not a rabbi, therefore he's a Tinok Shenishba. So anyway, he's not a rabbi, he's Tinok Shenishba. What kind of nonsense is this? Anyone that says such a thing, it's being vicious to the righteous. Why? For the same exact reason. Reason of what the Chafetz Chaim stands for. What does he stand for? Emet. What Emet? Gives us the entire Torah on a silver platter. Ben adam lechavero. You, between another person, don't say lashon hara. No one spoke about lashon hara more than the Chafetz Chaim. What does the Chafetz Chaim say? The Chafetz Chaim says you're not allowed to say lashon hara. The Rambam writes, someone says lashon hara one time, it's a safek if he has olam haba. But someone that says lashon hara on a regular basis, there's no share in the world to come.

1:01:33The Chafetz Chaim says, but if the guy is not part of Amitecha, he's not part of your nation, you can say Lashon Hara about him. But how come some people that write a book in his name say, no, no, you can't say Lashon Hara about the guy who is secular? No, you can't say Lashon Hara. Let me ask you a question. How many times did you hear a shiur, whether it be me or countless other people that speak in the world, mention the term Lashon Hara? I don't think there's a shiur that doesn't mention it a little bit. How about that? It is probably the most common term mentioned in every shiur Torah that exists in the world. If it's not the entire shiur about it, it's a little bit about it. You mention it as a side note, Lashon Hara. Even the secular people, the secular people know what Lashon Hara is. They have little bracelets. They put, "Lashon Hara doesn't speak to me." Like even they know it's not good to do.

1:02:34but the truth be told, how many of us here How many of us here watching can really have our hand in Shamayim yishtabach shmo la'el HaKadosh Baruch Hu when we read the vidui hagadol of Yom Kippur yishtabach shmo HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave us an opportunity to say I'm sorry. But when we got to Lashon Hara, this one I didn't say a word. I heard a shiur from Rabbi Sachin say don't say Lashon Hara. From that moment on, I never said Lashon Hara again. Who can say that? Who can say they don't say Lashon Hara? Who? Who? You say Lashon Hara without knowing. You say Lashon Hara without knowing. Why? You have to know the details of Lashon Hara. I talk to you a lot, Baruch Hashem, you say Lashon Hara without knowing. Okay, I'm lying then, okay? B'seder. The point is, rabotai, every single person says Lashon Hara unless, you know when you don't say Lashon Hara? When you're glued to the books. When you're Rav Chaim Kanievsky, you're too busy learning about HaKadosh Baruch Hu, that's when you don't say Lashon Hara. If you have any spare time, you talk to your wife, you talk to your parents, you talk to your co-workers, you talk to your friends, by default, you're going to speak Lashon Hara. Why? You're going to mention somebody's name. You're going to mention somebody's name. Oh, you hear what he did? What did he do? He bought a house. Lashon Hara.

1:04:02Oh, you hear what he did? What? Oh, he just got married. He's made a lot of money. Talk about people. Who gives you the right to talk about people? Who gives you the right to talk about people? No, I'm saying something good. Who says that he wants him to know? Maybe it's his enemy. The details of Lashon Hara are huge. So much so, that when Rav Yisrael Meir Kagan, the Chafetz Chaim, came out with the book on Lashon Hara, he told Rav Yosef Zundel Hutner, he says, "Tell people, this is important." He goes, "Listen, this is important, like it's worse than eating pig." He says, "So tell people this." He goes, "No, I'm sorry, I can't." "But you just said it's worse than eating pig, saying Lashon Hara." He says, "Yeah, it is worse than eating pig, saying Lashon Hara." "Why don't you tell the people?" He says, "Because if I tell the people it's worse than eating pig, people are going to start eating pig. They'll say, 'I was saying Lashon Hara anyway, might as well eat pig.'" Meaning what? Meaning that no matter how many shiurim, You have watched and attended, unless you've gone to the point where you're glued to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, you are still saying lashon hara, even if you're trying not to. Needless to say, if you're not trying.

1:05:10Meaning what? Meaning what? Meaning rabotai yikarim. Now, since all of the people that watch shiurei Torah, and be'ezrat Hashem, and on Torah Anytime, and on Divine Information, and on Hidabroot, and on everything else, they're trying to do teshuva, they're trying to get to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, His side of mercy, His side of love, and everything else, trying to do the will of Hashem. You try, you watch shiurei Torah, you do mitzvot, keep Shabbat, keep everything else, but still we fail here and there. That's why on Yom Kippur we say, "I'm sorry, HaKadosh Baruch Hu, for saying Lashon Hara." That's what we say in a Vidui seven times. We say it. Why is it in there? Because all of us fail here and there, knowingly or unknowingly. We fail, and we say, "I'm sorry." He says, "Okay, no problem. You say, 'I'm sorry,' no problem. I love you. I love you." But what does it mean, though? It means, Rabotai Yikarim, we're all guilty. We're all guilty of Lashon Hara. But the Chafetz Chaim gave us the Emes. And the Emes will set you free. What's the Emes? He said the Emes is that if you're saying Lashon Hara about a secular person that's a Mechalel Shabbat, it's not Lashon Hara bichlal. It's not Lashon Hara. He's an idol worshiper. It's not Lashon Hara.

1:06:31It's not recommended to say Lashon Hara about him because it's a bad trait; it's not a good thing to do morally, but it's not a sin. Why? He's an idol worshiper. What did the Chafetz Chaim do for us over there? What did the Rambam do for us over there? What did Rabbeinu Yonah in Sha'arei Teshuvah do for us over there by telling us the full details of the Emes about our brother, the secular person? He set us free. Why? Most of the Lashon Hara is about who? The majority of people. What's the majority of people? Secular people. Majority of people are secular people. You say Lashon Hara about them, you show up to Yom Kippur, you're a criminal. Why? According to these people, they say it's Lashon Hara. No, the Chafetz Chaim says it's not Lashon Hara. So you show up clean. So what happens here? By telling us that you're not allowed to say Lashon Hara about a secular person, what did they do here? They were merciful to the secular person. They say, no, he's part of your nation. And by being merciful to the secular, they ended up becoming vicious for all of us. Why? Because now, according to their psak, we're all Ba'alei Lashon Hara. Because who do we talk Lashon Hara about? The secular people. We don't talk Lashon Hara about Tzadikim. We talk about regular people, right? Or at least we try, no?

1:07:55so that's the thing. You try to make the secular people not look so bad by saying, "Oh no, no, they're dirty. Don't say about them; it's not nice. It's no good. They're good people, this, that." Okay, fine, I'm not saying they're bad people, but the secular, though, the Mechalelei Shabbat, no, no, no. They don't understand it. Ah, okay, so you want to be nice to them, but the Torah says don't. The Torah says, yeah, you try to do kiruv; that's what we do for a living. That's what we do every day, night and day, everything else. But by saying a different emet, meaning sheker, and saying I'm not allowed to say lashon hara, I'm not allowed to say lashon hara about them, it's a sin to say lashon hara about them, what did you just do? You made all of us criminals. Why? Because anyway people are going to fail for lashon hara here and there. Hopefully, it's just here and there. And according to the real psak, it's not Lashon Hara, so it's not a sin. And by telling me it is Lashon Hara, guess what? You made me a sinner with your mercy. You see, Rabotai, this is how you have to stick to the emet, as harsh as it sounds, and in the end, it's to your benefit.

1:09:11It sounds harsh. You could say Lashon Hara about your brother, the secular person. It sounds harsh. You could say Lashon Hara about such and such person. He's a really nice guy, but he's Mechalel Shabbat. Sounds harsh. Oh, why are you not nice? Why are you not nice? Sounds harsh. But in reality, in reality, that's the biggest mercy in the world you can do for yourself. That's the biggest mercy in the world that Torah can do for you. Why? Because you're going to say Lashon Hara anyway. You want it to be a sin? B'chavod, go make yourself a sinner. Changing the Torah, trying to soften it, hardens it. By trying to soften it, you harden it. By trying to soften it, you made it worse. You made it worse. You made all of the religious people in the world Ba'alei Lashon Hara. Thank you. Now, do you really want to know who are the real Tinokot SheNishbu in the world today?

1:10:12I heard this from Rav Mizrahi, sheikh, and it's 100% in it. Right now, Rabotai Yekarim, statistically, it was reported that at the very least, there are now 60,000 Israeli girls married to Arabs. Palestinians, terrorists, came to them. Pretended to be Don Juan, pretended to be charming, got her a nice little bracelet, maybe a car, maybe this. Yalla, yalla, come meet my family in Syria. Come meet my family in Iraq. Come meet my family in Gehenom. Come meet my family over there. They took her home. Hey, Ima, this is Fatima. What Fatima? I'm not Fatima, I'm Sarah. No, no, no, Fatima, Fatima. Tell my mama Fatima she's gonna kill you now. From now on, you're Fatima. It took a long time to marry the girl. After that, Hashem Yishmor, what happened to this girl? Many times they raped them, tortured them, and did all types of horrible things to them. But guess what though? Right now, the average Jewish girl, 60,000 girls that they know about, there's probably many that they don't know about.

1:11:35They have 10, 15 kids because the Arabs don't believe in any type of limitation in having children and so on. Hence the reason why they're growing like fleas. The average girl is given 15 kids, 10 kids. What does that mean? When the mother is Jewish, all ten little Arab Mustafas are Jewish. All ten little kids are Jewish. But they grow up in the Arab world. And they get insulted because the neighbors know the mom is Jewish. They don't like that this guy is a Jew, even though their mother is also Jewish. So what does he do? He starts hating... I'm Israel because he said, "No, no, I'm not a Jew. I'm a Muslim. Look, my name is Mustafa, my name is Ahmed, my name is, you know, whatever it is." So what does he do? He becomes a hater of Israel, and he joins what? College? University? Where does he join?

1:12:54Meaning, Rabotai HaYekarim, somebody that knows. I heard this from Rabbi Mizrachi, and I'm sure there are plenty of other sources for this. There are countless—some even say as much as half—some of half of the Hamas terrorists that kill Jews for a living are Jews. Are Jews. Now, that's a Tinok SheNishba. Why? That kid doesn't even know he's a Jew. Doesn't even know he's a Jew. Number one. Number two, doesn't know what it means to be a Jew. Number three, he doesn't even know what a Jew is, because he just hates them so much for no reason whatsoever. And guess what? One of them just came to me last week. One of them just came to me last week. A few came, a few Baruch Hashem, Muslims came to me in the last few months. Apparently, they like me. But one of them came to me and said, listen, I never really hated Jews. But my family always hated Jews. I never understood why. So I started looking into it. And I liked it. And when I told my family I want to be a Jew, my father gave me a beating of a lifetime, almost killed me. So he says, "over my dead body you’re gonna be a Jew," in Arabic. So I decided I'm gonna run away. I'm gonna run away. Before I left the door, my mother caught me by the head, she says, come.

1:14:16She gave me papers. She says, you don't have to convert. You're a Jew. You take these papers to the Rabbanut, you tell them this is who you are. This is who I am. You're a Jew already. Somebody came to me in the last week. But that's a Tinok SheNishba. That's a Tinok SheNishba. Why do they never know what a Jew is? If he violates Shabbat, it's very different than, you know, little Yaakov who grew up in Netanya, in Israel, you know, driving a car on Shabbat. Very different. Yaakov saw there are 500 Batei Knesset everywhere. But the guy, it’s a Hamas man, that’s Yerushalayim. That’s Yerushalayim. On the other hand, something very odd, is that there are many, many Russian Israelis in the IDF, in the Israeli Defense Force. Because over the last 20 or so years, 30 years, Israel is one of the countries that likes immigration. And they invited the Russians to come visit them and come stay there.

1:15:33and come stay there. And under the precept that they think that they're actually Jewish. But just about a year ago or so, the government itself reported that 96% of the million Russians that came to live in Israel are not Jewish, like they originally thought. 96%. And where are these Russians now? They had kids in Israel. Those kids went to the army, they're now in the Israeli Defense Force, thinking they're Jews, but they're not religious. Guess what? They're not Jews. So what's happening now? The IDF is fighting Hamas. The goyim from the IDF are fighting the Jews from Hamas. Another thing about Ta'i, you have the Pashtuns. The Pashtuns are somewhere in the neighborhood of 16 to 30 million of them in Afghanistan. People went to see who they are, what they are. They see that they keep many of the biblical laws. They have tzitzit. They do the shechita like the Jews. They do brit milah. They keep taharat mishpacha, which the Jews are the only ones that keep taharat mishpacha. Family purity. Go to mikveh and so on. Keep a lot of the biblical laws.

1:16:58Pashtuns, 16 to 30 million of them, but they don't have the Oral Torah, so they're missing a lot of things. Those are tinokot shenishbu. But you know what the world calls them? It doesn't call them tinokot shenishbu. You know what they call them? Who wants to guess? Taliban. Taliban. That's what it calls them. Now, of course, There's a difference of opinion about certain things, but this is what it is. This is what it is. There are countless Jews in Africa, Biafra, Nigeria, and so on. Some people say, no, they're not; they are. The point being, Abuhatzeira, is that, yes, if, let's say, certain places like in Biafra or Nigeria or so on, perhaps some of them have had intermarriage, some of them haven't had intermarriage,

1:18:00most likely will have to go through conversion, some of them all of them, if they want to be recognized by the world as Jews. But the point being is whether they do or they don't, the fact is there's still some of them are missing some mitzvot. I have many of them as students. I have thousands of them that watch the shiurim. The students, they watch the shiurim and so on and guess what? They don't know basic stuff. And they get to know, they watch, they send questions about Hashem. And guess what? Well, they didn't have the Torah available to them. Many of them came from a family that was very poor and so on and so forth, some of them even slaves and so on. So the point being, is that you can't just throw the terminology of a Torah, Tinok Shenishba, anywhere you want. Why? Because by doing that, you're not being merciful, you're being vicious. Because there are real Tinokot Shenishbu, and there are fake ones. Most of them are fake Tinokot Shenishbu.

1:19:00To call an average kid that lives in Brooklyn, New York, in Queens, in Los Angeles, in Florida, in Israel, anywhere, in different places, in France, places like that, that have a lot of Jews, to call somebody like that, because he went to public school, it's completely nonsense. He knows the synagogue exists, he knows when Yom Kippur is, he's attended a school, he maybe had even a bar mitzvah, it's Tinok Shenishba. Nothing to do with him. I guess even if you find it, he knows he is a Tinok Shenishba. If you find them, you can't leave him captured. Get him out of the cage. Tell me how, please. Are you okay? I'm telling you. No, no, no, let me tell you what that means. It's not just a Jew, a three-letter word. Maybe in Hebrew, it's a few more letters. No, no. It comes with a package deal. No, but I don't want it. It doesn't matter whether you want it. Who wants it for you? That's it. Get him out of the cage. Why? Because if he dies, if he dies, he's not going to Heaven. And guess what? Neither are you.

1:20:17Neither are you. No, but I keep Shabbat. Yeah, you keep Shabbat, but on Shabbat you keep your mouth shut. You didn't give him a CD. You didn't give him a flyer. You didn't give him a link. You didn't give him a word of Torah. You didn't tell him anything. You kept your mouth shut. Guess what? You are the reason why he stayed in a cage. Imagine that God has His kid. He's been looking for him for three thousand three hundred years. You found him in some cage in the corner somewhere. So, wow, you're the cage, huh? How do you like it there? I'm good. Okay. I'll see you later. You go up to Shamayim, and God says, "No, so what did you do for a hundred years I put you in the world?" "No, I did this. I built a business. I got a boat, got three houses, six kids, kept Shabbat, and..." learn a few pages of Gemara, I did good, okay, no, he goes, no, you're a rasha, Hashem says to you. What do you mean rasha? I didn't kill anybody. You killed the Gadol HaDor. What? What Gadol HaDor? What are you talking about? What Gadol HaDor? You killed the biggest rabbi in the world. What rabbi in the world? What are you talking about? Hashem, I never met the biggest rabbi in the world. I saw him on YouTube. No, no, no, you killed him. Who? You saw that kid in the cage? That was my son.

1:21:30My son, he didn't know what being a Jew means. You saw him; you left him in a cage. That kid, if you would have told him about Shabbat, he would have immediately embraced Judaism. Within a few years, he would have become one of the biggest rabbis in the world. But because of you, you left him in a cage. You said, "You like it over there? Okay, I'll leave you over there." Because of you, you murdered him. And what do you think? You're going to go to Gan Eden and my son's going to go to Gehinom? No chance. No chance. What happens when people try to play with the Torah? Even the basics become blurry. So, with that being said, there is a lot more to talk about, but let's start with some questions. Let's see what you guys have brought. Who wants to start with a question? Still nothing? I'm going to give you a little more insight. Oh... I notice that sometimes when I write, my thoughts get jumbled up. What's your best advice for making sure that a D'var Torah flows in a logical sequence? What's the best advice for how to have a D'var Torah in a sequence? Well, I mean, you have to have—everything has to have a practical aspect to it, meaning...

1:22:52You have to use whatever thought you have in a way that you can relate to your day-to-day life. How can I use this in my day-to-day life? Okay, so I found out that Moshe Rabbeinu is a Gilgul of Noach. Great, it's a nice Midrash, it's fantastic. What could I use? What could I do? You learn, the only reason why you have to be reincarnated, even though Noach was an Ish Tzadik Tamim, If he still had to come back again, why? Because he didn't rebuke. Oh, that I could apply to my life. So any thought that you have that's a chiddush in the Torah, try to find a part of it that you could apply to your day-to-day life. A lesson learned, a real lesson learned that you could apply to your life. And that way, it's easier to remember. The second thing is, when you are learning Torah, you should speak out loud as much as you can. It doesn't have to be loud and obnoxious like me, but perhaps you could be loud enough for yourself to hear it. loud enough for yourself to hear it because that way you're using multiple senses. Number three, write down notes—handwrite your notes. Handwrite your notes. Yes, some people say, "No, can I type it?" Yes, you can type it, but I recommend handwriting your notes. It takes a little bit more time for most people, but it's still better. Handwrite your notes. The reason why—again, you're using multiple senses. Writing it is like reading it seven times.

1:24:13So that already means you went over it several times. Write down the notes. And also, go over those notes. One of the best places to go over those notes is by speaking them on your Shulchan Shabbat. You got some new chidushim on Shabbat during the week. On your Shulchan Shabbat, instead of talking about nonsense, bring your notebook and say, "Hey, this is what I learned this week." And you read off your notes. Not only are you teaching and sharing Torah with these other people, but also you're learning it again because you're repeating them. People ask me, "How do you remember this? How do you remember that?" I don't remember anything. I said it, so therefore I remember it. Because I said it. But sometimes I say something, and I don't remember it. So what happens? I say it again. Then I remember it this time. But that's the thing. When you say it, the more times you say it, the more you're going to remember it. Eventually, it becomes part of your long and short-term memory. There are two parts of your memory: long and short-term memory. You want everything, or as much as you possibly can, to fit in your short-term memory. Not just in your long-term memory, which requires you to, you know, put in much effort to retrieve it.

1:25:19You want it to be in your short-term memory. The only way you can do that is by committing it to memory by speaking it, speaking it often. And the last suggestion I would tell you is to try to develop the idea. Try to develop the idea further from time to time. Like if you find something that's relevant to it, go back to your notebook, wherever you wrote it, and add it to the original idea. Like the stuff that I said to you guys about Lashon Hara today, originally that thought started, you know, several years ago. Today we added a few new thoughts to it, and therefore you got a whole new chidush and a new package. It's the same product with a few little twists in. So add these different things and don't just say, oh no, this is a chidush, this is a chidush. No, if they're connected, connect them. Connect the dots. Connect the dots. Next question. Yes. Yes. So when does a person become a Kofer in regards to, you know, he just says, okay, this mitzvah is not for me?

1:26:35To my knowledge, the Rambam writes somewhere that, you know, a Kofer in regards to just one particular mitzvah. He doesn't give in Hilchot Teshuvah how many times you did it, meaning its first one. The second you say this mitzvah is not for me, you become a Kofer by that mitzvah—not a Kofer according to everything. But that one, there are certain mitzvot that if you're a Kofer by that one, it's like you violated the entire Torah. So it's best to simply say... You know, never say anything like "this is not for me." Try to do your best with everything. If you fail, you fail, you try again. You fail, you fail, you try again. But never actively decide, "I'm not going to do it." i'm not going to do it. Why? Because then you become a very special and dangerous case. You don't want to be in a situation where you die in that moment and you have that on your account. If you die where you tried to do it and you failed, it's a completely different circumstance than if you didn't try because you didn't feel like it. Because when you say, "I'm not going to do it, I don't feel like it," that's in essence making yourself into a god.

1:27:48this is like you're deciding what you're going to do and what you're not going to do, as if God has no say. So that's a very serious problem. So yes, He knows that we will fail with certain mitzvot. He knows that we will sometimes pray with a kavanah that's not worth a penny, that only has a semblance of kavanah because we barely concentrate. He knows that sometimes we're going to do that for a week straight, or even a month straight, or six months straight. But as long as you know, okay, this is not the ideal situation, but this is what I'm doing right now, okay? You're not a kofer, even if it's a rabbinical mitzvah, but nonetheless, you're not a kofer by the sages, because you know that you should be doing more, you're just failing. You're failing. That's very different than saying, no, no, no, I'm going to decide what the siddur is going to be. I'm from now on just going to pray whatever I want. That's a very serious problem. It's a very high level of arrogance. HaKadosh Baruch Hu hates arrogant people. And HaKadosh Baruch Hu will give such people a lot more heavy rebuke and punishment in order to break them. In order to break their klipah. And that's actually what the Gaon MiVilna writes in his Iggeret HaGra.

1:28:54writes in his Iggeret HaGra that if the children, when they're little, are already cursing, he told his wife to hit them. Why? Because if they're already cursing at such a young age, that means there's a klipah, like a leather jacket on them. And the only way to break this klipah is by, you know, the only way to get this out is by breaking it, meaning hit them. So point being is, is that there are certain things that a person does that are going to create a klipah, a shell on top of his neshama, which will make him or her repulse the emet, repulse the truth. So if a person fails, if he fails, it doesn't create as much of a problem as if he simply decides otherwise, decides I'm not going to do it. decides. Again, neither one is good. I'm not suggesting that you just fail in everything whenever you feel like it. What I'm saying is never ever decide, "I'm just not gonna do it," because you know what? Even if there are certain mitzvot that you don't like, sometimes they're so easy you might as well do them. Instead, like sometimes, not every try, especially in the beginning, you want to do. But sometimes, some of these mitzvot, maybe you don't feel like doing them every day.

1:30:08But sometimes, it's such an easy mitzvah that, you know, once in a while you'll do it. But if you say to yourself, "No, no, this is not for me," guess what? Even during that once in a while, you're not going to do it. Just for the principle, you're not going to do it. Because, ah, I'm going to start doing this now. No, no. You already have it mentally that you're not going to do it. So you're not even going to do it once in a while. So that's a wrong mentality. So never, ever get to a point of saying, "I'm not going to do it." Try your best each and every time and simply, you know, get better over time. But never get to a point where you are actively and consciously going against the kingship, going against Hashem actively and consciously. You have to simply do the best you possibly can every single day and get better. Pray to Hashem to soften your hard heart. Pray to Hashem to open your mind. Pray to HaKadosh Baruch Hu to have mercy on you and allow you to study enough, allow you to see the insight and the beauty of this mitzvah. Pray to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Listen, the truth is that sometimes if you don't pray to Hashem, nothing's going to happen. You can want to learn Torah as much as you want, but every time you open the book, you fall asleep.

1:31:16What's the cure? You have to break this klipah. You have to break this klipah that you have by forcing yourself, trying harder, breaking your head, whatever you’ve got to do. Whatever you’ve got to do to go through it. You're going to go through these stages. I know some serious Talmidei Chachamim that have gone through this. And I'm not talking about just Talmidei Chachamim that I know personally. Some Talmidei Chachamim that wrote huge books. Chachamim, Rishonim, 800 years ago, wrote themselves that they went through different times in their lives for several months and, in some cases, even longer where they weren't able to open a book. So why? This is another test from HaKadosh Baruch Hu. You have to go through it. You have to try harder. Stop working. So you have to do whatever you can to keep pushing, keep pushing, keep pushing until you succeed. Next. Yes, in the back. Angry. My question is, basically, why is it that the previous time that he was angry, why didn't he get the same repercussions?

1:32:38So HaKadosh Baruch Hu is not looking for us around the corner. The question is, why didn't Moshe Rabbeinu get punished as severely for the first time he got angry as he did for the last time he got angry? meaning at the time of, let's say, when he hit the rock, that was the heaviest punishment. Whereas the other times that he got angry at Am Yisrael, he didn't get punished as much. The truth is that HaKadosh Baruch Hu judges the righteous at the, you know, something as, uh, the hair's breadth, meaning that He looks at every minor thing they ever do and judges them for it. So, he got judged for everything, and he got judged differently for everything. And perhaps from our perspective, we can see that this is harsh and this is less harsh. Trust me when I tell you, nothing is easy and nothing is really comprehensible for us as far as what's harsh and what's not. But he got judged for everything. He got judged more harshly towards the end because it wasn't just that Moshe Rabbeinu was angry.

1:33:52like he was in the past and rebuked the people, but rather in this particular case, his rebuke led to a lesser sanctification of Hashem's name. And that's what it says in a pasuk. HaKadosh Baruch Hu says to Moshe Rabbeinu a couple of times, even in the last parasha of the Torah, He says, you're not going to go into Eretz Yisrael because you did not sanctify My name. So, there was less sanctification sanctifications of Hashem's name, and for Moshe Rabbeinu, that was a big thing. Therefore, HaKadosh Baruch Hu judged him that way. He didn't judge him the same way for other ones because apparently, there wasn't less sanctification of Hashem's name in the other situations. So it was wrong, it was an error, but it wasn't less sanctification of Hashem's name. One of the examples, for instance, is what we just read. The first meeting between Moshe Rabbeinu and HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Moshe Rabbeinu argues with HaKadosh Baruch Hu; he doesn't want to do this job, and he says, "They're not going to listen to me." Chachamim say that Moshe Rabbeinu got punished for this. He got punished for doubting Am Yisrael.

1:35:00Now, did he get punished the same way as he got punished for hitting the rock? Absolutely not. Why? There wasn't anything, it was just him and Hashem. It's just that, why are you questioning? So, that's the thing, there was this particular sin, again, on Moshe Rabbeinu's level, and if it wasn't written in the Torah, we wouldn't be able to even call it a sin. This particular situation had fruit. It was a tree that had fruit, had outcomes. Whereas the other things that he did didn't have as many outcomes as this particular one. I think I read that he stopped the miracle that was going to happen by hitting the rock. When he spoke to it, they praised Hashem for it. Okay, so originally what he was supposed to do was to speak to the rock, and Moshe Rabbeinu spoke to the wrong rock. He spoke to the wrong rock and the rock uh, didn't you know, didn't answer, and uh, some even say that the uh Satan was moving the rock to different places. So anyway, he spoke to the wrong rock, and the rock didn't uh, didn't uh, respond, and Am Yisrael was very, very annoyed. And Moshe figured that, let me hit the rock because that worked in the past, and uh, you know, that's what I did last time, and that worked.

1:36:24But HaKadosh Baruch Hu told him, no, last time I told you, hit the rock. This time I told you, speak to the rock. You, at your level, were supposed to pay attention to that minor detail, because that minor detail made a big difference. Why? The first time you hit the rock, it was a miracle. But if you hit it a second time, then you're just going to get the trick. Why? You did it before. It's not such a big deal. already did it before. Like if I already gave you a chiddush and you liked it the first time, but if I say it again next week, you like it, but you like it a little less. Why? Because you heard it before, you heard it before, right? If a person sees rain for the first time, or your little kid sees rain for the first time, sees a bird for the first time, oh wow, that's amazing, wow, wow. But I'll come, I'll come when you guys see a bird. You don't even say, hey, look at the bird. Nothing. Nothing. You don't say anything. Rav Dessler says, that's the mistake. You grew up too fast. You stopped being impressed by the miracles around you because you took them for granted. Rav Dessler says,

1:37:32you're supposed to be impressed like a little child when you go outside and see the birds, the cats, the squirrels. These are all miracles—the flowers. You know that every single flower has an angel next to it. Every single tree, before it releases every leaf, that leaf has to get permission from Shamayim to fall off the tree. Every leaf has to get permission. But you say, "Oh, it's leaves. Oh, it's a tree." Oh, now you don't even say that. You get used to it. Same thing here. You say, "Yeah, bird, bird." You know, one of the things that's nice about kids is that they remind you of how desensitized you are. You know, they tell you, "Look, they're impressed by everything." You're like, "Why are they impressed?" But then you read the Michtav Me'Eliyahu. He says, "Yeah, they're smart. You're desensitized. Something is wrong with you." Why? They're impressed because everything is a miracle to them. You got used to it. got used to it. It's not going to get used to it. So that's the thing. Moshe Rabbeinu, the first time he made a miracle, he hit the rock. It was considered a miracle, wow, amazing. The second time, it's not so much of a miracle, but not so much. I saw before, once, another place that we see it in halacha. The nevi'im say...

1:38:41I believe it's in Sefer Yechezkel. It says that when Mashiach comes, there's going to be a halacha that was applicable only at the time of the Beit HaMikdash, which is that if you enter from the northern gate, it's four gates. If you enter from the northern gate, you're not allowed to exit from the northern gate. If you enter from the southern gate, you're not allowed to exit from the southern gate. Meaning you have to exit from a different gate. ...a different gate. But now we're thinking to ourselves, first of all, we're a generation of lazy people that only like convenience. If it doesn't come to my house, I'm not getting it. How about that? I'm not going to any store. I have to order. If it's not on Amazon or some website that delivers, I'm not buying it. And even paying shipping, we don't like anymore. We're a generation of convenience. On top of that, here in Florida, people don't like to drive either. It's almost like people make you feel like they're carrying the car on their back instead of the car carrying them. Are you coming to the shiur? Where is it? Oh, it's in such and such. Oh, that's far. Oh, where do you live? Antarctica? No, no, I live a half-hour away. No, you have a car? Yeah. So what? So press the pedal for a half-hour and boom, you're here. What's the problem? It's far. It's far. What? It's far for you to drive a half-hour?

1:39:55far for you to drive a half-hour? It's a sad, sad reality. They make it seem like they're carrying the car. If you're carrying the car, at the very least, you're riding a donkey for half an hour. I understand, you know, it's not comfortable pressing a pedal for half an hour. Nobody wants to do that anymore. No, no, just watch it online. I'll watch it on YouTube tomorrow. It's easy for me. It's a very, very bad problem. Why? The Gemara in Masechet Berachot says that the real reward for a shiur Torah is going to the shiur Torah. Why? If it's a real quality shiur Torah, guess what? You're not going to remember most of it. And guess what? You're not going to understand most of it. Why? Because that's just a reality. If it's a real, good-quality shiur Torah, you're not going to remember most of it. With all due respect to everybody here, unless you're writing notes like some of the tzaddikim here, most of what I said today, tomorrow you're going to forget. Tomorrow you're going to... How about this? In the morning, you're going to forget it. Why? That's just the way the Yetzer Hara is. The Yetzer Hara works really hard. Part of it is removing everything from your mind, making you forget everything. So, unless you're writing certain things down, unless you're applying it to memory, you're going to forget most of this. You're going to get chizuk, and that chizuk is going to dissipate like gas. It's going to go away. Because you didn't write it down.

1:41:08So HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, how can I reward you for the full 3, 4, 6, 8 hours of Shiur Torah if you didn't write a single sentence? How can I reward you? He said, no, but I attended. Do you remember anything? Give me a chiddush from the Shiur Torah. What did you learn? I don't remember. 8 hours he spoke, you don't remember what he said? Nothing? Out of 8 hours, you should be able to give 8 Shiurim yourself. You don't remember anything? i forgot. i forgot. Oh, I forgot. You know that in Shamayim, in Shamayim the Arizal says you have to give a Shiur Torah for 180 days. That "I forgot" is not going to work up in Shamayim. You tell them in Shamayim, they're going to make you remember. 180-day Shiur Torah, meaning 8 hours is just a down payment. Not even. Maybe all 4 years combined. So anyway, a person forgets, forgets, forgets. I can't get rewarded for that. So the Gemara says, so what are we going to reward them for? We'll reward them for going to the shiur Torah. Why? In those days, they would travel two, three, four days.

1:42:12to get to the shiur Torah, he says that he remembers how long it was and which route he took, how hot it was, and how cold it was. He remembers, so for that, he gets the full reward. So that's the thing; when a person doesn't want to put effort into the Torah and wants everything to come to them conveniently... very, very bad because you have to be a mesirat nefesh, a self-sacrificer for the sake of Torah. If you're not willing to sacrifice, it is not a very good thing. So, when it comes to the mitzvot themselves, HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants us to push ourselves, push ourselves, and that includes shiurim Torah, that includes everything. Sometimes we're a generation of lazy people. lazy people that don't want to do things, and they lose out on a lot just because they don't want to push themselves. You know, so this is, again, this is not the hardest thing in the world, but it's also not the easiest, simply because it's against our nature. We're all naturally a little bit lazy, naturally a little bit sleepy, naturally a little bit we don't feel like doing anything.

1:43:23procrastinators, and so on. That's what you have to go against—your nature. You have to push yourself. No, no, I'm not coming. Why not? You know what? I'll get back to you. Wait, you just said you're not coming. Now you're saying you'll get back to me. Yeah, no, I want to come. So what's happened? I don't know. What do you mean you don't know? Is somebody telling you not to come? No. So why don't you know? I don't know. You feel like you're talking to people in special education all day. You feel like you're talking to people in special education all day. I don't know. Did you watch it? No. But you asked the question about the shiur. You asked me to do the shiur for you, right? You asked the question. I told you. I made a whole shiur about it last night. Yeah. So did you watch it? No. Why not? I don't know. Can't you just give me the answer? What, you want a three-hour shiur on a silver platter? So that's the thing, you have to remember your Torah. You have to put some more effort behind it. You have to write down notes. You have to apply things to commit them to memory. You have to put some more effort behind it or else you're wasting it. You're wasting your life. And it's much easier, even for the people that are online, to watch the shiurim online. Why? Because you can stop and start whenever you feel like it.

1:44:41And I told you guys, anytime that I have a shiur with Rabbi Efraim, 90% of the time it's me and him. So I'm learning the shiur with him. That's the first time. Until this day, it's the same thing. That's the first time. Then we upload it to the channel. I listen to it again. But the second time I listen to it, it takes me 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, sometimes even 10 times the amount of time of the shiur to listen to that shiur. Meaning, if it's an hour shiur, it may take me 3 hours, 4 hours, 8 hours sometimes. Listen to that shiur. Why? Because I'm writing notes and applying my brain to it. Just like you would learn Gemara. This is the reason why many times, you know, people are surprised. "Oh, how do you remember what you learned from Rav Moshe Feinstein zt"l months or five years ago? How do you remember what you learned from Rabbi Pinto six, seven, eight, nine years ago?" How do you remember that? I don't remember it; I just committed it to my brain because I wrote it down and I said it, and it just became part of me. And It just became part of me. But the problem is that people watch shiurim like they watch a movie. They watch sports. It's very superficial. It's first take, and it's a waste.

1:45:57It's a complete waste. And that's the thing. So unless that shiur has something that's awe-inspiring to the point where it's going to change you at that moment, you just wasted two, three hours of your life. You know, many times people make the mistake, in my opinion it's a mistake, where they watch the shiurim at high speed. Like there's a feature online on YouTube and on, I think, other websites. You can watch a shiur at one and a half, two times the speed, just to get through it. Instead of it being two hours, you want to watch the whole thing in one hour. Now, if your brain is really fast and you can write down the information that way, go do it. But if you're just going through it and you didn't write any notes, it was better off you didn't watch it. You're wasting your time. You're wasting your time. Why? You're not going to apply anything to memory. You're not going to remember anything. So you can watch 500 shiurim and still know nothing. Still be a complete am ha'aretz. And that's what happens a lot of times. People watch shiurim five, ten years and still don't know anything. Still don't know anything. They watch shiurei Torah. Yeah, you watch shiurei Torah but you don't remember anything. There's nothing in your brain.

1:47:07So, we have to push ourselves a little bit more, both boys and girls. You have to push yourself. You have to push yourself a little bit more. And stop looking for the convenience of everything in the world today. It's not a good thing. It's not a good thing. In today's world, people are looking for too much convenience, too many things that are spoon-feeding, and they don't want to toil for anything. And that's not a good thing. That's not a good thing for anything. Because when a person goes up to Shamayim, Hashem is going to judge you based on how you treated Torah versus everything else. Now you're going to say, wait a minute, no, I never studied in school anyway. He's not going to ask you about school. You know what He's going to ask you about? Money. Money. How did you study for money to go close that deal? How many hours did you prepare those files and do research on the industry in order to close that million-dollar deal?

1:48:13How many times did you repeat your speech in order to get approved for that job? How many times did you call that same guy in order to close him? How much effort did you put into money? So, money shows that you know how to invest time. Shows that you know how to commit yourself, how to study. Shows. How come you didn’t do the same thing with My Torah? Money, all of a sudden, you wrote notes. Money, all of a sudden, you made certain reminders. Money, all of a sudden, you are the guru. But you came to Torah, I don't know. We think it's going to work in Shamayim. person needs to know, person needs to know. I mean, listen, I make a lot of suggestions really, but all of it’s for me, you know. I have to, you know, you guys may think I know. I know I don’t know anything. I don’t know anything. I wish I knew as much as you guys think I know, and the truth is that there’s a lot of Torah to know.

1:49:29and, uh, people simply take it for granted because they think, "No, no, as long as I keep Shabbat, I don't eat chazir, and I don't murder anybody, I'm okay." It's a mistake. You have to know a lot. And you have to try. You have to toil, whether you're a man or a woman. People think, oh no, the guys need to know. No, the girls also need to know. You need to know all of the halachot of Shabbat as a lady. You need to know all the halachot of tzniut. You need to know all the halachot of the holidays. You need to know how to build a Jewish home. Learn how to build a Jewish home. Oh no, but I'm busy working. Okay, go work then. Go work. And say, oh no, no, we're busy here. We're busy working. We're busy working. You can't come in. Do not enter. Do not enter Gan Eden. Why? We're busy working here. What are you doing here working? We're serving the Tzaddikim. Since you didn't study, you cannot be. You have to know things. Yeah, but I'm busy. Okay, busy. There are basic things you need to know. You don't need to know as much as a man, but you surely need to know. You surely need to know. You know one of the main things that a woman needs to know? Who wants to volunteer and answer?

1:50:45No? What's the word? I would say, in my opinion, according to my knowledge, the number one thing you need to know. No? Taharat HaMishpacha. Taharat HaMishpacha. Interesting. No? I get my opinion. This is not Torah. I got the next guest. Okay, hold on. Let me give everybody else a chance. My opinion is how to be a good mother and a good wife. Good mother and good wife. What makes a good mother and a good wife? You're asking me? Okay. What does that mean? Making cookies? So when I cry, you cry? That type of thing? You're very close. You're very close, but you're very far. Hold on, son. Hold on. Give other people a chance. And the ladies in the back, yeah. Yeah. Modesty. According to the Torah, you're a big deal. You're 100% right, but... You're right, you're right, but I'm not telling you my opinion. Why do you need to know? My opinion, obviously, is based on Torah also, and I'll prove it to you, but... I knew you were going to say modesty. I knew you were going to say taharat mishpacha. I'm not going to ask you a question that I know your answer. Taharat is different. You're saying modesty. You're saying taharat mishpacha. You're saying motherly, and I'm only saying that he's close and not you.

1:52:12Very close. No, no, Mike Weaver, go ahead. Kashrut. Interesting, but no. No? Knowing what not to do. Knowing what not to do. You are as close as him, but no. Shabbat candles. Huh? Shabbat candles. Shabbat candles? How are Shabbat candles close to motherly? No, because they say that if they don't know how to, like if, like they can go to Gehinnom. Get punished for it. Yeah, but how is that close? I'm telling you that motherly and knowing what not to do, knowing what to say or what not to do is close. How is lighting candles close? It's not, it's not the same field. You're right, the Gemara says, a woman that doesn't know when to light, is lenient when it comes to lighting candles, goes to Gehinnom. Why? Because if you light candles one minute too late, she goes to the Beit Din shel Ma'ala. No, so go ahead in the back. Huh? No, you're very close, but why? What does it mean, raising the children? Educating what? What does that mean? Huh? Practical terms. Speak to me in practical terms. Hold on, let them say. What? No? Very close. You're like 2% away. The number one thing for a woman to know. The number one thing for a woman to know. Again, my opinion, but I'll give you a Torah source for it.

1:53:39how to convince, how to convince the husband and the kids to keep the Torah and the mitzvot. Only a woman knows how to convince better than anybody else. Hence the reason why it's a womanly mitzvah. And only a woman has a mitzvah, as the Gemara says, where she goes to Gan Eden only if her husband learns Torah and her kids learn Torah. Her husband is a kofer, rasha merusha. Our kids are avaryanim, criminals, and she doesn't even try to get them to do teshuva. She doesn't do anything because she has a kisui rosh, and she's fine with it. Guess what? She's going to gehinnom with them. Why? Your whole point in the world is to convince your husband and the kids to go learn Torah. No, but I tried once. No. And he said no. No. That's it. No, I tried. No, no. How many times did you tell your husband that you want a new dress? I don't know. Well, I will tell you in Shamayim. 500 times. How many times did you tell your husband you want a new kitchen? I don't know. I will tell you. 6,000 times. How many times did you tell your husband you want a new car? I don't know. 7,000 times. How many times did you tell your husband you want a new house?

1:54:53I don't know. We don't know either. That's how many it was. How many times did you tell your husband you want a ring? How many times did you tell your husband to come home on time? How many times did you tell your husband to remember the anniversary? Everything else you tried a million and a half times. But to get him to go to a shiur Torah, you tried once, you tried twice, failed. You have to push your husband and your kids to be tzaddikim. That's the most important. Why? Because the Gemara says, a woman, where does she go? There's a machloket. Rabbis fight. Why is a woman going to Gan Eden? For what? What does she do? What does she do? She's not a Talmida Chachamah. She's not a Puria. She's not learning Gemara. She's not paskening halacha. Only if she's reformed, she's paskening halacha. Why is a woman going to Gan Eden for? Chachamim say, she goes to Gan Eden... if she makes sure that her husband and her kids are going to learn Torah, then she goes to Gan Eden.

1:55:57as she goes to Gan Eden. So yeah, of course, surely that means that she's modest, and surely that means that she keeps Shabbat, and surely that means that she keeps Kashrut, and surely that means that she lights the candles on time, and surely you're all right with the mitzvot that you're suggesting, but we need the whole package. The whole package is, what's my goal? What's my goal as a lady in this world, a Jewish woman in the world? Get my husband and my kids to go learn Torah. Now, what if I'm a single lady? What is a single woman to do? To go find somebody who wants to marry me, but also do all the things that he needs to do, go learn Torah. Yeah, but what about making a living? Make a living. No one says be homeless. Make a living, but learning Torah should be the priority in the house. Priority number one, before money, before anything else. That's what you go to Gan Eden for. And a woman that knows that and knows also how to use her womanly skills, her sixth sense, how to convince her husband to do it, that's the woman that's going to go to Gan Eden. But if she says, I don't know, then guess what? Her husband will say, I don't know also. When they ask her in Shamayim, what Torah did you learn? I don't know.

1:57:07Oh, let's bring your wife. What did he learn? What did you do? I don't know. Oh, okay. Where are we going to go? Gan Eden or Gehinnom? I don't know. That's what they're going to answer you. We'll see. We'll see when you get there. Then all of a sudden you see a hot place. Oh, wait. You said not Gehinnom. We said we don't know. You don't know. We don't know. Now you're here. Now we know. Now we know. You have to get your husband to go learn Torah. You have to find a husband who wants to learn Torah and makes it a priority. Sure, he needs to make a living. You need to make a living. Everybody needs to eat. No problem. That doesn't mean, that doesn't cancel the Torah. It doesn't cancel the Torah. You have to find a way to do it. You have to learn every day. Every day, every person needs to learn. And trust me when I tell you, there are a few really successful people that I know who still make time to learn Torah in the morning and at night. I know one guy, he wakes up at something like 4 o'clock in the morning, starts his day at 4 o'clock in the morning, learns for 3 hours. Learns for 3 hours straight, prays, goes to work, finishes, I don't know, maybe like 6 o'clock, something like that.

1:58:13Comes home, hangs out with the wife for a little bit, 8, 9, 10 o'clock. Learns for another hour or so, and gets some rest. Guess what? This person, at this point, he probably makes, I'd say, at least half a million dollars, maybe a million dollars a year. Works for some hedge fund. Works for some hedge fund in New York. Young guy, my age. Young guy, my age. Makes a million dollars plus a year. How? Learning Torah. That's how he makes it. No, you say he works for a hedge fund. Yeah, he works for a hedge fund, but he makes the money because of Torah, not because of the hedge fund. Now, if you ask, "Oh wow, this kid probably has a father that's a rabbi, a mother that's a rebbetzin, probably grew up in yeshiva," everything is the opposite. Completely opposite. Secular school, secular life, father's in jail, mother, Hashem, but Baruch Hashem, he has Beautiful kosher home, kosher kids, owns a yeshiva, his wife has kisui rosh. And he makes money. Makes money. Learns Torah though. Why? Because you can make Torah. Now no one can tell me that their job is more time-pressing than a hedge fund. Whatever job you have, no job in the world is more time-pressing than running a hedge fund. Why? Because you need to be awake at certain times, alert at certain times, certain days. It's a very time-sensitive job.

1:59:42So if he can learn four hours a day, you can learn four hours a day. Now surely, you can't start at four hours from zero. You start somewhere. I started with 15 minutes a day. Later on, it got to a little higher than that. But point being is, you have to start somewhere, every day. Every day. I have a question here. Hold on. Question. No, not a question. Oh, a shiur will also be for a Refuah Sheleimah for Moshe Yisrael ben Leah. So that HaKadosh Baruch Hu will give a Refuah Sheleimah, Refuat HaNefesh, Refuat HaGuf. Chavrei, next. Some of you didn't ask a question, no? At which point does someone who's a leader use kindness instead of rebuke? You know, Moshe Rabbeinu, Hashem loved Moshe because he was rebuking the people. It wasn't like the end, like the story said, about Rabbi Eliezer. He was one of those people that would make the people scared. But at the same point, I remember when...

2:00:58When the people needed rain, and they were praying, and because they weren't doing the will of Hashem, at one point someone, Rabbi Eliezer, prayed and no rain came. And they said when Rabbi Akiva came, the rain started, and they said it was because he was more kind to people. At one point, kindness is used over people. Okay, so the Gemara says that if they... there was a drought, and two tzaddikim prayed. Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus prayed, and Rabbi Akiva prayed, but in the end, the prayer was answered for Rabbi Akiva. prayer was answered for Rabbi Akiva, and there was a Bat Kol that came out to eliminate any doubt. So, it's not because Rabbi Akiva was bigger in Torah, but because Rabbi Akiva was not as judgmental in Middat HaDin as Rabbi Eliezer. Meaning, he did not emit a hundred percent judgment in Middat HaDin. Rabbi Akiva

2:02:00was softer at certain times, looking for certain leniencies that perhaps Rabbi Eliezer, his rabbi, was not looking for. It says, since he was a little more merciful, they answered his prayers. Not because he was greater in Torah, and also, it doesn't necessarily mean that he was better or not. For that particular opportunity, he was. For other times, he wasn't. So, We have, that's not the only example we have. We also have an example before that. Who? Moshe Rabbeinu and Aaron HaKohen. Moshe Rabbeinu, HaKadosh Baruch Hu cried, as I said before, when he died, because he was midat hadin. He was the ish emet, rebuked people, told them. But Mishnah in Avot says, Hillel says, be like Aharon HaKohen, he chases peace, he loves peace, and he brings the people to the Torah. So we had a whole shiur about this in our series. What does it mean that Aharon HaKohen was a chaser of peace, lover of peace, and brought people to the Torah? That he did. He's a lover of peace, and he chased peace. Where anytime he saw two people were arguing,

2:03:12He didn't want it to stay that way, so what did he do? He went to one of them and said, "Listen, you know, Reuven, Reuven's really sorry that he yelled at you." "Really?" "Yeah, yeah, he's really sorry." "Oh, he didn't sound like he was sorry." "No, no, no, no, I just spoke to him. He's really sorry. He's sorry." "Okay, okay. You should go see him because he's waiting for you." "Oh, really? He's waiting for me, man? He's that sorry?" "Yeah, no, he was crying." "Oh, oh, wow. Okay, I'm going to go. Where? Where is he?" "Oh, he's in the park." "Okay." He goes to Shimon. "Shimon." "Pfft." "Oh, wow." This guy, he goes to Reuven. Shimon was crying just now. You saw him? He was crying that he was really sorry that he yelled at you. Oh, he didn't sound sorry. He tells both of them that he's sorry, he's sorry. By the time they realized that neither one of them said sorry, they already hugged and kissed. Like, okay, I'm sorry anyway. So, with this type of chasing of peace, I want to claim helped 22,000 households, 22,000 households be built, meaning that when he died, it says that those 22,000 families

2:04:18came and said, "Look, our son, his name is Aaron. Our son, his name is Aaronovich. Our son is Aaron, is Ari. Why? Because we wanted to get a divorce. We went to the Beit Din. Aaron HaKohen was there. He said, 'Why are you fighting?' Oh, she said this, he said this. Aaron HaKohen gave them a few chidushim to make peace between them. The next year they had a baby. They said, 'Oh, it's only because Aaron HaKohen didn't just let us get divorced like Goyim.' Ah, Baruch Hashem, we have a baby now and now we're happy. Baruch Hashem." And that's it, everything is good. Aaron HaKohen was Rodef Shalom. He chased peace, he loved peace. But you have to remember, it also says he brought people to the Torah. Meaning what? He didn't change the truth. He didn't soften it and make it less than what it was and say everybody is Tinok Shenishba. He brought people to the Torah, not the Torah to people. Why? Because you never bring the Torah down to the lowly level of people. You only bring people up to the Torah. Right now he's a Mechalel Shabbat. You don't tell him, "Listen, it's okay you're a Mechalel Shabbat, maybe one day you'll keep it." You never say such a thing. Because the guy, you tell him it's okay, he says it's okay, then it's okay then. It's okay today, it'll be okay next year also.

2:05:39And it'll be okay in five years from now. If you say it's okay now, it's going to always be okay. You never tell them it's okay. You never make it like it's not okay. In fact, you tell them on day one, you have to keep Shabbat. Or what's going to happen? You're going to go to Gehinnom. That's what's going to happen. I'll give you an example. Some kid comes to me, a young kid, goes to a Modern Orthodox Yeshiva. Might as well go to public school. I think he'd be less confused. He tells me all of his friends are Christians. He doesn't like to hang out with Jewish kids. All my friends are Christians. So why should I listen? Why should I do this? Why should I do that? And then he hears one of my Jewish friends. He says, wait a minute. You talked about wasting seed. Listen. I can't stop. I can't stop. said, "Okay, well, you know you have to stop." Then he tells me after Rosh Hashanah, "What happens if you waste seed on Rosh Hashanah?" I told him, "You're gonna go to Gehinnom. What's gonna happen to you?" He got really scared.

2:07:02He said, "What do I do? That's what he did on Rosh Hashanah." People won't go to shul. My unorthodox kid went to waste seed instead. Why? Because all of his friends are Christian. On Rosh Hashanah, he went to waste seed. That's what he did. My unorthodox yeshiva gadol. But then after Rosh Hashanah, he heard, "Oh, you're going to go to Gehinnom." What does Gehinnom mean? I told you there's a couple of shiurim. Go watch those. Baruch Hashem, he's in the process of doing teshuvah now. At least he didn't waste seed on purpose on Yom Kippur. Why? He didn't know it's so bad. He didn't know it's so bad. Sometimes you have to tell people the truth that is a little painful. Why? It's the only way to get them to stop. If there were no traffic signs, the roads would be full of accidents because everybody would drive wherever they want, however they want, whenever they want. they wouldn't naturally decide that the right side is this way and the left side is that way. Everyone would drive wherever they want. They wouldn't drive at a certain speed limit. They would just drive however they wanted. This guy drives too slow, this guy drives too fast. They wouldn't stop. Because it's my right-of-way, why his right-of-way? Who is ze ba'al hakavod? I don't even like him.

2:08:18And all that would happen is havoc, chaos. So there are rules. There are traffic laws. Now, somebody says, yeah, but I don't care about the traffic laws. Okay, you may not care, but if the cops catch you not caring, you could go to jail for a really long time. So you may not care, but you still have to comply. So people don't have a very hard time understanding that. Everyone understands that. But when it comes to the Torah, for some reason, people have a hard time understanding that there are rules, and if you break them, you can get punished very severely. Why do they have a hard time understanding it? Because no one has told them until now. So, does that mean it's too late? Absolutely not. You can tell there's a punishment and there's a reward. Hashem doesn't want to punish you, but that doesn't mean He's not going to. That doesn't mean He's not going to. He's going to give you opportunities to do teshuva before He punishes you, but sometimes you're going to force His hand. You're going to force His hand to punish you. Now,

2:09:22This, rabotai, is just one of those things where if a person doesn't get their head around it and start doing teshuva for a good reason, HaKadosh Baruch Hu will force them to do it for a bad reason. Either way, it's going to happen. Either way, it's going to happen. know, and the rabbi now writes that there are certain sins of karet: wasting seed, being with a woman that's not your wife, i.e. girlfriend, i.e. adultery, i.e. goya, things like that. These are all issur karet, and a person that violates an issur karet, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says Yom Kippur is not going to help you. You have to suffer for it. I have to suffer for it. So every time a person does whatever they want, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says I have to suffer for it. But you know the real reason why this kid, why this kid is doing teshuva now? You know why he's doing teshuva? It's not because of my shiur about Gehinom. Because I already sent him the shiur about Gehinom before, and he never watched it. Told him he didn't watch it. I sent him the shiur about Gehinom before, and he didn't want to listen. And he was kind of busting my chops.

2:10:35about after Yom Kippur that wasting seed. I told him, "You're gonna go to Gehinnom," and he didn't really care. Next day, he got coronavirus. Next day, got coronavirus. But that's what the Navi says. That's what Rabbi Yisrael Yisroel said, that's for us, the Nevuah, Nevuah, Nevuah of Rabbi Yisrael Yisroel. What? Rabbi Yisrael Yisroel says, HaKadosh Baruch Hu sends you the truth. Gives you a book. You don't read it. Okay. He sends you a video. You don't watch it. Sends you the rebuke personally. Rabbi tells you don't do it. Huh? Okay. You don't want to do it. Rabbi Yisrael Yisroel says, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, okay, now it's me and you. Now it's me and you. HaKadosh Baruch Hu starts hating you, and good luck getting Him to stop. Good luck getting Him to stop. Why? The rebuke, if the rebuke, so long as the rebuke doesn't come, Hashem lets it go, go, go, go, go. But the second the rebuke comes and you don't react to it, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, you know what? It's me and you now.

2:11:56What happened last week? You know how many times I've seen this? But that's what happens. A person needs to know that this is very, very important. Because if you don't listen to my words, that may annoy you, may distract you, may upset you, whatever it does. If you don't listen to the words that I'm saying or anyone that's saying similar things to what I'm saying, and... you're putting yourself in a situation where you're forcing Hashem's hand. Because He doesn't want to destroy you forever, like you are destroying yourself. He actually has more mercy on you than you have for yourself. You don't have any mercy on your neshamah because you're making all these sins without any consideration whatsoever about the future. He knows the future, and He knows that if He doesn't get you to stop, Your future is horrendous at best. So He has mercy on you by hitting you now. Why? Because when the Rabbi said it, you didn't listen. Which means that listening to the words that we say from the Chachamim may sound like the hard way, but it's really the easy way. It may sound like it's tough, but in reality, it's one, two, three. Why? It's less painful.

2:13:18painful. You're just gonna decide which pain you want. You want painful words? You want pain from whichever one? Same price, same price. But that's really what it comes down to. People sometimes ask, "Oh, how come Hashem is doing this to me? What happened before He started doing it to you? Did you watch the shiur? Yeah. Did you do anything about it? No. Okay, so that's why He's doing it. Well, that'd be genius. know the Torah. I heard about it. You know, everything He says. No? You know how to drive on Shabbat? Yeah, you're driving? Yeah, okay. No? What's the question? You're lucky you're alive. It's a miracle you're actually responding to my text message. You should be dead according to the Torah. Say, "Thank you for not killing me. Have mercy on me for only giving me a disease and not killing me." You can recover from a disease. You can't recover from death. So, that's the thing. People don't take G-d seriously, even though He's very serious. And unfortunately, they wait a little too long, they play games, and it becomes painful. It becomes very painful. And I've seen it one too many times. People just, you know, they may or may not have an image that they're portraying to the world, that they're having a good life, they're having a good time, but in reality, you look behind the scenes,

2:14:36Rotten lives, rotten situations, kids are on drugs, the parents want to get a divorce, potentially cheating on each other, business is on the verge of collapse, regulators are up your tuchus all day and trying to ask you for this and that, and you don't have any response for them. All types of issues. But you look like, you know, you're wearing a three-piece suit, looks like you're doing good. A guy that doesn't wake up with a smile ear to ear, can't wait to live life, doesn't know what life is. Now, how are you going to wake up? Oh, no, I love my job. If you wake up smiling ear to ear because of your job, there's something wrong with you. Something's wrong with you. Why? Because that job is not going to be around forever. One day you won't be able to do it. So, are you going to kill yourself then? That's actually what happens to a lot of people. As soon as they retire, they die.

2:15:36...one of the worst killers in history is retirement. They retire from work, they die. Why? Because they're used to working. That's their life. That's what they know. As soon as they stop working, they go, "No, I'm gonna take it easy. I'm gonna relax, go see a few islands." Okay, so you do that for a month, two months, three months, six months. You come back home after you spend enough money. "Okay, I gotta keep the rest of the money so I can live on it." Okay, what do you do now? Nothing... What do you mean, nothing, nothing, nothing? What about tomorrow? Same nothing. And the next day? Ah, maybe a little nothing with some coffee. How about the day after that? Coffee, nothing, plus TV, maybe. Oh, you got TV? Yeah, yeah, my son gave it to me. Oh, because you have nothing. TV and all that's gonna help you with a lot of nothing. Yeah, six months later. So, what are you doing now? A little bit of nothing. Facebook, nothing. Maybe a little TV. Nothing and coffee. Coffee, but sometimes tea, and nothing. Before you know it, a year later, the guy's dead. Why? A bunch of nothing reasons. No point to life. No point to life. A person without Torah has no point to live. No point. Why? Because your career is eventually going to stop. Your business is going to eventually stop. Your kids are going to eventually move out and have their own life. If you don't have Torah, you don't have connection to the source, you don't have connection to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, you have no reason to live. Purposeless life.

2:17:03So a person needs to know that Torah is to give him life, not death. What life? Life in this world and the next. Next question. I read about some cases of religious, really religious people that know Torah and study with their life and all that, and all of a sudden they become atheists. And then... Second to a lot of ignorant Jews converting to Christianity, there's a really high percentage becoming atheists. Why is this happening all of a sudden like that? There's no such thing as suddenly going off the derech. The Gemara says that Rabbi Meir Baal Haness's rabbi was Elisha ben Avuya, known as Acher. and uh they called him Acher. Why? He was an enormous, enormous talmid chacham, which means he was able to resurrect the dead. He eventually saw something he couldn't understand. He was one of the four people that went up to Shamayim, did something called Aliyat Neshamah, bringing the neshamah to Shamayim. He saw some things in heaven he didn't understand, when he saw an angel sitting

2:18:28A few things didn't make sense to him, and he became a kofer. He committed murder, adultery, prostitution, and all types of filthy sins. So, one of his students was Rabbi Meir Baal Hanes. You can just imagine what the rabbi is. On Shabbat, he would be riding a horse, and Rabbi Meir would be following him. asking him questions about halakha, and he gives him answers. But he knew he was such a genius that he knew exactly where 2,000 amot was from his head. He got 2,000 amot. He tells him, "Stop. You can't go another step from here." He asks, "Why not?" He responds, "This is exactly what 2,000 amot is. This is where the techum is. If you take one more step, you will violate Shabbat." He says, "What about you? You're on a horse. On top of it, you're going to pass 2,000 amot." He replies, "Ah, I'm a lost case. I'm a lost case," he says. So how could such a thing be? When Elisha ben Avuya, also known as Acher, was born...

2:19:42His father invited chachamim to the house. His father invited chachamim to the house. And a couple of the chachamim started learning Torah—serious, serious Kabbalistic Torah—to the point where they created a spiritual fire around themselves at his birthday party. Now, when the father came, he saw this fire, and he said, "What, you're burning my house?" They said to him, "No, no, don't worry. This is a spiritual fire from the Torah, from the Kedusha that we're learning." And his father said, "Ah, if that's what the Torah gives, I'll dedicate my son to Torah." The Chachamim say that's one of the reasons. Meaning, the Torah that Elisha Acher studied wasn't Lishma. wasn't for the sake of Torah. It was for the sake of getting a reward. It was for the sake of getting recognition. And such a Torah doesn't have legs to stand on. Eventually, it breaks. Does that mean that it's the father's fault that he went off the derech? No. Elisha, like others, whether it be Menashe, or it be David HaMelech's son, or it be many others,

2:21:03that went off the derech, had desires, had ta'avot (desires). And because they did not control their ta'avot, they fell. And the Gemara in Masechet Sanhedrin says, how did Am Yisrael go serve avodah zarah (idols)? Don't they know it's all fake? The Gemara says, of course they know it's fake. So why do they do it? Since they did it because they wanted the rabbis to stop coming to visit them, so they could go with the goyot. They wanted to commit acts of immorality. So they told the rabbis they were idol worshippers, and the rabbis didn't rebuke them as much. The rabbis went to easier customers. It's easier to save a Jew that's secular than to save a Jew that's married to a Christian or perhaps converted to Christianity. So he said, oh, once they showed them they were practicing idolatry, they left them alone. Why did they practice idolatry? They didn't really believe in idols. No, because they wanted the freedom to commit immoral acts. Go with the zonot and all of the filth of the world. That's what they wanted. And that's in essence what happened. Also, there was a Kohen Gadol. There was a Kohen Gadol for 80 years who went off the derech and became a Sadducee.

2:22:24How could you be going 80 years? How could you be so holy? 80 years you're going, 80 years you're going, and all of a sudden you go off the path? How? I read one time Rabbi Avigdor Miller wrote, he says in reality, he was rotten the whole way, came from a rotten family, he was rotten, he was surrounded by rotten friends, and he was doing rotten things. So he wasn't really exactly the tzaddik for 80 years, he just had the job because he had some money and some power. And he had desires that he was fulfilling, and eventually he said, okay, let me just fulfill everything. Same thing with everybody else. Same thing with somebody today that suddenly goes off the derech. Oh, no, no, I just had some questions. He didn't have questions. He had excuses. Torah tells us every day, mitzvah to ask questions. Why? Torah has answers for everything you're going to ask. Everything you're going to ask, you have an answer for. Which means if you don't get an answer, that's because you didn't look hard enough.

2:23:43didn't ask the right person, you didn't look in the right books, you didn't really care about the answer. Why? You wanted to ask a question that the average rabbi or person doesn't know the answer to in order to justify fulfilling your desire to go with the goya, to fulfill your desire to go and do whatever you want, but saying no, it's the Torah's fault. Bupkis. Bupkis. You have a question, Torah has answers. No, but I didn't accept the answer. It's because you didn't read it hard enough. That's because your desire is blinding you. It's blinding you. You're so addicted to something, it's blinding you. And unfortunately, people get blinded every day. Every day in business, in religion, in a lot of things. and they refuse to see the truth even if the truth is staring at them in the face. Now, I'm just thinking about it right now. When I have the idea, maybe I'll give it to you now. One of the ways I've spoken about over the last 15 years is that people have been blinded on a daily basis.

2:25:06...is in business. There's a lot of corruption, cheating, and so on and so forth. But sometimes people decide what they want to believe, and they make it true in their mind. So, for 50 years or so, 40-50 years, maybe longer, the price of gold... And investment in gold was a complete waste of time. Why? It didn't do much. Other things did much better. But over the last decade or so, a little more than a decade, gold became the hot commodity, and so did precious metals in general—gold, silver, platinum, and so on. It started fluctuating in price. Once it started fluctuating in price as the market became more systematic, more computerized, and so on, and you were able to trade gold without actually owning the precious metal itself, it became a more liquid asset, more tradable, and then more volatile. Now, in order to keep the volatility going in one direction, people started making stuff up, such as, "We need gold in order to satisfy the economy, hold back up the economy." more computerized, and so on, and you were able to trade gold without actually owning the precious metal itself, it became a more liquid asset, more tradable, and then more volatile. Now, in order to keep the volatility going in one direction, people started making stuff up, such as, "We need gold in order to satisfy the economy, hold back up the economy."

2:26:32And although there's more than enough evidence to show that gold has no connection whatsoever to the economy, people continuously press this until this day. Gold apparently is over $1,900 an ounce. People today, until this day, say, "Look, it went up and went down and went up and went back up. See, gold is going back up. That's because the economy is weak and, therefore, gold is backing the dollar." And this is one of the biggest lies in the world today to such an extent that one of two things has to happen in the very near future. One, gold collapses completely like it did in the past, but much worse. Or two, the entire economy collapses. Option three is both collapse, which is probably more likely. Why? People are investing a ton of money into gold, thinking that gold has some type of value as far as the economy is concerned, as far as safety is concerned, and so on. They're figuring that it's a limited supply.

2:27:46Now, I wrote two articles about this years ago when I was on Wall Street, trying to explain to a bunch of people that even if you wanted gold to back up the economy, you cannot, because there's simply too much money. Now, b'Siyata d'Shmaya, I got this report today. It was published, and it's very interesting. It gives you a visual perspective of the U.S. money supply versus precious metal production during the COVID-19 era. Why? Because right now there's less work, there's less distance, you know, so figuring the market's crazy right now, it should have a major impact. Gold has gone up drastically in the last several months. A lot of people think it's because the economy is weak. and dollar is this and dollar is that. So, this report shows how many ounces of gold and silver were mined since the beginning of the year 2020 in the Gregorian calendar versus how much money was printed during the same time. They say that for every

2:29:17four dollars for every four dollars of gold over ten thousand dollars was printed, and over eleven thousand dollars of debt by the government was taken. What does that mean in other terms? That Every new ounce of gold, ounce right now, is $1,900. The Federal Reserve added another $4 million to the money supply, meaning they printed $4 million more for every $1,900 worth of gold. Now, how much, maybe you say, so maybe there's too much gold being found. According to statistics, not very much gold is there. Right now, 826,000 ounces of gold were mined. No, production, yeah, 826,000 ounces per day. Not very much gold is there. Right now, 826,000 ounces of gold were mined. No, production, yeah, 826,000 ounces per day.

2:30:35the highest it's ever been was 78 ounces, meaning, in so many words, it's the average. It's not nothing; this economy, this COVID, didn't really affect the gold market, in so many words. It's not more, it's not less, by much; it's pretty much in line. So, the gold supply, in essence, has stayed the same. But the money supply, on the other hand, has gone up drastically. They're printing; they printed a three and a half trillion dollars. Three and a half trillion dollars in comparison to 1.6 billion dollars of gold. So, you're talking about a situation where, over the last nine months, the U.S. added 400% more money to the money supply. They printed 400% more money into the money supply than they did in the entire previous year. And

2:31:38an obnoxious amount more than in previous years. So what does that mean? What does that mean? What do we care about the economy right now? I'm going back to the stock market. What do we care about this? Meaning that right now there's a wall over people's eyes. People think that they're safe in gold and they're safe in a lot of different things. They're safe in the stock market, they're safe in real estate, they're safe in a lot of things. What they don't realize is the whole thing is an illusion. Everything right now is an illusion. The market is simply an illusion. People think that because something went up, that gives it value. They don't realize that it's only going to be up until there are no more suckers to buy. There are no more suckers to buy. Who's going to be the last one holding the chair? Who's going to be the last one holding the bag? Looks in the bag, empty. Empty. Now, because what ends up happening is that in order for gold Just for it to back up not all of the money that's in the world today. Not all the money in the world today. Just for it to back up the money that was printed this year, it has to go to $4 million an ounce. World War 100 will be declared before that happens. It can never be.

2:32:59And the reality is that what ends up happening a lot of times is that we bet a lot on things we want to believe, even though they're not true, but we feel it. What is it like? In my sukkah, we had a nice breakfast the other day, and I told a story, a real story, that puts things in perspective. Some years ago, there was a strike in Israel in the area of Bnei Brak by the sanitation department. The sanitation department wanted more money, but the authorities weren't willing to give it, so they said, "We're not picking up garbage anymore." So what happened? You don't pick up garbage for one day. No big deal. You don't pick up garbage for a whole week. Big deal. You don't pick up garbage for a month. Nightmare. Garbage adds up, and you have mountains in front of every house. Now these mountains become toxic. These mountains are filthy, disgusting. You're hurting other people if you're putting your garbage there. Yeah, but there's other garbage there. Okay, the other garbage is other people's. It's not your problem.

2:34:28Your garbage is your problem. What does Halacha say? Rav Zilberstein, Rav Zilberstein, during the strike, says you're not allowed to take the garbage out. What are we going to do with the garbage? Keep it in your house. Why? Because every time you take your garbage out, with the diapers, and this, and all the goodies that you have in there, you're damaging other people. Yeah, but Rabbi, there are other people that have garbage out there. Says, their garbage is their problem. Your garbage is your problem. You add garbage to it, you're adding more damage. You cannot be a mazik. You can't damage other people. So what do we do with the garbage? You guys put it in your house. So what did everybody do? What did they do? Everybody kept their garbage in their balcony. A little balcony. You know, ten feet. Six feet by six feet. Something like that. Tiny little balcony. Everybody started putting their garbage. In their balconies, little mountains of garbage. The problem is, okay, after a day, two days, three days, it starts adding up into little mountains instead of being outside in your garbage. The stench starts going into your house. Now, what happens if you're like this guy in the story who has 15 kids and seven of them are still in diapers? He's going through 30 diapers a day. 30 diapers, 30 bags full of goodies.

2:35:5730 diapers a day because these are nice, healthy children, they eat nice food, so they're "goodies" for you. What are you going to do with that? Put it on the balcony? Okay, put it on the balcony. After a week or two, the stench is in the house. You can't pray anymore in the house, you can't say mussar in the house, because if there's a stench, you can't do anything. So, this guy thinks of a brilliant thought... The Gemara in Masechet Pesachim says that the Am Ha'aretz, the ignoramus, hates the Talmid Chacham more than Esav hates the Talmid Chacham. More than Esav. Amalek hates the Jews. The lefty liberal hates the Talmid Chacham that much. More. And his wife even worse, she says, Gemara. His wife even more.

2:36:57So, what are you thinking? Oh, where is the most amount of lefty liberals? Ah, Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv, yeah, but I want to deliver them the garbage. And they get arrested. They get arrested. So what does he do? Brilliant idea. Brilliant idea. Don't try this at home, though. Brilliant idea. What does he do? He asks his friends in the neighborhood, in the neighborhood over there, please, anyone that has brand name bags, please give them to me. Brand name bags. So everybody said, brand name bags, so plastic bags. They give him Nike, Adidas, Levi's, you know, Donna Karan, all these popular brands. Everybody gives him their bags, shopping bags. Doesn't cost anything. They give him the bags. So he starts putting the goodies from his kids in the bags, and he puts a nice bow on, you know, a couple of bags to make sure that the present is really secure, and you don't smell it right away. You want to keep the present. He puts the bags in there, puts a nice little bow on each one, and fills up his car with all the garbage. Goes to Tel Aviv, drives to Tel Aviv, gets to the center over there, opens the trunk, and leaves the car. Leaves the car and sees what happens. Watches from a distance. Not 10-15 minutes pass by.

2:38:17A car full of hooligans. They see that there is an opportunity. He knocks. Why? They see a car. Open trunk. Let's go see what's in it. What? Yo, look at that. Yo. It's Nike. Adidas. Dude. I got it. Okay, I got this. They start. Within a few minutes, they get all of the goodies in their car. Yeah, like in the movies. They just run away with the presents. Now in the car, you know, come on. Listen, guys, we just made a big hit. You're going to make a big hit. Who's going to get what? Listen, I need some sneakers. I like kicks. I like kicks. I get the sneakers. Okay, you get Adidas. You get Nike. And okay, you get Puma. You get Duma. You get Gehinnom. You get Kaf HaKela. Everybody gets something. All right. All right, listen, I need some shirts, man. You know, you got to go with the kicks. You got to go with the shirts. Okay, Levi's is yours. DKNY is mine. Dude, they start separating the bags. Okay, so now after they got the bags, all right, let's open the goodies. They all go, all right, start opening the bags. Oh, there's another bag in his bag. Kind of strange. You know, by the way, this bag is kind of soft to be sneakers.

2:39:27It's kind of weird. I don't know. This guy's probably smart. This guy's probably trying to hide something. So they go to the bags. It's kind of weird. They don't really understand what's going on here. They're like, what's going on? I'm not sure. You fart? What is that? What's going on here? All right. Keep going to the bags. And then he reaches into the bag. And he sees what Chassidus Gur can create after a little bit of cholent. That's the basic story. Now, I want to make you laugh, but I also have to teach you. Rabbi Fein says, a person goes into this world and he listens to a few shiurim and he says I got to do teshuvah, I got to do teshuvah, I got to keep Shabbat. The rabbi keeps saying Shabbat. I got to make challah because the rabbi keeps saying challah. I got to eat kosher because the rabbi keeps mentioning kosher, kosher. Okay, so eat kosher. No, what's the big deal? And he holds on to a couple of mitzvot that he likes. He holds on to a couple of mitzvot that she likes.

2:40:48And I do a few things, and he goes to shul, but Torah? Not so much. Why? It takes too much time. I'm busy making money. You know what? I'll just give some money to some talmid chacham that will study for me. I'll give some money to tzedakah on Rosh Hashanah, get an aliyah or two. It's okay. It's okay. Hashem understands. Hashem needs money. So I'm going to give some money. They're going to do the studying for me. Okay. After 120, everybody goes upstairs, whether you like it or you don't like it. Unless you're Rabbi Preida, which the Gemara says gave him 400 years because he was such a tzaddik. Go up to Shamayim, Beit Din shel Ma'ala, they say, "Nu, what do you got for us?" "Oh, listen to me, I lived all this life. I kept Shabbat, my wife made challah, I kept kosher, supermarket every Friday, a thousand bucks, nu?" You know what, let's bring the mitzvot. They bring a bunch of Nike bags, a bunch of Adidas, a bunch of Donna Karan. All the mitzvot, all the mitzvot he made. The mitzvot he made. And I said, let's see, how much did you like going to beit knesset? You used to go to the beit knesset, right? Yeah, let's see how much you liked going to beit knesset.

2:42:07When you were praying Amidah, how many times did you think about HaKadosh Baruch Hu instead of your business? How many times did you think about the kavanah of HaKadosh Baruch Hu instead of your upcoming vacation? How many times did you think that Yishtabach Shemo of HaKadosh Baruch Hu is giving you the money? How many times did you think during Amidah? How many times did you actually have kavanah during Shema Yisrael? Because you liked going to beit knesset, right? That's what you kept, right? Oh, I didn't know I have to think about it. Oh, you didn't? It says in the Gemara that you have to think about it. Oh, I didn't know. Oh, so they opened the bag of the tefillah that he had, the Nike bag, and what do they see? They see diapers. They see your mitzvah is full of diapers, full of goodies. And that's what happens. We're all going to show up in Shamayim one day thinking we're all tzaddikim. I kept Shabbat, I did this, I did that, and then all the angels are going to open up the Nike bags and say that our mitzvot are full of diapers. Why? You didn't want to do it. You didn't like doing it. Instead of thinking about Hashem, you thought about your girlfriend, your boyfriend, your dog, your cat.

2:43:20You didn't want to learn, you didn't care about learning, you didn't care about Hashem, you didn't care about anything. But you did it because the rabbi said it, or your wife said it, or somebody said it, and it was convenient. So, in case you have a brand-name bag, you have a mitzvah, you're going to get a reward for it, but it's full of... And that's a problem. How many of us are going up to Shamayim with Nike bags? And that's a reality. That's a reality. How do you get out of this trouble? You have to learn Torah. Why? You have to start learning about the mitzvot that you're doing in order to start enjoying them. You have to invest more into them. Why do you think the sukkah is easy to make? Blood, sweat, and tears, and every single year, it's harder than the year before, even though we've done it already several times. Why? Because that's what you have to do with a mitzvah. I wish I did every mitzvah like this. Can't tell you I do every mitzvah like this. But the reality is, there are certain things you have to try harder. Why? I struggle here, here, here, and here.

2:44:38But this one, I'm going to go all out. So at the very least, okay, maybe you have a couple of Nike bags, but you got a diamond. You got a diamond here and there. You know, kind of like, okay, listen, I'm not great in everything. You can't be Moshe Rabbeinu in every mitzvah. Relax. I'm not saying, okay? But I got a couple of diamonds. I got a couple of things I'm really good at. Like every time there's a shiur, I always show up. Every time there's tefillah, I'm always on time. Every time there's some type of new chiddush, I always write it down. Every time there's something, there are a few mitzvot I'm really good at. Don't show up to Shamayim with a bunch of bags full of diapers. You have to take on a few mitzvot. You have to learn Torah. You have to learn about these mitzvot. You have to take them on. You got to push it. And that's the thing. A lot of times people are trying to just coast. Coast. Do whatever they can just to get away with it. And forget about being sad. It's criminal. It's criminal for you. Now, the problem is, at some point, every single person, including us, will be in a dilemma with certain mitzvot. Why? In the beginning, you first start, you're hot.

2:46:05... in the process of conversion, the entire Torah is easy. "Give it to me, give it to me, the whole thing, give it to me. If I was Muslim, I’d tell them, listen ten times, give me the whole thing, I'm just converting, give me the whole time. You don't know, give it to me anyway, I want it. I want to be a Jew. I want to be a ba’al teshuva. Ba’alei teshuva and converts, all Torah. Five years later... Rabbi, really? 7 o'clock in the morning? Can't do like at 9? What happened? Five years ago you were Moshe Rabbeinu, the whole Torah. I don't know, Rabbi. I'm tired. I don't know what's happening. I don't know. In the beginning, we're all hot. We cool off. cool off after a while. In the beginning, oh, how come everybody's praying so fast? Take your time and pray. Five, ten years later, it's like, oh, no, these people take five years. I already finished ten minutes ago. What do you mean? Ten years ago, you used to say these guys are going too fast. How do you have kavanah now? Now you're saying, what happened? What happened? What'd you become from? What'd you become frum from? What happens? You forgot...

2:47:21You forgot to be the new guy. You know how often you have to be the new guy? Your whole life. In business, you want to succeed? You have to be the new guy. All the time. Needless to say, in Torah, you want to succeed? You have to be the new guy. What's my raya? What's the proof? Under Aron HaKodesh, HaKadosh Baruch Hu has what? Two little babies. Why two little babies going like this? What is it, Hashem likes babies? Yes, He likes babies. What do you mean babies? These are symbolic of Am Yisrael. When there's a new guy with a little baby, he wants more information. I want, I want, I do, I do, I do. What do you mean you do? You don't even know what it is. But I want it. But you don't even know what it is. But I want it though. But you don't even know what it is yet. Yeah, but I want it. The other day, we were talking for two seconds. My little kid, Ovadia, he goes, I want to go fundraising. I said, what's fundraising? He goes, I don't know, you're going to do it, so I want it. I'll take a fundraising. So for the last two days, he's been telling me, when are we going fundraising? I said, what's fundraising? He goes, I don't know, but you're going to do it, so I want to do it.

2:48:39That's a baby. HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants babies. He doesn't want you to grow up full. He wants you to be a Baal Teshuva forever. He wants you to be a convert forever. He wants you to be new forever. How? Every day you have to learn more as if Torah is completely new to you. As soon as you start treating it like it's old socks, It becomes Nike bags full of diapers. That's what happens. That's what happens, Rabotai. In the beginning, everybody's hot. Everybody's excited. Now, at times a week, I get people telling me, "Rabbi, I don't know what happened. I went to shul for the first time. I started crying." I said, "What happened? Somebody died?" "No, I don't know. The rabbi just, like, said it's time to pray, and I just started crying. I was so excited. I was talking to Hashem." I said, "Wow, I miss your feeling." I miss your feeling. I used to have it too. I used to cry too. Now I have to, like, punch myself in the face to cry. And even that doesn't work sometimes. A guy goes to shul and starts crying. I call one guy, I'm like, "Listen, you left me a message about this mitzvah, this is how you do it. The fanot of the sukkah, you have to do this." He starts crying on the phone. "Why are you crying?" "I just learned a new mitzvah, so I'm excited."

2:50:09You're 35 years old, and you're crying? Yeah, it's so exciting, isn't it? Are you always this excited? I said, I miss your feeling. You just learned a mitzvah, and you're crying? I want to kiss you; you're so cute. It's like a baby. That's what HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants. Stay like that. He doesn't want the old man that's bored of mitzvot. Frum. He wants you to be new. "No, excited. I love mitzvot! How can you get to that point? Learn every day, learn every day. Now, of course, you know I give you the secret. It's... I already knew it, which means she's going to interrupt and tell you, 'No, come on, you'll be a fanatic.' No, no, no, come on. You're already religious for five years, already enough. You're already religious for 10 years, enough, enough. You're just doing enough. Don't listen to this guy; he's a fanatic." Yet Sarah is going to interfere, try to cool you off. Why? That's midat Amalek. That's a trait of Amalek. That's what Amalek does, tries to cool you off. So instead of listening to the shiur that's on fire,

2:51:21He says, listen, this guy is so extreme. It's 10 o'clock at night. You don't need to listen to this guy. Listen to someone who's softer spoken, like, you know, a grandfather type that kind of puts you to sleep while he's teaching you. Maybe he cuddles you a little bit. He's still talking about Moshe Rabbeinu. It's nicer Torah. Nuni, nuni, nuni, nuni. And that's where your neshama goes. Nuni, nuni. Why? It goes from fire to nuni. It goes to sleeping. Bye-bye. It used to be on fire. Mitzvot, Torah, Moshe Rabbeinu. All of a sudden it goes to sleep. Nap time. Nap time. Why? He wants the kumer. Why? Amalek showed up. Amalek showed up and told him, listen, this guy is always yelling, screaming. Go to somebody that's a kumer. Who did HaKadosh Baruch Hu cry about? Did HaKadosh Baruch Hu cry about some monotone speaker that's half dead? No, He cried about Moshe Rabbeinu. Why? Moshe Rabbeinu yelled at Am Yisrael. Moshe Rabbeinu yelled at Am Yisrael. HaKadosh Baruch Hu cried. Why? So who's going to yell at Am Yisrael like this? Who's going to wake them up? They're sleeping. Who's going to wake them up? The problem is,

2:52:42Amalek sometimes shows up with a beard. He tells you, nah, come on. Calmer Torah, nicer, smoother talking, maybe rhymes a little bit, a joke or two, make it smooth sailing. If the Torah doesn't light you up, it's not from Heaven. Why? The Gemara says itself, Torah is fire. Torah is fire. If you're learning Torah that doesn't fire you up, you're not learning Torah, Habibi. Not learning Torah. It says, complete fire. Last page. It says even Gehinnom can't touch him. Why? Because the fire of Torah... It's part of their neshama right now. That fire of Torah is stronger than the fire of Gehinnom. They can walk around Gehinnom, nothing happens to them. Why? Their fire is stronger than the fire of, what fire? The fire of Torah. There's another Gemara. It says, you see him get angry? Don't judge him. Why? Since he's adding fire to his life, he's still young. He doesn't know how to control it yet.

2:54:11So he's a little fiery. It's okay, don't worry. Over time he'll calm down. But it's not the same if you stay fiery. Why? That's talmid chacham. Talmidei chachamim are full of fire. Full of fire. A person wants to calm down, a person wants to be monotone and a numi numi, the neshama goes numi numi. neshama goes numi numi. You have to have Torah that fires you up a little bit. Now, of course, there are certain things that fire you up more than others. But you have to make it exciting. You have to make the mitzvot exciting. You have to make life as a Torah scholar, Torah observant Jew, Torah rabbanit. You have to make it exciting. If you don't, Amalek is not even in the company. Why? You already did the job for him. That's what Amalek's job is, to cool you off. You're not going to try hard, you're going to cool off by yourself. Anybody ever do a Lag Ba'Omer fire? Lag Ba'Omer fire, you have a little bonfire, you throw some wood in there, right? After a while, what happens? The fire goes down. How do you keep it up? Keep putting wood. More wood, more wood, more wood, more wood, more stuff. Why? You need more fuel.

2:55:35don't add more Torah, you don't add more fuel to the fire that's in you. Guess what? Eventually, it goes down, down, down, down, down to zero. You have to push. Next question. I don't even know if there was a question. I just went off. No. and we know that if you go to Yom Kippur and your sins are between you and Hashem be on hold if someone else is upset at you. But if, like, someone is upset at you not because of something you did personally—let's say you used to talk to someone and you know their family members, and you don't hear from them anymore, and they're upset at you for not hearing from you for a long time or anything. Does that count as someone being upset at you, and you don't say sorry because you're not

2:56:35no, I mean, if somebody is upset at you because of their own ego or their demands that are unreasonable, then it's not really your problem because you could never have a clean bill of health. There's always going to be somebody upset at you in life, especially the more people you know and the older you get. There's always going to be somebody that's unhappy with you or unhappy with certain things about you. It's just a reality. No, I mean, as long as you are following what the Torah says, you're doing what the Torah says, you're complying with the law, you're doing everything that's necessary, and somebody has a problem with it, it's their problem. You can't make the whole world happy. You have to simply do the best you can, and the world around you will change. One good thing is that the more you comply with the Torah, the more Hashem will change the world around you to such an extent that it says, even your enemies will come to you and say, I'm sorry.

2:57:50Even your enemies will come to you and say, "I'm sorry." So, if you still have enemies that are saying, "Not, I'm sorry," okay, so there's a little bit more of an upgrade we need to do for our mitzvot and our Torah and so on. But it also means that there are certain people that are going to come to you and say, "I'm sorry" to you at some point. Why? Because the happier Hashem is with you, the more He's going to change the world and the world's perspective of you. Now, I can tell you myself that I've always danced to my own tune. I've never been a follower of things. Whatever you want to call it—leader, loner, crazy—it doesn't really make a difference. I've always done my own thing, and I've always had naysayers my whole life.

2:58:58When I was a kid, 13 years old, I wanted to go play football. I was 5 feet nothing and 100-and-nothing pounds. But I wanted to go play with Amalek. Why? I don't know. I thought I was going to be an NFL football player. And then in high school, I said, I'm going to go to college. Why? You're going to be a psychiatrist. You don't have money for college. Find a way. And then I went to Wall Street. Why are you going to Wall Street? I'll make millions of dollars. Are you crazy? You were making money selling computers. You were making money doing other things. Stay there. No, no, no. I want to make millions. And I kept doing it. I kept going against the wave. And sometimes I succeeded. Sometimes I failed. And when I first became religious or started to learn and become religious, not everybody was a fan. Not everybody was a big fan of me becoming religious. In fact, some people that were very, very important to me were very much against it. And told me, "Nah, come on, listen, you just went through some health crisis, you're going through a health crisis, you're going through a financial crisis. Focus on work, focus on rebuilding yourself, and then become religious later on in life."

3:00:09And, you know, some people didn't like it. They were very important to me. Some people who weren't very important to me made fun of me. They weren't important to me, so I didn't really care, but they made fun of me. I even had a business associate of mine that, after, you know, I was already involved with him for a few years, and I met him, and he's a very, very, you know, very wealthy person. I don't know what his net worth is, but definitely at least $100, $200 million. Like something obscene. And I met him for coffee. And he said, "I'm not drinking anything." I said, "Why are you not drinking? The place is not kosher." I still, at the time, was so new, I didn't know I shouldn't even show up to these places. And I'm sitting with this guy, we're talking some shop. And he's like, "I'm really worried about you." I said, "Why are you worried about me? I'm happy." He's like, "I don't know. I think it's too drastic of a change. It's too drastic of a change." So the point being is, it wasn't roses. It wasn't roses. A lot of people that, you know, and I'm really only mentioning the ones to you that I valued their opinion. Even if I didn't necessarily care that much, or I did the opposite, I still valued their opinion to some extent. Some people were really important to me, some people were less important, but nonetheless still valuable opinions.

3:01:25I went with the truth. I went with my life, and you know it caused me a lot of issues, problems, and all types of things. I even lost some people that I cared about. These people who were very, very close to me virtually became enemies because of the Jew, because of Judaism, because of the Torah. And truth be told... I don't have a single regret in my body. I don't have any type of regret or sorrow for any of it. In fact, I feel bad for them that they're so mistaken. But one of the things that HaKadosh Baruch Hu did for me over time is that little by little, some of those people, not necessarily all of them, but some of those people that were naysayers and very much against... doing teshuva, have actually become some of my biggest fans. They watch all the shiurim, they start doing teshuva themselves, they started, you know, changing their lives themselves. Yeah, but just a few, five, ten years ago, you were making fun of it. Okay, five, ten years ago, I was making fun of it because I was stupid, and now today, I realize it's a big deal. So, it means that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is happy with a person, you know, some of those people that are, you know, going against you,

3:02:51ultimately become people that will ask you for a blessing. Some of them will stay against you; not everybody will. So, you have to just stick to what the truth is. What does Hashem say? That's what I'm sticking to. Why? That's the only word that doesn't change. Everything else is an opinion, and opinions change based on the times and the weather. But Hashem's word doesn't change. doesn't change His mind. So, since He doesn't change His mind, you stick to Him, and you'll see the world around you change. Little by little, certain things will happen. But, of course, there are going to be ups and downs. There are going to be different tests that HaKadosh Baruch Hu sends you through. None of them are easy—there are no layups. None of them are easy, especially family tests, marriage tests, life tests, work tests, and money tests, but Remember, every time before HaKadosh Baruch Hu raises you, He has to give you a test first. What is it like every time before you pass a class in school? What do you have? Finals. Why? To see if you learned anything. To take the information that you've acquired all of this time, to see if you qualify to go to the next grade.

3:04:12You get a test at the end of the year, finals. If you pass, you go to the next grade. If you fail, you get left back. Same thing with HaKadosh Baruch Hu. What do you think, they invented it in school? No, HaKadosh Baruch Hu invented it. HaKadosh Baruch Hu, before He raises you to the next level, gives you a test. If you've learned, you move on to the next level. There's blessing, there's parnasah, there's this, there's that, a lot of good things. But if you fail, guess what? You get left back. Meaning what? You keep getting that same test over and over again until you pass. Now, it doesn't necessarily happen every single day. Maybe another six months later, you'll get the same test. But the point is that there has to be a test. There have to be difficulties. And those tests sometimes have eyes and ears and noses. Those tests are sometimes people you love. Those tests are sometimes people you care about. Those tests are sometimes people you do business with. Those tests are sometimes people that you never thought in your wildest dreams you were even going to meet. Different things. So you have, the Torah gives you a perspective from HaKadosh Baruch Hu that doesn't change. And so long as you glue yourself to that and what He says, you're guaranteed to pass the test. Why? That's the cheat sheet. The answers are in that book. The answers are in that book. Why do we fail tests? We don't look at the book.

3:05:35Because we'll give you the answers. No, no, no, I'm going to do it on my own. Okay, good luck to you. Idiot. You have the answers for free. And you're even allowed to use them when you choose to do it on your own. Okay. Good luck with that one. Good luck with that one. So, that's the thing. You have to prepare yourself for tests and you'll succeed. Next. Next question. Okay. So, generally speaking, emotions are one of the things that get a person into the deepest amount of trouble. Why? As you said, they get out of control once in a while. Somebody gives you a salary, a few hundred bucks, a few thousand bucks, whatever it is. Okay, thank you very much. After a little while, you're not so excited about it. But, emotions are one of the things that get a person into the deepest amount of trouble. Why? As you said, they get out of control once in a while. Somebody gives you a salary, a few hundred bucks, a few thousand bucks, whatever it is. Okay, thank you very much. After a little while, you're not so excited about it. But,

3:06:58One day, you're left behind in the office. Everybody left. And suddenly, you see that the boss's door is open. And you peek in. You see what happens. You see the briefcase full of money, cash, unmarked bills. No one's ever going to know you did it. And even if they know, you're already going to be in the Bahamas. You've got $5 million. It's going to take you 100 years to make that money. What happens? Your emotions, your emotions go crazy. Take it, don't take it. Steal it, don't steal it. Well, I'm not a ganav, but I am a ganav. But your emotions do go crazy. Now, if you can't get your emotions under control, guess what? You're going to be on CNN. But if you can, then no one's ever going to know. No one's ever going to know you didn't steal. Because they don't say, oh, look, this guy, what a tzaddik, he didn't steal. No one's ever going to know. And that in itself creates an emotion. Like doing the right thing doesn't yield the same attention as doing the wrong thing. So that in itself creates an emotion. And a person needs to constantly battle that balance of emotions and how to balance them. Now,

3:08:21The only way for a person to truly get closer to Hashem is by learning more about Him, from the perspective of Hashem and His sages, not from the perspective of your opinion of Him or your delusions of Him or your thoughts of what it could be. But rather, what do we have that's verified? What do we have that's psak halacha? Because as I told you, if today you said that there's a bigger prophet than Moshe Rabbeinu, you're considered a kofer, a heretic, and can't count you in a minyan. But Miriam, his sister, said that he's not the greatest. She didn't understand what's wrong with him. She wasn't considered a kofer. It didn't become p'sak halacha. A second later it became p'sak halacha, that became the new reality. so you have to measure your thoughts and beliefs versus what's the p'sak halacha. Why? Because p'sak halacha is reality. Your reality is not reality. Your reality is opinion. P'sak halacha is reality. We always think it's the opposite. We think that p'sak halacha is like, you know, somebody's opinion, but my reality is reality. That's why people have a tough time with Torah.

3:09:41so you have to measure what is your opinion versus p'sak halacha. The more in line those two are, the more your opinion is like p'sak halacha, the more you're going to be able to control your emotions. Why? Because everything you do will have to have a reason that's connected to the halacha. Such as, wake up in the morning — what should I do today? What does halacha say? Allah says you have to pray, or else you can't start the day. You have to say thank you to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. You have to say Birkot HaShachar. You have to say Birkot HaTorah. Why should I say Birkot HaTorah? Because you have to learn Torah today. That's why. Oh, okay. All right, can I go eat? No, you can't go eat. Why? Halacha says you have to go pray first. You can't eat until you put on tefillin. I'm hungry. Okay, so pray fast. What can I tell you? You can't eat until you put on tefillin. Okay, so I guess I got to pray then. Yeah, you got to pray. Okay, after that, should I go? Where? Where do you want to go? I'm going to hang out with some friends. Who are your friends? Ah, one guy is a gangster, the other one is a thief, and the other one is a womanizer. Halacha says no. Okay, that made a decision for you. Halacha makes a decision for you. Why? You don't look at things based on your emotions of do I want to go, do I not want to go, should I go, should I not go. It says allowed, not allowed.

3:11:10Once you look at your life from that perspective—allowed, not allowed—automatically, you're removing the vast majority of emotions from the argument. The vast majority of emotions are gone. Why? Because before you made the decision for yourself, Halacha already made the decision for you. It told you this is not allowed, so there's no point in thinking about it. You're not allowed to go on a date with this woman. Why? She's married, she's not Jewish, whatever the reason—it’s not allowed. So there's no point in thinking about, oh, but she's nice and she's pretty and she's just my type. There's no point in thinking about it. Why? It's not allowed. It's not allowed. That's it. It's not allowed. There's no point in thinking, oh, this guy is a really good guy. I can do business with him. There's no point. No point in doing business. Why? He's a drug dealer. You cannot do business with him. Drug dealer, that's it. You don't know if the money is stolen. It's got blood on it. You don't know. That's it. He's finished. You can't do business with him. He's selling drugs currently. Now, if he used to and then he did Teshuvah, he's still a murderer right now. You cannot do business with him. Why? You'll be facilitating his murder. You'll be helping him murder. You'll be helping him launder money and so on and so forth. You can't do it. Halachah decides it.

3:12:24...so on and so forth. The more a person's decisions are in accordance with Halacha, the easier it becomes to manage emotions. But when a person is not managing his life based on Halacha, because he doesn't know what to do, he just feels what's right, surely it's impossible to control your emotions. Every day you're going to feel something else, and other people around you are going to feel something else... Like, sometimes people say, listen, I feel like I'm supposed to marry this girl. Why do you feel that way? I don't know, she's just the right type. What did she say to you? Oh, I haven't talked to her yet. Wait, you haven't talked to her, and you already feel you need to marry her? How is that? How can you feel such a thing? Are you a prophet? I don't know, I just have that feeling in my heart. Oh, you're probably very attracted to her. Well, yeah, she is beautiful. Okay, that's not feeling. That's lust. It's a sin. The way you have it, if you're a husband, it's allowed. But if you're not a husband, it's a sin. No. So a person that looks, whether allowed or not allowed, is going to eliminate the "I feel" from their life. Not all of it, but a large part of it. And that's going to make life a lot easier. A lot easier.

3:13:50But again, it's not such an easy thing at all times, but I'll give you an example. The Torah is very, very kind to someone that can control their emotions during difficult times. So much so that the Bartinura says that someone that gets mocked, insulted in public, and does not respond, HaKadosh Baruch Hu becomes their chavruta, becomes their study partner. Furthermore, someone that gets insulted in public and doesn't respond—not doesn't respond like he wants to kill the guy still, doesn't respond, no, everything's from Hashem, I'm not even upset about this—HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, I'm going to make you famous. One time, there was a Mekubal in Netanya. His name is Rav Amos, Amos Guetta. He's a Mekubal, been around for a long time. One time, there was a mayor in a city in Netanya, where I was born, who decided that he wants to allow traffic, like public transportation, on Shabbat.

3:15:16which was forbidden until that time. So Rav Amos came with his students to protest, and the mayor came. He started yelling from afar. As he got closer to Rav Amos, everyone was looking, wondering how the face-off would unfold. Suddenly, as he got closer, he became paralyzed. In front of everyone, he became paralyzed, frozen, unable to move. Everyone was shocked. Rav HaRosh looks at him and says to him, "You want to come back to normal? Cancel the public transportation. Cancel the Baruch Hashem." Anyway, what do you think, become like that one day? Years ago, 50 years ago, Rav Chaim, Rav Chaim's father, Rav Chaim Kanievsky, sheyichye, saw this with his own eyes. He walks into a yeshiva, and he sees there's an avrech, a simple avrech, sitting over there.

3:16:17And somebody else is just tearing him apart. No, who are you? What are you doing in our kollel? You're nobody using our books. You're this loser. You're this. You're that. Tearing him to pieces. Now, you guys would think, you know, this stuff doesn't happen in kollels. It happens, unfortunately, way too often. And there have been a few times that I wanted to get on a plane and visit some people at the kollel that Rabbi Ephraim attends. A few times. People are strange. Sometimes they wear kippah, I don't even know why. Anyway, this guy's tearing this avrech apart, insulting him in every way possible. But there are people there. And Rav Chaim is one of the people watching this, seeing this happening. After the guy's finished, the avrech looks up and says, "Now you embarrass me in public, you'll see that you'll remain... unknown, and HaKadosh Baruch Hu is going to make me famous around the world. That was the only response, and then he went back to his learning, smiling. Somebody says to you any word that you don't like, that's not in your vocabulary of likings. All of a sudden, he meets Mr. Right and Mr. Left. This guy just got torn apart. He smiles and he goes, "HaKadosh Baruch Hu is going to make me famous around the world."

3:17:47Who is that person? Rav Amos. Rav Amos Guetta. I had the merit to meet him once. When I went to Eretz Yisrael, my cousin, Gabi Guetta, a tzadik, a big person, very intimidating, made me look like a baby. I have pictures of him, and I look like a baby. A big person, Baruch Hashem. ...and a very special person. And he's close to Rav Amos, so he took me to visit him. At the time, I didn't know who Rav Amos was. I don't know. So I sat there in the yeshiva in Beit Midrash over there, sitting there. I don't know for however long we were there. And I'm seeing them learning. I don't know what's the big deal. Why did he bring me here? I'm sitting there... There's a couple of guys, a couple of them look like they weren't exactly the healthiest. A couple of guys look like they, you know, are wondering, "Why am I here?" And he's doing certain things that are a little weird. Not a little weird, very weird. What's wrong with this? What is this? They don't want to find out who he is and what it's about. And he makes himself weird on purpose.

3:19:15all types of different reasons, embarrassing himself and so on. Now, listen, let's say some of the things that happen in the world happen for specific reasons that certain people make certain decisions. And to be a mekubal, a tzaddik, someone that could literally manipulate things in nature, someone that HaKadosh Baruch Hu loves, and He's willing to change nature for, someone that is able to impact many people and help them and so on, that can't happen if you're a firecracker. You know, you're just an unlit candle for a long time, and then one day you explode. It has to be. Controlled. At all times. How? Halacha. Allowed? Not allowed. Allowed to be angry? No. Okay, no. Allowed to be angry? Yes. Oh, when am I allowed to be angry? When somebody's going against Hashem. Best thing, you see what's allowed, what's not allowed. The more a person sees and works their life based on what's allowed, what's not allowed, the less emotions are manipulating his life. You still have emotions, but you know how to control them better.

3:20:38Next question. Yeah? Can you go to the restroom in between Bracha Rishonah and Bracha Acharonah? If so, where's the restroom? Yes. And, Sonny, show them where the restroom is, please. Yeah, please. Yeah, fill it up here. They have something over here. I'll give it a little drink. Oh, yeah, yeah, give me. No? No, give me one from the house. Keep this for everybody. No? Oh, here now. So, you have a practical question here. How does one make this fish, and how does one preserve it from spoiling until...

3:22:03So, the first question should be, does it work as a segula to keep your etrog and turn it into jelly? There was a woman that we knew who lived in Boca Raton. She used to ask everybody for their etrogim. and uh... she was a chef, and at the end of Sukkot, she'd get everybody's etrogim and she'd make jelly out of them. And it's a very common thing. Why? Because it's a segula that if you eat etrogim, you can get pregnant. Should you take the etrog from anybody? No. Your etrog obviously should be good. And if you're going to take the etrog from other people, it should be from good people. Don't take the etrog from anyone. One time we had the merit to get a little piece of etrog from a very big tzaddik. And it worked. Now, the process of keeping it, I believe,

3:23:32is no different than, for example, when you're making orange jelly. You can turn an orange into candy. I think you have to cook it. You have to obviously take everything out. You have to cook it. But that's not my expertise. I think maybe perhaps some of the ladies will know. And if not, then YouTube may know. But yeah, the segulah is real. It's real. If you, you know, to make etrog into jelly for a pregnancy. Now, One of the things that you may find out, though, if you aren't careful with your etrog purchase, is that you'll cut it open and it doesn't look like an etrog; it looks like a lemon. What does that mean? It's a lemon. That's what it means. Because an etrog tree is a weak tree, a very spoiled tree, it requires constant support. So, in order to make it strong,

3:24:42the farmers made it with a lemon tree that's stronger. So what ends up happening is many of the etrogim are lemons. I remember last year, we opened the etrogim, we had some etrogim, we got some from Eretz Yisrael, Baruch Hashem, everything was good, but we had some local etrogim that we got that we get to love. Every single one of them was a lemon. Every single one of them. Without exception. So it's a very, very big thing. So I would suggest for next year to put already a reminder for yourself for next year, two months, month and a half to two months before Sukkot, start working on ordering an etrog. from someone who knows what they're talking about. I mean, I do it for myself personally. If you guys want me to help you with it also, I can. I get some extras here and there, and I can give them to you guys, no problem. But I can tell you one thing. They're expensive. They're not cheap. The shipping, this, that. But at least you're having an etrog. But either way, the point is that it's a... It's not a...

3:26:01it's not a difficult mitzvah, and you'll see, b'ezrat Hashem, if anyone that's going to be here in the morning, you'll see my etrog. See my little baby? It's like a baby; it's like six pounds. The picture is bigger than the actual etrog; it grew. But as it's all, then you know, most people, you know, most people are not willing to invest or waste their money. So anyway, back to your question. Is this segulah real? That was my question really for you. That's really the question. You should have a segulah that's real. Two, it needs to be an etrog. Three, as far as cooking it, making it into jelly, either you could ask one of the ladies that perhaps maybe has done it. If not, then YouTube. And I'm sure that somebody or somebodies have made an etrog into jelly. In reality, somebody has made something into everything today. For everything, there's a video. and, uh, fourth point, uh, you know, make sure that if you can use somebody else's etrog, it's always a decent human being, and that's what makes it an etrog. Next question.

3:27:23Hashem doesn't want the wicked to die, but rather to repent and to survive and live. We learn in the Gemara, in Rosh Hashanah, that there are a few things that make Hashem look to judge someone. One of them is when you ask for for judgment of other people, unless you ask Hashem to judge other people, like in the case of Avraham and Sarah. But we also have the stories of Rabbanim who had enemies and wished them to die, and then they were revealed and they repented. But at the same token, we have a tzaddik like David HaMelech asking for his enemies to die, or for Hashem to kill his enemies. So how do we reconcile these two? You have to ask the question all over again, but in a shorter form. Hashem says He doesn't want the wicked to die; He wants them to repent. And the Gemara says you don't pray for someone to die or for Hashem to judge someone. Like in the case of Sarah, who asked Hashem to judge the two of them. And because she asked for that judgment...

3:28:49okay to pray for a random person to die is because you don't like them, or they're bothering you, and so on, because they're sinners, like, for example, the Gemara in Masechet Brachot, as Rabbi Meir was bothered by some hooligans in his neighborhood, and he wanted to pray for them to die, and his wife, Bruria, came to him and said, no, don't you know that Hashem doesn't want the wicked to die, you should pray for them to do teshuva, and he did, and they did teshuva, So, proves your first point that really, Hashem wants you to pray for these people. But then on the other hand, David HaMelech, Kodesh Kodashim, his whole essence was prayer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, crying to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Prayed for certain people to be destroyed. And there is a certain Tehillim that you could read for the sake of beating people in battle and arguments and things like that.

3:30:07uh, that there are special segulot to do that. What David says, anywhere he went, is like him, and that created a lot of enemies. Why? Because that means that whatever David is thinking, that's HaKadosh Baruch Hu is thinking. So, big people, smart people, from the Sanhedrin even, were very jealous of that. Why? They're toiling, they're breaking their heads in this, but halakha is like David. So, you had a lot of haters for that reason and many other reasons. But the problem is, for them, that when you hate him, you hate Hashem. When you hate David, You hate Hashem because what is His opinion? His opinion is halakha. What is halakha? Halakha is HaKadosh Baruch Hu's opinion. So, David HaMelech says, I don't care if anybody's making fun of me. When Shimei ben Gerah made fun of him, David HaMelech didn't care one cent. What did he care about? He says to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, I only hate the people You hate. If they hate You, I hate them. What if they make fun of you, David? I don't care. Meaning, what did he pray for? He prayed for people to die that weren't hurting him.

3:31:27He prayed for people to die because they were enemies of Hashem. And guess what? You do the same thing. I do the same thing. We pray for people who are enemies of Hashem to die every day. In Amidah, three times a day. People who are enemies of Hashem, we pray for them to die. Sometimes a person is a sinner, but he doesn't even know that he's an enemy of Hashem. But sometimes there are certain people who know they're enemies of Hashem, but they don't care. They don't believe or they don't care or whatever it is. So a person like that, Rabbeinu Yonah in Shaarei Teshuva said it's a mitzvah to hate them. It's a mitzvah to hate such a person; it's a mitzvah to pray for him to die. Mitzvah. So that's not the same type of people as the ones that bothered. They were just busting his chops and causing trouble, but they weren't necessarily enemies of Hashem. Therefore, it makes sense to pray for them to do teshuva. Whereas the people that were enemies of David HaMelech were enemies against the halacha. They were enemies against Hashem. And for them, it's a mitzvah to pray for them to die. Next question. Mike, you had a question before.

3:32:38Yeah, so it kind of goes with that. Actually, why did Avraham pray so strongly that Sodom and Amora would not be destroyed? Because they were actually murdering people. So, this was one of the examples of how a man is limited to his own perspective, whereas HaKadosh Baruch Hu is privy to the full perspective. Now, when we get a flat tire on the way to an appointment, what is the first thing we say? "God, why are you doing this to me?" Why are you doing this to me? I'm on the way to an appointment. I'm supposed to sign a deal. That deal is supposed to give me money. That money is supposed to pay the mortgage, pay the down payment for the house, pay for education, pay for food, pay for this. What, You want me to starve, Hashem? You want me to starve? What do you want from me, Hashem? You know, you're upset because you've got a flat tire. You're going to be late to the appointment. HaKadosh Baruch Hu is laughing. He says, you silly little goose.

3:33:40You don't realize I made you have a flat tire because there's going to be an accident five miles up the road, and if you don't get a flat tire, you'll be part of that accident. There won't be you, and there won't be a mortgage. There won't be anything. I'm saving your life. Or perhaps the person you're supposed to meet to sign a deal with is very litigious. If you sign a deal with him, he's going to sue you in six months for no reason, and you'll lose because he has better lawyers than you. Or a million and a half other reasons. So, why do we complain to HaKadosh Baruch Hu? Because we only see one perspective. HaKadosh Baruch Hu sees the whole thing. Avraham used his intellect; he was a genius, and he rationalized, how can anybody go against Hashem? Needless to say, an entire city. Surely, there must be 50 righteous people there. Okay, it's a big city. Most of them are wicked. No problem. Sure, that happens. Avraham was not ignorant of wickedness. He grew up in a household that was full of idolatry. So he's aware of that. But he said, surely, there have to be at least 50 people who keep Shabbat. There are 10 million people there. Surely, 50 people keep Shabbat.

3:34:5150 religious people, 50 Hasidim, 50 Chabadniks, 50 Breslovers, 50 Reuvens, 50 something, something, no. But what if there are 45? You're just going to kill everybody just for the five that are missing? And negotiate with Hashem because he was under the assumption that maybe there could be somebody righteous and it's worth it to save everybody else just for the sake of those few. He was limited, from his perspective, to his human opinion. And Hashem took him to school by telling him, surely all of this was reviewed, all of this was taken into consideration, and there are not even ten righteous people there. Not even ten. So, this was one of the learning lessons. Avraham Avinu did not become Avraham Avinu until later on. I mean, he was Avraham, he was Avraham Avinu, but... He didn't reach his full potential until later on, until after the Akedah and the major experiences that he went through, after he went through the ten tests. But to get to those ten tests, you're going to have questions along the way. You're going to have questions along the way. Next. Go ahead, Sutton. You have a question? No, I didn't have a question. Oh, you don't have a question. You have a question? Go ahead. You raised your hand. You have a question. Go ahead.

3:36:19So you know we're commanded to love the convert. Love the convert. How are you supposed to deal with someone that's in the process of conversion? To what level are you supposed to? Ah, that's a very good question. How are you supposed to treat someone that's in the process of conversion? Now this is going to hurt some people. But it's good to know. The reason why it's going to hurt some people... is because of emotions, and we just talked about before that emotions sometimes get the best of you. Now, the Gemara says a goy comes to Beit Shammai and says, "I want to learn the entire Torah on one leg." Beit Shammai says, "Go fly a kite." Shammai says, "Go fly a kite." Where's one leg? Where are you? Two. He goes to Hillel. "I want to learn the entire Torah on one leg." Hillel says, "Okay, it starts off with the whole Torah principle: Don't do to your friend what you wouldn't want done to yourself."

3:37:45That's where everybody thinks, "Oh yes, see, so you and your friend is much more important than you and God." No, no, that's not what it means. What he's trying to teach him is that the entire Torah—how could this be the entire Torah? "Don't do to your friend what you don't want done to yourself." How could it be? Surely, if you know how to treat your friend, your brain that you have in your head will also tell you, "Don't treat Hashem that way either. Don't do to Hashem what you don't want done to yourself." But the point being is that conversion, you'll see it several times in the Gemara, where there actually are some Chachamim that were very, very much pro-conversion to the extent where they would help converts much more than people help today. And conversion was a much shorter process back then than it is today. but because of the situations that we've encountered over the years and over the centuries, the amount of problems that we've had from fake converts has led to the point where there's a lot of politics in conversion today. There's a lot of headaches in it, and there's a lot of falsehood in it, and there's a lot of waiting in it, and also money. So, a person that wants to convert

3:39:09normally today has to already take into account that they're not going to be a Jew for at least one, two, three, four, or five years, maybe longer, maybe less. But if you think that you're gonna come into the Jewish world and, you know, a few months later you're gonna be a Jew, I'm sorry, but most likely you'll be disappointed. Unless you're extremely rich and you care less about the truth and you just want to get something, you're on a certificate. You know, if you have enough money, you can do whatever you want. know you could buy the Beit Din if you want, but the reality is that the Beit Din of Shamayim you can't buy. So that means that for an authentic conversion, there has to be a process of waiting, a process of learning, a process of doing certain things in order to become a Jew. And that process varies based on people, based on Beit Dins, based on rabbis, and so on and so forth. Now, how do you treat a convert that's in the process? He's not really a convert yet. He's a Noahide that's interested in converting to Judaism. As long as he or she welcomes the truth, as long as he or she loves the truth about the Torah, as long as he or she follows, you know, what the Torah says, what the rabbi says, what the sages say, and they're, you know, showing a genuine effort to become a righteous Jew, you should be extremely supportive because you could, in essence, have a stake in a Jew, in creating a Jew.

3:40:31follows, you know, what the Torah says, what the rabbi says, what the sages say, and they're, you know, showing a genuine effort to become a righteous Jew, you should be extremely supportive because you could, in essence, have a stake in creating a Jew. So, it is a very big deal. You should do as much as you can to help this person, you know, within your means, within your ability, and so on. Be supportive of it. But, but, there's a very big "but." You cannot forget that they're not a convert right now. For all intents and purposes, they are still a non-Jew, even if they look like a Chassid Breslov from the 1800s. Even if they look like the Baal Shem Tov himself. Even if they wear the turban of Rav Ovadia. Even if they have a tattoo on their head that says Moshe. It doesn't make a difference. Until they dip into a mikveh, they're not a Jew. And that's important to know when it comes to certain things halachically. You go to a shul, this person wants to pray also, his prayer is practice, your prayer is real.

3:41:54So, push comes to shove, you have to know the difference between the two, practice and real. Two, you have to let the rabbi know of the kehillah. My friend over here, not Jewish. Why? Don't count him in a minyan. Don't count him in a minyan. Unless he does it himself, tells the rabbi he's not Jewish. Don't count him in a minyan. Why? Because it's very easy to make that mistake. And when it comes to different mitzvot, you have to be careful to a certain extent because, again, a convert is going through a serious trauma in his life, either before, during, and sometimes after conversion. So there's a lot of emotion involved. There are a lot of big decisions made. Usually, there was something extraordinary that drove him to this position in the first place. So you have to be sensitive to that. You can't treat him like you would treat anybody regularly. You have to be more careful. Now, again, that doesn't mean that you...

3:43:00ignore the truth or change the truth for them, but you have to be conscious of certain things that are very sensitive to them. So, for example, you know, I know that sometimes certain people that, you know, when they hear me say that Christianity is avodah zarah, they don't really mind so much. But when I say that Christians that believe in this avodah zarah go into Gehenom, they get offended a little bit. Why? Because they know I'm talking about their parents. They know I'm talking about their cousins and brothers and so on. because those people worship an idol. I'm not necessarily talking about them per se with my mind, but that's what they feel like I'm talking to them. And they get offended. But again, if that's what it says, that's what it says. The fact that you have a loss in this situation doesn't change the reality. It doesn't change the reality. So you have to be a little sensitive with certain things, which I'll give you guys as a side note. That's part of the reason of why I didn't invite everybody that comes to the shiur tonight for two reasons. Number one, I don't know everybody the same way. Everybody that's here, I know you guys pretty well already for a long time. You know, so I don't have to think about it very much. But other people that are relatively newer, I don't know them well enough. I don't know them for long enough. I don't necessarily want the whole world knowing my house. Plain and simple.

3:44:22But I also am conscious of people's feelings. I'm also conscious of the fact that they're going to watch the shiur. And I also want them to know that it's not that I didn't invite them because I don't like them; it's also because there was a lack of space. That's another reason. But the third reason is, the third reason is, that, again, aside from not knowing them well enough, aside from the lack of space, the third reason is that I don't know if they're going to complete their conversion yet. Like, I don't have that stamp in my mind to say, this guy's ready to convert yet. Well, I just met you a month ago, two months ago, three months ago. So, I don't know if you're going to convert yet. Yeah, you like it now. I don't know, but maybe Fatima shows up again at your door and says, "Honey, I love you." You know? You go back to Fatima. So, what do I do? You know? So, that's the thing. I don't want to be part of your confusion. I have to, you know... keep you at bay to remind you that there's, you know, you're not in yet—not as a rejection, nothing, but again, I can't, you know, certain people that are on board, I know these people, I know what page they're on.

3:45:29the same page I'm on. Other people, I'm not really sure yet, not really sure yet, so that's it. And again, it's not a, uh, it's not a, uh, dislike or like, it's just simply I still need, you know, to get to know you more. Um, now I didn't do it publicly in the shul the other day. ...and rather invited each one of you individually because I didn't want to offend people. So even though I don't know you that well, it doesn't mean I'm going to just disregard your feelings and say, "By the way, everybody come to the shiur except you, you, you. I don't like you. I don't know you that well, so you can't come, but everybody else." I didn't do that. Why? I'm not an animal... So, I just told you guys it's going to be shiur, it's going to be live, and then, you know, today or yesterday, I told you guys, you know, come to my house if you got this invitation. You know. So, still conscious of people's feelings to a certain extent, and that's it. That's the reality. Alright, thank you, Tzaddik. Appreciate it.

3:46:29uh, consciously, you have to be conscious of their feelings, even if they're not Jewish yet. Even if, uh, you're not really sure why—because they're people. They're still Hashem's creations. And, but as far as helping converts, I'll tell you this: I'll give you a little inside scoop. Why am I doing this? I don't know, but I guess I like you guys. Just wake up the dead. i deal with a lot of people that want to convert. Right now, there are over 140 families that we're working with to help them convert. It's a lot of people. Now, many of them I'm helping from afar. meaning I'm trying to guide them. They ask me questions from time to time. I send them some information, something packaged, different things. I can tell you that converts ask a lot more questions than Jews. People that are in the process of conversion ask a lot more questions than natural-born Jews. Why? They're hungrier, they're many times more excited, but also they have fewer resources.

3:47:57So, when they find somebody that's willing to answer their questions, they literally ask every question under the sun. So, to have 141 families like this, it's a lot of questions. What does that mean? If I were in the business world, I would charge every single one of them money. Why? Because they pay me. A lot. Whatever price I want, in many cases. But I tell them, listen, I don't mind your questions. You know, I know you send me five, six, seven, eight questions a day. But, you know, would you mind sending me, you know, $200 a month? $300 a month? $500 a month? $1,000 a month? You know, depending on where you live. Oh, you live in Colorado? Okay, $1,000 a month. Where do you live? New York? $5,000 a month. Oh, where do you live? I live in Guantanamo. Okay, $3. How about this? I'll send you $50. You know, it depends. You charge people. You make money out of this. But we don't. We also have an aspiration, b'ezrat Hashem,

3:49:06As one of the goals of the organization, Aviv Haim and I, b'ezrat Hashem, to one day open a Beit Din. But not just a regular Beit Din, but a Beit Din that's recognized by the Rabbanut. We can open a Beit Din tomorrow. But to have a Beit Din that's recognized by the Rabbanut takes a little bit more time and money. When we had this conversation, I said, Batei Din charge money. Anywhere from six, eight hundred, two, three, four, five, six, ten, fifteen, twenty-five thousand dollars, depending on who, what, when, and how, to convert a single person. The faker the conversion, the more expensive. doesn't necessarily mean that the cheaper ones are more real. It also doesn't necessarily mean that if you get a free conversion, it's fake. So, I asked how much we're going to charge for conversions. Do it for free, like right now. Charge...

3:50:27Most likely, not charge. Other than to simply cover costs. Why? If there's any cost or whatever, I'll cover costs. Why? You can charge, allowed to charge, should charge, business-wise. Most likely not. Don't charge for what we do now, which is a lot more difficult work than batei din. I bring somebody to a beit din, they're like a cooked dish. They're finished. You don't need to add any seasoning, you don't even need to add salt. The guy is a tzaddik already; I'm bringing him to a beit din on a silver platter. The beit din doesn't have to do anything. The easiest converts in the world are people that come through me because it takes a long time to get there, and by the time they get there, they're cooked already, they're finished. They're tzaddikim, they're more religious than the beit din sometimes. What's the problem? So, most of the work is done beforehand. And we don't charge. Why? Because I learned something from Rav Fein. HaKadosh Baruch Hu has 8 billion people in the world. Out of those 8 billion people, we know of about 15 to 20 million of them that are known to be Jews.

3:51:41Probably much more that we don't know about, but nonetheless the 20 million or so that are Jews. Out of those 20 million Jews, probably around 4 million or so observe Shabbat. the entire universe, not just Earth—the entire universe: all of the galaxies, the Milky Way, the stars, the meteors, the trees, the sun, the moon, the car accidents, the sky, the bugs, the cats, the raccoon that was run over by a car, the roads, the traffic lights—everything in the world, the universe, was created For those few million people that keep Shabbat. For those few million people that keep Torah and mitzvot. Not for the 8 billion people that people think, and definitely not even for the entire 20 million. For the people that keep Torah and mitzvot, that's what the whole world continues to rotate for. So now, if you're already doing a real conversion, that means you have an opportunity to become a partner with HaKadosh Baruch Hu and give the world another reason to exist.

3:52:52You want to get paid for that? Isn't that enough? You have an opportunity to create a Jew. Isn't that enough? And Rav Feinstein says, he said, listen, so far we did okay. We didn't charge anybody any money. The people that don't have money, what are you going to charge them anyway? It doesn't make a difference. They don't have any money. And the people that do have money, they end up donating on their own anyway. We don't ever ask them for any money, but they donate on their own. Because they have money. They end up feeling like, "Oh, listen, I like this guy. I like what they're doing. I want to contribute to it." So you don't need to charge them. They donate on their own. Who sends the money anyway? What do you have to charge money for? And that's the missing ingredient that a lot of people don't understand. You don't have to cheat, lie, or hustle. In order to make a living, you could just do what HaKadosh Baruch Hu says. HaKadosh Baruch Hu will send you the money. That's it, simple. Simple. It's hard for people to understand because it requires you to live by allowed, not allowed, rather than living on your emotions. Emotionally, I can tell you, if it was just based on emotions, I wouldn't even charge money for it because I wouldn't do it.

3:54:14because it's a huge burden, it's a huge headache, it's very difficult, and unfortunately, once in a while, you have a bad apple. But, when you see this is the will of Hashem, Hashem wants more people, you see these people's potential to become good Jews, good people, why not? Why not? Why not? Help another fantastic human being come into the world. It's like witnessing birth. A real convert is like a baby. And that's the thing. And I see every one of the converts that goes through me, through the whole process, everything is my kids. Because that's what the Gemara says anyway. It's because they become part of you. They become really seriously part of you. You created them. Because those are your partners with me. Now, it's a... So you do whatever you can do to help them, as long as they're decent people. Unfortunately though, Rabbotai, I'm sorry to tell you that there are always going to be rotten apples that ruin it for everybody. It just is. If you have thin skin, don't get into the conversion world at all. Not to convert and not to help people convert. Why? Because people are rotten sometimes. Sometimes people are rotten. You help them. You nurture them. You give them everything. On top of it, it's all for free. What do they do? Spit in your face. Happened a few times. More than a few times. What are you going to do?

3:55:39are you gonna do? That's it. That is what it is. It is what it is. Okay, so before, they were pretending to want to be Jewish because they didn't want to sin like a goy. So now, they're sinning like a Jew. Okay, welcome, welcome. What are you gonna do? Well, it happens, it happens. But if you're gonna have thin skin and think that every single thing is gonna work out, it doesn't work that way. You gotta do, you gotta understand that... as painful as it is for you, HaKadosh Baruch Hu is in more pain. Why? It's His kid. It's His kid. So, if you have an opportunity to help somebody come to the world and be a good kid, you don't need to get paid for it. You're already going to get paid for it by being partners. You're already going to get paid for it. You don't need to get paid for it. Of course, you're entitled to make a living and so on, but honestly, I don't know. I learned Emunah from Rabbi Efraim. And it doesn't make any sense at all, but it works. It doesn't make any sense at all. The more details you know about my life, the less sense it makes. Ask Sonny. He doesn't understand. He stopped asking questions. He gives up. It doesn't make any sense.

3:57:22I don't know. I learned Emunah from Rabbi Ephraim. And it doesn't make any sense at all, but it works. It doesn't make any sense at all. The more details you know about my life, the less sense it makes. Ask Sonny. He doesn't understand. He stopped asking questions. He gives up. It doesn't make any sense. Thank you. Thank you. Shabbat Shalom. Shabbat Shalom. Thank you. Thank you. Shabbat Shalom. Shabbat Shalom.

3:58:24In a few days, Sukkot will be celebrated. Each one of us who is in the Sukkah will enjoy the abundance of gifts. I want to show you all the abundance that, thanks to you and thanks to the special organization, the families are going to receive. There are more cells outside and a lot more drugs to sort out. I hope that with the help of God, in the future we will have a bigger space so that we can store everything in one place. But look at all the sugar, flour, ketchup, and wine, marak off, especially for families that are currently in isolation. Their situation is not simple. People are calling me on the phone to come to a bread shop. A mother who thinks, how will she give her child another bag of bread when he asks for it? A mother who is hungry? We are in a difficult time. But thanks to your generosity, thanks to your mitzvot, look what they are going to receive. Look at the prosperity. Rabbi Tzaddik, who is behind this whole project, both on Rosh Hashana and during the first wave of Corona, and also now,

3:59:41He does not stop us from helping families in need, from feeding the needs of children, from feeding the needs of families. Hashem will bless him, Rabbi Yaron Reuven, and also Rabbi Efraim Kahlon, and Rabbi Tzara Kahlon, who are standing behind this project, day and night, day and night, not only to help the needy but to strengthen people in teshuva (repentance). We buy them tzitzit and kippot, and we go from place to place to give Torah readings. It's very simple, saving souls. Hashem will expand them and give them health and wealth because these families are going to be happy thanks to them and thanks to you. It doesn't make any sense. There is more wealth of things that need to come: meat, fish, dairy products—a wealth of food. By the way, Rabbi Yaron told me especially that there will be quality products that the family will be able to enjoy. Of course, I have to say thank you to everyone, also to the teachers. But here, these are families that, on their day-to-day, don't even have these foods. And thanks to you, and thanks to them, on this holiday, they sat around the table. It's true that it's a nuclear family, but they enjoyed it to their heart's content. Thank you very much.

4:01:08By the way, Rabbi Yaron told me especially that there will be quality products that the family will be able to enjoy. Of course, I have to say thank you to everyone, also to the teachers. But here, these are families that, on their day-to-day, don't even have these foods. And thanks to you, and thanks to them, on this holiday, they sat around the table. It's true that it's a nuclear family, but they enjoyed it to their heart's content. Thank you very much. Amen. Amen. Wow, wow, wow.

4:02:11It helps you a lot, right? Very, very much. Thank you very much. Bless you from the bottom of my heart. All the children also thank you every time for the surprises that you bring to them again. Thank you very much. Okay, dear supporters, dear organization, here's another family. Congratulations to the children. An unusual family. Apart from the children they have, they found two missing children and they support them and raise them as if they were their own children. Thank you very much for all the good money. Really, there are no words. Thank you very much for all the generous donations. Thank you very much. We want to wish you all the best. Thank you very much, especially to Rabbi Yaron.

4:03:13We want to wish you all the best. Thank you very much, especially to Rabbi Yaron, who makes a lot of efforts to make our children happy, and us, of course, older people, but most importantly, the children who thank you for everything, and may God bless you and give you double and triple joy. Amen, amen. Dear supporters, another family of blessed children has come here, who are also going through a difficult and challenging period. They are really fighting to bring food home. who makes a lot of efforts to make our children happy, and us, of course, older people, but most importantly, the children who thank you for everything, and may God bless you and give you double and triple joy. Amen, amen. Dear supporters, another family of blessed children has come here, who are also going through a difficult and challenging period. They are really fighting to bring food home, Rabbi Yaron, only two words: you saved the holiday for me. And thanks to this, the Holy One will bless you more and more. You should remember, and remember the rabbis as much as possible. Happy holiday.

4:04:18I told Ital that last night I was sitting with my son, and I read him a story from a children's book that teaches children to say thank you, even if sometimes it's not going well, even if sometimes it's hard. And when they say thank you, thank God, then God hears the prayers and fulfills the requests. And I myself, even though it's a children's book, decided last night that I don't care about the Sukkot holiday. That I will only say thank you to Hashem, and how can I not know that Hashem will send us everything we need for the Sukkot holiday. And I really decided not to say anything to my husband, and not to tell him how it will be, and what will be, and how we will buy. And suddenly, in the evening, I get a phone call from Ital, and she tells me that there is a big hall with the meat, the fish, the eggs, the food, the drinks, and the snacks for the children. And thanks to that, I wish you all a happy new year. Happy family, happy children. We want to thank you for all the blessings, Rabbi, also to the important organization, to Rabbi Yaron Reuven, to Rabbi Efraim Kachlon, to all the supporters. A great reward, really, for all the help and support.

4:05:31I came alone, a group of people; it really warms my heart to see such great wealth alone. May God bless you with health, quality of life, peace, and happiness. Wealth is not too much; it is always a blessing to do mitzvot, chesed, good things. God bless you. Shehechiyanu. Thank you very much for all the work that you are doing. May God bless you and give you a happy holiday, a happy new year, a good letter and a good sign. And may you always be happy. May there always be a joy that affects you in Israel. Thank you very much and have a happy new year. I bless you with a happy new year. Thank God you spread the word and made me happy. This is a great surprise, such a wonderful question. It warms my heart; it warms the heart of my children. Thank you very much for all the blessings.

4:06:51and for all the blessings that you send to us for the holiday. We thank you very much, we appreciate you, and we wish you a lot of good news, that everything and everything here, all the berachot and blessings that we are blessing you with, may you be successful and may you have a lot of good news. Thank you very much. I have no words to thank you, really, my heart is expanding. I have no words, in such a difficult time, a family full of children, Corona, I have nothing to say, just really, you filled my heart and made us happy in such a way that it is impossible to describe. Thank you very much, thank you. I just don't know where to start this video, I'm standing here with tears in my eyes. I received again a reward in honor of the holiday. I have no words to describe what this reward is. There's nothing here that they didn't think about, whether it's food for the children, whether it's food for the poor, basic things, precious things, things that we don't think about. I have no words. Thank you very much to all the supporters, to all the prosperity that you brought to us. Hashem bless you.

4:08:01and all the blessings. Say thank you. Thank you. We thank you for all the drinking and all the things, and for the work that you are doing with us. And oh Hashem, thank you very much for taking us home. We had nothing at home for a very long time before that. Thank you very much for everything. Thank you very much for all the precious offerings. Thank you very much to my father, Yaron, and my brother, Kachlon. I received a letter from one of the families who lost their food basket.

4:09:05And I will introduce you to the letter, because it is important for me to share with you. Just a second, because I am about to cry again. I will stop myself, take a breath, and I will introduce you. To the organization, with the help of Hashem, and with all the dear ones, a good day and a happy holiday. I sit here at work, next to my colleagues, in front of the computer, and think what to write. Adma'ot zolgot al hamikledet, b'zman she'ach echad lo ro'eh et hasimcha she'b'libi. Ken etmol. Etmol achat kupa ko aruka, zakhiti lirot et ha'osher shel yeladai, et ha'osher shel ba'ali. Megia, meniach et kol hashefa, mifran ha'delet. Ha'yeladim sheli kol kach sa'adu me'osher, rakdu ve'asu ma'agalim. Ezo simcha, kol ma she'chaser lanu, yivater, ha-mamtakim, ha-sukariyot, ha-basar, ha-ma'adanim. Eize shefa. Kama zman hamekarer v'haaronot lo hayu mele'im b'tzaze shefa shel mazon. V'kol b'schutchem. Aten tzinorot mevorachim.

4:10:10I sat one of the nights, praying and crying. I don't want to break my husband and press him down. I think in my heart, four more days of holidays, what do we do? How do we buy? Red city, no work, I work half a day and it's hard too. I go shopping and shopping. I don't want to break their hearts. I go back home, open the fridge, try to see in the fridge, maybe a piece of meat will remain, but nothing. Everything is rotten. I can't tell my children, it won't happen, it won't stay. In my heart, I cried; I prayed to the Creator of the world, send me, send me help. Hashem, I'm happy for you; you're good and kind. Send me help for the holiday, that we sit in peace like everyone else and enjoy the abundance of delicious food. ולפתע בשעה שמונה בערב, בעלי מחיי גלים. אסתר, פתחי את הדלת דחוף. הוא מניח הכל בסלון. לא ידעתי אם לבכות או לצחוק. פשוט נכנסתי להתקף של שמחה. גם צחוק, גם בכי. הילדים הקטנים שלי קופצים על השקיות. צועקים, אמא, זה שלנו וזה שלנו.

4:11:14our shokos, our sweets, our sweets. And I just want to say, Father, You will never leave anyone alone. Therefore, in prayer and thanksgiving, I want to thank You from the bottom of my heart that it is Your right that I and my husband and my children will sit and enjoy delicious food, delicious food like my neighbors, my friends, and also from my home, I will enjoy delicious food. May God bless you with a great organization. Ital told me, Shalokim rakeh sameach otach v'telach yeladim tzadikim. Toda lekol hatormim hayikarim. L'Rav Yaron Reuven, L'Rav Efraim Kachlon ala chesed, Sheikhat sameach v'demach hatimat tova. Nun bet. Ital, kabli memeni uga matana lechad, ugnam yipshuta, aval yesh ba hamon ahava. Azen ha'uga sheikhin ali, sham adima. V'ani rotza b'ota hisdamnut, lehodot le'kulchen. Shalokim rakeh sameach otach v'telad yeladim tzadikim. Toda le kol hatormim hayikarim. L'Rav Yaron Reuven, L'Rav Efraim Kachlon al ha'chesed, Shana tova v'chatima tova. Nun bet. Ital, kabli memeni uga matana lechad, ugnam pshuta, aval yesh ba hamon ahava. Azon ha'uga sheikhin ali, sham adima. V'ani rotzeh b'ota hisdamnut, lehodot le'kulchen.

4:12:33on all of these chassidim, and they contribute a lot. The day I met this organization, the organization with the help of G-d, of Rabbi Yaron Reuven, of Rabbi Efraim Kachlon, simply, these are two angels who save the souls here. They save the children of G-d. All the chesed they do, all this tzedakah, goes 100% to people who are sick, to people who are poor, Good morning. The evening of the holiday of Sukkot, Tav Shin Pei Alef. I speak as a Mordechai from Ashdod. I want to say here, just a little bit, because it is impossible to express my gratitude and the amount of joy that fills my heart at this hour. Argon with the help of G-d and standing on His throne, Rabbi Yaron Reuven and Rabbi Efraim Kachlon. May G-d keep them and save them from all evil, from all sickness, from all harm. I don't appreciate speeches, I'm just very, very, in a very unhealthy way, I've been through.

4:13:58In the last few years, the times have been difficult, endless ups and downs. With it, heart attacks, cramps. With it, the removal of the eyes from the nose. Endless eye surgery. This summer, I also got sick because of the COVID-19 disease that I was infected with. But what is this? One Jew asked me, stabbed me. I went through a very, very difficult period, with an injection in the hospital, where no one would go and no one would know what it was during the night. And from the patient's bed, I thought and worried, how to prepare for the day, how to feel for the day. Today, I work 12 hours a day, on a minimum wage. And it's very difficult to provide for my family.

4:15:00And here I remember Hashem as if He were a great messenger. Malachim, malachim, malachim. You can really come to the Creator and say to Him, Avinu Malkeinu, with all the tefillot that Avinu Malkeinu has. Because you are beloved sons, you care for your brother and his children. and you were worried that I would be late. You told me about the amount of items that I don't organize for myself. It's been a year, if not more. How the children were excited to see all the items at night. And now, before dawn, the evening of the Sukkot holiday, i tell you these words when they are asleep and no one hears what i am saying to you. Thank you. Thank you. You have helped me a lot, a lot, a lot to organize for this holiday. I can't tell you and describe the amount of joy, the amount of joy I have from you for helping me to organize so beautifully for this holiday.

4:16:13Thank you very much, dear Jews. In the name of the Lord, may you have a good brother, and only good, and may joy and not sorrow remain in your home and in your heart always. Thank you very much. Bless you. And with excitement, from the depth of my heart, long live Hashem. By the way, Rabbi Yaron told me especially that there will be quality products that the family will be able to enjoy. Of course, I have to say thank you to everyone, also to the teachers. But here, these are families that, in their day-to-day, don't even have these foods. And thanks to you, and thanks to them, on this holiday, they sat around the table. It's true that it's a nuclear family, but they enjoyed it to their heart's content. Thank you very much. Amen.

4:17:13no next question anyway, didn’t ask questions yet. Okay, so let me ask one question: how can one overcome the trait of brazenness? A person who is arrogant, in general, should know that if the world was clear about what's true and what's false, they would be put in a mental institution. Why? Why should a person that's arrogant be put in a mental institution? Because you have nothing to be arrogant about. Nothing that you have is yours.

4:18:14Your looks—you didn't invent yourself. Your intellect—same as well. Your money could be taken tomorrow many times. It does get taken at some point. And you can't take it with you. None of your possessions are yours. Therefore, why are you dancing, pretending to be the king, just because you were allowed to borrow his suit? It's a ridiculous thing. Second, the second thing is to understand that the trait of brazenness and arrogance is a detestable trait. The Gemara says someone who is arrogant, even his own family hates him. Even his own family hates him. Why? No one likes an arrogant person. No one likes to be told that they are inferior to anyone else. So, imagine you live in a household, and your spouse or whoever it is that's important to you in your house keeps telling you about how much better they are than you in everything.

4:19:30Oh, it's a nice jacket, but you know mine's better. Oh, it's a nice car, but you know it's trash next to mine. Oh, it's a nice wife, but she looks like nothing next to mine. Oh, that's a nice... Who wants to be around such a person? Now you're saying, no, but I don't say it. You don't have to say it. You don't have to say it. If you have a certain attitude, we can hear you say it in your mind just by seeing your face. An arrogant person is someone that you can tell by their face. You don't have to say things to act arrogant. It's just simply how you respond to things. It's also a way of how you walk. As a matter of fact, going back to the best Mussar book of the year, the Machzor of Yom Kippur, One of the things you apologize to HaKadosh Baruch Hu for in the Amidah seven times, what do you apologize to HaKadosh Baruch Hu for? Walking straight. Walking upright. Why? Who do you think you are, walking like this? Rav Moshe Feinstein walked like this, down. And you're walking up. Rav Moshe Feinstein was Kodesh Kodashim. Rav Moshe Feinstein was the Moshe Rabbeinu of his generation, and he walked like this. And you're walking straight up? Who are you? What do you know? What did you achieve? What did you do?

4:20:48What are you? You're a little booger. What do you have? What did you do? No, I'm 50 years old. You're a 50-year-old booger. Even uglier. What are you? What do you think you are? You said I'm sorry for walking straight and you're still doing it 50 years later? What's the matter with you? Are you retarded? You don't know how to read the Machzor? 50 years you read the Machzor, say I'm sorry, and you're still doing it? So what does that mean? You're a mental case. There's something wrong with you. You're a defect. So the point is, the more a person understands what arrogance is, the more he understands there is nothing to be arrogant about. Because what do you really know that is worthy of being arrogant? Now, if you're going to say, yeah, I may not know a lot, but I know more than them. That's not a reason to be arrogant, habibi. Why? There's always going to be someone worse than you. That doesn't make you better. So you could just go to the garbage pail and just say, I'm better than them and look at the rats. Yeah, you're better than the rats, according to your opinion. But guess what? The rat thinks he's better than you. Why? He's probably faster than you. His digestive system is better than yours. He probably has an easier time finding a spouse. It's simply your opinion.

4:22:12your opinion, but you're both in the garbage. In the end, you're both in the garbage. You're comparing yourself to bigger losers, and you think that makes you a winner. No, what makes you a winner is if you're a winner next to winners. And you know what? Next to winners, you're nothing. Next to winners, you're nothing. Nothing. You know why? Who's the winners? So the thing is, there's a person that's arrogant, a person that is simply mad in their mind. There's something wrong with them because if they compare themselves just to losers and therefore declare themselves a winner, anyone else around them that's somewhat normal and closer to being a winner than them will obviously see this as a mental case. you need some serious help. You're comparing yourself to people that are disabled and then saying that you're fast next to them. Yeah, they're disabled.

4:23:14They're in wheelchairs. Surely they can't run. It's really a demented thing. But you know, today, this is acceptable behavior. Why? Because today, people are so politically incorrect, but think themselves correct, where they actually allow men to compete in women's sports. Because he feels like a woman. So then they're surprised. Oh, new world record. Stephanie won a gold medal for picking up 800 more pounds than everybody else. Yeah, but Stephanie has a little bone coming out of her neck and muscles the size of the equator because it's a guy. But people are stupid. Now, does anyone with any common sense think that Stephanie, the guy, deserves the gold medal? No. No, because he's a guy. It's a woman's sport. But that's the stupidity of today. When you're arrogant about being next to losers, next to people that are lesser than you, you're a mental case. Now, on the other hand, you're going to say, no, no, but there are winners. Next to winners, you're a loser. Why? Who's your winner in your life? Who's the winner you're comparing yourself to? A millionaire? He's like you. He's not different than you. Just because he has more money in the account doesn't make him a winner.

4:24:34Doesn't make him a winner. Someone has achieved something in their life. Someone has... Compare yourself to tzaddikim. Compare yourself to people that are going to be remembered a thousand years from now. a thousand years from now. People think that Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett—they're like the winners. These people are losers while they're alive and after they're going to die. Number one, they're going to be forgotten, and number two, they're losers while they're alive. Between their marriage, children issues, and life issues all together, who wants to live that life? Talk about people who are going to be remembered and loved forever. Look at the Jewish sages. What beautiful sages we have. You have people even from recent history. You have Rav Ovadia. How do you know that everybody loved Rav Ovadia? Over a million people showed up to his funeral. The biggest funeral since Moshe Rabbeinu. The biggest funeral in the history of mankind other than Moshe Rabbeinu was Rav Ovadia's. Now, what do you think? They took, oh, no, no, I want to come because everybody is going to know. What are you going to know? He just died. He left. He went to Olam HaBa right now. He's Moshe Rabbeinu right now. What? What are you doing? They couldn't separate themselves from him. They loved him so much. Are you a winner next to Olam HaBa? What do you know? What did he forget you don't remember? What did he do? What are you so proud about? Did you write Yabia Omer?

4:26:02Did you write Yabia Omer? Did you write Teshuvot? Did you remember the entire Shas by heart, back and forth in every format? Somebody asked Rav Ovadia, "Oh God, is it true that you know the entire Torah by heart?" "No, no, don't exaggerate. Just half, just half." He goes, "Oh, wow, which half?" He goes, "Which one do you want?" Are you like that? Do you even remember your own Bar Mitzvah parasha by heart? I remember my own Bar Mitzvah parasha. You know what? I don't have a Bar Mitzvah. What do you know? What are you proud of? What are you proud of? Forget about going to the Rambam and Rabbi Akiva and Moshe Rabbeinu. Let's not go far. We'll go a few years ago. A few years ago, you have a winner. You have a winner in front of you. You have a winner in front of you. You have the Moshe Rabbeinu of the generation. You have Rav Ovadia. You have anything next to him? you have anything next to him? Did you write even a piece of paper? What are you so proud about? What for? What did you do? That's all. What did you do? What muscles? I had bigger muscles than you. I used to lift 800 pounds over my back and go down. All the other guys squats, you can lift 800 pounds. Do you know how much I can lift right now? Maybe this bottle is a little heavy for me. Your body's gonna change one day. What are you so proud about? What are you so proud about?

4:27:22Why? You're tall? Okay, let's do it. You get older, you get gray, you look like you're short because you... What's there to be so proud about? What's there to be so proud about? For what? The more you understand the real reasons, the real reasons for pride, the more you realize it's a detestable trait. It's a detestable trait, so much so that HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, "I cannot be in the same room as you." Imagine this, imagine this. You're a man, you're a woman. Surely, your spouse should be the one that loves you the most, right? Sometimes it's the kids in a certain format. Sometimes, hopefully, it's the spouse because the kids move on one day. But the point is that the spouse should love you a lot, right? Like if you need something, that spouse is supposed to be there. If you want to cry, that spouse's shoulder should be there. If you want to vent, that spouse should have a listening ear. You know, that's the whole point. You know, you're supposed to be each other's everything, right?

4:28:39imagine this: the person that loves you the most, the person that loves you the most, you come to them, "Boo, bad things happen to me. I'm depressed. I'm this, I'm that," spill your guts out, and then your spouse looks at you like a confused dog and says can't stand you and walks out of the room after you spilled all your guts, told him the truth about everything. I love every, you know, like the type of crying where there's snot coming out of your face everywhere. You know, you're pouring out all your emotions. Instead of saying, "Oh honey, I love you," he says, "You disgust me," and walks out of the room. Guess what that That scene I just described to you is not even remotely close to what HaKadosh Baruch Hu does when someone's arrogant. And guess what? HaKadosh Baruch Hu loves you more than your spouse. But when you're arrogant, He says, "Ugh, you're disgusting," and He walks out of the room. And He loves you more.

4:30:03What's to be arrogant about? Who would want to be arrogant? Now, surely all of us have a little bit of an ego because we forget that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is the one who put all of these things in our lives, whether it be money or looks or skill or knowledge or whatever it is. But the deeper you go into whatever you're arrogant about, the more you realize how it does not belong to you. and how much of a joke you are for being arrogant about it. What is it like? The Chachamim say, there was one time, Rabbi Feinstein told me this story a few years ago and told me again today. It's a good story. Say one time, there was a Ben Torah, arrogant. What kind of ego? Look at me, look at me. He wants everybody to look at me, look at me, I did this, look at me, look at me, I did this. You know people like this? Look at me, look at me. But he learned Torah. But his Torah apparently didn't soften his "look at me" trait. Because he wanted to look at me. Everybody wants to look at me, look at me. This one wanted a little bit of extra.

4:31:28So anyway, this guy one day found a wife, and the deal with his father-in-law was that the father-in-law was going to pay for their life, and he was going to learn Torah all day. But that wasn't enough for this guy. He wanted to make sure that the father-in-law knew, you got a deal here. Even though you're paying, you got a deal. I'm a special Talmid Chacham. I'm a... You got... Deep bargain. What did he do? He was studying in the house. And every so often, you hear footsteps. You hear footsteps. And all of a sudden, you hear footsteps. He starts studying out loud. Abaye says, but yeah, but Abaye says, but Rava says. All of a sudden, he starts remembering all of the sages that ever spoke about something. It is loud. Everybody needs to know. Right? It's footsteps. What's that? I want to know. I know.

4:32:34Day goes by. Next day. Coffee. He looks at the coffee. Oh, look how many bubbles in this coffee. Okay, let's go back. Whatever. Footsteps. All the terms. Everybody needs to stay. Okay, next. Another day. Looks at the cup. Is this water really clear? Eh... I guess it could be better. Okay, drinks it. You know how they say, "Gold, yeah." Okay, whatever. Let's learn a little bit. Learning, learning. But, push it. Oh, but you know. And he starts making all types of sound effects. Every day, same thing. Although, ridiculous, right? You know what's the most ridiculous part? After doing this for a few months,

4:33:34months he's doing this, and he's thinking by now the father-in-law should have major respect for me. He knows he heard the daf, but he says the father-in-law looks at him the same. I don't understand why when nothing changed. In fact, it kind of deteriorated. Very weird. So one day, he says, you know what, next time, next time. He walks, he comes close. I'm going to open the door and say, "Listen, I know you're watching me. How could you not notice how good I'm doing? I'm going to call him out on it." So the next day, he's, you know, learning, learning, but waiting for the footsteps. All of a sudden, he gets up. "Okay, I'm getting up. Open the door." Nobody's here. Oh, the cat. That's who the footsteps are. All this time, all this time he's doing kiruv with a cat. All this time he's trying to impress a cat. All this time he's trying, that's the footsteps. The joke's on him. The father-in-law doesn't even know what he's doing all day, doesn't even care.

4:34:53But that's a person with arrogance. All day, it's "Look at me, look at me, look at me." No one cares, Habibi. No one cares about your face. No one cares about your hair. No one cares about what you do. No one cares. Everybody's got their own stuff. No one cares. Everybody's got their own life. What are you so arrogant about? What's so special about you? What do you have? You have an Ovadia. When you have an Ovadia, a million people are going to show up to your funeral. That's maybe. What's so special about you? There's always somebody better. And there's always somebody right behind you trying to take your position anyway. Everybody's disposable. Everybody. Don't think otherwise for a second. While you're good at your job, guess what? There's somebody right on your tail, two seconds away from stealing your job. No, but I'm really good. And so is he. And by the way, he's cheaper. He's half the price. And one day you'll become disposable garbage pail.

4:35:55I had Harvard graduates come to my job. I wasn't willing to pay them $200 a week. They spent a quarter million dollars on school. They weren't worth $200 to me. And I had people that never went to school, and I was willing to pay them a million dollars. Why? Guys, listen. there's nothing for you to be arrogant about, and you're getting results, good for you, good job. It's not forever, don't take—don't take so much. But that's the problem, when you're young it's hard to see the old man's perspective. Why? Because you're so arrogant, you think, "Nah, I'm gonna do it better." What, do you think I wasn't like you? Why do you think I didn't think I was gonna do better? That by the time I was 40, I was gonna conquer the whole world. I thought so too. And then I became 40 and... all those dreams at 26, I didn't even have them anymore. Why? It was completely realized, completely ridiculous—ridiculous dreams, ridiculous aspirations. But that's the thing; a person that is going to grow up with his teachers being the street...

4:37:03the friends, the celebrities, are going to have a very, very difficult transition from their young days to their older days. Why? Because you're going to realize that all your dreams and aspirations are completely bogus. You're just trying to impress the crowd. But a person whose role models are Moshe Rabbeinu, David HaMelech, our sages from the Gemara, our Gedolei HaDor, guess what? You could already become a grown-up at 18 years old. At 16 years old, you finish the Shas at 15 years old, you're already a grown-up, you're a grown man. You already understand the ways of the world, you understand the ways between a person and his family, his wife, a husband, everything. You understand what is the real significance of life, what's the purpose. That's something. That's something. But the reality is, there are not enough people who are willing to grow up that way. Not enough. Most people want to grow up on their own. They want to get the opinions of their friends, not the opinions of the Rambam. As if their little booger-faced friend has a better opinion than the Rambam's.

4:38:20They want to get the opinions of the local teacher, as if the local teacher is bigger than Rabbi Akiva. They want to get the opinions of Steve Jobs, as if Steve Jobs is bigger than Moshe Rabbeinu. So that's what happens. They go through a very difficult transitional stage, and sometimes even people go through a crisis. Sometimes they go through a crisis in mid-life. Sometimes they go through a crisis in the earlier part of life. Hence the reason why the suicides are increasing rapidly. Hence the reason why suicides are increasing rapidly. because people cannot handle the crisis that they're constantly dealing with every year, every two years, as they hit different stages of their life, especially in their younger days. For a person to go from, let's say, the age of 40 to 50 is a world of difference than a person to go from the age of 10 to 20. Even though they're both 10 years, the amount of changes that happen between 40 and 50 is maybe one or two changes. The amount of changes that happen between 10 and 20 is maybe a thousand.

4:39:24Because, you know, maturation and so on. The key is to understand that there's really nothing to be arrogant about. There's really nothing to, you know, think makes you any better than anybody else. Because surely there are things that other people are better at than you. Surely the things that you have are, you know, not even yours. And the bottom line is that it's just a completely ridiculous and detestable trait to have. Because again, the people around you will not like you. They simply won't like you. No one likes an arrogant person. Now, even though the more arrogant you are, the more likely you are to become famous in this stupid world, there's a reason why this world is called Alma DeShikra, the World of Lies. You know, the more arrogant people are, the more attention they get. But you see, as they go through life, the more difficult their life is. You know, celebrities and stars and athletes and so on, the more arrogant they were, the bigger their downfall was eventually. Because eventually, the show is over.

4:40:37Eventually, you can't hold up to the words that you keep saying about yourself. Eventually, your reputation can't support its own records. And because of that, the amount of pressure that goes on top of you is even more than anybody else. If you are a normal, regular, humble person, you fail, everybody says, "Oh, you know, people fail, no big deal." But if you are a Mr. Showoff, and you fail, they rip you apart. Why? Because you put yourself on a pedestal to say that you're the best, best, best, best, best, and you're not. Not only are you not the best, you're the worst. And guess what? HaKadosh Baruch Hu makes that happen. Why? Because it's a pasuk in the Torah. HaKadosh Baruch Hu says the pride of man will lead to his downfall. HaKadosh Baruch Hu uses what a person is most proud about as a way to destroy them. In fact, by the way, one of the prophecies that will happen, the Chachamim say, is that HaKadosh Baruch Hu will make Himself known.

4:41:41to the nations at the end of the days through His smallest of creations. His smallest of creations. What does that give you an idea of? Coronavirus and other viruses. Why? Because what does the world suffer from aside from ignorance? Arrogance. The world suffers from arrogance. Everybody thinks they're the best. Every country thinks they're the best. No, Russia, we're the best. No, America, we're the best. No, Israel, we're the best. No, China, we're the best. Everybody's the best, best, best, best, best. They're so good, they forget about God. People are becoming less and less close to Hashem. Closer to idolatry. Sometimes it's themselves as the idol. Sometimes it's the cow. Sometimes it's something else they make up. But in essence, people are more and more distant from Hashem. because their own ego is in the way. And what ends up happening is that people become more anti-Hashem. I mean, if you look at pictures of your grandparents and your great-grandparents, what they wore on a day-to-day basis is like better clothes than many people that are modest wear today. What people wear today would not even qualify to be underwear.

4:42:56the previous generation completely pathetic. The way men used to dress, little boys, the way little boys used to dress walking in the streets back then. Most parents can't get their kids to dress like that for Shabbat. The average little kid would wear a suit, and an adult surely would wear a suit. Today, you have to convince your kid to put a dress shirt on. because he likes the t-shirt because he paid three hundred fifty dollars for the stupid t-shirt. Because he's stupid, but he thinks he's smart because it says some idiot's name on it and therefore that makes it expensive. Because it has little sparkly things on it, like you're something ridiculous. But that's the thing, that's the generation that we have today. you have a generation of arrogance and ignorance, which is the worst possible mix, meaning that not only are they ignorant, but they're arrogant about it. Which is the exact opposite. At least if you had knowledge, you know that okay, maybe you have a reason to be arrogant about it. But it's the most ignorant generation in the history of mankind, yet they call themselves the most arrogant. And HaKadosh Baruch Hu says

4:44:09you think you created the world, you think because of your iPhones and your iPads and your supercomputers and everything else, you're gonna decree what the weather's gonna be, you're gonna decree where the virus is gonna be, you're gonna decree where the money's gonna be, you're gonna decree who's gonna win and who's gonna lose. HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, I'm gonna make myself known to you through my smallest creations. But not make known to you that you're going to say, "Oh yeah, you know, no, no." You're going to know that this virus, you're going to know that this thing can only come from HaKadosh Baruch Hu. It can only come from Me. My littlest creation, needless to say, My biggest creation—you're not going to be able to handle. HaKadosh Baruch Hu is going to show Himself to creation, to the nation, it says, through the smallest creations. And it seems like maybe coronavirus is at least a hint of it, if not the thing itself. So, Hashem detests arrogance because it's the opposite of Him. He is not only humble, but also His signature is Emet. His Emet. Arrogance is the polar opposite of Hashem. It's Sheker, because you have no reason to be arrogant, and on top of it, it's arrogance, the opposite of humility.

4:45:27So, it's literally no different than idolatry itself, which is the polar opposite of Hashem. So why would anybody want to be in a status that Hashem finds disgusting? Who would want that? Even people that are idol worshippers. Even people who are idol worshippers, yet believe that there is a Creator of the world, and also believe in idols of all types and so on. Still, if you tell them, "Listen, my God curses you," they get scared. "Oh, how do I get this curse off?" "Wait, but you believe in your god." "Yeah, but still, your God, you know, He cursed me. I don't want Him to curse me." Nobody wants to be cursed. Even the idol worshiper believes this. How do we know? We know from the Torah. The Torah recounts different stories. Some fools believe in idols, but they're scared of HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Anyway, even they. People are crazy today, thinking that there's a reason for them to be arrogant. It shows in people's speech. It shows in how people perceive themselves. It shows in how people describe themselves.

4:46:40and how they give themselves a certain amount of credit for things they do and things like that. And the truth is, the older you get, the more you realize that there's really nothing to be proud of. But unfortunately, the Gemara says, gets better and sharper over time, but an Am Ha'aretz, an ignoramus, gets worse over time. Meaning, if you're a Talmid Chacham, you continue learning, learning, learning. Although your body may deteriorate through age, your intellect, your mind will improve, becoming sharper and sharper. But the Am Ha'aretz, the ignoramus, deteriorates. What is it that deteriorates? Not their body, because surely both of their bodies are going to deteriorate. Why does it deteriorate? Your character traits get worse. So if you were arrogant when you were younger, by the time you're older, you're completely, like, ugh, you're disgusting to everybody. It's like walking fecal matter in the street. No one wants to be next to you.

4:47:47The older a person gets, the more detestable they become if they're an am ha'aretz. Because they were arrogant at this age, they became more arrogant over time, and that's why many people hate old people. Why? Because they're very demanding, they complain non-stop, and so on. Why? Because even though their body has deteriorated, their character traits deteriorated with it. So if they were arrogant, they're more arrogant, even though they have less of a reason to be arrogant. were a complainer back then, they're even more of a complainer now, even though they have less to complain about. That's what it is. So that's the thing. Why would a person want to do something to themselves? The only reason is because they're not paying attention. They're not paying attention, and society supports arrogance. Society promotes arrogance, even though time and time again we see a repetitive story of how the more arrogant people were, the bigger their downfall. Look, for example, in the athletic world, people say that one of the best boxers ever is Muhammad Ali.

4:49:00kashish clay, I think, was his real name. Now, Muhammad Ali surely was a skilled, you know, warrior of some kind, but he was also a detestable person as far as his arrogance. He was simply somebody that was unbearable to society as far as how much trash he would talk and this and that. At the end wasn't able to talk, wasn't able to move, became completely nothing. He became, you know, someone that's hard to be around because who shut his mouth? Albert Einstein was very proud of himself, even though his marriage didn't work out so well, his children's situation didn't work out, nothing worked out so well other than his fame in the world. And He took his brain, and after he died, he took his brain. Now his brain is dissected and in different universities around the world. Different universities around the world have pieces of his brain. What does this mean? It means that until this day, decades after he died, his neshama cannot rest because as long as a piece of a body of a person is not buried...

4:50:25the neshama cannot rest. So he's suffering right now as we speak because there are still pieces of his body still roaming and being preserved. What was his brain? The thing that he was most arrogant about. He thought that he runs the world because of his brain. Hashem says, look, I'll take the brain that you're most arrogant about, that instead of using it to learn my Torah, you used it for your nonsense. I'll take it and not be able to reason for the suffering. Steve Jobs, the guy was as arrogant as can be. He made a lot of people cry, made a lot of people lose their minds because of how cruel he was, because he wanted to succeed. Okay, when he got to the peak of his success, finally his idea worked, finally he was accepted and recognized by all of his peers and so on, he gets... cancer, liver cancer, pancreatic cancer, some type of cancer, and all of the money in the world that he had couldn't buy him a different liver. Died like a dog. Died like a dog. Meaning all of his work, all of his efforts, all of his everything—strangers are going to benefit from it. Strangers are going to benefit from it. And so on and so forth. It's the same thing over and over again.

4:51:47The same thing over and over again. But that's the thing. People don't understand that Hashem detests arrogance more than anything else. But hopefully, the people that are watching this and that are learning the Torah understand that not only do they not have any reason to be proud and brazen in general, but they're literally making themselves a target on Hashem's hit list by being arrogant. Because that's what happens: an action is a reaction. Hashem says, "You're arrogant, you're on My hit list. Eventually, I'm gonna have to take you down." That's what happens. So why do that to yourself? Why do it to yourself? I mean, let me give you an idea: no matter how religious a person is... a target on Hashem's hit list by being arrogant. Because that's what happens: an action is a reaction. Hashem says, "You're arrogant, you're on My hit list. Eventually, I'm gonna have to take you down." That's what happens. So why do that to yourself? Why do it to yourself? I mean, let me give you an idea: no matter how religious a person is... they value their prayers. You know, when you pray serious prayers, or even not-so-serious prayers, you hope that it reaches your mind, it reaches Hashem, it gets something. Sometimes your prayers are better; sometimes your prayers are less good. The rabbi writes in the name of the Gaon of Vilna in the sefer Keter Rosh...

4:53:14He writes in the name of the Gaon of Vilna that the Gaon said, if you take all of the prayers that are ever made, Mincha, Arvit, Shacharit, tefillah yachidit, you know, the personal prayer, Yom Kippur prayer, all of the prayers I've ever made in my whole life, I'd give it all away. ...a single chidush in the Gemara. Somebody prays, what do you pray for? You pray for good health, you pray for money, you pray for a zivug, you pray for everything, and when Hashem answers, imagine a prayer of the Gaon of Vilna; it's worth a lot. He says, "I'll give away all my prayers for a single chidush in the Gemara." And that's a person who knows. Knows what he's talking about, knows what the Gemara is, knows what prayer is also. He says, "I'll give it all away for..." So a person that understands the value of real things is telling you, look how much the Torah is worth and you're not even learning it. Yet you feel proud about things that are not Torah. You're proud that you don't know any Torah. That's what you're proud about. Because all your knowledge is, what is it? Baseball teams? What do you know? The salary cap of every team in the NFL? What do you know? Soccer players? What do you know?

4:54:42What do you know? Somebody came to Rav Moshe Feinstein and said, "Kvod HaRav, we have a shalom bayit problem." "What is the problem?" And the wife says, "Listen, Kvod HaRav, my husband wants a car, a brand new car, a fancy car, and I don't think it's a good idea to get." So Rav says to them, "Why do you think it's a good idea? Why? He can't afford it." So the guy said, "No, no, no, we can afford it." "Okay, so what's the problem?" "No, we're just worried about that, you know, it's going to bring an evil eye on us." Why would you like why your neighbors don't like you? No, they like me, it's good. So why? Why are you like, they're poor? No, they're okay too. So why? I don't know, you know, a fancy guy, you know, people are jealous. So I'm finding out, how many times did you finish the Shas? How many times did you complete Gemara? He said, no, no, I'm sorry, I'm not a Rabbi, I didn't finish the Shas.

4:56:00How many masechtos did you finish? No, no, no, Kavod HaRav, no, no, no, no. Why, why, I don't understand, why is the Rav thinking... How many masechtos do you know by heart? How many masechtos do you know by heart, in the Gemara, how many do you know by heart? No, Kavod HaRav, I'm sorry, Kavod HaRav, I'm sorry. How many pages, how many pages in the Torah do you know by heart? No... The guy is embarrassed already, I mean, question, no, no, no, no. Wait, so you don't know, you didn't finish the Shas, not even once. You didn't even finish half the Shas. You don't know any masechta by heart. You don't even know any page by heart. You could buy whatever car you want. Oh, really? Nobody has any reason to be jealous of you. There's nothing to be jealous about. What are you going to get?

4:57:01There's nothing to be jealous about. You have nothing. You're a poor person. You don't have anything. That's the mind of a person that knows. Knows what's valuable. Saw money, saw this, saw everything. What's really, what's what. Next. Huh? How can you have kavanah in prayer? Very good question. Now, Rabbi again, alav hashalom, says that his grandfather was also a big tzaddik. He was also a big tzaddik, who saw Eliyahu Hanavi a few times.

4:58:06Eliyahu HaNavi came to him a couple of times. And the Gemara says that, and you even have it in the songs of Shabbat, Eliyahu HaNavi's song, praiseworthy is the person who saw Eliyahu HaNavi and Eliyahu HaNavi said hello back. It's a good sign. A very good sign. and one of the inspiring experiences that his grandfather had, we said that he was working construction in a cave and working on a boulder, and they eventually cut the boulder in half and he saw that inside this enormous boulder, enormous giant boulder, like you know the stones that are on the beach, beach rocks, inside the middle of it, not like towards the end, inside the middle of it, there is a little hole, a little pocket, and inside it, there's a worm. Inside the stone, there's a worm inside, and right next to the worm, there's another little pocket with a little bit of water in there.

4:59:30And he says, at that point, I realized how HaKadosh Baruch Hu runs the world so much so that even if you're in the middle of a stone, you don't even know how you got in there, and you're never coming out, HaKadosh Baruch Hu will still give you parnassah. Will still give you parnassah. Now, what do people pray for the most? Pray for parnassah. Pray for good health. Pray for zivug. Pray for a kesher. Pray for... Now, If I told you I could give you a certain segulah, a certain segulah, I give you Sefer Tana Devei Eliyahu, a sefer by Eliyahu HaNavi. And Eliyahu HaNavi comes to you, you can say "hello" back. What are you going to say? No? Yalla. What are you waiting for? Eight hours? We have to wait for this? Yalla, let's go right now. No, no, no, no. Write it down right now. Let's go. Let's stop everything. I want to know how I can meet Eliyahu HaNavi right now. What? Eliyahu HaNavi, I can tell him something. One, two, three things. That's it. I'll take care of business. If I told you... A little further. A little further.

5:00:43If I told you I can get you a certain prayer, a certain segula, I have a book in my house. Say, certain prayers, Moshe and Aharon. Moshe and Aharon. Certain prayers, Moshe and Aharon. Maybe, one, two, three, maybe Moshe Rabbeinu comes to visit you in a dream. Says to you, hello. And you say, hello back. You're like, no. 800 shuls are waiting for all of this. 1,000 shuls are waiting for all this. Let's go. No, come on. I want to know how to meet Moshe Rabbeinu. Right? Why? Because you want your prayers answered. And you want the top of the top to answer.

5:01:45we're fools. We're excited to meet Eliyahu HaNavi, we're excited to meet David HaMelech, we're excited to meet Moshe Rabbeinu, but we forget we get to meet their Creator every single day. You get to have a personal one-on-one conversation with HaKadosh Baruch Hu. You get a personal conversation with HaKadosh Baruch Hu; you can tell Him whatever you want, whenever you want. So now... If a person just goes over everything I just said, what would I do to meet Eliyahu HaNavi? A lot. Somebody told you, listen, I know exactly how much you have in your bank. You write me a check for half of it or all of it, Eliyahu HaNavi comes to your house tomorrow. How quickly would you write that check? Two seconds. By the time I finished, a Navi, you already wrote the check, made it payable, finished. I tell you, if Moshe Rabbeinu shows up at your house, you're writing a check, and you start borrowing money. The reality is, for free, you can get HaKadosh Baruch Hu to show up at your house, to show up in your Beit Knesset, to show up in your whole life, in a second. Right? Pray to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, be'emet.

5:03:03So now if you repeat this in your mind for 15, 20, 30 minutes before the prayer, that already helps you understand the value of your prayer. Why? Because you have problems throughout the whole day. You need solutions. So where are you going to go? Ghostbusters, where are you going to go? Go to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Go to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Think about it. HaKadosh Baruch Hu can solve all your problems. That's number one. Number two. Think about your obligation to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. HaKadosh Baruch Hu told you to do A, B, C, D, all of these mitzvot. Sometimes we failed. That already helps you understand the value of your prayer. Why? Because you have problems throughout the whole day. You need solutions. So where are you going to go? Ghostbusters? Where are you going to go? Go to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Go to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Think about it. HaKadosh Baruch Hu can solve all your problems. That's number one. Number two: think about your obligation to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. HaKadosh Baruch Hu told you to do A, B, C, D, all of these mitzvot. Sometimes we failed. Sometimes we wake up on the wrong side. Sometimes we're living on the wrong side, but we still need HaKadosh Baruch Hu's help. You have to say, "I'm sorry." Your prayer is an opportunity to say, "I'm sorry." Your prayer is an opportunity to do teshuva. Chachamim say you're supposed to do teshuva before you pray.

5:04:19Start thinking about teshuva. Before you pray, 15, 20 minutes, half hour before your prayer. Start evaluating. How many mistakes did I make? I woke up in the morning, I yelled at my wife. Okay, mistake number one. I woke up in the morning, and instead of going to pray, I went and ate a breakfast the size of my head. Okay, mistake number two. Okay, I started, I got to work. i stole somebody else's parking, okay, mistake number three. And on top of it, when he came and he saw me steal his parking, instead of saying, "Listen, sorry," I said something else that's not so nice. That's mistake number four. Okay, mistake number five: a client came and, you know, he asked me how come I... charged the same exact thing twice, and he caught me stealing from him. But I pretended like I really didn't steal—it was a mistake, and it's his mistake—and I convinced him to give me the money anyway. I'll get my stake to do 500 mistakes by the time you get to me, huh? Start thinking about your obligations. Start thinking about all the mistakes the person made for the day. So don't do vidui when a person starts doing teshuvah before he prays, not during prayer. Before he prays, the prayer itself becomes much more valuable. Why? The prayer itself is...

5:05:33starts giving you the emotional aspect, the emotional effect of that sorry that you said 30 minutes before prayer. Why? Because in order to say "I'm sorry" for real, you have to think about what you did wrong first. So if the first time you're thinking about what you did wrong is during prayer, you're not going to say "I'm sorry" at the same time. So first, you have to think about what you did wrong. Then, during prayer, you see the emotional aspect of it. Another way to have more kavanah when you pray, the biggest thing is to understand that the only way that a person can truly change the circumstances in their life is as a result of the prayer. The reason why is because Hakadosh Baruch Hu does not change His mind.

5:06:37He hasn't changed His mind. So, which means that if on Rosh Hashanah it was decreed for X to happen, nothing you can do about it. I'll give you a real-life example. It just happened a few days ago. told you the story a few days ago about the woman that had cancer one day, no cancer the next day, right? The next day, I got another miracle story. One of my students in Texas, a nice guy, Noahide, married, just had a baby not that long ago. He has a career and does okay, likes to learn Torah, watches all of our shiurim, and is a really nice guy. He likes Mussar, likes to improve himself, says that the shiurim have changed his life drastically. And he, Baruch Hashem, donates from time to time. He is a very nice person.

5:08:00very supportive, you know, he's like one of those people that says, "Listen, I'm sending this, but this is for you personally. I know you don't take salary because this is personal." Like, he cares enough for me to live and eat. It's very cute. Anyway, he tells me not too long ago that one day he decided to build something on his own, like a hobby. And he's, you know, well-to-do with his hands and things like that. He's a handy guy. As part of the building, he lost his train of thought and, by mistake, he breathed in this chemical that goes directly into the lungs. It's pretty much only a matter of time before you die. I forgot what it's called. Like, pretty much, it ruins your lungs and, slowly but surely, you die. And there's no cure. I wish I could remember the name. I can look it up, but there's no point. Now, it's not a question of if you're going to die; it's a matter of time. The way you explained it to me, it gives you a certain disease, and that disease is not curable.

5:09:20And simply, it's just a matter of time before the person is not able to breathe, and Hashem Yerachem, dies a very horrible death. And he says, "I can't believe, after all the years of experience that I have, I wasn't paying attention, I breathed this poison. I would never make this mistake, but it happened." The poor guy, you know, imagine, brand new kid, marriage, life, everything, you know, it's... He's like, what am I doing? My kid, my... He said, don't worry, HaKadosh Baruch Hu can change the world. How? Pray. We'll pray. And Baruch Hashem, whatever you can do to help Am Yisrael, whatever you can do to help Kiruv, like you always have, is always good. But nonetheless, we'll still pray for you, you know what? So he, Baruch Hashem, took it seriously, cried to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, helped, support more people doing teshuva and we prayed for him on Rosh Hashanah. Remember I told you guys about the campaign for Rosh Hashanah? So he's one of the people who brought us a prayer for Rosh Hashanah. But also he did the same thing for Yom Kippur. He did both. And both, for him and I prayed for him. And surely the money is going to help feed people and do good things. We pray. Have mercy.

5:10:50A few days ago, he says to me, if you guys remember, I said, Yonatan ben Shari Hailey is going to have a procedure tomorrow, who's going to make a miracle for him. A few days ago. So next day, I have a procedure. Doctors, they look. They look at each other. Confused. Why? Why confused? Nothing there. You're perfectly healthy. It's the same thing that was supposed to kill you. We saw it. There's that. No comprende. We don't understand. Gone. Gone. How? HaKadosh Baruch Hu. HaKadosh Baruch Hu. He sends me this email, and he's excited. Amazing. What changed? HaKadosh Baruch Hu changed His mind. didn't change His mind. You think you could change your mind? You could fail. HaKadosh Baruch Hu did not change His mind. What happened then? How come the other woman got cured of cancer? HaKadosh Baruch Hu could have changed His mind? No, because He didn't change His mind. All of the miracles that we see practically on a daily basis, HaKadosh Baruch Hu changed His mind? So, how did it happen?

5:12:15see, Rabotai, when the decree is made, the decree is made. It's made on a certain person. It's made on person A. Person A gets bill one, two, three, four, five. That's the bill. It says person A gets this bill. That's his bill. It has his name on it. When a person takes the Gemara seriously that says the tefillah of a person, prayer of a person, and the tzedakah that they give change the decree. What does it mean? Why? HaKadosh Baruch Hu changed His mind? I just said He didn't change His mind, so what does it mean? The person that got decreed on Rosh Hashanah, the bill 1, 2, 3, 4, that's a person that looked like A. But after you prayed with your heart out and you cried to HaKadosh Baruch Hu and you did teshuva, you are no longer the same person. When you gave the tzedakah, that's real tzedakah, to help Am Yisrael, for real, not to pretend.

5:13:40You put a stamp on who you are. That's the idea. You prayed; you look different. You put the stamp; that's the idea. It's a completely different person. So yes, the gzeira is still there. It's just not you. It's somebody else. It's somebody else. And if a person truly understands the power of their prayer, has literally to change you in order for the decree to change. In essence, whatever difficulty you have, it's not going away as long as you are you. You need to be different in order for the decree to change. You need to be a ba'al teshuva in order for the decree to change. So long as you're the same, the decree stays the same. When you change, the decree changes. That means, Rabbi Tal HaKadim, your prayer has the ability to make that change. If a person knows that their prayer is something that can do that, they're going to take their prayer much more seriously. And when they know that HaKadosh Baruch Hu loves prayer, loves when people pray to Him, especially when they cry to Him, because no matter how horrible the situation is in the world, the gate of tears is never closed.

5:15:05You cry to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, as if you are a destitute person. That prayer David HaMelech teaches us in Tehillim, the prayer of a destitute person, is higher than the prayer of Moshe Rabbeinu. The prayer of a destitute person, you crying to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, is higher than the prayer of Moshe Rabbeinu. It's higher than the prayer of David HaMelech. That's what Tehillim says. Why? A destitute person is coming to Hashem and saying, listen, if I was Moshe Rabbeinu, he has some merits, so maybe he can get away with something. If I was David HaMelech, he's Mashiach. I'm nothing. I'm zero. I have no merits. I have no Torah. I have no mitzvot. I'm nothing. Zero, zero. The fact that you allow me to exist is already a miracle. But if You're already going to allow me to exist, at least let me learn some Torah. At least let me get married and have tzaddikim kids. At least let me eat so I don't die. What's the benefit You get if I die? No, I don't have anything. I can't say I have merits. I can't say I have mitzvot. I can't say I'm a talmid. I can't say I'm a tzaddik. I'm a nothing. I have zero to offer You. Zero. I can just offer You what I can do from now on.

5:16:30You come to HaKadosh Baruch Hu crying tears, and say, HaKadosh Baruch Hu, I don't have anything. I don't have anything. But, give me a chance. That prayer, Rabotai HaKedoshim, is how Moshe Rabbeinu prayed. People ask me, "Oh, what was the prayer that Moshe Rabbeinu prayed 515 times?" You don't need to pray 515 times. You pray like this, it's going to work out. If it didn't work out, you didn't pray like this. Why? Because it takes a lot of effort to pray like that. A lot of crying. A lot of crying. But the point being, Rabbi, if a person does it seriously, takes prayer seriously, he can do it. Who prayed like this? Elazar ben Dordia. Who's Elazar ben Dordia? Elazar ben Dordia was one of the biggest resha'im in the history of mankind. He wasn't even a Rabbi. Every sin that he could possibly make with a woman, he made. so much so, he was addicted to prostitutes. Every prostitute he would go to, one day he finds out there's a very famous, expensive prostitute in a faraway land. He goes to this prostitute, puts all of his money to go to the prostitute. He gets to the prostitute, and he wants to hide. He has his way, and after, the prostitute says to him, "Look at you!"

5:17:56There's no chance for you to go to Heaven. Who are you, filthy prostitute? Are you going to tell me if I'm going to Heaven or not? Who are you? He says, "Look, all day, prostitutes, filth, disgust, nobody worse than you. No one worse than you in the world." The prostitute told him the truth that he had never heard in his life. Sometimes getting mussar from a criminal is worse than getting mussar from the Rabbi. And what ended up happening, Rabbi Elazar ben Durdaya took this to heart. He went to the mountains. He started crying. He said, O sun, O sun, please help me, pray for me. The sun says, the amount of sins that you made damaged me already. I need to pray for myself. He says, oh moon, moon, please pray for me. The moon says, the amount of sins that you made brought so much tumah to the world, I'm damaged, I have to pray for myself. He says, the heavens, the heavens, please pray for me. The heavens say, listen, the amount of filth that you created in the world from all the garbage, we all have to pray for ourselves.

5:19:17He started praying to the mountains he was next to. He started hysterical crying. I don't have anything. Please, mountains, please have mercy on me. I don't have rabbis. I don't have talmidim. I don't have anything. Mountains, please, you're next to me. Please pray for me. The mountains said, the amount of garbage that you've put into the world has made the dirt in our mountains disgusting. We have to pray for ourselves. Nabi at that moment realized that he has nothing to do. He has really nothing. He is a nothing. He's a negative nothing. And he starts crying to HaKadosh Baruch Hu when he realizes how much of a nothing zero he is. And he says, "HaKadosh Baruch Hu, I have nothing. I am a nothing. And I have nothing to offer You. But I'm sorry for everything that I did." He cries himself to death. And the moment he dies, a bat kol comes out that Rebbe HaKadosh hears from a faraway land. Also, Rebbe HaKadosh, Rebbe Yehuda HaNasi, hears it. Olam HaBa welcomes Rebbe Elazar ben Dordaya. And he was a famous criminal; everybody knew this womanizer. And Rebbe HaKadosh, who knew exactly what happened here with Ruach HaKodesh, says, "Look at that, some people can get..."

5:20:42in a moment, and on top of it be called Rabbi. Woe to us, he says. Why woe to us? He says, but look at his teshuva. Who can cry himself to death like that? Who can cry himself to death like that? Other than somebody that's really a prayer of a destitute person. Not everybody can pray like that. The point being is, is that A person that really cries to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, the best they can, with really delving and thinking about how much they depend on Hashem and how much they want to do and need to do, and so on, surely their prayer will be much more valuable than, you know, your traditional prayer. And you can do this during your shacharit, your mincha, your arvit, or you can do it in your individual prayer that you can do whenever you want. just as long as it's not in a filthy place, it smells bad. You can do it any time you want throughout the day, and I highly recommend that you do. Many people in Chassidut, Breslov, and otherwise, call this a hitbodedut, where they pray to Hashem,

5:21:59This is not a new concept in Chassidut. This has been around since the beginning of time. The Gemara says the Chassidim of the times of the Gemara used to pray for nine hours a day. Nine hours a day they would pray. Almost half the day they would pray. So, prayer is a very big thing, but you need to see it as such. You need to see it as your ticket to talk to Hashem, the Creator of all creation. And if you delve into it, think about it, reflect, and see what the potential is, surely you're going to treat it differently. If you look at a customer who's wearing shorts and a t-shirt, okay, you're going to say, oh, this is a regular guy. Like, hey, whatever, hi, hi, bye, bye, very cordial. But if you recognize his face, and you remember, wait a minute, hold on, you look down, you see the Forbes 500 has him on the cover with the same ugly t-shirt and shorts, but he happens to be worth $50 billion.

5:23:05All of a sudden, what? Yes, sir. You want coffee, sir? How are you, sir? Sir, sir, sir. What happens? It's the same guy. No, no, no, no, no. It's not the same guy. Yeah, this guy, t-shirt, shorts, ugly mustache, everything. Yeah, yeah. But now that I know he's worth $50 billion, all of a sudden he's "sir." All of a sudden he gets a coffee. All of a sudden he gets a lot of things. When a person understands what prayer is... He realizes, "I got to act a little bit better, I got to do a little bit better." Why don't we? Because we think it's just some ugly t-shirt and shorts person with an ugly mustache. We don't realize it's on the cover of the Tanakh. That's 400 that gets replaced every few weeks. It's the cover of the Tanakh, the eternal book. The person that takes that into account, surely their prayer will change. Next question. Yes. Does his teshuvah actually remove the impurities he created in the world? Teshuvah removes the impurity of? Did his teshuvah, the one you mentioned, remove the tum'ah he created in the world? Oh, did it remove the tum'ah in the world? I mean, the problem is with removing it, you can't remove a stain as quickly as you made it.

5:24:24So, for example, this delicious coffee that can wake up the dead, it's good inside my body, but if I spill it on my shirt, now it's most likely you can remove it, but it won't be removable just like this. Like as easy as it was to spill, it's not as easy to clean it. I have to send it to a dry cleaner, I have to let them know, "Listen, there's a stain over there," and I have to put special chemicals on it. And even if they could clean it, it's still a process. So, the deeper the stain, the more difficult it is to remove. So his teshuva surely helped him gain the ability to go to Olam HaBa, but to remove all of that, it takes a lot more time. Number one, it takes good actions; it takes actual mitzvot. And it also takes time to eliminate certain things. Certain things bear fruit. So it's not, it's not so simple to just get rid of it just because of the one action. It requires a little bit more than that. That's why the Gemara says, the Chachamim, the commentaries on there say that he didn't actually enter Olam HaBa, heaven, right there and then, but rather the Bat Kol was saying to him that he now has the opportunity to go to Olam HaBa as a result of his teshuva after he pays for the crimes, meaning he has to go to Gehinom for a little while.

5:25:45but before that, if he didn't do that, he would have no chance of going to Gan Eden. So this particular issue allowed him to eventually go to Gan Eden. Eventually. It's not so simple where he just pretty much cries and goes to Gan Eden with Moshe Rabbeinu. No. Not so simple. Not so fast. No? Next? Okay. When you wash, the water doesn't distribute evenly. Then do you wash again? You mean when you do it the other time? Right. now, if you like to dive in essence, you're supposed to, uh, wash your hands. I mean, it doesn't necessarily need to be exactly even. Though, uh, sometimes you have it, uh, very, very disproportionate, but as long as you at least wash your, uh, you know, to the point where it covers your hand, it's fine. Even though sometimes you do a lot more in one pour than the others, as long as you washed it. Uh, if it's, uh, the morning blessings...

5:26:50Like in the morning, you wake up, you say, go wash your hands. The way you wash your hands is you wash one, one, one, one, one, one. So it's three on each side, but it's, you know, alternating. But when you wash for bread, it's three on one side and then three on the other side, meaning that it's repetitive. Three, and then you go to the other side, three. Now, there is a little thing I can teach you. This is very good to do once in a while, maybe once a month, or however often you want to do it. To remove tumah, this is specifically for Jews. You know, if somebody wants to do it as a non-Jew, do whatever you want, but I just don't think it'll have an effect to my knowledge. But it's very good to do. there's a few ways to remove tumah the person has as a result of their klipah that they have as a result of sins and so on. One of the ways is to go to the mikveh. If it's a kosher mikveh, it's good to go once in a while, once a week, once a month, whenever.

5:28:18But sometimes you don't have the ability to go to a mikveh, or sometimes you just want something else. So the Arizal came up with other things that you can do, and one of them is a netilat yadayim mikveh. What's a netilat yadayim mikveh? A netilat yadayim mikveh is that you will do the rotating The one, one, one, one, one, one, but 10 times on each hand. So a total of 20. And then right after that, you do the repetitive 10 times on each hand. So 20 and 20. So a total of 40 times. 40 is symbolic of purity, like the 40 days and 40 nights that Moshe Rabbeinu was on Mount Sinai, 40 days of the Mabul. 40 is a repetitive number that symbolizes renewal. So a total of 40, but like I said, it's 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 10 times on each hand, which is the way that you would wash your hands in the morning, alternating.

5:29:31And then you would do 10 and 10 like you would do for bread, before you eat bread. But again, no break in between, no talking in between, complete focus. Do that. There are also other ways, other things, like the Ben Ish Chai came up with, where you have certain things with kavanot of certain words, but... we're still in first grade so let's just do the simple ones, uh, like this. And even the simple ones are not so simple because, number one, it takes some time, lots of water, and focus. Focus. So, uh, you could try doing that, but again, you don't need to do it every day. You do it once in a while, once a month, or whatever. But, uh, it's good to do. It's good to do. Um, next... That doesn't apply to women, right? Like that kind of... What, at the same time? Yeah. A woman can do it too. But that isn't the place for that commitment.

5:30:41no, no, it doesn't replace him going to the mikveh either. I mean, he's not obligated to go to the mikveh anyway, but no, it's just a purification tool. A woman doesn't go to the mikveh just because of the purification. There are many different aspects. The main thing is Halacha says she has to go to the mikveh, that's it, even if there wasn't a purification. twice, as you have to admit that it's not the reason. I don't know what the rest of it is, all the additions of different timing of what we know and how it worked, but the reality is positive. To make a woman has a good idea, that's it and all. I mean, it's different tools that you have. It's different things. It doesn't contradict each other. It's very likely, and even possible, that some people who are familiar with this would do both. Obviously, not at the same time. If you went to the mikvah, you wouldn't do it that day. You would do it a different day.

5:31:47but nonetheless, you could use this as one tool. This is one tool; this is the fan, and that's the air conditioner. This is the motorcycle, and that's the car. You know, it's different tools to get from point A to point B. That's it, okay? Yeah, son Ah, very good question. Why didn't the hot water burn the Ark itself? And the Midrash Rabbah says that the flood had miracle upon miracles, so much so that HaKadosh Baruch Hu made the surrounding water around the Ark normal temperature. And the Midrash Rabbah says that the flood had miracle upon miracles, so much so that HaKadosh Baruch Hu made the surrounding water around the Ark normal temperature.

5:32:59Wherever it went, instantly the water became normal temperature for two reasons. Number one, not to burn the Ark, as we just discussed. And number two, not to kill the animals. Which animals? Not the animals inside, but the animals outside. ...there were animals outside. There were two giant animals outside that, uh, the Re'em. The Re'em was an enormous animal; you could compare it to, let's say, a dinosaur, but it looked like a deer-bull mix—just really, really big. And there was a pair of Re'emim, male and female... that were tied to the Ark, and their nostrils were the only part that could fit into the Ark. That's how big they were. And they would simply walk or swim behind the Ark. If the water was out, they would melt, they would die. So Hashem had to protect them also. So miraculously, the water would, in essence, go back to normal temperature as they would go wherever they would go.

5:34:14The fish also didn't die because the fish didn't commit any sins like the rest of the animals. Some explain that the fish went into a deeper part of the ocean, and therefore, the only water that was boiling was the water on the higher surface. Some say that they went into a deeper part, in this instance, the further part of the ocean, and the hot part was closer to the coast. Either way, the fish didn't die for different reasons. So the animal sin means that there is a certain nature that Hashem instilled into the world, meaning that everybody knows that a male and a female is what it's supposed to be. it's not supposed to be a male and a male or a female and a female. That is not normal. That is not an appropriate thing because if your parents were both girls, you wouldn't be here. So the natural way of the world is for a male to marry a female and a female to marry a male. Simple. So that's the normal course of things. Also, everybody knows that a human

5:35:28guys, you wouldn't be here. If your parents were both girls, you wouldn't be here. So the natural way of the world is for a male to marry a female and a female to marry a male. Simple. So that's the normal course of things. Also, everybody knows that a human can only be with another human and not with an animal. Why? Because if your father was a raccoon, you wouldn't be here, right? You wouldn't be your father. It cannot be, right? So everybody knows that for the sake of the world, it can only be the same species. That's in essence what real normal means. Normal means what it's supposed to be. can only be with another human and not with an animal. Why? Because if your father was a raccoon, you wouldn't be here, right? You wouldn't be your father. It cannot be, right? So everybody knows that for the sake of the world, it can only be the same species. That's in essence what real normal means. Normal means what it's supposed to be. So there was a certain nature that Hashem gave to the animals that they were supposed to act a certain way. Now, although until the time of Noach, all of the animals were vegetarian, including the lion, as a result of the sins of man, the sins of man affected the world around them.

5:36:45The Tumah that was created by the sins affected the ground. As a result, every time you say a curse word, that curse word doesn't just disappear. The curse word floats in the air, and eventually, if it's a really big curse, it goes up with the heat, and the cloud swallows it up. It comes down with the rain, and that rain goes into the ground. That ground grows a vegetable, that curse is still in that vegetable. Somebody eats that vegetable, now he wants to curse again, meaning it reproduces and it creates more and more Tumah in the world. So all of the sins that a person had, whether it be cursing, wasting seed, stealing, lying, or whatever it is, they created Tumah in the world. impurity in the world. That impurity affected the food, and that food affected the animals. Therefore, the animals started acting against their own nature. Suddenly, the sheep started chasing after the lion to eat him.

5:37:53even though the sheep really, in reality, should be prey. But it wasn't, they weren't carnivores back then. But nonetheless, everybody knew that the lion was the king of the animals. He's the superior. The sheep suddenly started chasing after the lion. The zebra, all of a sudden, wanted to marry a raccoon. The different animals started mingling with different species, acting against their own nature. it's not that they sinned like they said, "Listen, we don't want to listen to you," but the sins of the world affected them to such an extent they couldn't return back to normal. What is that like? A dog with rabies. Now, although that dog, the day before he got rabies, was a little coochie poochie, coochie coochie, really, really, really cute, once he got rabies, bye-bye dog. It's not the same dog anymore. eyes go red, he starts doing this, he starts doing that, starts foaming from the mouth, you got to kill him. What? Not the same dog anymore. Yeah, but I want him back. Can't. Too late. Too late. No more. Same thing with these animals. These animals, the tumah affected them to such an extent that they became a different type of animal. Therefore, HaKadosh Baruch Hu had to destroy them.

5:39:13And the only thing that will remain are the animals that weren't affected yet. Hence, the reason why many of the animals were newborns. Newborns, like the Re'em. The Re'em were newborns, not only because of their size but also because they didn't sin yet. They weren't affected by the tumah of the world. So, that's in essence what that means. Good question. Very good. All the things that sinned got destroyed? Yes. What about the trees and plants? How did they sin? trees and plants also started working against their own nature. The ground, even the ground, was considered sinful where HaKadosh Baruch Hu had to take, I believe it was six amot. Six amot from the ground was destroyed. Six amot from the ground, so that's something around 10 to 12 feet. the ground was destroyed to remove the tumor from the next generation of the seed. Everything acted against its own nature as a result of the impurity. I mean, the world was a built world; it wasn't like five people, no, it was like today.

5:40:27It's an enormously big world, full of people, a civilization, and countries, and so on and so forth. And the whole world became complete filth. Hashem had to destroy every aspect of the world, every part of the world, because it simply was a virus that was unrecoverable, unfixable. Next. Yeah. So, can I pause a prayer if I don't want to be rude to someone that's trying to ask me something, especially when that person is one of my parents? The Gemara in Masechet Berachot says, if a king, a king comes to you in the middle of prayer, you're praying Shema Yisrael, and you know this king doesn't mess around. If you don't answer him, he's going to kill you. you're allowed to answer the king. But if a scorpion crawls on you in the middle of Shema Yisrael or the middle of Amidah, you're allowed to move. Why? It could kill you. But if a snake goes on you, you're not allowed to move. If your friend or anybody else comes to you, stops you in the middle of prayer, you're not allowed to answer them. Why? HaKadosh Baruch Hu is right there and your life is not at risk.

5:41:52So long as your life is not at risk, you're not allowed to interrupt prayer. Not allowed to interrupt prayer. But if your life is at risk, then you're not. Hopefully, without shame, your life will never be at risk while you're praying or at all, period. But there's nothing, there's nothing ruder. There's nothing ruder than leaving Hakadosh Baruch Hu in order to say hello to somebody else. Why? Hakadosh Baruch Hu is more than your parents. He's more important than your parents. So you could, in order to not violate the Torah, not violate the honor of Hashem, If you're, say, for example, in the middle of a prayer, and, you know, your parents are saying, "Oh, hi," and you don't want to just ignore them completely, you could look at them, something like this, without saying a single word, make a facial expression, a smile of some kind, and imply that you're praying, or show them that you're praying, and that's it. Better move on. If they want to have a conversation with you, you can have a conversation with them afterward.

5:42:56But surely, you know, your parents, I'm sure, are not going to insist on having a conversation while you're in the middle of Amidah. But you have to do whatever you can to train yourself not to talk during prayer about anything else other than HaKadosh Baruch Hu, even at certain parts that are not as strict as the Shema Yisrael and the Amidah. The reason why is because, again, you're trying to get HaKadosh Baruch Hu to listen to you, trying to talk to Him. It's not polite for you to simply just walk away from him, just to go acknowledge your boy that just showed up at your house, or even your own parents. You have to really believe that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is next to you. And if you can walk away from your prayer so easily, that means you really don't believe that Hashem is there. If you can talk about mundane things, So easily during your prayer, that means you don't believe that Hashem is there. And if you don't believe that Hashem is there, why are you praying? Why are you praying to the wall? The wall is not going to do anything. If you don't believe that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is there wherever you're praying, what is the prayer for? What are you praying to? The wall? The ceiling? The chair? What? The Aron HaKodesh? The Aron HaKodesh doesn't have a life.

5:44:20What are you praying to? So that means you have to understand that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is there. If HaKadosh Baruch Hu is there, how can you be talking to somebody else? A person needs to think about these things. And most of the time, people know a lot of the things that are said. It's just that they never thought about it. Oh, now you put it that way. Okay, now I understand. That's it. Next. Yeah. In the book "Heritage, Volume 1: History and Dissection of Yishmael and Esav," it states that our sages said the power that was given to the sons of Noach to become the founders of the seventy nations was later given to the descendants of Avraham, that all the seventy nations of the world receive their sustenance through Avraham's descendants, and the divine influence was divided between Yishmael and Esav. Mentioning later that both had 35 nations and the 70 bulls sacrificed on Sukkot are an atonement for those nations. And so my question is, why aren't these six sons of Avraham Avinu with Keturah mentioned? Why wasn't the divine influence divided among those sons as well? Which sons? His sons with Keturah.

5:45:33Oh, why didn't they get anything? Yeah, if this was transferred, the power was transferred to Avraham's descendants, why was it only given to Yishmael and Esav, not his sons with Keturah? Well, I mean, it was also given to Yitzchak, not just Yishmael and Esav. These were the chosen people that... Hashem decided for every major person that's mentioned in the Torah. Hashem makes it clear that not everything that came out of him was something that He chose to continue, meaning not every fruit that came out of the tree was something that Hashem wanted to replant into another tree. you know, uh, and make it into further, uh, so for example, out of, uh, Adam, neither Cain nor Abel are in the world today. You know, it's the next one, Seth. Only he's the one that something came out of. So Cain came into the world, the, uh, second person in the world

5:46:45Nothing. Hevel came, nothing. So what happened? And Kayin had a lot of kids. Kayin had kids, had wives, had this. HaKadosh Baruch Hu didn't want anything from him. Okay. Same thing with a lot of people. So you have Avraham had Yishmael and Yitzchak. Both had certain things; you had other kids, but the other kids got a different present. They got the power of witchcraft, which still is in the world. But in essence, those descendants are not in the world. And Yitzchak had Esav and Yaakov. And he had, you know, the descendants, but each had descendants. But Esav, not all of his kids ended up becoming something; many of them are no longer in the world. Moshe Rabbeinu, does anybody know the names of his children? Gershom and Eliezer. But Gershom and Eliezer, we thought that they're going to become the leaders after Moshe Rabbeinu. Naturally, you would think that's what would happen. Moshe Rabbeinu was great. And he actually suggested for Hashem to make one of them the leader. Hashem says, no, I don't think like you. They're not fit to be a leader. And actually, one of the descendants of Moshe ended up becoming an idol worshiper.

5:48:13that David HaMelech rescued, that Kiruv with. So many, many years later. But the point is, is that not every fruit is edible, not every fruit is as good as the other, and Hashem in essence chose certain people that stood out in His, obviously in His infinite wisdom, that they're going to be the continuation of everything else. um, as far as his reasoning for it, we can speculate. We can read some about what makes certain things special, but tachlis, bottom line, no one can possibly know why this one and not the other one, because He could have done the same thing with the other one as He did with this one. But I do know that Esav and every one of the wicked people also had the opportunity to be one of the righteous people. Meaning the Midrash says that Esav was really supposed to be the father of half the tribes. Meaning it was supposed to be six tribes by Yaakov, six tribes by Esav. That's the potential that he had, but he chose otherwise.

5:49:27know Yishmael himself, he himself did teshuvah, but his descendants are killing us in the middle of the streets today. Why is that? He did teshuvah, okay, he corrected himself, but there was still enough impurity created as a result of his actions from before he did teshuvah that it left fruit that Hashem wanted to reproduce. Hashem wanted to reproduce. So, why does Hashem choose this versus that? Hashem decides to do certain things. You also can see that there are certain people, for example, that no matter what they do, they're successful. And there are certain people that no matter what they do, they're not successful, they're poor. I'll give you a couple of examples. You have Ibn Ezra, one of the Jewish sages. He says about himself that he's so unfortunate that if he started an umbrella business, there would be a drought. No rain anymore. If he started a food business, people would stop eating. Anything he did when it came to business, failed.

5:50:47He tried different things. Torai was a big giant amir hacham, but when it came to money, poorer than dirt. On the other hand, the Abarbanel, everybody knows, he was the treasurer of Spain. And when the resha'im from Spain said either you convert to Christianity or leave. The Jews left with him, even though they said, "No, no, but you can stay here and keep ten of your students, so you have a minyan. You know, special conditions for the Abarbanel." He was a genius and he helped their financial situations. He said, "No, wherever my people are going, I'm going," and he left. And I believe he went to Portugal. And then he went also to another country, and he became the treasurer over there also. Meaning wherever he went, the king chose him to be the top guy. Top guy, which obviously shows that he was not only a talmid chacham, he was a very, very well-established, successful scholar of all types and all trades, to the extent that he was the top official, the treasurer, most responsible, most important person pretty much in government.

5:52:12...in three different countries. Why? HaKadosh Baruch Hu decided that shefa will come from him. Shefa will come from him. He was going to be one of the vessels that Hashem uses to bring good to the world. That's it. That's what it is. And so there are certain people that HaKadosh Baruch Hu simply decides that this is how I'm going to bring good to the world. Sometimes they're good, sometimes not, but the point is, there are certain people that Hashem uses as vessels. Why him and not someone else? That's something you have to be God to know. But the point is that it does exist in the world. You see certain people that, despite the circumstances, are like a cat with seven lives or eight. they keep coming up, so you know the only time that's a problem is when it's a terrorist and you can't kill him seven times after you shot him, which also exists.

5:53:31if he asked him for his capital, the king asked for his capital because they were saying that he was taking money, and the king asked him, "Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, okay." And he's the one that the king asked, "How much money do you have?" And he told him exactly how much money he's given in tzedakah. The king got offended because he thought that he was saying that's all of his money, as if that's all the money in the bank, not understanding that he only considered his possession to be the tzedakah money that he gave away. and the reason why is because after he had, let's say, $10 million in assets,

5:54:31and he was helping the king become a billionaire, and a few reshaim (wicked people) that were anti-Semitic and jealous of the Abarbanel came to the king and told him, "Listen, you know this guy's stealing money. How is he getting all this money, this, that, and the other thing?" So the king was sure, "No, he's not stealing money; he's a tzaddik (righteous person), he's a good guy." He said, "Look, ask him. He's not even going to tell you how much money he has." So the king already did his investigation, and he found out he's got a house worth a million dollars, he's got this, he's got that. So he knew approximately how much he's worth. So he came to the Abarbanel and said, "How much money do you have?" And to his surprise, the Abarbanel says, "$100,000." I'm giving you just a hypothetical example, $100,000. So the king got offended. He goes, "What, you lied to my face? You lied to my face? The house is a million dollars. Arrest him and take everything he has." And in a second, they arrested him, threw him in jail, and repossessed all of his property, everything. The king was really, really upset and was going to kill him, but he just couldn't understand how this genius who had worked for him for so many years could treat him like such a fool and lie to his face and say such a ridiculous number. I mean, surely he was smart enough to know that the king was going to find out how much money he had.

5:55:50Especially since it's such a big difference. You know, 100,000, 10 million. It's a world of difference. So he couldn't get his head around it. And after he cooled off after a couple of weeks, he came to the Abba and he said, listen, I don't understand. Why would you lie to me? He says, Your Highness, I never lied to you. If you let me speak, I would tell you. He says, okay. He says, you asked me how much money I have. Now I know that the only thing I have is the tzedakah money. The tzedakah money I invested for Torah, for zikui rabbim, for kiruv. That's the only thing that's mine to help the poor. That's the only thing that's mine. None of the other things are mine. He goes, no, why? You have a house, you have this. He goes, Your Highness, you and I know it's not mine. Why? You took it in two seconds. You took it in two seconds. HaKadosh Baruch Hu took it from me, gave it to you in two seconds. It's not mine. What's mine? The money I already gave away. Why? No one can take that away from me.

5:56:51No one can take that away from me. I already gave that away. I already made a mitzvah with it. I go up to Shamayim, they ask me how much I have. I give them already. Here's my bills. Here's my pinkas, my booklet that has every little dollar that I ever gave. That's what it has. I gave it already. That's mine. All the money in the bank, that's all for show. It's all for show. Look, just like that, God can take it away from me. Just like that. A person that understands that can understand the purpose of life just like that. just like that. Boom, boom. Smells good. It smells like mint. Also helps you wake up a little bit. No, next. What's your favorite thing about learning Torah, aside from the fact that it's what Hashem wants you to do and that it helps to strengthen your connection to HaKadosh Baruch Hu? What's my favorite thing about learning Torah, aside from connecting to Hashem and aside from it being what He wants? Well, everything is new.

5:58:12Meaning, it's all old information that's been around since the beginning of time. But to me, it's all brand new because I didn't know it a minute before I studied it. So it's like you're a baby rediscovering or discovering the world for the first time. Now, I assume you don't have any kids yet. But one day, you'll have kids, and you'll see when you take them outside for a walk, they point at everything. Aba! Aba! Aba! What? Lizard. Okay. Aba! Aba! Aba! What? Bird. Okay. Aba! Aba! Aba! What? Tree. Okay. Aba! Everything is new. Excited about everything. You are used to it. Like we were saying earlier today, used to it. But, everything is exciting. talai is a million and a half times every single word, every single paragraph you read in this book, or in this book, or in this book, or any of these books. Every one of them, it's brand new, and literally, it rewires your brain, rewires your thinking to the point where it's like, "Oh, now it makes sense why that and that came up and why this and that came up." And the more...

5:59:25you allow Torah to enter your mind, the more you're allowing the rewiring of your brain to happen. What is it like? It's like doing a remodeling on your house. Now, if you have a house, let's say your house is worth, I don't know, $200,000. Let's say you want to renew the house a little bit. You want to put a nice little bathroom—$5,000, $10,000 job. Okay, nice bathroom. So every time you go to the bathroom, you can see nicer stones. Okay, nicer appearance. Kitchen. Now you're talking—$25,000, $30,000. Could be more, even $50,000, $60,000, depending on how much you want to splurge. But that makes a bigger difference. Why? That's one of the centerpieces of the house. Makes a big difference, Rabotai Kereem. Every time you read one of the Sefarim HaKedoshim, it's not a $40,000 kitchen. It's not a $5,000, $10,000 bathroom. It's a million-dollar job, meaning it's a new house.

6:00:37It's a new house. You complete this book. You complete any of these books. It's a rewiring of your mind, of your body. Every page, not every book, every page, every page of Gemara, every page of Chumash, every page of Mussar, every page of Halacha. The more you understand it, the bigger the remodeling job, so everything is brand new. And for me, I've always been a studious person, but never in my life did I actually think that there's so much that I don't know. I read a lot of books, studied a lot of different things, and I never understood how little I knew, until I started learning Torah. Why? Because every time you finish a book, you're like, ah, no, I got that book. No, no, I got that book. No, no, I got that book. I got that book. Torah, you could study the same book a thousand times, you're still not going to learn enough. Same book, not different books. Same exact book. You read Sha'arei Teshuvah, Path of the Just, Mishneh Torah, whatever you want to read. Any real serious sefer, not from the garbage of today. Talk about real sefarim. Real sefarim, the Rishonim.

6:01:51big people, or you read, you're not the same person. You're a different person. You're a different person so much so that the more you delve into Torah, the deeper you are in it, the more it is a permanent part of your day-to-day life. The more you're going to see how you cannot believe that you used to be the person from last year but every year, every year you'll pass and you look at your last year, you're like, wow, I used to do that? I used to be like that? I used to look like that? I used to think like that? And it becomes, you become further and further from your old self, similar to how somebody looks at their own pictures from high school on their 10-year anniversary. It's like, wow, I had that hairdo, I can't believe I looked like that. Ah, well, it's a different person, but yeah, I remember I used to do this, I used to do that. But now with Torah, it's completely different. Your character developed drastically.

6:02:54and that's again, with every book there's a series set up. But I generally recommend books that are old, not new books. Meaning, not that necessarily you need to own an 800-year-old book that's printed 800 years ago, but the book itself had to be written many years ago, or at least by the biggest rabbis, the most reputable rabbis, of the recent generations because a lot of the stuff that's written today, that's published today by, you know, people that are trying to make a name for themselves, a lot of the stuff is garbage. A lot of the stuff has, uh, just, um, why even go there? Why even bother? You know, that's honestly, it's, uh, people ask me write a book and I have a couple of things written and stuff, but I don't, I don't say, uh, uh, invest so much into just simply because if I, if I was like a consumer, I wouldn't buy it. Why? I could, I could, I could buy Rabbeinu Yonah. Why would I buy it? Like, who is he?

6:04:10I could buy Rabbeinu Yonah. Who is this Sharon? Who is this Rabbeinu Yonah? The grandson of Nachmanides, the Ramban. I could buy his book. I could buy the Ramchal. I could buy the Ramchal from 300 years ago. Who is this Sharon Rubin? Who cares about what he says? I could buy the Rambam. The Rambam, from Moshe to Moshe there was none like Moshe. Who is this guy? Who cares about what he says? So that's one end. On the other end, there is a reason to write a book. Because again, although these books and all the books that I have are ageless, no matter what you do, you can always read them. There are some books of today that should be written because they put things in the perspective of today. Like the lectures of today, you know, it's the same information from 800 years ago but relevant to today, to your life today. So there is a reason to write it, and that's why the Chachamim always recommend for a person to read books, write books, and so on. So, I'm not discouraging anybody from writing a book, but...

6:05:26I personally don't advise people to read many of the recent books because many of them are heretical to the extent that unless you know what you're talking about already, you don't even know what you're reading. You don't even know that you're reading heretical stuff. Like the young man that sent me that thing today about the Tinok She'Nishba, he thought, first of all, he thought the Chafetz Chaim wrote it. And second of all, he thought it was right. Like he was saying to me, "Oh, here's a proof." It's wrong. Look at the Chafetz Chaim itself, look at the halacha. It's the opposite. So, again, I don't think that those two rabbis did it on purpose, but the point is, it's wrong. It's wrong. So, why go there when you can go to something that's verified true? Verify true. verify true. So, you know, it's a... But there are some serious Talmidei Chachamim that write serious books that are very good, fluid, and so on. Because some of the older books are very difficult to read. Most of them are very difficult to read. They're very dense. And sometimes they're complicated. It's complicated to understand them. So there are some, you know, Talmidei Chachamim that simplify the complex language. You know, so you can read that. But...

6:06:42Again, it's very important for a person to understand that there's nothing better than the original. Nothing better than the original. It's harder, it's more difficult to read and so on, but if a person can, surely that's recommended higher than anything else. Anytime I ask, for example, Rav Ephraim, I say, listen, I have either to learn Gemara or such-and-such book. He says, learn Gemara. I said, okay, I have to learn Gemara or I have a shiur with you. I'm supposed to learn. He asked me, you want to learn now? I said, I'm actually about to start learning Gemara. What should I do? He said, go learn Gemara. I started learning with him. Go learn Gemara. Why? He said, it's better than me. Now, do I agree? Not necessarily, because I don't know how great Gemara is in comparison to how great Rav Chaim is, but the point is that someone who knows better than me tells me what to do, so I listen. But that's the thing. The more a person understands the magnitude of Torah, the easier it is for him to understand why he should

6:07:52delve into it as deeply as he possibly can because every word is golden. But you're not going to find as much gold in a modern book as you will from an older classic book like some of the ones that I've mentioned today and in previous lectures. The books of today, at best, at best, they're mediocre because they mention many of the older sources at best. know it's many of them to be honest with you. I tried to read a few of them because people send me books here and there. I'll read this book, this, right? I don't even know why people buy them. I guess people don't know what the older books are, but I don't understand. Next, in the back, you guys have questions? Yes? Did anyone not sin at the time of the Mabul? Yeah, Noach. Noach and his family were the only ones that didn't sin. That's why they survived. If they would have sinned, then He would have killed them also, destroyed the entire world.

6:09:15But there were some people that didn't sin, like Metushelach. Metushelach was Noach's grandfather. He was righteous. He didn't sin. That's why HaKadosh Baruch Hu waited until he died before He brought the Mabul. meaning he didn't die during the Mabul; he died shortly before the Mabul. Hashem waited for him to die and then He brought the Mabul. By the time the Mabul started, the rain had already begun. Therefore, everything remaining in the world consisted only of sinners. Only sinners, next. Yeah, Noach didn't sin; so why did he get reincarnated as Moshe? So Noach didn't sin relative to his generation as far as he did not act promiscuously, he did not steal, he did not murder, he didn't commit the same sins as everybody else, but on his level, because he was a righteous person, more was expected from him in order for him to perfect his neshama. So he was very good, but he wasn't perfect.

6:10:26So it's like you got, you know, a 95 on the test. It's good, but it's not 100. It's not perfect. So for that extra few points, you have to come back again. Let's come back again. Yeah, next. Yeah. We know we're in the test again. repeat that again, I'm not following. When a person has that feeling and he has Hashem on him. At moments, let's say they go check their phones or do something other than praying because they have... Oh yeah, yeah, the Gemara of Masechet Shabbat says that anyone who thinks of anything other than Hashem during the time of Tefillin is already a sin. Needless to say, if that person's attention is on mundane things, checking your phone while you have your Tefillin on is forbidden. Having a mundane conversation while you have your Tefillin on is forbidden. The Gemara talks very harshly about it.

6:11:47very, very harshly about it. A person should not do anything other than pray to HaKadosh Baruch Hu or learn Torah while they have their Tefillin on. If they want to do other things, they need to take off their Tefillin. Why? Because Tefillin are a big deal. They're not a headband. Tefillin are not a headband. You want to check your phone? Take off your Tefillin. You want to have a conversation about the Jets, the Knicks, and the stock market? Take off your Tefillin. Because Tefillin are a big deal. So, a person needs to focus, focus as much as possible when they have Tefillin on. And also, if they get tired, if they get tired to the point where they know they cannot stay awake... They have to take off their Tefillin. It is not allowed to go to sleep with your Tefillin on. Now, it's important for a person to be alert, to be awake, when they have their Tefillin on. And generally speaking, if a person wants to have kavanah when they're praying, shut off your phone. Don't just put it on vibrate, shut it off.

6:13:07Shut it off. Why? Because the vibrate is just Yetzer Hara. Vibrate is Yetzer Hara. It's going to vibrate and so on. Sometimes I forget to shut off my phone, and every single time it rings. Every single time. Never, never fails. It's Yetzer Hara. Just shut it off. Don't worry. The world can continue. The world can continue without you answering the phone for the next 15, 30 minutes. And you have to learn it. There's a time for HaKadosh Baruch Hu. And really, being worried that your wife is going to call, your kids are going to call, or the police are going to call, or the boss is going to call during a time that you pray, and you need to have access to the phone, is Avak Kefirah. The dust of Kefirah. Why? Oh, you're running the world? What? So if you answer the phone, you're going to change the world? And if you don't answer the phone, you're going to change the world? Shut off the phone. Shut off the phone. You know, whatever you're going to get, you're going to get with or without the phone. Whatever you're not supposed to get, you're not going to get with or without the phone. So having the phone on while you pray is simply giving the Yetzer Hara a double door, open door policy to ruin your prayer every time. Why? Because every two seconds, even if the phone is on vibrate, every two seconds you're going to look at it. Oh, the light went on? Oh, what time is it? Oh yeah, what time is it? I messaged you?

6:14:31Eh, Chazarat HaShatz. Two seconds. Somebody texts you, you're going to read it anyway. You're going to read the text. Why? No, I'm not touching the phone. I'm just reading it. I'm just reading it. Why aren't you reading the Siddur, Chamo? Why aren't you reading? Oh, no, I have extra time. So read Tehillim. When do you have extra time? When do you have extra time for the prayer? No, I don't. Chazarat HaShatz. Okay, so pay attention to every word they're saying. Wait, the Chazarat HaShatz is socializing time? That's not socializing time. You're supposed to listen to every word he says. And if you have extra time, he's not talking. And the guy that's walking to the stage to do Aliyah, it's Saba Jepeto. It takes 45 minutes to get to the bimah. So you have time to burn. Guess what? Open a book and start reading. Don't look at your phone. Don't look at your phone during a prayer. Why? It's going to ruin your prayer. You're going to look at the text message. You're going to look at the alerts. You're going to look at the email. You're going to look at this mail, that mail. Shut off the phone. The world will continue even though your phone is off. Even though your phone is off. I know somebody that said that he believed that when he closes his eyes, he goes to sleep, the world stops. Like he doesn't think that the world continues, like everybody has their own life.

6:15:56outside of him, he thinks like, you know, they're only there because I see them, but when I go to sleep, they, uh, they disappear, like they don't have their own life. Now, you think it's ridiculous, right? Right. This person was a genius. That's what he thought. Now, what's the truth? The truth is, you're just the same. Why give your phone up when you pray? Why? Because somebody's gonna call... So I'm going to call, I have to answer, because if I don't answer, how are they going to continue with their life? How are they going to know? They need to know that I am addressing, that I know that they're there. They need to know. I'm not going to call them, I'm just going to text them, "I'll get back to you, I'm praying." What, the world can't continue without me? A person that can't shut off their phone has a very, very hard time studying Torah with full focus. Why? Because your phone is a Yetzirah, Satan, Malach HaMavet, all in one box. every two seconds, something's gonna ring, something's gonna flash, something's gonna ding, something's gonna do something. Every two seconds, this thing—this thing is, it's good. You can do a lot of good things with it, do kiruv, do this, do that. But it also ruins your mental state of mind, ruins your mind. Many times, I want to take this phone and throw it across the room. I can't because it is what it is. But the point is,

6:17:16It's very, very hard, very hard to ever acquire any Torah so long as you treat this phone like you can't live without it. Like if you miss your phone during Yom Tov, you know, two days Yom Tov, three days Yom Tov, you should know that you're a sick person. You have a sickness; you have to get over it, you have an addiction. You need to know, okay, I'm not saying that you have to be on your phone all day. Like I have a terminal on my computer. Pretty much my computer is constantly on 24 hours a day. So people think I'm online 24 hours a day because it's on all the time. It's on literally 24 hours a day because I have messages coming in, coming in. Many times I have to respond. There are 3, 4, 500 messages every single day. So it's on. And yeah, I'm on it for a long, long time and so on. But the point is that at some point I walk away. At some point I shut it off. I don't miss it at all. If somebody else could do it for me, I would give them the job in two minutes. But the reality is, if I have a Yom Tov or I have a Shabbat, I don't think about my phone. Why? Good riddance, good riddance. I have peace of mind for 24 hours, Baruch Hashem.

6:18:36Wife tells me, "Oh, this year it's two days Yom Tov. Oh, three days Yom Tov." But during the day when it's not Yom Tov, this thing is on 24 hours a day. You can't sleep, can't think, can't breathe. It's always constant, constant, constant. So there are certain times that I have to ignore it or even shut it off. I try to, whenever I'm with my kids, not to have my phone. Like, I put it in my pocket, I put it somewhere, but I don't look at my phone at all with my kids. Because I've noticed myself that if I'm paying attention to my phone with my kids, I'm not paying attention to my kids. I'm not paying attention. And that 20 minutes that I spend with them, it's like, alright, it's already very little as it is. It's like, come on, don't look at the phone. Same thing if I'm with my wife. Same thing if I'm eating. Same thing if, you know, certain times of the day. Also, anytime that I have my phone next to me when I try to study, might as well take the sefarim and myself and throw us both in the garbage. What? It's not going to work out. Not going to work out. You know, so you have to know how to shut the world off. Because without it, you're not going to be able to succeed. It's also hard for me. I'm sure it's hard for you, but you have to push yourself. It's the only way to succeed. Only way. I'm jealous of people who don't have phones. But in today's world, there are very few people. Very few people. Next.

6:20:03Nothing new under the sun, Shlomo HaMelech says. Nothing new under the sun. And there are several commentaries about it. One of them is that certain things that happened in the past, like the plagues of Egypt and the destruction of major civilizations, are going to happen again right before Mashiach comes. There will be 15 days of darkness, different plagues, and so on and so forth. So, whatever is going to happen in the future technically already happened. ...other commentaries say, yeah, it's also the nature of people. You know, you're going to have one guy running the world causing trouble, and people might think, "Oh wow, this guy is the worst ever." No, no, he's not the worst ever. He's just another guy. Hitler wasn't the first; Haman, Nebuchadnezzar, Titus, and many others were all like Hitler. They just had different names.

6:21:26So every so often, HaKadosh Baruch Hu allows a Hitler-like person to come into the world. Nothing new under the sun. Nothing new under the sun. And so there are several different commentaries as far as other things that it can mean, but nonetheless, these are the basics that I know off the top of my head. But as far as the world going into cycles, no. This world is almost 6,000 years old. At the year 6,000, we're at 5781. At the year 6,000, the world goes into its last thousand years, which are called the Yemei Mashiach, the days of the Mashiach. and during that thousand years, then we transform. Whoever is here, and you know, part of the righteous people, we transform and move into the Olam HaBa, this completely spiritual world.

6:22:28Some say this world is destroyed; some say it isn't destroyed but, needless to say, it no longer has the same significance as it has today. Now, before this world, there were sages who say that there were six other worlds. There were six other worlds before this, and... As far as people, souls, and things like that, we don't really have much information about it, or at least I don't know very much about it. But nonetheless, it's not that this world had rotations every few thousand years and so on, but rather, this world had certain sections. The Chida says that there were three stages to this world. The first 2,000 years, the second 2,000 years, and the third 2,000 years. three different stages, three different forms of idolatry, and so on. So again, certain things repeat themselves clearly, while other things repeat themselves less clearly. But needless to say, the same Mechanic that's running the world back then is the same one that's running the world now, no difference whatsoever.

6:23:46Next. How do I get more familiar with what's going on when I go to shul? Oftentimes, I find myself looking through the pages of my siddur, trying to find where the congregation is. Is repetition the answer, or is there something that I can study? I used to write a question, didn't I? gonna see it's gonna see I have a lot more resources in English than Sefaradim do. I would recommend getting an ArtScroll siddur because the ArtScroll siddur has a lot of instructions on the siddur, and I would recommend looking at all of the non-prayer text that's there because it tells you what to do. Second thing is that, um repetition is critical in order for you to learn how to do what you're doing, in order for you to know what's going on. Because even if, let's say for example, you learn about Arvit today, unless you continue repeating Arvit every day, in a month from now you will have forgotten that it even exists. So you have to repeat it. The second thing is when you first start praying...

6:25:05You know, even though I heard what Arvit is, I heard what Mincha is, I heard all of these things, but you never really read them often, so the words coming out of your mouth are like, you know, peanuts. It's hard, hard to come up. So it's not fluid, so you're very slow in comparison to the congregation, so you're constantly falling behind because for them it's already fluid, they have already said it a thousand times, so it's much faster. Whereas for you, it's the first, second, or fiftieth time, and you're still struggling to even remember what to say and when to say it. So the more you repeat it, the more you do it over time, the more fluid the Siddur will become. The easier it is going to be for you to read that, and ultimately, the easier it's going to be for you to read even things that only come up randomly, like holidays or every so often. Because many of the things that you repeat in the prayers, which are much longer, the holidays are sections of different parts of things that you repeat during the year.

6:26:12So, if a person invests more time into prayer every single day, into learning every single day, into doing every single day, it'll solve a lot of issues that they have with prayer. But most importantly, it'll get them to a point where everything becomes fluid to them, where they could actually eventually help another person who is new. Now, in the beginning, you'll make plenty of mistakes. Don't beat yourself up too much about it. Shlomo HaMelech teaches us that HaKadosh Baruch Hu likes the baby's mistakes. What baby? A Baal Teshuva, or a convert, is considered a baby in the eyes of Hashem. In essence, when you're a Baal Teshuva, you start keeping Shabbat, you're a newborn baby. You're a newborn baby. When you convert, you're a newborn baby. Don't worry about the fact that you're 30 years old, 40 years old, or 50 years old. You're a newborn baby. Not a newborn baby in the sense where in 13 years you'll have another bar mitzvah, but a newborn baby meaning as far as you're starting with a clean slate. Try to take advantage of it. Try to stay away from evil and do good. Collect as many mitzvot as possible. And, you know, one of them is to attach yourself to Talmidei Chachamim, attach yourself to Torah, attach yourself to mitzvot. Next.

6:27:43Repeat that again. To what? Oh, wipe out Amalek. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Got you. So HaKadosh Baruch Hu, the Chachamim explained to us, HaKadosh Baruch Hu doesn't bring punishment until the The barrel is full, if you will. Meaning, there is a certain amount of sin that He will accept before He delivers punishment. So, this means that He doesn't punish us right away, or the evil nations even right away, until we get to a certain threshold or so on. Now, Amalek, you know, didn't fill up their...

6:29:01their barrel of sins from day one. They started filling it up, but didn't fill it up to the top. So therefore, Hashem didn't punish them completely until later on with Moshe Rabbeinu and Yehoshua bin-Nun. But even when Yehoshua bin-Nun came and nearly destroyed them, Hashem stopped him. Hashem stopped him from destroying Amalek. He said, no, we have a use for them in the end of days. We have a use for them in the end of days. Leave them in the world. Uh, so their barrel of sins from day one. They started filling it up, but didn't fill it up to the top. So therefore, Hashem didn't punish them completely until later on with Moshe Rabbeinu and Yehoshua bin-Nun. But even when Yehoshua bin-Nun came and nearly destroyed them, Hashem stopped him. Hashem stopped him from destroying Amalek. He said, no, we have a use for them in the end of days. We have a use for them in the end of days. Leave them in the world. They themselves, although they're evil, they have a purpose. This evil has a purpose in the world. One purpose is to be a tool of the Satan in order to create doubt, in order to create separation between you and Hashem. That's their job in the world. Why? Because you need, in order for it to be an even playing field, you need to have similar tools across the board on both sides. they themselves, although they're evil, have a purpose. This evil has a purpose in the world. One purpose is to be a tool of the Satan in order to create doubt, in order to create separation between you and Hashem. That's their job in the world. Why? Because you need, in order for it to be an even playing field, to have similar tools across the board on both sides.

6:30:02So, as far as destroying them, this is a mitzvah that Hashem Himself said that He'll allow us to fulfill at the end of days. He'll allow us to fulfill it because we had a chance to fulfill it already at the time of Yehoshua bin Nun. You know, it practically won the war, but Hashem said no, it's not time yet to destroy Amalek. Yeah. Earlier, we were saying about not praying for a person to die, except for someone who is really going against Hashem. And as we know from this story, what about someone who's known to be an offender and they are leading others astray, and we pray for them to die and all of that. What about

6:31:02the way, let's say, Rabbi Meir was about to destroy these people, but these people could have been redeemed because they weren't evil against Hashem. But that person was actually prayed for because they're actually evil against Hashem. Is it allowed for anyone to do this to get rid of that person since they're leading more people astray? If somebody leads people astray, it's a mitzvah to pray for them to die. It's a mitzvah to hate them. They hate this person. The Gemara says that if there's a hole in the ground and your fellow falls, you take them out. If someone who is not great falls, there are different conditions. But someone who causes the public to sin, you can push him into the fall and help him die. Help him by killing him.

6:32:25To such an extent. Obviously, we're not saying or advising for anyone to kill anyone, but you just have a good perspective of what the Torah thinks of someone that causes people to go away from Hashem. To such an extent that the Gemara says anyone like that has no share in the World to Come. is at a point where HaKadosh Baruch Hu will punish them in the most severe way possible, and you can't count them in a minyan. You have to do whatever you can to stay away from them, to warn people about them, to publicly embarrass them, and in so many words, torture these people until they do teshuva. go to Gehinnom and wherever else they came from. Because someone that leads people astray, there's no one in the world that Hashem hates more than that. No one in the world. It's indescribable how much Hashem hates those people. Indescribable. Because it's bad enough when somebody is, let's say, a homosexual and going against Hashem. It's bad enough. But he himself, at least he's doing the sin by himself.

6:33:45But when this guy is leading people astray, a guy who was Shomer Shabbat, now he's not Shomer Shabbat because of you. He's a missionary. And a missionary is so bad, you're not allowed to be within six feet of him—four amot. You're not allowed to be within six feet of him. You're not allowed to stay next to him. And the Gemara says that you could even lead him to fall in a hole and let him die in a hole. Why? Because he's a bad person. He's destroying the neshamot. Good. Is it the same to some extent if someone—I mean, you know another Jew is asking you for help—and you embarrass them over the phone? Is it the same as doing it in person? Or is it just... No, you can do it. I'm not following. If someone is embarrassed in person, you know the person is embarrassed because of whatever you said or did. In front of the person, you see they're embarrassed. But if you do it over the phone, is it to the same extent as being in person? What, if you apologize over the phone, you mean?

6:34:54What are you doing on the phone? You definitely need to apologize if you embarrass him on the phone or otherwise, but there's a lesser significance in publicizing or embarrassing another person on the phone versus in person. It's much more severe. to do it in person rather than to do it on the phone or via email or so on. In the back, do you guys have any questions? In the back, in the back. Anything? No? No comprende? Do you have a meatball in the water, like you have, and you drink half of it, you made a bracha, and then you put it in the refrigerator and come back later? Do you make any blessing on the same, or is it already... Yeah, if you did a shehakol on the water, and then you put it away, meaning your mind left...

6:36:09focus that you're going to drink from this bottle. The next time you want to drink from the bottle, you have to make a blessing again. But if you have in mind that any time you want to drink today, you're going to drink from this bottle, then you don't have to make another bracha unless you leave the house or the vicinity that you're in. Why? Because surely if you left the vicinity, you didn't continue thinking about this bottle in the back of your mind. But generally speaking, you know, it's perfectly fine for you to drink from the same bottle in the same house all day, but you have to have the right intention and so on. Thank you. Yeah, what's up? If one has longer, curly hair in front, just put it on top of that. It's something that's... Well, as long as his tefillin can rest comfortably,

6:37:23on his head over here and at the hairline and sits comfortably without moving constantly, he's perfectly fine. But if his hair is so long that it moves and the tefillin are over here one minute and over there the next minute, by the time you finish, it's on his leg. He has a very, very serious problem. He has a very serious problem. That's number one. Number two, he has to be very careful not to be like a woman, not to look like a woman, and not to spend so much time doing his hair and getting haircuts. If he goes to special barbers to get a haircut just right, and he wastes an hour and a half of his time to cut three hairs, it's not good. It's not a good thing to do. It's a big waste of time. It's also not good to be associated with that type of environment. But again, as far as the tefillin, tefillin is not necessarily judged based on the length of the hair, but rather who's wearing it and what they're thinking about when they are wearing it and who's working on himself. It's not just the hairdo. It's not just the hairdo. There's a little bit more than just the hairdo. But I would say that the...

6:38:40A guy that is going to have Yirat Shamayim, or at least is trying to acquire Yirat Shamayim, is going to double-check that his haircut is kosher before he gets it. uh... double-checked to ensure the haircut is kosher. Many people have non-kosher haircuts uh... because they shave the sides to a number one or less. Uh... the sages said no. No, but I'm Black. No, but I'm Spanish. No, but I'm White. No, but you shaved your head to less than a number two on the sides. This area over here you shaved it, although... You have a problem, right? The sages said no. The sages said no. And a person that simply ignores the sages has an even bigger problem than the sin itself. So, a person needs to double-check his haircut to see if his haircut is even allowed. There are some people that like the haircut where they have a mohawk. A mohawk type. It's a specific haircut that's forbidden by the Torah.

6:39:54Uh... or sometimes people go and get a haircut by people that are very impure, people like homosexuals, uh... or the likes of missionaries of some kind. Uh... you know, people ask me because, you know, in my opinion, some of these questions really should answer themselves after watching my shiurim, but... you know, it's like a guy telling me, "Listen, this Christian guy came to my, you know, place, and he started talking about Yeshu, and I felt bad kicking him out, so I listened to everything he said. Did I do wrong?" It's like, come on. You just allowed poison to enter your mind, and you're asking if you did wrong? So, you know, a person needs to be conscious, not to allow... Patrick's dead, never mind. Yeah, I'm going to give you some more things. We have not that long, not that long. Only another five hours. If a person, if someone has a rabbi, he goes to him or talks to him, he has friends,

6:41:17close to one pair, you know, whatever. But also, there are also members in the community who know, you know, he's not doing certain things, whether it's Shabbat or something like that, major like this. And if he keeps doing it, whether it's because they're not telling him, you know, whoever's close to him is a rabbi, or whoever's not telling him enough, or he's just not listening. Do all these people have the same share of, you know, in keeping Shabbat, or... Anybody... has a bigger share, or vice versa? How is it? The closer the people are to him, the more influence they have on him, the more of the burden they have from his sins. Meaning, his parents, his wife, his best friends—they have a much bigger piece of his burden, of his sin, than, let's say, some random next-door neighbor five houses down. That neighbor knows him, but they're not really friendly. They see each other maybe once every two months.

6:42:28"Tired? Come on, you're not supposed to get tired. Got it. Next. Ken, please. Yeah, coffee. Ken, in the back. Yeah, yeah. Repeat that again." He said, Rabbeinu Bechaye comments on Aaron's staff, and he says that basically there were two blossoms on them. There was one that was bitter and one that was sweet. And when Hashem was displeased with the nation, the sweet one would wither up and the bitter one would blossom. And so, my question is, how did they use it as a sign to get to teshuvah during the time when the Temple was up? There was a lot more than that. But the yetzer hara is very, very strong. Zeh le'umat zeh bara Elokim. The Aron HaKodesh,

6:43:37had several different things in the Beit HaMikdash that were more than just the staff of Aharon HaKohen. They had the Luchot HaBrit, the Ten Commandments that Moshe Rabbeinu had and also the ones that HaKadosh Baruch Hu made, two sets of Luchot HaBrit. Now, the Luchot HaBrit were of supernatural existence by the fact that the letters the letters floated in the air. The letters floated in the air, and you can see what the Luchot HaBrit can say from any which way that you are looking, from the sides, from the back, from the front, any which way that you're looking, it looks as if it's in front of you. You know, a physical impossibility within nature, but this was supernatural. So the Luchot HaBrit were enough. If that wasn't enough, then you could look at the fact that they had a jar with the manna in it. They had a jar with the manna in it. You know, a food that in the desert could taste like anything. Then they had the staff of Moshe Rabbeinu.

6:45:04a staff that was created bein hashmashot, which is a short period of time between the end of Friday and the beginning of Shabbat. Meaning, you know, halachically, it's a time questionable whether it's still Friday or it's Shabbat. And during that time, there were ten unique creations that HaKadosh Baruch Hu made. One of them was that He created this staff, this special staff that had the letters or acronym for each one of the plagues for the tribes, and the staff itself, the Midrash says, was in a stone similar to a ruby. It was red, and they estimated it to weigh 674 pounds according to the mass and the length of the stick, so it was a massive, massive stick that only Massive person can pick it up. That should be enough. On top of it, you had, you know, the, I want to call it the Kapporet itself. The Kapporet itself had, you know, Cherubs on top of it. They were made out of gold, solid gold. But those Cherubs moved.

6:46:33They moved. They looked up. They looked away. They moved. They had a life in them. They had a life in them. So that should be enough. Next, the Torah says that HaKadosh Baruch Hu had to give Betzalel special Chokhmah. in order for him to build the Aron HaKodesh. And the sages say, I believe it's Rashi over there, but maybe Ramban, but one of the sages over there says that what does it mean that HaKadosh Baruch Hu had to give Betzalel special Chochmah to build the Aron HaKodesh? I thought it's just, you know, gold, wood, gold, like what's the... The Chachamim say that the mechanics of the Aron HaKodesh were so difficult that the Chochmah, the wisdom that He had to give, that HaKadosh Baruch Hu had to give Betzalel in order to build it, was the same wisdom—pay attention to this—was the same wisdom that was used to create the world.

6:47:57Same wisdom that was used to create the world, meaning you had to know the secrets of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet which were used to create the world, to create the Aron HaKodesh. And they had this available to them. The point is, they had a lot of things available to them. They also had a lion. A lion would come from Shamayim every day and eat or burn the sacrifices. Huge, enormous fire the size of a cloud, but it was an image of a lion. Miracles non-stop. There wasn't enough. Why? Because the yetzer hara changes with the people, with the generation. The stronger the generation, the stronger the yetzer hara. The weaker the generation, the weaker the yetzer hara. And people say, no, no, no, but this is the worst generation. Yeah, we're the worst generation in regard to arrogance. We're the worst generation in regard to having no reason to be arrogant because we're the most ignorant. But as far as the amount of sins that are made today, there's really nothing new under the sun because they made the same sins in the past. They made the same sins in the past.

6:49:20If at some point I stop making sense, just let me know. How is it that... No, sometimes I talk while I'm sleeping, so... If it makes sense, then I'm awake. If it doesn't make sense, then I'm sleeping. At the end of Shlomo's life, the demon was able to take control of him, and he became poor and everything. So how was it like... No, the demon fooled him. The demon fooled him, caught him off guard, and kicked him. the demon kicked Shlomo HaMelech, but it was a special kick that made Shlomo HaMelech fly to the end of the world. He ended up going to the end of the world, so Shlomo HaMelech wakes up after he lands from la-la land and uh

6:50:45realizes he's in a foreign land. Nobody knows who he is. And he starts walking and walking. And because it's taking many years, during that time his clothes become disheveled, and he doesn't look like the king anymore. He becomes a poor person. And this continues for several years. Because, again, it was part of his journey. But as far as his wives, especially Sheva, where it says that she caused him to stray from Hashem, it's not that she caused him to sin directly, but rather that she went back to her idolatry and he didn't rebuke her. He didn't rebuke her. So that counts against him.

6:51:50will be taken up. No, no, it's not that he couldn't control it. It's that it counts against him because he didn't do anything about it. The Gemara says in several places, Gemara Masechet Shabbat, Masechet Avodah Zarah, and a few other places, that someone who sees another person's sin, has to rebuke them, and if they don't, the sin counts against them. If the person has influence over a crowd and he doesn't rebuke the crowd, their sins count against him. If the person has influence over an entire city and he doesn't rebuke them, then all of their sins count against him.

6:52:52and if the entire world is influenced by him and he doesn't rebuke the entire world, then the entire world's sins count against him. So in the case of Shlomo, he had a woman that he converted to Judaism, but she wasn't a good convert. She went back to her idolatry, and um... He didn't rebuke her. And also, he received a measure-for-measure punishment for not listening to Hashem in the first place, which is not to marry so many women. He married a thousand women. So because she, in essence, went back to her idolatry under his own roof, it counted, you know, and the Chachamim said this might as well be him. It might as well be him as an idol worshiper, even though Chas V'Shalom, he was never an idol worshiper, it was still under his roof. should never be so, uh, it says that, uh, the moment that Shlomo married Queen Sheba

6:53:59HaKadosh Baruch Hu sent Malach Gavriel to the ocean, who hit the ocean with a special staff from Shamayim that made an island out of sand, which later would become Rome. Why is this important? Because this was the moment that Hashem decided that the Beit HaMikdash of Shlomo HaMelech would be destroyed. By whom? By the Romans. Shlomo HaMelech tried to bring the Mashiach. How? By bringing world peace. How to bring world peace? By destroying the tum'ah of the world. How to destroy the tum'ah of the world? Go and marry the most impure woman in the world, Queen Sheba, and make her do teshuvah. He failed and got himself ensnared, got himself infected by it. You know, and that's the reality. Why? Because he miscalculated his own wisdom, miscalculated his own abilities.

6:55:17Even though he was great, he wasn't great enough to cancel out any part of the Torah. So much so that later on, when the Torah, the Gemara says that there was a question about changing one letter in the Torah. And HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, tells the Torah, let there be a thousand Shlomos. A thousand Shlomos with all of the sacrifices that he brings be cancelled and not a single letter in my Torah cancelled. Shlomo was known as a very, you know, gracious servant of Hashem. At one point, I remember, Mizrachi, God bless him, he calculated how many korbanot, how many sacrifices Shlomo HaMelech brought at the grand opening of the first Beit HaMikdash, and he calculated, I believe, something like the value of 135 million dollars just for the grand opening.

6:56:36grand opening event, how many 20,000 of this and 20,000 of that cost. So, and he brought thousands and thousands throughout the years. So he was known as a very, very gracious servant of Hashem as far as the sacrifices and so on. But HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, let there be a thousand times that, because a thousand Shlomos And all of the korbanot that he brings be canceled. And not a single yud, a single letter yud, the smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet, be canceled in the Torah. So, you know, special significance is paid to the Torah. It's much more valuable than anything else. If you tell him, if you tell him, if you tell him, Rabbeinu Yonah says, gate number four

6:57:54that if you go and rebuke a person, stop violating Shabbat, and he rejects you, it's a mitzvah to hate him. You're relieved of your issue, but then at that point, it's a mitzvah to hate him. Why? Until you rebuked him, he was considered a sinner. Sinner. But once you rebuke him and he rejected the rebuke, he's not considered a hater of Hashem; he's considered he hates G-d. And David HaMelech says, "Those who hate You, I hate." but once you rebuke him and he rejects the rebuke, he's not considered a sinner; he's considered someone who hates G-d. And David HaMelech says, "Those who hate You, I hate." You can still help him. It doesn't contradict. The Baal HaTanya says it doesn't contradict. You hate his actions, but you still can try to help him. Do teshuva and so on, but the point is that he's an enemy of Hashem if he rejects the rebuke. But you have to do him and yourself a favor and tell him something. At the very least, give him a CD. Give him a CD, do something. You can't just stay like that.

6:59:20Poor guy. Imagine, imagine for a second seeing a volcano. You ever see a volcano on a screen? Imagine a person falls into a volcano. Want to imagine that? No? Not so much? You want to imagine their skin melting? so much eyes popping out? No, not so much. No, right? Well, that's exactly what's going to happen to him if you don't tell him something he didn't do. So imagine that because you didn't tell him, it is going to make you watch it. Why is it your fault? Might as well watch it. How much are you going to enjoy your Gan Eden? You might as well be going home. Why? This is what you did. You could have told him, but you didn't tell him because you felt comfortable, uncomfortable, comfortable, uncomfortable. You felt. And there you go. He's melting now. My son's melting because you felt comfortable, uncomfortable. You could have given him a CD. You could have sent him a link. Give him a nice t'chak right and left and just get him to come to the shiur. You could have done a lot of things. You didn't do anything. Why? Because the Yetzer Hara won.

7:00:43Shem says, "Look what happened to my son because you let the Yetzer Hara win." So, think about that, think about that. This is why, by the way, just so you know, I know some of you guys have been with me for a long time, you find it a little funny and scary at the same time, but it's also part of the reason why I mention scary things in practically every shiur. Practically every shiur, there's a little bit, if not a lot, of scary stuff. Why? I don't know, there's always somebody new in the crowd. And I always think to myself, I don't know if I'm ever going to see him again. I don't know if I'm ever going to see her again. I don't know if the people are watching online, Baruch Hashem, there are a lot of people. And I don't know if they're ever going to watch another shiur again. So at the very least, to get a jolt into their neshama, that's going to make them question themselves, and hopefully inspire them to watch more shiurim and do teshuva. in case it's the last time I ever speak to them. Hopefully, they get something, but if they don't get that much, at the very least, they won't enjoy their sins that much. Because they're always going to remember that crazy guy that was falling asleep during the lecture but also made him scared right before he took a nap. No? When is he supposed to check for Shatnez? When is he supposed to check for Shatnez?

7:02:09If he buys a new suit, he should check for Shatnez. Is it better if the suit is a certain brand or a certain expense? No. Even if the suit says there's no Shatnez, that there's no material in it, there's no wool and linen in it. It says 100% wool. You still check it for Shatnez. So if it costs $15 versus $1,000, you've got to get it checked either way. 15 or 15 million, 15 cents or 15 million, it doesn't make a difference. And what if someone tells you, "You don't have to get it checked, that's a certain brand," or "Only a certain brand has that," or "The rest you don't really need to check"? Then you tell that guy, "Thank you very much, I really appreciate it," and ignore everything he just said. You go and you go check it. Why? Because the experts in the shatnez business know that there is no guarantee. Why is there no guarantee? Because things change in the factory business. Plus, even though it changes in the factory business of how companies make their clothes, they don't necessarily need to report it on the tag. Why? Because there's a certain amount of percentage of material that you're allowed to use.

7:03:33both for clothing and even for food, without reporting it. Without reporting it, if it's under a certain threshold. So that's why sometimes you'll have food that looks perfectly fine, but it's not kosher anyway. Or a suit that looks perfectly fine, says 100% some other material, but you open it up and you find Shaatnez anyway. Why? Because there was 2% of such and such. And that's already enough. Shaatnez, as you know, is such a big deal that if you know your friend is wearing Shaatnez, you're allowed to take off the jacket from his back in the middle of the street, with no fear whatsoever of embarrassing him in public. Why? Because Shaatnez is like wearing fire. Wearing Shaatnez is like wearing fire. So if you saw your friend on fire, surely you would take off the jacket that's full of fire. Same thing. Hashem does not want Shaatnez in the world. This whole Shaatnez thing starts from the time of Kayin and Hevel. So, it's important for a person to be more conscious and careful with their clothing.

7:04:59And it's not really a big deal. It's not so expensive. Not so expensive to do it. But I recommend that whoever you do it with, you go to a Shaatnez expert. There's an organization, Shaatnez Association. that they give people certain certification if they go take a certain course to become experts in this Shaatnez. And when they check for Shaatnez, they have a lab. There are two types of people that check for Shaatnez. One, a person that just has a good eye for certain things and experience and can look at the Shaatnez. And then there's a Shaatnez expert that has a lab in his house. or his office, where he's checking Shaatnez. Who do you go to? The lab. Why? Because the first guy, as good as his experience is, and as good as his eye is, he could still miss certain things that you could only find in the lab.

7:06:08so you have to go to the guy that has a lab and, uh... if you don't have one locally, then you can look it up online or you could, you know, send me an email or a text message (text message is better) and I'll send you the website of how to find one, uh... online. You could just simply, uh... mail them your clothes, mail them your clothes, mail them the money, and they'll check your stuff and return it to you. But you at least did your hishtadlut of checking for shaatnez, plus it's a mitzvah. Every piece of clothing that you check for shaatnez is a mitzvah. It's a mitzvah from the Torah. And now every single time that you wear those clothes, it's a mitzvah from the Torah. No, I mean, it's everything that could have shaatnez. I mean, a shirt is not going to have shaatnez. because you know they don't put that type of material. But a suit does, a jacket, a coat, sports jacket, generally all jackets. There are certain things that have shaatnez. So what if someone buys a button-down? It says 100% cotton. Button-down shirt? Yeah. But... Where is it going to have wool? Somewhere, let's say somewhere...

7:07:33It would be very unusual for a shirt to have wool. But yeah, they could check. They could check. Listen, there are many people that check. I have a printout on my computer from the Shaatnez Association of what they recommend to check. They recommend checking your blankets. They recommend checking a lot of things. So if you're gonna check everything that they recommend, it has to be a process. It's usually not a one-day thing. You send, you know, XYZ clothes, okay, you finish that, you send this cover, finish that, you send the coats, finish that, and so on and so forth. You send in pieces, but at the very least, you're doing something about it. Very little about it, but it's very much a real thing. It's very common. and it's very, it's not a hard mitzvah, it's an easy mitzvah. It's an easy mitzvah. Before it goes to a place for service, like I said, I learned from my teacher. But when they have, some people just put a Buddha statue at the place, not for art or worship, but just for display, because they think it's,

7:08:55this happened to me. The question is: if you go to an office and it has an idol in the office, can you stay at the office if you know that? And I actually went to a dentist one time. And my wife came with me and walked into this Jewish guy's dental office. The entire office is full of statues. Buddha. The door has Buddha on it. The counter has Buddha. The walls have Buddha. There's some fat guy everywhere. And it's like everything. And my wife and I both want to vomit. And uh... it's like, what is going on here? Would you marry him? It's a Jewish guy, Russian guy. Anyway, as I'm waiting, we're like, okay, do we get out of here? Do we not? I mean, we took a while to make this appointment. It's kind of weird. Do we walk away? What do we do? I don't know. So, we're sitting there, sitting there, and I'm thinking, are we allowed to be here with all this Buddha? So...

7:10:16I send a message to Efraim. I'm waiting for the response. He's not waiting for my call all day. And we're sitting there, we're sitting there, we're sitting there. And then they call one of us. to come sit down. So you get to one of the private rooms or whatever, more statues. Right where you're sitting on this bed or whatever that they have, the seat that they have, and you're pretty much looking at this statue again. Now, I'm pretty sure that they had everything for decoration because they like the way this fat idiot looks. I don't know why. I mean, they could just simply put any fat person on there. They just decide on one. I mean, you could just pretty much pick any American. They're all fat. Everybody's obese. You know, just put them on your counter. I just don't understand the point. But anyway, so I think they called my wife. And she's sitting there. We're both sitting. There's another statue over here. And I'm thinking, I'm still waiting for a response. See, Rabbi Fryman is not responding.

7:11:27I told her, "Honey, there's a problem, we got to go, we got to go." I was like, "Yeah, you're right, we got to go." The dentist was like, "What do you mean you got to go? What happened?" I was like, "No, no, serious problem, we got to go, we have to leave." No, we don't want to tell them, I don't want to, they're not going to listen anyway. Ran out of there. Ran out of there. She goes, "So did he tell you yes or no?" I said, "No, he didn't tell me yes or no, but I just couldn't stand it." She goes, "Me too, I couldn't, I felt so bad being there." We both ran out of there. As soon as we sat down in the car, he finally responded and said, "If you know that they're worshiping the idol, for sure, it is not allowed to be there, not allowed to be there. But if it's just for looks, it is allowed to be there, but not recommended." I said, Baruch Hashem, I don't know what they're doing over there, but I already chose the 'not recommended' part. We left. Test. Test. Not a test. Not a test. Technically, I mean, if they worship anything in that office, once they worship anything in that office, it becomes a temple.

7:12:49Even if it's not the idol that's on the calendar, but it's the idol that's in his private room, the whole place is a temple. The whole place is a church. Can't be there. Not allowed to be there. Yes? Even if it will obviously, if it's in a kosher restaurant as well? It could be wherever. It doesn't make a difference. A kosher restaurant has a Buddha statue? A kosher restaurant has a Buddha statue? So is that a Chinese restaurant? Can you get a haircut from a Buddhist? The Gemara says You should not get a haircut from a non-Jew, needless to say, an idol worshipper, if you are alone with him. He may kill you.

7:13:56uh... but if they are going to get there, it has to be open, and there have to be other people to eliminate the risk. Generally speaking, you should stay away from idol worshippers, which Buddhists are idol worshippers. You should stay away from them generally speaking, uh... you know, uh... it's it's not a it's not a good idea, uh... to get anything from them. to get anything from them. A normal non-Jew, you could do business with them, you could say hello to them. If they're decent people, you could even befriend them to a certain extent. But an idol worshipper, most dangerous people on the planet. It doesn't matter what type of idolatry, whether it be Christianity, Buddhism, or someone worshipping a motorcycle. Someone who is an idol worshipper is not a normal person, what can I tell you? They are willing to do things that are not normal for a human being for the sake of their idol. I mean, the previous generation's idol worshippers were willing to burn their own kids.

7:15:08for the sake of their idol. You know, and I know that maybe you're going to say, yeah, but this Buddhist is a really nice guy and he doesn't really do it, and this and that. I get it. But if Mr. Buddha comes to him in a dream and tells him, "Listen, go kill ABC guy," guess what? He's going to kill him. so generally speaking, it's better to find a different place, a more kosher place. Perhaps get a haircut from a Jew, or somebody that's not visibly an idol worshiper. It's definitely a better idea. Idol worshipers are also, you know, if they're missionaries... won't let you remain a non-believer in their eyes. They express their beliefs. Why would you allow this too much to enter your mind? I thought, oh yeah, you ever hear about Yeshu? Yeah, he saved my life. Yeah, and he did this, this, and that. You're gonna say, no, no, but I don't believe that garbage. Anyway, it doesn't matter if you don't believe it or you believe it. It still affects you. Listening to that garbage still affects you. It's not a good idea.

7:16:26how do you build a Jewish home? First and foremost, it requires the home's priority to be based on the Torah and following the Torah. Second, the husband and the wife must be willing to do everything possible to follow the entire Torah. Whatever they're not following, they should aspire to follow it as soon as possible. The wife has to cover her hair with a mitpachat and look modest. The husband needs to also be modest and learn Torah every day, in addition to his job or her job, whatever they're doing to make a living. The husband and the wife must be willing to do everything possible to follow the entire Torah. Whatever they're not following, they should aspire to follow it as soon as possible. The wife has to cover her hair with a mitpachat and look modest. The husband needs to also be modest and learn Torah every day, in addition to his job or her job, whatever they're doing to make a living. but in essence, what they need to have in order for it to be a Torah home is to have the Torah be the primary motivator behind all of their actions. Meaning, what do you want to do? What does the Torah say that we need to do under these circumstances? This should be the question. That means that their kids need to go to yeshivot. A Jewish school means it's only boys or only girls, not boys and girls together. Boys and girls together is not a Jewish school; it's Reform. It needs to be boys or girls unless it's very, very little kids—three-year-old kids. But once they're a little older, that's it. They cannot play together, cannot learn together. Why? It confuses the kids, gets their attention, and does a lot of different things.

7:17:50it's only boys or only girls, not boys and girls together. Boys and girls together is not a Jewish school; it's Reform. It needs to be boys or girls unless it's very, very little kids—three-year-old kids. But once they're a little older, that's it. They cannot play together, cannot learn together. Why? It confuses the kids, gets their attention, and does a lot of different things. Needless to say, it doesn't do any good. Only bad things can happen from it. And so the kids need to go to a yeshiva, or a seminary for a girl. They need to make sure that they are following the Torah, keep Shabbat, only allow kosher food in the house, have a set lecture or shiur Torah that they attend, a kosher synagogue that they attend, and really little by little grow their knowledge and Torah together, have a little bit of time each day or at least each week. lecture or shiur Torah that they attend, a kosher synagogue that they attend, and really, little by little, grow their knowledge in Torah together, have a little bit of time each day or at least each week.

7:19:06where the husband and the wife will study some Torah together, watch a shiur together or something like that. If they have kids, the kids should also learn on a regular basis. They should not have a television broadcasting regular channels. They're allowed to use different types of screens for the sake of showing different Torah. Like, for example, if they have a screen that's connected to BeEzratHashem.org and they watch Shiurei Torah on it, whether that screen is a TV screen or a laptop screen or an iPad screen is irrelevant. As long as all it's showing is Shiurei Torah. But once it starts showing you the news and the advertisements and the filth and the Tumah and all that stuff, then you have a very serious problem. You cannot have such a TV. You're not allowed to have such a TV in your house. You're going to bring problems to your house that way. for the sake of showing different Torah. Like, for example, if they have a screen that's connected to BeEzratHashem.org and they watch Shiurei Torah on it, whether that screen is a TV screen or a laptop screen or an iPad screen is irrelevant. As long as all it's showing is Shiurei Torah. But once it starts showing you the news and the advertisements and the filth and the Tumah and all that stuff, then you have a very serious problem. You cannot have such a TV. You're not allowed to have such a TV in your house. You're going to bring problems to your house that way. It's like being married to one woman but having six women in your life. Every commercial is a new woman. No good. You have to get rid of it. And that's it. That's it. I mean, synagogue, kosher community, Jewish community—this is at least the basics. And you build from there. You build from there.

7:20:28On that subject, before you're going to get to build a home, you have to find a mate and support us all. And especially now that a lot of people are converting, you know, before you are converting other people from 20% to 20%. And the custom out there, the custom is actually to work days and nights, day and night. you know, before you are converting other people from 20% to 20%. And the custom out there, the custom is actually to work days and nights, day and night. so what are the do's and don'ts? Um, in my head, everything is like gibberish right now, so I don't know if it's on topic or off topic. I'm hoping I'm making sense.

7:21:31As far as the preparation for a shidduch, preparation for marriage, like I said in the previous lecture, I was stumped at the rabbi's lecture, I said the two most important things for a shidduch are for you to be attracted to each other physically. and for you to have similar ideology. If you have similar ideology, the rest of it is going to work out. If you don't have similar ideology, even if you're attracted to each other, it's not going to work out well. You have to have similar ideology. It's the most important thing, but you also have to be attracted to each other. You can't be disgusted by each other or anything like that. Now, as far as preparation, a person needs to know that the whole point of a relationship is for you and your spouse, your other half, to bring the best out of each other, meaning to make each other a better version of themselves. The next thing is that you are teammates, not competitors. Don't compete with your spouse. Another point is to never go to sleep angry. Don't ever go to sleep in the middle of a fight. Complete your fight, say "I'm sorry," even if you feel like you've done nothing wrong, and then you can go to sleep.

7:22:47Now, if saying "I'm sorry" takes you a few hours because she doesn't want to listen to you, next time you'll think twice before you say a stupid comment at 2 o'clock in the morning. Next, you have to take everything into consideration and not just the current issue. Meaning, as I was telling somebody just the other day, Your wife makes food. You come home from work, tired and hungry. You're hungry enough to eat a building, but you'll settle for the stew that she made. She makes a stew, and you're looking at it, thinking, oh, this must be as delicious as the stew that Esav ate and sold his firstborn rights. This must be a delicious stew. It's worth it, right? You take the first bite from the stew, and it tastes like your problems. It tastes like a nightmare, and you don't like it. What do you do? Do you tell your wife, or do you not tell your wife?

7:23:48If you want to stay married, you shut up. You don't say anything. You say, thank you, honey. It's delicious. If you want to get divorced at some point, tear your wife apart and tell her, listen, you're a terrible cook. You should go learn from my mother how to cook. That's how you ruin your wife's life, and she'll hate you for the rest of your life, even if she tells you, I love you. Why? Because no matter whether it tasted good or it tasted bad, she worked hard on it. And she didn't mean for it to taste bad. But you judged her entire life based on your one bite, even though she could have judged you harshly on a lot more than just one bite, but she didn't. Why? Because she looked at your entire character and not just a single event. So what do you do? Next time your wife makes you food that tastes like your problems, you say... delicious. Why? You're not thinking about the food. You're thinking about how she was there for you when you wanted to commit suicide. You think about the time that she was there for you when you were lonely. You think about the time she was there for you when you were angry, when you were happy, when you were this, when you were that. You think about all the wonderful times that nobody else wanted to be next to you other than her.

7:25:06You think about all the wonderful things that she does for you. You think about all the wonderful things that she's willing to do for you. You think about all the wonderful things that she is. You think about the fact that in reality, no one should really be with you, especially not a human being, but she decides that she should be with you. You think about all these wonderful things, and before you know it, this food starts tasting delicious. Why? Because now the food is connected to an emotional thing. And the same thing with other actions. I'm not just specifying food just because I'm picking on food. Baruch Hashem, my wife is a fantastic cook. But I'm trying to tell you guys that sometimes we complain about the most ridiculous things in the world, such as food. This applies also to other things. uh, whatever it may be, whatever the trouble that you're having with your wife, if you look at that individual action as the end-all, be-all, you will never be happy as a couple. You will never be happy as a spouse; you'll never be happy, period. Why? You're judging each other too harshly. You're judging each other based on a single event, a single action. It's not good; it's not healthy—not for a marriage, not for a relationship, period. You wouldn't want Hashem to judge you based on a single action. You want Him to judge you on everything. So why do you judge her so much? Why do you judge him so much based on one particular event? Now, don't think for a second that I'm giving you a get-out-of-jail-free card for doing something really terrible, like cheating on each other. That's not one event.

7:26:32That's not one event at all. It's a whole lot more than that. Cheating on a person is a lifestyle. Cheating on a person is a mindset. It's not an event. Because cheating doesn't just happen. Cheating is planned. Cheating is set up. Because even though you say, no, no, no, I didn't mean to—it just happened. No, it didn't just happen. You already wanted to. It's just that you couldn't until you could. So you were already cheating before you cheated. So that's not an event. An event is a single thing. Sometimes the person comes home, gets back from work, she says, "How are you doing?" and he yells at her because he was already upset about something that happened to him, and he takes the anger out on her. Stuff like that happens all the time. people, and you know, if you judge them so harshly off of that one yell, then you know, yeah, of course you're gonna have a terrible marriage. Not saying that he's right, but the reality is that you can't judge them so harshly on that one particular thing. Same thing opposite. If you guys give each other leeway, you don't judge each other so harshly, you're gonna have a relationship that is growing. If you judge each other harshly for every little rinky-dink thing that each one of you do...

7:27:42It's better that you stop torturing each other and simply get a divorce. Why? It's not going to work out anyway. So at least leave each other; the earlier, the better. So you can get somebody who's still young and good-looking, and not old and missing teeth. But again, like I said, these are things that a person needs to think about before he gets married. Why? Because if you only think about all of these things after you get married, that means that you probably also have some scars too, and it's hard to adjust. So another thing is to prepare for a shidduch is that, remember that the goal of a relationship is to make each other a better version of each other, but that also means making a better version of yourself. you have to improve in order for the relationship to improve. What if I improve and she doesn't improve? Even if you improve and she doesn't improve, the relationship will still improve. But if you improve, surely if she cares about you, she'll improve over time as well. If you improve, surely he'll improve over time if he cares about you. But if you see that you're going in polar opposites, you're improving, you're getting closer to Hashem, and so on.

7:28:58and he's becoming more and more anti-Semitic, most likely you're going to have to get a divorce at some point unless, you know, he changes. Why? Because your ideology is no longer the same and you can't undo that. You can't undo that. Last thing is, when you're in a shidduch, talk about, you know, in the beginning, get to know each other, who are you, what are you, where'd you come from, where'd you come from, you're from Mars, I'm from Venus, I'm from this, I'm from that, I'm 5'9", I'm 6'9", I'm all these different stupid things that people talk about. After you waste each other's life with the nonsensical things, get to the real meat of what gets you going, what gets you moving, what are your aspirations, what are your admirations, what are the different things that motivate you in life. Those are usually the real conversations. And you'll see whether you like each other at that point, whether you have similar ideology at that point. It's actually good to ask each other what rabbi you listen to, because if they listen to a heretic and you listen to a tzaddik, then you're going to have a very serious problem. Why? Because if they listen to a heretic, most likely they are a heretic.

7:30:15and that's just a reality. So if they listen to one of the known heretics, I wouldn't say necessarily give up on them on day one, but I would recommend you suggest to them somebody, a normal person to listen to who is not a heretic, and see if they reject it. If they reject it, you should reject them. Why? They'll create a lot of problems in your life. They'll create a lot of problems in your life. But again, you have to tread carefully and not be so judgmental of them. You have to see if it's just all they know and they're open to some new information, or they're simply closed-minded and they might as well be a Christian who never saw anything else other than that. uh... so it's good to ask which Rabbi they listen to. It's good to ask different questions about each other, but then at some point, after you've wasted each other's time with waste-of-life conversations like "What do you do?", "How old are you?", "When's your birthday?", "What's your sign?", like those dumb questions. After you finish that, then you get each other going by really asking the real questions, like "Who are you really?", "Are you really a criminal?", "Are you a tzaddik?", "Are you a rosha?", "Do you have seven names?"

7:31:27you know, things like that. After that, after that, you ask each other questions that are a little bit more personal. And if you decide that you guys are good for each other, then you play house. What does it mean, play house? You start picturing each other in each other's lives. In a sense, we're asking each other, so how many kids do you want? How many kids do you want? Okay. So we're going to have five kids. Okay. What are you going to do when you first wake up? I don't know. What are you going to do? I'm going to say, I'm going to put on tefillin. Where are you going to put tefillin? In the house you're praying in? What kind of husband are you? No, no, no, no. each other in each other's lives. In a sense, we're asking each other, so how many kids do you want? How many kids do you want? Okay. So we're going to have five kids. Okay. What are you going to do when you first wake up? I don't know. What are you going to do? I'm going to say, I'm going to put on tefillin. Where are you going to put on tefillin? In the house you're praying in? What kind of husband are you? No, no, no, no. Okay, and you stop playing house. Women ask, "What are you gonna do from morning to night?" And this is not all these different things. You're gonna start playing house. Why? Because you have to see this person and how they fit in your life. How they fit in your life. Why they fit in your life. Because if you cannot see this person fitting into your life, you have to ask yourself why. Why should you marry someone you can't see fitting into your life? I'm not saying that you should become, chas v'shalom, like a goy and start doing beyond visualizing each other as husband and wife simply without the intimate details and so on.

7:32:48But the point is, you need to play house. You need to ask each other real serious questions about what's going to happen after the honeymoon. After all this, you know, okay, in the beginning, I like you, I like you, I love you, I love you. And, you know, before you even know what love is, you already tell each other you love each other. And then after that, you have all the time that you're spending and money that you're spending setting up the wedding. And then, after you feed a bunch of strange people that you don't know and you're never going to see again until the brit, you go back and you... end up in some house that you never saw before, but it ends up being your house. And you know, you pretend like, "Oh wow, everything is great," but then you wake up in the morning, and he's like, "Oh, who's cleaning? Oh, it's me. Oh, really, that's my job? Okay, fine." So then after you do that, you clean the house, and you have the coffee, but really the coffee's still in the paper thing because you still didn't buy anything. And you know, the stuff that you bought didn't go to the mikveh. After you finish all of that, you start playing house. start realizing life is very different than the honeymoon. Why? Because you have to go to work, you have to make money, you have to open a bank account, you have to go to the city to register your names, you have to have a card that actually sends the bill to your house and not your parents' house. You have to have a phone, and the phone has to work, and you have to have gas or electric. There are a lot of things that you never had to worry about when you were living in your parents' houses.

7:34:03And you have to plan all this. Like, who's going to take care of all this stuff? Is it the wife? Is it the husband? Is it you? Is it you? Who's going to do the laundry? Who's going to take the laundry? Who's going to cook? Who's going to clean? All of these different things you should talk about before you get married. Why? Because if one of you simply cannot tolerate certain things, that the other person can tolerate, you should already decide ahead of time that you're going to do it. But if neither of you can tolerate certain things, then you have to decide who's going to make the exception, who's going to make the sacrifice. And really try to do a lot of things to avoid fights after the marriage. Why? Because the yetzer hara is going to try to attack, and many times he attacks people in the first year of marriage when the relationship is still very vulnerable and weak, and he breaks up a lot of marriages early on. Why? Because they don't know anything about each other before they get married. They didn't ask the right questions. So the first time that they slept in the same bed together, she found out that he snores or he found out she snores. fights after the marriage. Why? Because the yetzer hara is going to try to attack, and many times he attacks people in the first year of marriage when the relationship is still very vulnerable and weak. He breaks up a lot of marriages early on. Why? Because they don't know anything about each other before they get married. They didn't ask the right questions, so the first time that they slept in the same bed together, she found out that he snores or he found out she snores.

7:35:15And, you know, he decides to call her mother and say, listen, you should put the pig back in the pen. What did you give me here? What is wrong with your daughter? Why is she snoring so much? And she says, what? Yeah, you talked to my daughter. And a whole fight happens between the families. You should have talked about it. You should have told them, listen, honey, by the way, I don't know what to tell you, but if you hear me snore, tell me to sleep on my side. Why? Because you're probably not going to like the way it sounds. Point being, all of these things, as silly as they are, these are the things we deal with. These are the silly things that make a life. And you have to prepare for everything. Prepare for everything. Now, there is a disclosure. Disclosure. This disclosure, I only had to give it to somebody once. Why? Only one person was foolish enough to break it. I didn't think I had to give this disclosure. I thought people were smart. But, you know, Baruch Hashem, people surprise you. What's this disclosure? A Jewish person, meaning you people, meaning someone who goes on a shidduch,

7:36:29You do not, under any condition, talk about intimacy in any way, shape, or form during your shidduch dates until you've already decided to get married, and even then, you need to be careful. You do not talk about anything intimate, nothing, zero, zero, zero. And even after you start talking about it, you have to talk to the rabbi, whoever the rabbi is, to know exactly what to ask, when to ask, and how to ask. Because if you say certain things, you could literally destroy the entire relationship with one question. And it happens. People think like, you know, a bat Yisrael is some zonah that they found in the street or in a bar or something. And they ask awful questions. And a bat Yisrael gets scared to death. She's like, "Who's this hoodlum that you sent me?" So you have to be very, very careful with that topic in general, especially in shidduchim. You don't talk about it at all. Yeah, but I'm thinking, okay, smash your head against the wall, you'll stop thinking.

7:37:36None of it. None of it. None at all. Yeah, but it's the second marriage where grown-ups, like I said, smash your head against the wall. You stop thinking. Why? The relationship should not start with that in mind. You have to develop a relationship by talking. Talking to each other. And then that's going to come anyway. Don't worry. It comes automatically. Comes automatically. You don't have to talk about it. It happens. Hashem created you in such a way that all that stuff is going to happen. But when you're ready to get married, then obviously some of the details need to happen and so on and so forth. But you have to be very, very careful when it comes to that particular subject. A lot of people talk about this subject way too early, and it either leads to a breakup or worse. It leads to a relationship that is premarital, which incurs karet. Karet. Karet means being spiritually cut off. ... means suffering in this world. Karet means Gehinnom, uh, you know, unless the person does complete teshuva. Karet is not easy to do teshuva for; it's extensive to do teshuva for it...

7:38:45Don't play with karet. So, you know, you have to be very careful with certain things. Plus, it's not appropriate in general to talk about what happens between a man and a woman with strangers. And that's the last thing that I'm going to mention, which is that until the second that the rabbi says "mazal tov" after the chuppah, ladies, remember: until after the chuppah is completed, he is a stranger. No matter how much you like him, no matter how good-looking he is or how rich he is, until the second after the chuppah, he is a stranger. You know, a stranger like I teach my kids: "Stranger danger, stranger danger." Keep him at a distance. Why? Because if you don't keep him at a distance, you'll be in danger. Ladies, remember: until after the chuppah is completed, he is a stranger. No matter how much you like him, no matter how good-looking he is or how rich he is, until the second after the chuppah, he is a stranger. You know, a stranger like I teach my kids: "Stranger danger, stranger danger." Keep him at a distance. Why? Because if you don't keep him at a distance, you'll be in danger. you'll be in very serious danger. So you have to keep him at a distance. And you have to make sure that you don't feel too comfortable. Don't feel too comfortable with him until he's your husband.

7:39:58If you do, you're going to be another one of these sad stories that I have to deal with of how to pick you up after he threw you away. And it happens. It happens, unfortunately. People are very selfish, and they don't care about other people's feelings. And, you know, if you allow yourself to feel too comfortable, he also allows himself to feel too comfortable. And the next thing you know, your heart is broken. And permanently damaged. So don't do that to yourself. Until he marries you, he's a stranger. Complete stranger. Even if he says, "I love you," and even if he buys you a $50,000 ring, all that stuff—stranger. They're all strangers. And with strangers, you don't play games. You don't play games. And I think that's pretty much it. Obviously, if it were up to me, I would say that every couple, before they get married, should go through the Pirkei Avot series and the Bitachon series as a prerequisite. Why? Because at least by the time you finish both those series, you become a decent human being. The more of a decent human being you are, the more likely you are to make a good spouse. But if a person never learned Mussar in their life, it's going to be very, very hard for them to be a good spouse.

7:41:18So you should make time to learn together, you should make time to learn yourself, but you should definitely invest in your own and each other's character development. Next question: Is it allowed to bring flowers to our date? Some say it's forbidden completely; it's inappropriate. Some say if you don't, you're a fool. You have to—it depends who you're dating, who you are, and at what point during the dating process. Why? In the Baal Teshuva world, if you don't bring flowers, most likely you're not going to get a second date.

7:42:33And about the Baal Teshuva world, if you don't bring flowers, most likely you're not getting a second date. Why? It is what it is. In the convert world, same thing. If you don't bring flowers, you're not going to see a second date. In the frum world, certain parts of the Chassidic world, and the Litvish world, if you don't bring flowers, you're not a crazy person. Some of them are going to tell you you're crazy for bringing flowers. What are you doing bringing flowers? What are you buying? Who told you you're allowed to bring flowers? So it depends. It depends who you talk to. But before you do it, it depends who the person is. Talk to your rabbi. Thank you, Rabbi. Next. Yeah. To what extent is one forbidden to celebrate his enemy's downfall? Let's say someone heard Hitler died. Is he not allowed to celebrate it? It's kind of a similar question to what was asked earlier today. If the enemy is just a personal enemy of yours, it's not good. Someone that's a personal enemy of yours, and you take honor in their downfall, you lose. But if it's an enemy of God...

7:43:55Mitzvah. Hitler dies. Baruch Hashem. Amazing. And celebrate it annually. But if it's just somebody that you don't like because he did this and he did that? No. Yeah, next. Yeah, go ahead. Is taking a 31-minute break from work when I'm allowed 30 minutes considered stealing? What if it's 33 minutes and the only reason I took the extra 3 minutes was to finish bentsching? To finish what? Bentsching. Why does your employer have to pay for your bentsching? So the answer is yes, correct? I'm asking you a question. I didn't say yes. I'm asking you. Why does your employer have to pay you for bentsching? Why couldn't you do it at 27 minutes? question. That's question number one. Question number two: Does your employer care? Meaning, there are certain employers that are stringent. They say 30 minutes, you used 32 minutes, they're upset if they know. And there are certain employers that are more lenient. I can tell you for myself in the past, if you worked for me on Wall Street and I told you to come in at eight o'clock and you came in at 8:05 and it took you an hour and a half to get there...

7:45:19because you left at 6:30. But because there was a little bit of traffic, you showed up at 8:05. You know what happened? I sent you home. Why? Because that was who I was. And you hurt my pride, and I'd rather throw you home, and since you wasted five of my minutes, I'll waste your whole day. It's not the right way to do things, but some bosses are like that. Today, I don't do things the same way, Baruch Hashem. I'm a lot more lenient. In some cases, even too lenient. I give people complete freedom to do certain things and hope that they're doing what they're supposed to be doing. But sometimes, people don't do. Now, if your boss doesn't care... He's lenient. 30, 33, 27, it's all in essence the same. Kavod, yada, go. No problem. But if your boss is stringent, it's stealing. It's stealing. So it all depends on your boss. But generally speaking,

7:46:29you should not, under any condition whatsoever, ever make your mitzvot anybody else's problem. Meaning, it doesn't matter that it's Shabbos. It doesn't matter that you have to give tzedakah. It doesn't matter that you have to pray. These are not your employer's problems. meaning you have to find a way to fulfill your mitzvot on time you're not getting paid or on time that's permissible for you to use for your personal time. You know, so say, oh no, but wait a minute, hold on a second, but I need to pray. Yes, but Rabbi, it's a mitzvah. Yes, but stealing is a sin. So just because you're doing a mitzvah doesn't mean that you're allowed to sin. You know, oh, no, Rabbi, you know, I showed up late to my office because I decided that I'm going to host the synagogue, so I went shopping on Friday to buy all the extra food for the synagogue. Oh, so what about your boss? What did he say about that? Oh, no, he didn't say anything. Why? Oh, he doesn't care? No, I don't know if he cares or he doesn't care, but I need to do a mitzvah. Oh, because you're a thief.

7:47:53That's what you are. Why? Your boss doesn't pay you for a day's work for you to go shopping, for your personal party, for your personal brit milah, for your personal whatever it is that you're doing. It doesn't matter that it's a mitzvah. It's not his problem. It's not your boss's problem. you have to do your mitzvot on your time, not the time that you're getting paid for. If you do it on the time that you get paid for, you could have to come back in a gilgul as some type of animal or some type of other being in order to pay back people. Why? That's what happens to thieves. So a person needs to understand that mitzvot have a certain time. If you have to fulfill a mitzvah at a certain time, you have to get permission from the boss. So much so that, again, if you don't, you can be considered 100% stealing. And a lot of people do it. Unfortunately, a lot of people do it where they think, no, but it's a mitzvah, so it's okay that, you know, these people go smoke a cigarette, nobody says anything, so I'm just going to go pray Mincha for a half hour. You know?

7:48:58No, it doesn't work that way. It doesn't work that way. You have to get permission from the boss. He's not paying you. Now, if you have such a job, like you work for Google. Okay, Google has a section in the building where you can sleep. They promote it. They tell you, "Listen, if you're tired, go sleep." They have a section where you can sleep, special sleeping areas there. And also, if you want to play games, they have a section of the building and a complex where you can play games. You can play pool, you can play all types of video games. If you work for a place like that, that gives you complete freedom, so long as you meet certain metrics, no problem, go do whatever it is that you want to do. But if you don't have such a place, you don't have such a boss... You cannot just decide to go do mitzvot in the name of the company. It is 100% stealing. And unfortunately, this is one of those areas where people fail miserably. And that's why they get surprised when sometimes they don't have blessings in their parnassah, or they have all types of financial struggles and so on. Because again, they have blood on their hands. They have blood on their hands. And Hashem is simply trying to wake them up. So it's important to know who you're dealing with.

7:50:13... uh, and uh, before you make a decision of what to do and how to do it, most Jewish bosses will not mind and even encourage you to go pray, go do this, go do that—unless they're anti-Torah, which people like that you really shouldn't work for. But either way, even if they are religious and even if they're going to go pray, it doesn't mean that you can go... Don't assume. Don't assume anything. You have to ask permission for everything. Why? They're paying you for that time unless you're getting paid project by project. If you're getting paid project by project, like a contractor, there is no time. You can come in, you can leave whenever you feel like it, and do whatever you want. No problem. You have that kind of a job, go ahead, go for it. But if you're getting paid pretty much by the day, every day you're getting paid 500 bucks, every day you're getting paid 100 dollars, every day you're getting paid a million dollars, whatever it is, you're getting paid every single day, and you take the time out of the day and go...

7:51:14decide to take your kid to the park because, you know, you want them to try out the new swings. Even if it's a mitzvah, you have to be b'vatel (canceling) Torah. Have you considered the sin of receiving honor in one's denigration? Because let's say there was a group chat, and it was about Shmiras HaBris, and they're all attacking you, saying you're a bad Jew and you don't do it l'shem Shamayim. And I would say, "What's your streak, like five minutes?" It's to prove a point that I actually control myself while you all act like animals. I might just be receiving honor in a slight denigration, but it's very destructive for me. The constructive purpose is to inflate your ego and destroy theirs. And that's actually one of the things that you say sorry for in the Machzor on Yom Kippur. That you belittled other people and you inflated your ego. It's surely, surely something you said I'm sorry for, but next time you say I'm sorry for it, you'll have more kavannah. It's not allowed. Not allowed to demean other people in any way, shape, or form. If you don't like what somebody says...

7:52:32Best thing to do is walk away. Walk away. If somebody insults you personally, the best thing you can do is not respond. Why? You don't respond, you get a special blessing. You don't respond, you get a special blessing. If they insult you, and you don't respond, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, I'll be your chavruta. I'll start learning Torah with you. How much would you pay to have Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai be your chavruta? How much would you pay to have Moshe Rabbeinu as your chavruta? HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, I'll be your chavruta. I'll be your chavruta. Next time somebody embarrasses you in public, and you don't respond, and you understand that it's good for you, I'll come to learn with you. So who doesn't want that? So to respond to such people that are insulting you with an insult, not only is it missing out on this opportunity, but on top of it, it's... not really constructive; all it's doing is simply insulting the other person and could very well be that you're embarrassing another person in public, which is always forbidden. You could lose a lot for five minutes of speech or five—you know, it's not worth it. So it's a very easy place, a very big trap.

7:53:56...very easy place to fall when it comes to relationships with people, and you know, listen to this guy, listen to that guy, and do this, do that. But you have to remain strong and pass the test because it's a nisayon (test). You know, you insult another person; you may not feel the pain that you caused that person, but that person surely feels a certain amount of pain. And if he cries to Hashem or she cries to Hashem... You'll have a lot of problems. You'll have a lot of problems. So, it's that way. Thank you. Next. You have another one? Follow-up? The thing is, I don't think I presented the question in the best way. Okay, so say it again. Yeah, on the chat, they posted some guys 5 days, some guys 40, some guys 1 day, 0, 1 day. But I'm always, and I was always going up. They were hating on me, of course. Oh, if you punish me, you're taking all that garbage. And I was kind of like arguing, not with shem to my mind, but what I'm saying could be understood. So, I understand. That's why I... I was right. I was right. I got you. There was a group of kids, a little older than you.

7:55:22asked me, can we have a friendly competition? What's a friendly competition? Whoever we see has to put $50 in the pool for the friends. And at the end of the month, the guy that has the best record or whatever it is, keeps the money. Allowed or not allowed? Shouldn't do it. Why? Every single time a person sins, he already has enough embarrassment in front of HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Why does he have to embarrass himself in front of all of you and tell you that he sinned? Especially if he didn't see it. Why does he have to tell you? Lot of. Just embarrass him, you can break him. You can break him. Why? Because he feels like every time he loses another 50 or 100 bucks for every time he sinned, you guys are thinking, "What's the big deal? He's got free money." No, no. What ends up happening is he ends up cheering for him to lose. That's why it says that the best of the doctors, the best of the doctors goes to Gehinom. The best of the doctors goes to Gehinom. Meaning what? Each doctor is good

7:56:48Therefore, his reputation leads to a certain amount of money. The better the doctor, the more money he makes. So each and every one of us on Rosh Hashanah prays for parnassah, including the best of the doctors. If the best of the doctors only cares about money, he's going to pray for what? More parnassah. What does that mean? Praying for more sick people. So it says he wants to pray for more sick people instead of more healthy people because he cares more about his own parnassah, his own sustenance, than caring about Hashem Yitbarach, caring about doing teshuvah, and so on. Surely he's going to get them. So, when you have a competition about who is failing and who is succeeding, what ends up happening is that some people subconsciously will start cheering for each other's failure. You know, like you say, "Oh, I got five days." "Oh, I got six days." "Oh, I got one day." Ah, yeah, okay, guys. Okay, so he puts the money in the pot. And guess what? He feels bad, and everybody feels good, and he wants to kill himself. A lot, a lot, a lot of...

7:58:11You have to look at things from the perspective of the victim. You know, if certain things happened to you, how would you feel? Well, I mean, if two people are boxing, one person gets hit first, it's not necessarily a victim. It just shows the wrong battle. It's not a victim-attacker relationship. It's just like when people want to debate me, I'm going to go and do my own thing. I understand what you're saying. It's just that if a person is... You want to help him, then you should deal with them privately, not in front of people. Privately. Talk about their issues privately. Tell you their story privately. Don't do it publicly. don't be so, to the point where you know you're every, uh... day you're, uh... sitting without even realizing that you're sinning because, you know, uh... no innocence benefiting in some way or another by other people's failure. It's an unhealthy way to live. You have to, uh... uh...

7:59:31you know, try to get out of the situation as it is. Honestly, I would recommend getting out of the group. I don't think you should ask anybody that question. That's a very personal question. I know today people are very open about their sexuality. It's part of the discussion, not just among friends. I understand. But I understand that today people are very open about this issue, and there are videos about it and so on. But it should be embarrassing. to make this sin, it should be embarrassing to talk about this subject altogether. It should be. And the fact that people talk about it so openly and not as a big deal, it should be embarrassing. So it's the opposite of the norm. So we shouldn't make the opposite of the norm even more normal by, you know, talking about it so freely. So, you know, if you're going to talk to somebody that can help in some way, give you chizuk, things like that, yeah, but I wouldn't necessarily ask questions that have no nafka mina.

8:00:46Talking about it so freely. So, you know, if you're going to talk to somebody that can help in some way, give you chizuk, things like that, yeah, but I wouldn't necessarily ask questions that have no nafka mina. meaning, have no purpose. Like, what purpose does it serve for you to know that he has a streak of 40 days without wasting seed versus your 50 days of no wasting seed? Like, what benefit is that to you? Nothing. Well, I mean, to prove that my ideology is right and, like, what I'm doing works. So, therefore, let's say there's two chaverim. You have someone who's like... Is he trying to get the people not to? Is he trying to make them sin? I

8:01:53So, I'm saying, why would they leave the group? Why would they leave the group and go to your group? Why are you debating? Because he is for it and you're against it? Oh, okay. People like that are a waste of time. What's the point? Argue with somebody that is interested in doing Shabbat. It's more constructive. In general, again, you should really refrain from insulting people in any way or putting them on the spot. Ask them questions that are too personal. It's not good manners to do that. It's not good manners. It's also, in some cases, forbidden. You could potentially, thank you, you could potentially embarrass them. It's just not a good idea. It's not a good idea. Oh, look at that. Let's see, what's a little Tashlumei Tashacharit?

8:03:21It's 6 o'clock, 6:13. Yeah, yeah, we have five more minutes. Five more minutes. It's 6 o'clock already. Five more minutes. Okay, no, we're almost done. So, what did you guys get out of today? I don't know. No? I knew this already, but that you can talk for a long, long time. That's what you get out of it. No? What else? What else? What else? You guys are all awake. That's good. I think I'm the only sleepy one. That's good. Now the only question is how I'm going to be chazzan for the next three and a half hours.

8:04:21I didn't bring you a tova as a chance I may have a tova to love you. All right, listen, guys. The key message here is that we're each here in order to get closer to Hashem. Anyone that's still watching this shiur online, you're watching it because you're trying to get closer to Hashem. We learned today that there's a lot of us that work I'm doing shmirat mitzvot, but we hit a plateau to the point where our mitzvot are not exactly up to par. We're not doing as well as we're supposed to. And that hurts in the end. You know, if you have a $10,000 dress, but the final seaming is made by some minimum-wage person who doesn't really know a bit of sewing, Those final details will ruin the 10, 20, 30 thousand dollars. Same concept here. A person is going to do mitzvot and wants to get stronger. So David HaMelech says, Run away from evil and do good. Now, what do we learn from that? Number one, we learn, the first and most important thing is, don't sin. Second of all, do good. What does it mean, do good?

8:05:49Put your effort into it. Put your "oof" into it. Because HaKadosh Baruch Hu is going to ask you one day, how come you worked so hard on Wall Street, but not so much on kiruv? How come you worked so hard on this, this, but not on Torah and mitzvot? So a person needs to know that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is going to ask him details of how hard they worked. Not that He doesn't know, but the point is, persons have that in their mind. Now, Everyone that's still watching has that in their mind, has learned some things perhaps that may be new, and has heard some things that they already knew, but maybe perhaps in a different perspective. What should be the conclusion? The conclusion is that if you're watching right now, live or otherwise, it's a relatively good proof that you want to, you desire to, Do the will of Hashem. You want to, and you desire to follow what Hashem says. With that being said, you should have no problem accepting upon yourself a new obligation. Something new. Whatever you're not doing, start doing.

8:07:11If your prayer has less kavanah, have more kavanah. If you're studying only one page a day, now you'll study two pages a day. If you're studying for a half hour, now you'll study for an hour. Each one of us should take on something in order to improve our status and at least show that we didn't sit here like donkeys for six, eight hours and nothing's going to change. every one of you, every one of us, should make a commitment now to start improving something. But if you can't even think of anything to improve after all this time, either you're extremely tired or I have failed you terribly, because every one of us should take something on. It should be easy now. you don't want to go to a shiur, spend all this energy, and end up being the same exact thing as you came in. That's a sad reality, a sad case. So you should think about something and take it on. If the people online that are watching

8:08:30You want to write down in the comments area what you are taking on. B'ezrat Hashem, I'll send you a bracha. God bless you. We'll pray for you. If you guys are here, and are ready to take something on, so that Hashem will bless you at the end of the shiur, or now in a minute or two, that you'll have a lot of hatzlacha in overcoming whatever obstacle you have to overcome in order to achieve whatever new kabbalah you're taking on yourself. But either way, that should be the goal. The goal is for us to get better. Hopefully, you got motivated to do a little bit better. Now you have a new year, and with Hashem's help... We'll continue to have many, many more shiurim together. Thank you again for attending, listening, and watching. Baruch Hashem. And Baruch Hashem, we'll pray in a couple of minutes. Baruch Adonai le'olam. Amen ve'amen.

8:09:33Baruch Hashem, we've completed another year, b'ezrat Hashem. Rabbi Ephraim and I are very proud to announce some major milestones that we've achieved, b'ezrat Hashem, and with your help, our dear partners. Over 60 million minutes of our Torah has been watched over the last year. That's a million hours of Torah to help people do teshuva and get closer to Hashem. Over 300,000 CDs have been distributed around the world for free. We've also made over a thousand lectures between the two of us, as well as with Rav Chaim being added to the roster. Over 60,000 regular viewers are watching our Torah right now across the board. Over 200,000 answers regarding halacha, family, shalom bayit, and different topics are regularly being given to people. Over 10,000 people have been helped, whether it's through food or different financial issues. 1,000 families of Torah scholars are being helped by Igud Be'ezras Hashem.

8:10:33We've published and distributed over 5,000 halachic books, kuntresim, newsletters, mussar books around the world. We are also currently helping over 130 families complete their conversion to Orthodox Judaism. Our TV channel continues to grow, our YouTube channel, our Facebook pages, our WhatsApp pages, everything continues to grow, Baruch Hashem. Thanks to Hashem, and thanks to our dear partners. B'ezrat Hashem, much more next year. where you'll also have newer features where you're able to use the app while you're using other applications on your phone. You'll be able to share the lectures directly from the app. You'll be able to donate online and support our kiruv and our Torah work that we're doing. And the most exciting feature is that you'll be able to actually ask questions directly on the app and get answers from the rabbis directly from the app. This is something unprecedented, and Baruch Hashem, we will be able to offer it. Thank you again for all of your support. Check it out. Make sure you have the Kosher Torah that will re-energize your neshama each and every single day. Kol tuv b'hatzlacha.