Accountability Cheshbon Nefesh in New York

0:13Very good to be back here, Baruch Hashem. It took almost two years of going back and forth with Rachamim to set up a shiur, Baruch Hashem, over here. Because every time I came to New York, I had other things programmed and so on. But Baruch Hashem, one trip we did two lectures here, Baruch Hashem. A shiur will be for Refuah Shlema, Levana Bat Sara, Rav Efraim Ben Shulamit, Sara Bat Levana, Doris Bat Jorah, David Ben Esria, and all of Am Yisrael, B'ezrat Hashem, will have Refuah Shlema, Refuat HaNefesh, and Refuat HaGuf. Anyone want me to mention any other names? Binyamin Ben? Hmm? So, does anybody have any pressing questions? Anything doesn't make a difference that they want to ask? Because we only have an hour, it's better for me to address questions if you have something specific you want to talk about.

1:34We could talk about that. If not, I could... The Torah is endless. Anything? Last night, we did just questions and answers for, I think, two or three hours. People liked it a lot more because sometimes people have a lot of questions that bother them all the time. And sometimes they ask a rabbi, sometimes they don't. But they don't have the answer. So sometimes, if you ask a question, it's much more meaningful to you. what the rabbi is going to say because let's say the rabbi is going to go one way, and you want to go another way. The truth is that most people have a difficulty in doing the ratzon Hashem (the will of Hashem) because they have a hard time believing it's all true. Most people want to see the end before they even start. They want to make sure that Gan Eden is for real, and you know, having good in this life is for real, and so on and so forth. They want to make sure that there's a guarantee, and they have a very hard time believing Hashem sometimes because of some questions they don't have answers for, sometimes because of excuses, sometimes because of bad experiences they had.

2:56But the point being is that sometimes these questions—you see a certain person is not willing to keep Shabbat, is not willing to do this, is not willing to do anything. But then one day he gets an answer for one question, his whole life changes. He's now all of a sudden willing to do everything. Why? Because this is one question that was bothering him for years. And he got the answer and that's okay. If this is true, then everything else is true. There was one time a king that had a lot of power, ...and haters of Israel went to him and said, "Listen, why don't you go and destroy these Jewish people?" He said, "Why? What do they do, these Jewish people? These Jewish people, they're this, they're that. They have a different religion. They have a different this. They have a different that." He said, "Do they bother me or do anything against me?" They responded, "No, they're not exactly protesting against you, but..." They're not of the same religion as us. We're Christians. They're Jews. Why don't you just kill them? Make sure only Christianity exists. And he wasn't really convinced. So one of the real haters, who actually happened to be a Jew, a self-hating Jew, came to him and said, "Listen, look at these people. Look how strange they are. They even have laws about how to go to the bathroom."

4:24what to do in the bathroom. There are laws, Mehmet, there are laws. Shulchan Aruch has about ten laws or so regarding how to behave inside the bathroom. How you have to be modest in the bathroom, do this, do that, certain things you're supposed to do as a Jew in the bathroom. Nothing weird, it's just simply being more human. As soon as the king saw this, he said, "Let me see these laws." He says, "They have the truth." How did you determine, Mr. King, that they have the truth? He says, if they're so conscious of even how they behave inside a place so filthy, inside a place where no one else can see you, they must have the truth. They must have the truth. Why? If you don't have the truth, why would you have such a law? No one can see that you're practicing it anyway. what are you proving here if, let's say, for example, you have a law that you have to cover your hair? Okay, you have a law, and in essence, you could be like a show-off. You're pretending to be righteous because you're covering your hair, and everyone sees you. You have a law that you have to wear tzitzit; everyone sees the tzitzit strings. It stands out. You have a law that you have to go to beit knesset. Okay, so people say, "Oh, you go to beit knesset."

5:39The first question they ask a person after they go up to Shamayim after 120 years is, did you conduct your business with emunah? What does it mean with emunah? Meaning emunah that Hashem runs the world. Not emunah that He's going to give you more money. Emunah meaning that you were honest in business. You didn't steal because you knew that Hashem is watching. You weren't dishonest because you knew that Hashem is recording. You did things because you knew Hashem runs the world. Did you have it or no? So the Chachamim ask, why is the first question about how you conducted your business and not how you conducted your behavior in the Beit Knesset? Go to the Beit Knesset, you think, figure the guy, if he acts good in the Beit Knesset, he must be righteous. That's exactly what the Gemara is trying to teach. No, it doesn't mean he's righteous. In the Beit Knesset, you see people, they look like Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov. Everyone has a tallit, everyone has tefillin, everyone looks righteous, everyone says shalom, everyone looks nice.

6:40Everyone pretends like they're little Moshe Rabbeinu. In reality, as soon as they leave, they go to business, and sometimes they stay like Moshe, but sometimes they become like Amalek. Sometimes in the Beit Knesset, they're Tzadikim, but in business, they're thieves; they're like Bernie Madoff, they're all the Resha'im in the world. What do you think, Bernie Madoff didn't go to Beit Knesset? He went to Beit Knesset. A lot of people go to Beit Knesset. Meaning that in the Beit Knesset, everyone can pretend. Because everyone looks the same. But how do you know if somebody is really righteous? How they behave when it comes to money. How they behave when no one's looking. So this king said, "If they behave like this, they have rules. For a time when no one else is looking because you're inside the bathroom, they must have the truth. There must be something to these rules. A person always has to analyze themselves and do something called cheshbon hanefesh (self-accounting) because rules exist regardless of whether you're religious or not." analyze themselves and do something called cheshbon hanefesh (self-accounting) because rules exist regardless of whether you're religious or not. If you're not religious, you have rules. Why? There are traffic rules. If you speed, they're going to give you a ticket. If you do it too many times, they're going to take away your license. If you work and make money, you have to pay taxes. If you don't pay taxes, they're going to send you to jail.

8:07if you act a certain way, they can give you a fine. There are rules in the world, whether we like it or not. Once you live in a certain place, you're effectively saying, "I agree with the rules." It's not necessarily that you agree that they're good; you agree to comply. Why do you agree to comply? Because you know there's a consequence if you don't comply. If you don't do what the rules say, if you decide to speed even though it says 65 and you're going 100, as soon as the cop sees you, he's going to chase you down, stop you, give you a ticket, and if you do it too many times, they're going to take away your license. So it's not necessary that you agree with the rule; you just have to follow it. Why? Because you don't want the consequences. People realize this and they don't have much of a problem dealing with it because they know they don't really have much of a choice. The problem is not the rules with the government. The problem is the rules with Hashem. We think we have a choice. People think they actually have a choice not to listen to the rules. Because Hashem doesn't punish right away, they figure, ah, listen, my friend drives on Shabbat already for 20 years. Hashem didn't kill him. He lights fire every Shabbat on purpose. He didn't kill him, so he's fine. So maybe Hashem doesn't really care about Shabbat. Maybe Hashem doesn't care about fire on Shabbat. Maybe Hashem doesn't care that the girl's walking around with a short skirt. Maybe He doesn't care about modesty. They figure that because Hashem doesn't punish right away, He doesn't care.

9:32What they don't understand is that Hashem has a lot more patience than a human being. And the reason why is because Hashem loves you. You're His child. You're His son. You're His daughter. He wants you to win. And because He wants you to win, He wants to keep giving you do-overs. He wants to keep giving you another chance, another chance, another chance, another chance. But eventually, a person runs out of chances. Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, alav ha-shalom, said that as soon as a person gets on a certain path, since Hashem sees the future, as soon as he gets on a certain path, where Hashem sees the path that he's on right now, it's not possible for him to do teshuva. It's not possible for him to do teshuva. Why? He's associated himself with certain people. He's involved himself in a certain profession. He's this, he's that. The way it is, it's either not possible or it's just going to take too long. He doesn't have, Hashem only decreed for him 70 years in this world. He's already 30. He's already wasted the first 30 years of his life. And according to this path, the only way that he can actually get to a point of doing teshuva is by the time he gets to 71. Hashem only gave him 70 years. So he's not going to be able to do teshuva. Hashem decides it's time to take his life early.

10:55But sometimes Rabbi Yisrael Salanter says, sometimes the person has plenty of time. He's 20 years old. Hashem decided already before he came to the world, 70 years. He has 50 years left. Someone comes to him and tells him, you have to do teshuva. Why? You're mechalel Shabbat, you're violating Shabbat. Hashem says, if you violate Shabbat, He's going to kill you. Hashem says that if you eat treif, Caleb, you eat non-kosher food, He's going to kill you. Hashem says that if you don't keep Shabbat, which behind you are like a lot of things, He's going to kill you constantly. We think He's joking. He didn't say, "Oh, I don't like you," seven some big things. He's Hashem. He's not your friend. And He tells you once, twice, three times, a few times. You hear the truth, you believe it, but you don't feel like doing it. You don't feel like doing it. Rabbi Yisrael Salanter says, if someone came to you, told you the truth, and you don't listen, and... Hashem says, even though eventually you'll have another chance, I don't want to give it to him. Why? He ruined it. I gave him the chance, a big chance. I gave him the truth in his face, and he still didn't do it. Cut his time short. Hashem, this is one of the many ways you could explain how Hashem, like somebody like my cousin, who died two years ago at 23 years old. The kid was a cute little kid, beginning of his life.

12:18good-looking, smart. His father had no less than a hundred million dollars. Didn't do anything as far as mitzvot. And his mom hated mitzvot. She hated Torah. She was anti. Smolanit, lefty liberal. So this kid lived in a world where even his house, even though his parents were both Israelis, his house didn't have a mezuzah. Goyim have mezuzot. But this house didn't have a mezuzah. Such anti-Torah type of behavior. On the second day of Rosh Hashanah, his parents were on vacation in Israel on the beach instead of the Beit Knesset, and he decided to go outside with his scooter. He fell off the scooter, hit his head, and had a headache. His neighbors saw him and called the ambulance. They picked him up. They know who he is. Comes from a wealthy family. They do some checks—MRI, CAT scan, SPECT scan, all this stuff that doctors know how to do. They tell him, "No, baruch Hashem, you're okay. Everything is okay. You're perfectly fine. Just rest." So what does he know from his life? The doctor said rest. The doctor went to school for a million years. He has a Ph.D., an M.D., a this D, a that D. He's going to listen to him. He went home. He went to sleep and he never woke up.

13:4623 years old, baby. What do you know at 23 years old? You just got out of diapers a few years ago. What do you know? What do you know at 23 years old? At 23 years old, you think you know everything. But when you're 30 and 40 and 50, you get older like me, you start realizing you didn't know anything back then. By 23, the kid left the world. Why? Hashem saw that this kid, with these parents and this influence that he had, had no chance of doing teshuvah. Better to bring him back in a different gilgul. Better to bring him back and give him another chance at life, something else. This one, no chance. Another guy had many more chances than him that we know. This guy made a ton of money. Doing things that are not exactly ethical. To make sure that no one can even identify the person, I'm not going to say what he did for a living. But he made a lot of money. My mother, God bless her, one day she gives him a Chazak u'Baruch. She says, Chazak u'Baruch, good for you. Succeeded for your family. Big house. Baruch Hashem, she says to him.

15:06What Baruch Hashem? I did it. Who is this Hashem? I did it. Who said, "Who is Hashem?" Pharaoh. Pharaoh said, "Who did it?" What happened to Pharaoh? Not such a good end. This guy thought he made a lot of money. He couldn't even say Baruch Hashem. At least you can say Baruch Hashem. Thank Hashem. He said, "What Baruch Hashem?" From that minute on, from that minute, from the minute he said, "Who's Baruch Hashem? What Baruch Hashem?" From that minute on, he started literally losing every single penny that he had. He ended up losing his family, he ended up losing his health, and he died a vicious mitah meshunah. Mamash, a flesh-eating cancer. No one in the world to care for him, no one in the world to want to care for him. And now, he's getting to know Hashem really well. Now he needs to know, I mean, he should have said "Baruch Hashem" at least. But he was given a lot of chances. He was given 50 years. 50 years in this world is a lot of time. Rabotai, how do we get to such a point? How do people get to such a point? Tell him, say "Baruch Hashem," the guy doesn't want to do it.

16:17How do we get to such a point that a guy says to Hashem, give me, give me, give me, give me, Hashem gives him and he still doesn't want to give Hashem anything in return? He doesn't want to give tzedakah, he doesn't want to keep Shabbat, she doesn't want to be modest, she doesn't want to be righteous, she doesn't want to do anything. We want just Hashem to give to us, like He's, chas v'shalom, a Santa Claus. We want Him to give us, but we don't want to give anything in return. How do we get to such a point? We get to such a point when we don't do something called cheshbon nefesh. Cheshbon nefesh means self-accounting, holding yourself accountable. Looking at a list of all the things you do and comparing it to what's right. Now, what's right according to you? What's right according to Hashem? What's right according to something reliable because you are biased. No one wakes up in the morning saying, "I'm doing something wrong." Even Hitler thought he was perfectly righteous. Every day he says, "Baruch Hashem, I'm gonna go kill some more Jews." He believed in God, by the way. He wasn't an atheist. He was a Catholic. He believed in God and he felt that he was fulfilling God's will. How? He was getting rid of the Jews. He thought he was doing a mitzvah.

17:38How can someone that's killing millions and millions of people in a vicious way think he's doing right? The Gemara in Masechet Shabbat says, a person does not see anything wrong in himself. He wakes up in the morning, he thinks he's Moshe Rabbeinu, even if he's Haman. He thinks he's Moshe Rabbeinu. Every person here thinks he's Moshe Rabbeinu. Every person thinks he's Sarah Imeinu. Every person, no exceptions. Even if you say, no, I don't really... No, and really, you do. Really, really, you do. Why? It's just the nature of a person. The nature of a person is not to see wrong in themselves. The nature of a person is to see wrong in everybody else. Oh yeah, you know, I would be better if she was nicer to me, and he was nicer to me, and if I lived in better circumstances, and if I had more money, and if I lived here, and if I had this, I would be better if all of these other things would be better. I would be better. Meaning that really you're better, but you're not better because of somebody else. It's everybody else's fault, not yours. That's all of us.

18:44We never take the time to do cheshbon hanefesh and say, you know what, let's just cut it. Let's see, really, what am I actually doing for society? What am I contributing to the world? How am I serving this God that I believe in? What am I doing? He's given me air to breathe. He's given me money to use for food. He's given me a wife, a husband, this, that. He's given... What am I doing? BeKnesset is for me, to pray. What am I praying? Am I praying, "Hashem, may Hashem be blessed?" No. What am I praying? "Hashem, give me more money. Hashem, give me more this." What are we praying for? No one says, "Hashem, I pray that Your name gets bigger. Hashem, I pray that all the Jews do teshuva." Who prays like that? Unless somebody's in the business of helping people do teshuva, nobody even thinks to pray for Am Yisrael to do teshuva. What do we pray for? We pray for more money. We pray for a better situation. We pray for stuff. So prayer, going to the Beit Knesset, it's for you. What about learning? In reality, learning is for you also. Why? If you don't learn about Hashem,

19:50If you don't learn about it, how are you going to pray to Him? Say, hi, nice to meet You. You have to know who He is. You have to learn His Torah. If you don't learn halacha, how are you going to know how to be a Jew? So you have to learn. So what am I doing for Him? The person starts looking. Okay, you know what? I can't really do much for Him other than get other people to do teshuva. So what am I actually doing to at least serve Him right? And you start checking yourself. This, you know, it's like, yeah, I'm a little bit cheap. X. Tefillah, yeah, you know, the last time I prayed was on Tuesday and it was like a 50-50 prayer. Like I was really praying more for money than I was actually praying for Hashem. Then I actually thought about money and I forgot where I was in the prayer. And I started in, I finished in, somehow, I don't know where the prayer started or where it ended. Yeah, the prayer, I'm not so good at. I don't know. Not so good. So prayer, no, no, no. Learning, yeah, I don't know. As soon as the rabbi starts talking, I fall asleep. So learning, not so good. This and that. Everything we start checking, check, check, check, becomes X, X, X. Why? We start realizing we're not so good. There are a few things everybody's good at, but there are a few things that we thought we were good at until we started doing some accounting. And we realized, hey, you know what? I'm not so good.

21:11But unless we do cheshbon nefesh (self-accounting), unless we actually start doing some self-accounting, we're not going to get to that conclusion. Now, there were two famous tzaddikim, brothers. One of them was by the name of Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk. Rabbi Elimelech's brother's name was Rabbi Zusha. Both of them were chassidim, the talmidim of the Baal Shem Tov. Miracle workers, Something extraordinary. One example is the life that they had. One time, some talmidim came to Rabbi Elimelech and said, "Listen, we want to learn how you can be happy if you have a lot of problems." They have a lot of problems. How can you be happy if you have problems? He says, you know what? You have to go to my brother. Go to Rabbi Zusha. He lives in this city, in Anipoli. Go to him. Ask him. Here's the address. He gives them the address. They start going, okay, we're going to go learn from Rabbi Zusha. They never met him. There's no phone back then. There's no WhatsApp.

22:24have to go on the road, and so they go, they go, they go. Eventually, they get to a certain place and see there's a shack/house with holes in it. There's really no roof; half the roof is missing. The windows are broken. It's like half a place. They're not really sure if there are chickens in there or people in there. They're not really sure. But this is the address. They go in there. They see the door is almost falling off. They knock on the door really carefully so it doesn't fall off. And Rabbi Zusha opens the door with a huge smile. His clothes have holes in them. The kids look like they haven't eaten in a week. But everybody has a smile from ear to ear. Baruch haba. Baruch haba. Welcome. Welcome. Thank you for coming. How are you? Who are you? How are you doing? How can I help you? You Rabbi Zusha? Zusha, yes, Zusha. They're not really sure what to do with this. This person, Mishkan, should we give him tzedakah or should we ask a question? But they said, listen, if he's so happy, he must know the answer. So they said, please Rabbi,

23:34Your brother, Rabbi Elimelech, oh, Rabbi Elimelech, he starts giving them compliments about his brother. He's a tzaddik, he's a chacham, he's a miracle worker, he's this, he's that. Okay, after he finishes, they say, "Okay, your brother, your brother, he sent us here." "Why did my brother send you here?" He says, "Your brother told us that you have the answer for a big question." "Me, have an answer? What does Zusha know? I don't know, maybe I have it, maybe I don't know. He probably has the answer." No, no, you have the answer. Okay, what's the question? How can you be happy if you have a lot of problems? Immediately, Rabbi Zusha's smile goes away, and he looks at them with all the seriousness in the world. "Wow, I'm very, very surprised at my brother." Why would he think that I would have such an answer? I've never had any problems in my life. The guy is walking around with holes in his clothes. He has no roof. But he has no problems. Why? Because he has a different perspective of the world. He has problems, but to him, they're not problems; to him, they're opportunities. So the very same two brothers, they had another brother who wasn't famous.

24:59He was a grocery salesman. And all of the talmidim were always wondering, how could it be that Rabbi Elimelech and Rabbi Zusha have this brother? Maybe he’s like, maybe they adopted him. Maybe he’s not really Jewish. Maybe, like, how could it be? They're kodesh kodashim. How could it be this guy's related to them? So they came to the rabbis. They asked them, "Kevod HaRav, can you please explain to us how you are related to this grocery salesman?" He said, "You have to see what he does at 10 o'clock every night. But in order to understand what he's doing at 10 o'clock every night, you have to start at 4 a.m. when he starts his day. Follow him and see what he does every day." The talmidim, very dedicated, went and followed him in disguise. Wherever he went, they followed. They see what he did. They see he started his day, left his house at 4 o'clock in the morning. After he prays, he goes to his store. He starts his day very early. And he's doing normal things. He puts the stock away, puts the stock here, you know, the fruits, the vegetables, and so on. But every so often he takes out a little piece of paper, a little booklet, and he writes something and he puts it back in his pocket.

26:25The customer comes, and he writes something and puts it in his pocket. Then something happens, and he writes something and puts it back in his pocket. Every so often, he does this. At the end of the day, you see the guy finishes—he finishes his day at seven or eight o'clock at night. He closes the shop and everything else. Finally, they see him get to his destination at ten o'clock, and they follow him and look from the window. So far, nothing special about him. All he did was like an average Joe. He bought, he sold, he dealt with customers. Nothing special about this person to tell us that he's related to the two Gedolei HaDor, the two biggest rabbis in the world. Doesn't tell. But then they see something unique. They see him take out the little booklet out of his pocket and he starts reviewing everything he wrote. Hashem, I woke up at 4:05 in the morning today. I was five minutes late in serving You. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. And he starts crying hysterically.

27:36Then he said, "At 4:37, I started praying, but my first thought while praying was the store. Instead of You, I thought about the store, I have to get there. I didn't think about You 100% from the beginning of the prayer. I'm sorry. Please forgive me." And he starts crying hysterically. His tears are falling like a waterfall. Hashem, at 5:32, I said Your name but not with all of the kavana that I'm supposed to. All of the things that I'm supposed to think about when I say Your name, I didn't think about all of them. Please forgive me. And he starts crying hysterically, with tears like someone just died. Hashem, at 6:07, at 6:07, there was a customer that for a second, I thought, oh, he's a good customer. Instead of thinking, oh, this customer, Hashem sent him. I thought the customer, I didn't give 100% credit to You, Hashem. Please, Hashem, for a second, I didn't think about You. I didn't give You credit. Please forgive me. And he starts crying hysterically, like his whole family just died. He's crying.

28:47And he continues to cry about every single thing that he wrote down throughout the entire day until there are enough tears that not only is the ink gone, the paper is gone. The paper is gone. It's shredded. It becomes nothing. After it becomes nothing and all of the things he wrote are nothing, that's his teshuva. That's his cheshbon nefesh. We're ready for tomorrow. Rabotai, The talmidim never asked the question again of how he's related to you. They went to the rabbi and said, such a person, this is a giant. He goes, you think he's a giant? You just saw one day. We see this every day. We see what's going on in Shamayim. His neshama goes up to Shamayim and does the same thing in Shamayim. His neshama goes up to Shamayim and it cries in Shamayim. I'm sorry, Hashem, if I didn't think about You for a second. Please forgive me.

29:48Now, we're not at the level of Rabbi Zusha, Rabbi Elimelech, or their brother, the grocery salesman, the Kadosh. But we can do Cheshbon HaNefesh. We can do some self-accounting. We can be real with ourselves. We're obligated to be real with ourselves. The only way we can succeed in life is if we're real with ourselves and start evaluating ourselves. Take an account of who am I. Who am I? What am I doing? Am I a faker or am I real? There are a lot of people in the world who are outright simply fakers. But they look really good. They look like they're tzaddikim. And unfortunately, they cause a lot of other people to think bad things about the Torah, bad things about Hashem. I remember before we did teshuvah, that was one of my excuses. I did it before.

30:48One of my excuses was that I would see so-called religious people at the places I would go to. Now, as a secular person, I wasn't exactly a good representation of Hashem. May Hashem have mercy on me. But they were supposed to. They had the hat and the beard and the shtreimel and this and that. They looked like they just came from Har Sinai. So I always asked myself, okay, I'm here in a casino. What are you here for? I'm here because this is the life I live. You're supposed to be representing something else. What are you doing here? What are you doing in the club? What are you doing here? Why are you behaving like this? How could you be wearing this hat and this kippah and tzitzit hanging out and still yell in traffic like a truck driver? How could it be? It's not a good representation. The truth is that at the time, I thought that looks meant something. Looks are supposed to represent something, but they don't always do. Sometimes people wear a costume once a year on a holiday called Purim. Sometimes they celebrate Purim all year round. There's a custom all year round. A person needs to understand that

32:09Their exterior is supposed to match the interior. And the Gemara says that if a person's exterior doesn't match his interior, in Shamayim, they say it was better off we didn't bring him to the world. If he looks a certain way, but inside he's rotten tomatoes, he doesn't believe, he doesn't do all of that stuff. When he prays, instead of praying to Hashem, he prays for something else. In the Shamayim they say, his prayer is put in the garbage list. It's better off he wasn't born. That's what they say in the Gemara. What does it really mean? It means, Rabotai, that Jews are not always the best representation of Judaism. But that doesn't matter to you. What matters to you is that regardless of whether the Jews around you are all tzaddikim and tzadkaniyot or they're not, you are still obligated. You still have to follow the law. Even if you're surrounded by Haman and his friends, it doesn't make a difference. You still have to follow the law. So what about them? It's not your business what they do.

33:25You can never use other people doing bad things as an excuse. Oh yeah, but I dress like this because everybody does. I look like this because everybody does. I cheat because everybody cheats. I lie because everybody lies. You can never use that argument in Shamayim to say, no, no, I'm like this because everybody else was like this. It's not going to work. Why? It's the same thing like in this world. If everyone is driving 150 miles an hour, who gets a ticket? The one guy that gets caught. Yeah, but what about everybody else? What about everybody else that went 150 miles an hour? Their time will come too. You're the one that got caught; you have to pay the bill. They violated things also, but we'll get to them. Their time is not today. a person should never think for a second that just because all the girls in school and all the girls in the neighborhood and all the people in the shul and all the people in the community dress in a modest way, that gives you some type of get-out-of-jail-free card, and you could just do whatever you want. Oh no, it's a different world, it's modern society, everything's okay, things are not the same, we're not in the desert anymore. Actually, it's hotter in the desert, by the way.

34:39And somehow we have all the excuses in the world for why we can't do the mitzvot anymore. Because somehow we think maybe we’re going to convince Hashem to cancel His Torah. The reality is, rabotai, there’s no cancellation of the Torah. Once Hashem decided you will be a Jew, He also decided that you have to comply with all of the rules. Now, all of the people that are doing it. In the end, they get rewarded. Sometimes they get rewarded in plain sight; you can see this person has a wonderful life. Sometimes the reward waits for later on. In reality, the real reward is later on, but there are a few major benefits of following the mitzvot now. First and foremost, if you look at the world around you A world without Torah is a disaster. Who do you look up to? People look up to celebrities. If you actually go and put the celebrities under the microscope, you see that every one of them is a bigger loser than the next. Every single one is married multiple times because they can't keep a single marriage together. You look at the most famous ones, they're all famous because they have more marriages.

36:07five times, six times, eight times, twenty times – they just hit the headlines more often, that's why they're more famous. They get married more times, so they're more famous, or there are more things that are taboo about their lives. One day they're married to a woman, the next day they're married to a man. You see these people... What's to look up to? That they have money? Do you know how many of them commit suicide every month? Every year, the suicide list of celebrities grows bigger and bigger. And it's not those who don't make any money that commit suicide; it's the ones that make the most money that commit suicide. Whether it's Robin Williams or Anthony Bourdain, just in the last couple of months, each one of them had fortunes as far as money, but zero as far as humanity. So you're going to look up to the celebrities, the athletes. I used to deal with athletes when I was in the business world. There are no smaller losers than the celebrities that we just talked about. Why? The average athlete goes bankrupt within five years after his career is over, regardless of how much money he makes.

37:20an NFL player that can make a hundred million dollars in five years, within five years after he retires, he's going to have zero or a negative balance. How do you spend that much money when you're a loser? You have plenty of ways. Many of them have multiple wives and many kids without a father, and That's what you're going to look up to? Oh yeah, he's the best at what? What? At moving his body? A donkey moves his body also. A horse moves his body also. Runs much faster than him. Did you come to the world to be a donkey or a horse? A horse is faster. It doesn't have the stress of a mortgage. So did you come to be a horse? What is he better at? Oh, he throws the leather into the basket really well. Wow! So what? puts the ball in the basket. Wow, what a special skill. He jumps? The kangaroo jumps also. Are we going to give the kangaroo an aliyah? What are you going to do? Do you think the kangaroo goes to Gan Eden because he jumped? The cheetah jumps also. The jaguar not only jumps to the tree but also takes his prey, a whole deer, 200 pounds, with him on top of the tree. Do you think the jaguar goes to Gan Eden?

38:37Anyone says Chazak U'Baruch to the jaguar? So what? He jumps. So what? He runs. Big deal. But people look up to these people like they're something special. You look at their real life; everyone has multiple marriages. Everyone cheats on their wives. Everyone cheats on their husbands. Everyone has so much material wealth they become disgusted with materialism and with themselves. They buy new cars just because they're so bored of the old car that's only a month old. I know, I had them as clients. One guy bought five Range Rovers in one day. For what? Just in case. You know what the funny thing is? He never drove in his life. He didn't know how to drive. But he bought five cars, so he told people, "I bought five Range Rovers." Loser mentality. A purposeless life. But that's what people look up to. They look up to, oh yeah, the money. Oh look, the guy's at Wall Street. He has a family. He has kids. He has this. He's fine, no? You actually look, and you, I worked with these people. You look at their real life.

39:46You see that many broken homes, many purposeless lives, many drug addictions, many antidepressants, the kids at six, seven, eight, nine years old already taking antidepressants or ADHD medicine. Every kid is retarded today. Everybody has attention deficit disorder. By the way, attention deficit disorder is a fake disease. It doesn't exist. It just means people are lazy to discipline their kids. That's all it means. Attention deficit disorder means the kid likes to cause trouble. He doesn't feel like sitting down. In the old generation, that meant normal. Every kid doesn't want to sit down. He wants to go play. He wants to jump on a roof. He wants to do stuff. Every kid is a hyperactive kid. That's the point of being a kid. If you're doing it when you're grown up, then you're probably going to get fired and probably get excluded from society. But as a kid, you have permission to be a troublemaker. So now, no, you want the kid to act like an adult? The adult can't act like an adult.

40:47No, no, give him some medicine. Give him a pill to calm him down. You know what these pills do? You know how many kids die from these pills? Just in our neighborhood in Florida, one kid, his parents—stupid parents—don't want to listen to anybody that actually has any sense. They listen to these vicious doctors. They give the little kid, 10, 11 years old, ADHD medicine. They give him the medicine. The kid developed something. He started swallowing his own tongue and almost died. That's part of the side effects. Another kid six months ago, in a different community where we live, literally a half-hour from our house, 12 years old, committed suicide. What 12-year-old even knows what suicide is? At 12 years old, you don't even know what suicide means. But why? He took ADHD medicine. He started becoming depressed. What does a 12-year-old have to be depressed about? The Transformers didn't win? What are you depressed about? Megatron beat up the other guy. What are you depressed about? What? Parashat HaShavua didn't go as you liked? What happened? What are you depressed about at 12 years old? But these people, they trust celebrities. They trust the newspapers. They trust the rich people. They trust the media. They trust the president. They trust everybody except God. Everyone except God. That's the problem.

42:15That is the problem. We trust everyone but God. God says, I decide how much parnassah you're going to make on Rosh Hashanah. Rosh Hashanah is coming up, it's Hashem. Hashem will decide how much money you're going to make on Rosh Hashanah for the rest of the year. It doesn't matter what you do for a living. It doesn't matter if you're a plumber or you're a stockbroker. It doesn't matter if you're a real estate developer or you just work for the real estate company. It makes no difference. Hashem decides on Rosh Hashanah exactly to the T how much money you're going to make. we don't want to believe it. We heard it from a bunch of rabbis, you heard it from me now, but we don't want to believe it. We still want to work overtime. We're still going to work overtime and not go to shiur. "Ah, I need to make money." Yeah, but Hashem already decided that even if you work normal hours and you learn Torah, you're still good. You're still going to be okay. You're still going to make just as much money. "Yeah, but, uh, you know, I need to make..." Yeah, but you don't trust Hashem. What, do you think Hashem lied? He lied for you. For everyone else, he told the truth except you. He's trying to fool you. Everyone else, he's telling them the truth. You, no, no. I got something against this guy. I got something against him, I'm not giving it to him. Unless he works overtime, unless he works on Shabbat, unless he works three jobs, I'm not, no, I have to. What do you think, Hashem is cheating you? We believe everyone else except Hashem.

43:36That's the Churban. That is the disaster of our life. How do we get to such a point? When we don't do self-accounting. We don't realize what we're doing. We don't check ourselves. What am I actually doing? When you start realizing, it's like, listen, Hashem runs the world. I believe in Hashem. I have a little kippah on. I go to Beit Knesset. I do this. I do that. Okay. No. So how come I'm working so much and learning not? I'm learning once a week, but I'm working seven. Seven days a week I work, but I learn once. It should be the opposite, or at the very least, it should be balanced. Work and learn. The problem is that we don't want to believe. We don't want to believe. We want to believe the celebrity. We want to believe the newspaper. The fake news. We want to believe all of that except what Hashem said. And that, Rabotai, is one of the main things. One of the main things that a person needs to start doing on a daily basis.

44:37To be a tzaddik, to be a tzaddik, you don't necessarily need to know the entire Torah. You don't need to necessarily be the biggest chacham in the world. You don't necessarily need to be brought up in a very famous religious Chassidic family. You don't need to be. As a matter of fact, some of the biggest tzaddikim in history not only didn't come from those families, but they came from the opposite. One person came from avodah zarah. Not only did he come from idol worship, but he was the pope of all types of idol worship. Yet, he became one of the most important Jews that ever lived. His name was Yitro. Yitro was a pope at that time. But when he saw He heard about Hashem and he saw, "This is Hashem. Hashem did this for Israel. I'm going." What did he benefit? He benefited because his son-in-law was Moshe. He benefited his daughter, Tziporah. He benefited the parasha in the Torah called Parashat Yitro. Which parasha is it? The parasha of Matan Torah, when we got the Torah. Normally, every parasha is named after what happens in the parasha.

46:05Every parasha is named after what happened in the actual Torah. But this parasha, when we're on Mount Sinai, and we get the Ten Commandments, and we get it written in the Oral Torah, what is it called? Parashat Yitro. Why? Yitro heard, and he decided to go. Why? Because Hashem is trying to give you a secret. That's the secret of being a tzaddik. That's the secret of being a tzaddeket. You heard the truth, go do it. Doesn't matter who your father is. Doesn't matter who your mother is. Doesn't matter what neighborhood you grew up in. It doesn't matter. You heard the truth? Go do it. That is the truth. That's as simple as it gets. Another big tzaddik, his name was Rabbi Akiva. Rabbi Akiva and Moshe Rabbeinu saw him. Hashem showed Moshe Rabbeinu at Mount Sinai. He showed him the future. He showed him every generation. He saw Rabbi Akiva. Hashem said to Moshe, "Hey, look, this is Rabbi Akiva."

47:08Moshe said to Hashem, "If you have somebody like this in the world, why are you giving me the Torah? Wait another thousand years and give him the Torah. Why would you give somebody like me the Torah and not him? Look how great he is." Moshe Rabbeinu listened to a shiur by Rabbi Akiva. He didn't understand. He didn't understand what Rabbi Akiva was talking about. He started becoming self-conscious until Rabbi Akiva said in a shiur, "All of what I said came from Moshe Rabbeinu," meaning that he developed Moshe Rabbeinu's original thoughts. Moshe Rabbeinu fell back from this. "I don't understand what he's talking about. It's such kodesh. Why are you giving me the Torah? Give it to him." Hashem says, "Rav Lach, no, no. Be quiet. I'm giving you the Torah." But here, Rabbi Akiva came from converts. When he was young, he hated religious people so much that he told his students, "When I would see religious people, I would want to bite them like a donkey." They said, "Kvod HaRav, you mean you want to bite them like a dog, right?" He goes, "No, no, no, I want to bite them like a donkey."

48:24he goes, "Why a donkey?" He says, "Because when a dog bites, he's just biting the flesh. When a donkey bites, he bites the bone too and crushes it. That's how much I hated religious people." Why? "I didn't know what it was all about. I didn't know that religious people are supposed to represent the Torah. And I thought it was just the religious people making up stuff. In reality, once I saw the Torah and I understood what it meant, I realized not only do I not hate them," Not only do I love them, but I want to be one of them. And he had the zechut to become one of the biggest rabbis in Am Yisrael's history. 24,000 students. Every single student was able to revive the dead from his kedusha. You have Ruth the Moabite. She didn't come exactly from the best of families. She was a righteous convert. The Messiah comes from her grandson. Who is it? David HaMelech. But she grew up in a bad neighborhood, and she grew up with people that weren't exactly Jews, weren't exactly the most righteous. Her father was a king, but not a good king. She still ended up becoming one of the most important human beings in history. The reason why each one of these people succeeded

49:53like exactly like we said about it. He did accounting. He heard about Israel already from before, but when he heard about God and he heard that this God He did all of these things for Am Yisrael. He says, "I have to be like them." Yeah, but you can end up losing all your money. You're a pope, you're making a hundred million dollars a year, you have a castle, you have this and that. And by the way, they don't exactly let you have a retirement plan from pope school. Once you leave the actual Catholic Church, most likely you're gonna die. They tried to kill him, they tried to kill his daughters. They weren't exactly accepting of his decision. Yitro said, I don't care. Yitro heard, I have to go do. Why? He did accounting. He said, look, look at all the sins that I made. I'm trying to find God in the wrong address. I'm trying to do all these things, but in the wrong way. Over there is the truth, that's where I'm going to go. And Torah is the truth, that's where I'm going to go.

51:06And every single person needs to do themselves a service, do themselves a favor, and take a few minutes to write down all the things that you believe you’re doing for Hashem. Write down all the things that you believe Hashem is doing for you. Compare the lists. Write down the things that you think you’re the best at and... evaluate what you think is the best versus really what you're supposed to be doing. Evaluate the list of your to-do list called the Torah. The Torah is a to-do list. It's comprised of 620 to-dos. 620 mitzvot, 613 from the Torah, 7 from the Rabbis. The good news is, half of them are not relevant to you. Because not everybody is a Kohen, not everybody is a female, not everybody is a male, not everybody has the obligation to do certain things, because they're not Kohanim. We don't have the Beit HaMikdash, and so on and so forth. But about half of them, a good half,

52:16You're supposed to do. Compare what you're doing to what you're supposed to do. And then compare what Hashem is doing for you in comparison to what you're doing for Him. That's cheshbon hanefesh. And you're not going to be able to fix it all overnight. But look at the things that are most difficult for you. Let's list five. For women, almost every single woman on earth, the number one problem is modesty. Number one problem for women is modesty. Why? We want to look like goyim. The saddest thing about a Jew is when he wants to be a goy. The saddest Jew in the world is when he wants to be a goy. Why? Because that simply means he doesn't know what it means to be a Jew. Let me try to minimize it in a way and to explain to you what it means to be a Jew. The Torah says that the life of a Jew is so critical that the whole world exists for him. In the book of Jeremiah, Hashem says to the Prophet, meaning, if not for people fulfilling the covenant of learning Torah day and night, the rules of the world will cease to exist. Meaning no more gravity, no more oxygen, no more hydrogen, no more everything. No more world. Not like Noach where Hashem destroyed the world with the Mabul. No, no. Simply it just ceases to exist.

53:25fulfilling the covenant of learning Torah day and night, the rules of the world will cease to exist. Meaning no more gravity, no more oxygen, no more hydrogen, no more everything. No more world. Not like Noach where Hashem destroyed the world with the Mabul. No, no. Simply it just ceases to exist. And for anyone who wants to know how such a thing can happen, they can watch one of my shiurim where I show it by providing some evidence from how the atom is made up and comprised of multiple parts, showing how it is actually mostly empty space. But anyway, the Torah HaKedoshah tells us that Hashem says that the whole world exists for the Jew. If not for a Jew learning Torah, no more world. What does this mean? It means that Hashem will use different parts of the world, different people in the world, in order to supply something for the Jew. To such an extent that sometimes He's going to give some Arab sheikh that prays five times a day to kill Am Yisrael, He's going to give him five billion dollars.

54:42He's going to give him five billion dollars. Why? Because the Arab sheikh, even though he hates Am Yisrael, and he hates Jews, and he hates this, and he hates himself, and he hates his wife, and the 15 wives that he has, and he doesn't know how to read really, he doesn't know how to write anything, and he believes in a guy who didn't know how to read and write either, but he gives him five billion dollars. Why? Because the Arab sheikh is going to take two billion out of the five billion, and he's going to build a building in the middle of the desert. He's going to build a big building, a huge building, in the middle of the desert. No one's there. He's going to build a building in the middle of the desert. Why? Why would Hashem give the Arab who hates Jews five billion dollars so he can use two of it to build a building in the middle of the desert? Because one day, 25 years from now, a tzaddik is going to come and he's going to go in the desert, and he's going to get hot, so he needs shade. And he can use the building for shade. Meaning, two billion dollars are brought to the world to bring to an Arab for what? So the Jew can have shade for five minutes. That's how important a Jew is. That's how important you are. Now, how many of you are there? One. But let's just give one of the statistics. Do you ever think about one of the statistics for you to be you? Let's think about it.

56:03At this point, we are approaching almost 8 billion people. We're somewhere in the neighborhood of maybe 7.6, say 7.9 billion people. It doesn't really make a difference. Let's just call it 8 billion people. In 1964, the smartest scientists in the world said that we are now at 3 billion people. If we don't start killing people or not having kids, we're going to all starve to death within 10 years. 60 years have passed, Baruch Hashem, we're just getting fatter and fatter. And we have 5 more billion people. The smartest scientists in the world actually led to a lot of death in the world. The Chinese government decided to implement the law and forbid anyone from having more than one kid. The Indian government started poisoning their own people, killing millions of people. Millions of people said, no, no, there are too many people already.

57:03around the world listened to these stupid scientists who said, "No, the scientists said that if we don't start killing people or not having kids, we're all gonna starve to death." Sixty years later, we're only fatter and there's five billion more of us, and there's space enough for an unlimited amount of people. That's because scientists don't run the world; they just run their mouth. But anyway... At this point, we're almost at 8 billion people. Out of the 8 billion people, there's approximately, give or take, 20 million known Jews, meaning that their mother is Jewish, based on halacha. There's a lot of people that say they're Jewish, but there's approximately 20 million that we know, some people say 13 million, let's just use round numbers for simplicity's sake. Out of the 20 million Jews, approximately 3 million, or 15%, keep Shabbat. 3 million out of the 20 million keep Shabbat. Now, what’s 20 million out of 8 billion? It’s not even a rounding error.

58:13When they say 7.9 billion or 8 billion, they're not saying it's literally exactly 7.9 billion or 8 billion. What they mean is, if it's 8 billion, they really mean it's like 7.96 billion, meaning they're just rounding the number. They're rounding 40 million. They're just adding 40 million to the number, meaning that 20 million is not even a rounding error out of the 8 billion, in the grand scheme of things. So, the amount of Jews that are actually born to a Jewish mother, 20 million is not even a rounding error. Out of those 20 million, there's only 3 million that actually keep Shabbat, meaning they keep the basic covenant to be a Jew. As the prophet Yirmiyahu says, the same one, the same prophet said, if not for My covenant, no world. Shabbat is called the covenant. 3 million keep the covenant. 3 million is not even 1%. 1% of 8 billion is 80 million. That means the 3 million is not even 10%. It's not even 5% of the 80 million.

59:41It's a statistical anomaly. It's like you're more likely to win the lottery five times in a row, jackpot, than to be a righteous Jew who keeps Shabbat. That's how special you are. That's how special you are if you keep Shabbat and keep what Hashem said. And you're saying, "Oh, I'm not really sure I want to be religious. It wasn't my choice. I'm not really sure I want to dress like this. Maybe the goyim look like they're having fun." What fun, today they announced, this journalist announced, there's a guy in Spain, he decided to get married. The only problem is his new wife is a donkey. I'm serious, I'm not joking. I would laugh with you if this was a joke. There are pictures of the wedding, the donkey has a gown on, and there are women who are carrying the donkey's gown. Now, the fact that people are low and disgusting has always been the case. We've always had disgusting, filthy people. But now, we are officially in a place where we have no shame in being disgusting.

1:00:52Disgusting. Unfortunately, they exist. People that go with same sex, a guy is a homosexual; instead of marrying a woman, he marries a man. Instead of marrying a husband, she marries a wife. Disgusting. We have in the world people that go and they marry their dogs and so on. But in general, until recent history, all this was private. Why? Because people had a little bit of shame. They had shame and said, listen, I have some skeletons in my closet. I'm going to leave them in the closet. I don't need to share my business, my filth with the world. No one goes to the world when he takes out his garbage and says, hey, come look at what's in my garbage pail. No one does that. Why? It's garbage. No one needs to know your sex life. No one needs to know what your weird things are. No one needs to know that until this generation came. This generation, we started showing everybody our garbage. Instead of putting a garbage pail out, we throw the garbage in the middle of the street for everyone to see. And if that's not enough, we start celebrating that we have garbage. We have marches to tell everyone, look at how much filth I have surrounding me. So the guy has a public wedding, there are pictures, and he's marrying his donkey, Rabotai.

1:02:10Now, what's the saddest part? The saddest part is that he's not alone. There are people that attended the wedding. There are people that are carrying the gown of the donkey and clapping and celebrating that this imbecile married a donkey. We are in a generation that's the combination of Sodom and Gomorrah and the Dor HaMabul. Meaning we're the worst of the worst. This means, Rabotai, there's not much time. There's not much time for you to do teshuva and do accounting. Do I want to start becoming modest and wear a dress that actually covers my body? Or do I want to continue looking like a goy? Do I want to continue looking like the donkey that walks around naked? do I want to continue being like the goyim or do I want to be a Jew? To be a Jew means you're very special. To be a Jew means that you're following the Torah, you're following an instruction set from Hashem. An instruction set from Hashem. It doesn't get better than that. Why? The other instruction set that you have in society tells you that it's okay to marry a donkey. What else do you have to look forward to?

1:03:16This generation, I feel bad for them. What do you have to look forward to? You're a top person in the world today and highlighted in the news, marry the donkey. This is what people look forward to. And you're telling me that the Torah is not good enough. There's only one other person we know in history that married a donkey. His name is Bilaam. Bilaam also married a donkey. He has no share in the world to come. He's in Gehinnom forever. We don't want to be in Gehinnom forever. We want to be in Gan Eden. The Torah is not an instruction book that gives you the choice to follow or not to follow. The Torah says you must follow. The Torah says if you follow, you get good. You're going to marry a human being of the opposite gender. You're going to have righteous kids that will respect you. When you say something, they'll say, yes, sir. When you say something, they'll say, yes, ma'am. When you want to give them something, they'll say, "Thank you." And they'll say, "Please." You'll have respect in the family. You'll have the kids actually listening to you. Why? Because you listen to Abba. You listen to your parent. You listen to Hashem. Your kids will listen to you. You disobey Hashem, your kids will disobey you. That's the way it works, rabotai. You want to have kids like you? Continue doing whatever you want.

1:04:37You want to have righteous kids? You become righteous. You start doing what you're supposed to do. Why? Because the generation today is getting worse and worse by the day. The average Jew wants to be a goy. And I'm not just talking about secular people. I'm talking about religious Jews. How many religious Jews right now are pretending like they're rap stars, are pretending that they're gonna go and join the NBA, they're gonna join the football team. Their idol is LeBron James. Their idol is some other athlete or some other movie star. No one says my idol, my role model is Moshe Rabbeinu, Sarah Imeinu. No one says that. Why? Because no one wants to do what Moshe Rabbeinu did, because what Moshe Rabbeinu did actually requires effort. It requires you to change yourself. It requires you to be a good person. It requires you to subject yourself to Hashem's law, meaning you have to submit. You have to say, I'm sorry, I don't know what I'm doing, Hashem, tell me what to do.

1:05:43This is rule number one of teshuva. You want to do teshuva? Start with this. Start with saying, Hashem, I have no idea what I'm doing. Please tell me what to do. Oh, my son, my daughter, welcome back. Here, I gave you a love letter. It's called the Torah. Read it. If it's from Hashem, you'll know exactly what to do. This, Rabotai, is the cheshbon nefesh we need to do every single day. But at the very least, if you haven't done it until now, start now. It's Chodesh Elul. It's the month of teshuva. It's the month of preparation for Yom HaDin. The Judgment Day is coming up. We're only a few weeks away. We're only a few weeks away from Judgment Day, when Hashem is going to decide: live or die, a lot of money or no money, married or single—all the things that you want will be decided in a few weeks. Meaning, if you haven't done so well until now, get yourself together. You have a chance. Why? That's what Hashem designated Elul for. Elul is a time... do teshuva ideally. Why? Because the King is in the field. The King is here, and He's listening to you. Yeah, you weren't here all year. All year you've been wearing dresses that don't even cover your knees. Oh, you didn't cover your head, or you covered it in a way that you look single all the time. All year you didn't even pray half the time. All year, tefillah was like an obligation for you; it wasn't something...

1:07:05or a chore for you. You didn't really want to do it. You made it like you're doing somebody a favor by laying tefillin. All year you showed up to one shiur a year. One shiur a week. To learn Torah, it's easier to split the sea. All year we didn't do so good. Hashem says, no problem. I'll accept you back now. But get ready now. Don't show up to Rosh Hashanah. Oh, I'm here. What, I'm here? You get ready. You prepare for the big trial. Did you prepare for the big trial? Every normal person that has a trial can't sleep at night. Why? They're scared they're going to lose. But that's the philosophy of a parking ticket, a speeding ticket. We're scared of trials against a parking ticket. How come we're not scared of a trial for our life? That's what the trial is. The trial is for your life. The problem is most people don't believe it. People like my cousin that died at 23 years old, they're the proof that that's the way it works. Everyone thinks they're going to live to 120. In B'ezrat Hashem, everyone does. The reality is it's not going to happen, even if we pray for it. Why? It's not the nature of the world. The nature of the world is that every single person is designated an allotted time. A certain amount of time you're designated from Shamayim before you come to this life. Some people have 10 years.

1:08:29Some people have 20, some people have 120, and some people in between—50, 60, 70, 80, 90, and so on. None of us know how much time we have, which means we better start doing teshuvah now. We better start becoming more modest now. We better start praying now. We better start learning now. Why? Maybe tomorrow is the next day. Maybe tomorrow is the last day. So at least when I go up to Shamayim, I want to show up with something. Yeah, Hashem, I didn't know I only had this amount of time. But look, I finished the Shas. I finished this. I finished that. I gave tzedakah. I gave this. I went to the mikveh. I did whatever I could with the time You gave me. I didn't walk around like the goyot. I walked around like a modest Jewish woman. I didn't idolize becoming a basketball star. I idolized becoming Rabbi Akiva. I idolized becoming a kosher Jew. That's what I wanted to be. I wanted to be a kosher Jew that everywhere people see, ah, you know what? Ashrecha, look at this nice Jew. Wow, how wonderful it is to be a Jew. Look at these nice people.

1:09:34Not be one of these people who's like, look at this go'el nefesh, look at these disgusting people. Why? Because sometimes you see Jews that act disgustingly. Don't be disgusting. Don't be the donkey and don't be the guy that marries the donkey. Be the righteous Jew. Be the good example. Right now is the time to do cheshbon nefesh. Cheshbon nefesh, I have to figure out where do I stand? Where's my list? It all starts with cheshbon nefesh. And the first thing you realize with cheshbon nefesh, with self-accounting, is that shame and fear are good things. Shame and fear are good things. Why? Because without shame, you're never going to even acknowledge you have a problem. If you're not ashamed of bad things, then you think there's nothing wrong with marrying a donkey. You think there's nothing wrong with going against Hashem. No shame, there's no humanity. We're no different than the animals. The animals walk around naked. They don't feel bad about it. You never see a lion say, "You know what, I really should get some shorts on." You never see that. You never see a zebra say, "No, no, I'm not going out today. Why? I have no pants. I have no pants. I can't go outside. I have no pants. Give me pants. I'll go outside." You never see that. Why? They have no shame. Humans are supposed to have shame. You have to have shame. You have to cover yourself. You have to act like Hashem is watching you.

1:10:53Shame is the beginning. The next thing is fear. Why is fear good? If you're not afraid of the boss, you're never going to listen to him. You're never going to listen to the boss. You're never going to listen to Hashem if you're not afraid of Him. And the first level of fear is fear of punishment. Remember, Hashem is not your friend. If you do what He says, good. If not, He can punish you. And the punishment is very, very scary. The Rabbi of Yad Vashalom used to say in one of the drashot, I saw it today, one of the drashot he said, you have to teach kids about Gehenom at six years old, at a young age. Tell them if you don't do what Hashem says, Hashem will punish you with a horrible punishment in Gehenom. He would say it, Gehenom he would say. It wasn't just Rav Shalom Arush saying Gehenom. Rav Ovadia said Ge'enom too, and all tzaddikim said Ge'enom. He said, teach this to your kids at six years old, as soon as they have da'at, teach them about Ge'enom, teach them that there's a punishment, a horrible one. Why? If you teach them at a young age that there's punishment, they'll always be scared of Hashem. They're always going to be scared of Hashem, even at 26, and at 36, and at 46. But who's not scared of Hashem? The 30-year-old that never heard about Ge'enom at six.

1:12:01The 50-year-old that never heard about Ge'enom at six. The one whose first time hearing about Ge'enom is from Yaron Reuven and he's already 27. He's already 37. Oh, you're so scary. What's scary? That's Torah. That's the Torah. So, Rabotai, we're out of time. I have another shiur in Brooklyn. I hope that this gives you a little bit of chizuk. It gave me some chizuk to do some heshbon nefesh. Do some accounting. Check ourselves. Check yourselves. Where do I stand? You check yourself with your career. Check yourself with your marriage. You check yourself with your kids. You check yourself with everything else. Check yourself with Hashem. Do some cheshbon nefesh, some accountability. What am I doing for the King? B'ezrat Hashem, we start doing the accounting. That's the first step. And little by little, prepare for Rosh Hashanah, for Judgment Day, and show up with something in our hand. Okay, Hashem, I wasn't so good up till now, but I promise, You give me this year, I'm going to at least do 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 things. I'm going to do something. Show up with something. Maybe you're not going to become Moshe Rabbeinu next year, but you can do something. Everyone can do something. Everyone can buy a longer skirt. Everyone can buy a kisui rosh. Everyone can buy tefillin. And if you can't buy it, I'll buy it for you.

1:13:13I'll find a donor, and I'll give you the money to buy it for yourself. I don't have any more money, but I'll find somebody. I'll go back in the street for you to buy a longer dress if I have to. I'll go back in the street to buy you tefillin if I have to. Why? Because it's for you. If you can't do it for yourself, then Hashem will send me; I'll do it for you. Do you understand what I'm saying? That's how important it is because Hashem already picked you to be a Jew, and you're a statistical anomaly. your statistical impossibility. So, if He made you my brother, He made you my sister, that means I'm obligated to help you. Be'ezrat Hashem, each one of us will help each other and sanctify Hashem's name forevermore. Baruch Adonai le'olam. Amen ve'Amen.