Afflictions Of Love - MUSSAR Iggeret HaRAMBAN (31)

0:17We are on our Tuesday night shiur, Igeret HaRamban, at Neve Shalom, in Aventura, Florida. Today's shiur will be for a refuah shleimah for Rabbanit Levana Bat Sarah, who Yosef Ben Levana, Rav Efraim Ben Shulamit, Rabbanit Saar Bat Anat, Doris Bat Zhora, David Ben Esria, Dvora Bat Mercedes, and Esther Bat Zipporah. And all of Klal Yisrael, we have refuat shleimah, refuat hanefesh, refuat haguf, and also for Stefan Ben Katarina. By default, as I mentioned last Sunday, we had a shiur, and people are asking at different times, when the Yetzer HaTov gets into them, and the Yetzer HaRa is on vacation, people ask, what does it take to sponsor a lecture?

1:41So I discussed it on Sunday, so we're not going to repeat, but there's two types of lectures. There's the local lectures, which are these, you know, three times a week, we have lectures in Florida, which could range anywhere from $1,500 to $4,500, depending on how big the event is, how many people, food, and so on. But then there's the lectures where people want me to travel to different places, And for those lectures, it's a little bit different because they really have to invest in the event to make sure there will be at least a few hundred people because it's not very easy for me to fly. So if I'm already going to fly, it has to be something worthwhile. But the reason why I mention it again is because if somebody sponsors a lecture, whether it's a partial lecture, the whole lecture, it's him and a few friends, him by himself, her by herself, all of the blessings, it's not just that they get the merits of the mitzvot that come out of that shiur, but they also get the extra blessings as well, whether it be refuah shleimah that they need, zivug, parnasah tovah, whatever it is that they need, the power of Torah is already by itself enormous, but the Torah being publicized to the world for the sake of helping people do teshuvah, there is no greater merit than that.

3:05Someone asked me just the other day, you know, people always ask me questions, they don't mean anything by it, but some of these questions, when you think about them, they're a little bit silly. But it's very funny, people always ask me about who they should donate to. They tell me that Rosh Yeshivah Shlita (RSY) has changed their life, and now they are this, and they're that, and this, and now they want to start giving Maaser, so they give me two, three different options of organizations they want to donate to. Which one do I like the best? So, you know, it's interesting, but I know it's my personal tikkun. But anyway, the other day, a very nice couple asked me, what do I think of, there's a few of these organizations that are collecting money from people for the sake of building the next Beit HaMikdash. What do I think? Should they donate to them?

4:05And I told them clearly what I'm going to tell you now. Anyone that's collecting money to build the next Beit HaMikdash is either an ignorant fool that will never see the Beit HaMikdash because they haven't learned Torah, or they're a criminal that will also not see the Beit HaMikdash. Why? Because anyone that has read the Prophets, anyone that has read the prophecies of what's going to happen at the end of times, knows that money is going to be the least of our problems at the time of Mashiach. One of the signs that the Mashiach is the Mashiach is that he's going to be able to build a Beit HaMikdash. He's not going to need to borrow any money from any banks, to say the least. He's not going to need to apply for any loans. You're not going to see the Mashiach going to your local Chase Bank and applying. Yes, sir. What's your name? First name? Mashiach. Okay. Last name? Ben David. Okay. Date of birth? Today. Okay. Where are you from? Here. Oh, okay. Sure, sure. What's your annual income? Zero. Oh, we're sorry, sir. We can't approve you. Like, what are people thinking? You think you're going to need money to build the Beit HaMikdash? What are we, Christians? Who thinks of this?

5:21So who thinks of this? Criminals. Criminals or ignorant people. It's hard for me to believe that people are that ignorant, but I've seen some people that are so ignorant that it wouldn't surprise me that a group or actually several groups of organizations are collecting money from innocent souls to build the next Beit HaMikdash. It's the most absurd thing in the world. There's even an opinion by the sages that the Beit HaMikdash is going to come down from heaven ready, set, with just a couple of stones missing, so we can become shutafim, partners with Hashem in building it. But in reality, the whole thing is going to be built. But either way, Rabotai, anyone that asks you for money to build a Beit HaMikdash, or to go fund the next menorah, or to go fund a bunch of red cows, any of that stuff, just put it on the block list. It's on your phone, after you go on contact, You scroll down, it says block, press block. Outright. It's complete nonsense. The most important thing that a person needs to do first, more than any tzedakah in the world, is save themselves. Save themselves. What does it mean, save yourself? Teshuvah. Every person must do teshuvah. Every person.

6:44Every person has to correct their character traits. Every person has to overcome obstacles. Every person has to overcome addictions. We had a shiur last night with our dear friend Leo in Chicago, which Baruch Hashem has been a big hit in the last 24 hours. And the reality is that addictions of all types, whether it be drugs, gambling, sex, alcohol, and so on... Unfortunately, in every single community, and the Jewish communities are not excluded from that list, people that want to see Mashiach have to overcome their addictions. If you're not going to overcome your addiction, you're not going to see Mashiach. If your addiction is to drive on Shabbat because you don't think it's such a big deal, guess what? It's a big deal. Hashem says it's a big deal. So, the first thing that a person needs to do before he writes any checks is to fix himself. you have an arrogant personality, you're a mean person, you're stingy, you have some type of character trait that obviously everyone else thinks is bad, guess what? You have to fix it. That's how you get yourself prepared for Mashiach. Because Mashiach is not going to be, you know, giving shiurim once a week, oh guys, you didn't do teshuvah yet? Okay, next week. I'll see you next Tuesday.

8:03Mashiach is going to smell the fear of God, smell the fear of God in people, and decide, judge right there. Right there. Alive or dead. On the spot. No second trials. No, I'll see you next week; we'll give you another chance. On the spot. That means, if we don't start getting ready to fix our horrible character traits, our horrible sins, our horrible, whatever God says is horrible, guess what? No amount of tzedakah in the world is going to help you. So first and foremost, before you write any checks, save yourself. Once you're already on the path of saving yourself, then you have both a moral and a biblical obligation to save others. You have to help people get closer to Hashem. Why? Because they're all His creations. They're all His children. And the last thing you want is for Hashem to have His Mashiach have a face-to-face with you and say, "Listen, didn't Hashem give you like half a million dollars in the bank? Didn't Hashem give you like a million, two million, three million dollars in the bank? What did you do with it? Oh, you have a house in the Palms, a house in Mexico. How are those houses doing for you? They're good. They went up in price. What about all those Jewish neshamot? What about all those Jewish neshamot that you could have saved with that money?"

9:28Instead of having 13 houses, you could have had one. It's enough. Maybe two. You didn't have to have all those houses. You didn't have to have all those cars. You didn't have to have such a big collection of watches. You didn't have to have all these different things. Okay, you want to enjoy the world? No problem. But did you at least fulfill the minimum requirement of giving a ma'aser for the sake of saving other Jewish neshamot? Why? Because Hashem is going to say, that's my kid too. I gave you money, not for you to just buy houses and cars and this and that. Also, to save neshamot. You are my tool. You didn't serve your purpose. The last thing you want is that meeting. Why? Because even if you're keeping Shabbat, even if you're keeping Taharat HaMishpacha, you're keeping kosher, I promise you, you're not going to want to have that meeting. If you have money in the bank, you have money invested in all types of things, but your Kiryuv account is halfway homeless. Why? Because this is our last chance. This is everybody's last chance. No more chances after this. Someone lives, someone dies, finished. Mashiach comes, finished. So if a person wants to be wise, wants to invest into the future, not the future in this world, the future of eternity, they have to invest into Kiruv. They have to invest into publicizing Torah. There is nothing greater than that in the world. Because you're literally taking your hard-earned money...

10:55you're taking your blood, sweat, and tears, and you're telling Hashem, Hashem, I know it's all Yours anyway. I'm going to take, out of the 100% You gave me, I'm going to take 10%, I'm going to invest it so You can get Your other kids back home. That's what I'm going to do, Hashem. No one in the world can ever accuse you of anything at that point. Why? כל המזכה את הרבים, אין חטא בא על ידו. Anyone that helps the public do teshuva, the Mishnah in Avot says, sin doesn't come to his hand. He has special protection from Heaven. Special protection from Heaven. Of course, he cannot be a thief and donate the money he stole. Of course, he cannot be a mechalel Shabbat and help other people keep Shabbat. Hashem is not going to give him such merit or her merit. But a person needs to know that, unfortunately, because there's so much money involved, ...the religious world, or if you want to call it even the religious business. Unfortunately, there's a lot of criminals. There's simply a lot of criminals. Some of the criminals have long beards. Some of the criminals have big hats. Some don't. Some are Christian. Some are Jews. Some are Arabs. There's all that. There's no, there's no like, "Oh, only they are," no, there's criminals. There's young criminals. There's old criminals. There's female criminals. There's male criminals. All types of criminals and...

12:20You have to be smart. Just like if you were going to make a major investment into property or stocks or companies or anything like that, you're going to do research. You're going to get references. You're going to double-check. You're going to check what the rest of the neighborhood looks like. Before I buy this house that looks beautiful, for half a million dollars, let me check the neighbors. Let me see what happens. Let me see the crime report. Let me see what's going on here. Before you invest in it, why? Because you want to check where your money is going. Well, guess what? When it comes to kiruv, when it comes to your tzedakah money, when it comes to your ma'aser money, which are two different mitzvot—ma'aser is 10%, tzedakah is as much as you want. When it comes to that, rabotai, that's the only thing that we're going to actually have left from this world. The tzedakah that we gave, the ma'aser that we gave, And the Torah that we fulfilled. The Torah that we learned. That's it. Nothing else. The cars, the houses, the fancy pens and watches, the fun vacations, whatever, the food you ate on Tuesday—none of that's going to help you. None of that's going to come with you. So, it's important that we act wisely with our investments. Now, many times people look at their...

13:48money that they donate. And they see that sometimes their donations really haven't helped their life very much. They still have tza'arot. They still have problems. They donated, they built a Beit Knesset, they bought a Sefer Torah. You know, they did a lot of nice things. But their problems didn't go away. In fact, sometimes their problems increased. I remember after I bought a Sefer Torah years ago, when I actually still had money, And I just did it because it was a good thing to do. I didn't necessarily think. No one ever told me, "Oh, you buy the Sefer Torah, you're going to heaven." And even if they would have told me that, I wouldn't believe them. But I bought the Sefer Torah. And, you know, people made a big deal out of it. It was in the newspapers, at a big party. Baruch Hashem, it was nice. But the last thing on my mind was that after I bought that Sefer Torah, my life would slowly but surely go down the tubes.

14:50Like instead of things getting better, it actually got worse. Much, much worse. Much worse it got. You ask the average guy, listen, you know, how did your life turn out after you bought a Sefer Torah? If his life got much worse, many times the person doesn't want to do it again. If the person donated a lot of money for something good and bad things happen after, many times he doesn't want to do it again. He doesn't want to do it again. And that's the mistake. That's a mistake. And the reason why is because that means that you did research on donations, maybe to figure out what's the best donation. You did research, maybe on your business, to make you the money to make such a big donation. But unfortunately, you didn't do enough research on what is the purpose of your neshama in this world. And that's b'ezrat Hashem what we're going to talk about today. Why does every single person on earth have problems. Everyone has problems. There's no exception. The only people that don't have problems in this world are people that left this world. If you have problems, that's a good sign you're alive. But that means that whether you're doing good things or you're doing bad things, you have problems. Different problems nonetheless, but you have problems. So the Ramban, over 800 years ago, writes in his letter, after he tells us

16:16to make sure that we correct our character traits after he tells us, to make sure to run away from anger, to be nice to people, to look at people in a favorable way, to make sure that we learn from the Torah on a regular basis, review it, apply it to our life like we talked about last week. Now he continues and he says, v'tefashpesh b'ma'asav b'boker u'v'erev. He says, review your actions every morning and every evening. We are, if you have the small book, on page 98, which is the 25th chapter. Review your actions every morning and every evening. Now, he told us to learn Torah. He told us to see what we learned that we could apply to our life. He says, no, no, absolutely not.

17:17Absolutely not. You actually have to review your actions. Yeah, but if I already applied stuff to my life, doesn't that mean that I reviewed my actions? No. The reason why is because when I say to you guys, review your actions, what does that mean to you? No, you don't have to be shy. They don't see you on the camera. They only see me. What does it mean to you? When I say review your actions, what does that mean to Son, you tell me, what does it mean to you? Other than the brownie, what does it mean to you to review your actions? Like how you did today. How, what does it mean? How you did what? Your attitude. Attitude, what? Good attitude, bad attitude, good stuff, bad stuff, what? Maybe like why bad things are happening to you. Okay, so review the bad stuff that's happening in your life. Yeah, but I also think like why it's happening to you. So review, so what's going to cause bad things to happen? Sin. Sin, so review the bad things you did. Okay, good. No? Anybody else have a different answer? And the good things you did? Why would you review the good things that you did? Because you need to know that. You need to know both so you can improve on it also. How can you improve? If it's already good, how can you improve it? I don't know what to say. You know what to say. You had the answer. I'm going to keep focusing on you because you have the answer. That's the answer I'm looking for. Why do I have to look at the good stuff? Bad stuff, everybody knows. Because you can't...

18:38If you only look at the bad, you'll get depressed and you'll just think you're sometimes... No, you're going in the wrong direction. You're performing a U-turn on me right now. Okay. Why do I have to review the good stuff? No, who's going to give me the answer? Why do I have to review the good stuff? No. How to make it even better. How to make it better. Okay, that's nice. What else? What's another reason? Why do I have to review the good stuff? To not be depressed. Not to be depressed. I have to give myself a pat on the back. I want to come to your house every day. No? Why do I have to look at the good stuff? Anybody else want to volunteer any more answers? If you think of yourself as being good or being perfect, then you might look upon yourself as being like, "Oh, I'm good already." So you get content. You get content. You become prideful. Okay, both of you are in the right direction, but it's not it yet. You're almost in the middle, so you can choose between going back, but that's not the answer. Nice, nice. You guys are in it. Okay, so let me tell you, this is a fantastic chiddush. But it's deep. It's something that you have to think about for a second, because naturally, we're never going to come up with it. We have to use the sages to come up with this answer. If anyone here would have come up with the answer, I would have probably hugged you.

20:02Why don't we come up with this answer? We have to go back 800 years to come up with this answer. So, the Ramban is telling you, you have to review your actions. In the morning and at night, meaning there's a lot of stuff going on. A lot of stuff going on. So, reviewing your actions is introspection, or in Hebrew it's cheshbon hanefesh. And the Ramchal, the Mesilat Yesharim, says that a person has to carefully examine his ways on a daily basis. Just like a successful businessman constantly supervises and evaluates their investments, a person has to designate a special time each day to do his cheshbon hanefesh, his personal accounting, to conduct everything he did in a in a positive way, in a good way, and is getting good returns. You have a store. At the end of the day, I remember I used to work in retail when I was a teenager. Every day at the end of the day, you know, the boss opens the cash register and starts looking at the receipts, seeing how much they made for the day. He either has a smile or he has a frown. You know, it's, "How did we do today?" Because you have an average. You're making a thousand a day, 10,000 a day, 20,000 a day. If you met that average, you're happy.

21:29You did above that average, you're even happier. You went below average, something's wrong. You do below average more than a few times, you have to make changes. If you have any type of company, you have to do this type of analysis on a regular basis. Sometimes daily, sometimes weekly, sometimes monthly. But the point is that as a businessman, every person understands that you have to review what's going on, your profit and loss, if you will. The Ramban is telling us you have to do it as a human being also. But you cannot wait for the whole week to go. You can't wait for the whole month to go. You can't even wait the whole year all the way to Rosh Hashanah. Why? It's too late already. You have to do it every day. You have to review it in such a way that the Mesilat Yesharim explains that you have to scrutinize yourself and review all of your horrible things. That you already know about yourself. You went to a shiur, the Rabbi says you're not allowed to steal. Not from Jews, not from Gentiles. Okay, you already know at that second you heard that statement whether you're a thief or not. You know you're a thief. So if the Rabbi says you're not allowed, Torah says you're not allowed, you already know you have to fix that if you're a thief. The Torah says you're not allowed to be arrogant. Why? HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, "I hate arrogant people." You already know if you're an arrogant person. If you think you're better than everybody else, guess what? You're arrogant.

22:57If your wife complains to you that you're arrogant, I promise you, you're arrogant. People in your workplace complain that you're an arrogant person, or you think who you are, and all types of other expressions that are similar to it, that's what you are. You have to fix that. Why? Hashem hates it. Everyone knows their bad stuff immediately. If I say, "What's bad about you?" every single one of us that's normal, immediately, one, two, three, four, five things pop up. I gotta fix this. I gotta fix this. I gotta get over this thing. I gotta do it. But that doesn't require day and night. You already know it. When you wake up, you go, and you know that you've had it for a night. You've had it for 30 years. So the Mesilat Yesharim explains that you have to, it says, scrutinize and evaluate. The scrutiny is over the wrongdoings, the things that are obvious. But the evaluation is evaluating your good things. Why are you evaluating your good things? The reasons that you gave were wonderful. Don't get prideful. Don't get content. Yeah, that's nice. But the sages say something different. They say, listen, let's look at what the Rambam said last week. He said, study Torah every day and apply it to your life.

24:23And don't get up until you apply it. Don't just treat it like a history book. Now he says, review your actions day and night. Why? Now that you've learned Torah, now that you've learned a few new things in your life, now review your good actions. Are they still good? Before you learned Torah, you thought they were good. You thought it was a mitzvah to steal money from goyim. Because somebody told you, yeah, just steal from goyim, what's the big deal? Now that you've learned that in a million and a half different places, it says that stealing from goyim is worse than stealing from Jews. Worse. It's chilul Hashem too. Not just theft, it's all chilul Hashem. Is that stealing still good? Yeah, but Rabbi, I donated the money to a synagogue. That synagogue is not going to stand, because the money is not clean. That's what the Pele Yoetz says. The Pele Yoetz says there are certain people that fool themselves. into thinking that you're allowed to steal from goyim. There's a heter, there's a leniency. And they make themselves feel better by donating the money to synagogues. And they get kavod from the community. "Good job. Thanks for donating. We wouldn't be here without you." So he feels good. He says they don't realize that they're worse than anybody else.

25:52It's worse to steal from goyim than to steal from Jews because not only is it theft that's forbidden in the Shulchan Aruch, forbidden in the Torah, forbidden in every place, but also it leads to Chilul Hashem. Also, it leads to giving power to Amalek. Also, it leads to giving the angel, the sar of the goyim, the right to steal from the angel of the Jews. All types of horrible things happen when we steal from goyim. Now you guys are probably thinking, I'm thinking, oh yeah, stealing probably, don't rob his house. No, I don't mean that. What if a goy says to you, "Listen, I want to buy kosher meat. I want to buy kosher meat. Why? I want to eat kosher." Now, all of us know, goyim are not obligated to eat kosher meat. They're not obligated. If a goy eats a pig, or eats a bat, or eats a cow, it doesn't make a difference. As long as it's dead, he's allowed to eat it. No problem. There's no prohibition from eating any of these animals. These people are saying, oh, this stuff is happening because they eat animals. No, it has nothing to do with that. It has to do with eating live animals. Eating live animals is forbidden for everybody. Now, so what if this guy wants to...

27:11elevate himself. He says, I am not going to eat bats, cats, dogs, and everything else. I want to eat what you guys eat. I want to eat the kosher cow that's slaughtered, preserved, and salted. I want to eat that. Now, you know, he came to shul; he doesn't have to do it. It doesn't change anything about him. He doesn't become holier because he's eating kosher meat. It doesn't affect his mind like it affects a Jew. It has nothing to do with him. Nothing. Nothing. No effect on the non-Jew at all if he eats kosher meat. If a Jew eats kosher meat, it affects his neshamah. A non-Jew eats kosher meat, nothing. So now, you go to the back, and you see, I got kosher meat. This guy is going to buy a thousand dollars' worth of kosher meat. So I got the kosher meat box. And the kosher meat box cost me, let's say, 600, 700. I'm going to sell it for 1,000. It's a good profit. But then I have the bad stuff, the stuff that is not kosher. You know, the shechitah went bad. So usually what do you do? You sell it to the Arabs. Because the Arabs, you know, they have halal. They also slaughter their animals, just in a different way. So in essence, all of the bad shechitot we sell to the Arabs. That's why you're always going to see the kosher butcher right next to the halal meat on the same block.

28:34Because they buy the meat from us when it's not good. When it's not good for us, it's still good for them. I mean, it's still a good product, but it's just not kosher for us. So now he sees, oh, here's the halal meat right next to it. But now you cannot sell the halal meat, you cannot sell the non-kosher meat for a thousand dollars. This is dropped in price by 60%. 400 bucks if you're lucky. But this guy doesn't know it. Can I sell him Can I sell him the non-kosher meat for a thousand bucks? You're all going to say no because we already started the topic. But tell me why. Tell me why. First of all, the kosher meat doesn't affect him. Second of all, he doesn't have to eat kosher meat. Third, he's never going to know. He's never going to know. And four, I'm going to take the $600 profit instead of the $400 profit. I'm going to take the $600 profit and I'm going to give it to B'ezrat Hashem. I'm going to give it to a Kiruv organization. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do a mitzvah with it. What's the problem? No, give me a reason why. Why am I not allowed to do this? He says he wants kosher meat. Whether it affects him or not, it's not up to you to decide. Right. So he said kosher meat. You have to give him the kosher meat. That's the deal. Simple as that.

29:56Why? I need a why. I know that there's a reason, no? I got you, but I need a why. I'm stealing his mind. He, whether it affects him or not, like Satan said, doesn't make a difference to me. But he is under the impression that he is buying kosher meat. He is paying for kosher meat. That's the impression he's under. What it's gonna do for him, not gonna do for him, that's not my business. The reality is, he's under the impression that it's gonna do something for him. He's paying for it. I'm not allowed to get in the way. I'm not allowed to steal his mind. I'm not allowed to sell him a fake watch and tell him it's real. I'm not allowed to give him fake dollar bills. I'm not allowed to sell him a house, tell him, oh, this house is fantastic, and I know the house has to change the pipes in two weeks. Oh, this house, yeah, it's amazing. Amazing house, the block, look, all the neighbors are nice people. What a wonderful house you have. You look at the look of the house. Yeah, yeah, how much you want for it? $600,000. Okay, deal. Now, the guy that sold it knew that the house has to change the pipes.

31:18And he didn't do it himself. Why? Why didn't he do it himself? Because changing the pipes is going to cost you 50, 60 thousand dollars. Guess what? According to the Torah, that's Mekach Ta'ut. That deal can be canceled. If you can prove that he knew there was a problem, you cancel the whole deal. Why? Because you didn't buy it under the impression and the knowledge that you're going to have to spend 60 thousand dollars to fix this place. You bought it as if everything is good. If the guy knew there's already something bad, you have a very serious problem. Now, whether that buyer is a Jew or a non-Jew, it doesn't matter. You're not allowed to do it to either one of them. But it's actually worse if he's a non-Jew. It's worse if he's a non-Jew because it leads to the chilul Hashem. Now, some are going to tell you, wait a minute, hold on a second. There is a Rambam that says that the mistake of the goy is allowed. It's allowed if you didn't know about it and he made it on his own. And some opinions say even that's not allowed. But if you knew about it and you tricked him, it's forbidden by all opinions. Meaning, if you're in the jewelry business, okay, and somebody comes to you and he says, "Listen, I want to sell this inheritance that I have. I've got this, I don't know, this piece of jewelry, whatever, this watch. You want to pay me anything for it?"

32:46You look at it, it's like, it's not worth anything. It's not worth anything. I'm not even sure I want it. And you know in your heart this thing is worth $150,000. You know for sure it's worth $150,000 cash. But you want to destroy this guy's morale. Because he came in there expecting hopefully $10,000, $20,000, $30,000. Now you want to destroy the guy. And you want to get this guy to sell it to you for nothing. Guess what? In Shamayim, you are 100% a thief. Gezel 100%. 100% thief. You knew it? Thief. Not allowed. Now you go to 47th Street, you go to different places in Miami, different places in Los Angeles, you can tell them this, they're going to put me on hearing. Say, this guy is not allowed in any Jewish community. But that's not me, it's Halacha. Not allowed to cheat people. Not allowed. And you're going to say, yeah, but they're donating a lot of money. Donate all you want. You have to review your good actions. Did the good action that you did, was it really good? Or did you just think it's good? You gave money as a donation. Did you give the donation because you care? Or because you want everyone to say, "Oh, Mr. Smith and Mr. Rubin and Mr. this one and that one, they're the ones that built the Beit Knesset." Is that the reason you built it? It's not even a good action. What's good about it?

34:16That you got kavod, that's good. What kind of mitzvah is that? That's like a mitzvah with holes in it. Show off the shmatte with ripped clothes. You look like a rock star. What is that? That's what the Ramban is saying to us. When you review day and night, it's not just reviewing the bad, the obvious. You know that if you're stealing, for sure. You know if you're murdering, for sure. You know if you're eating treif, for sure. You know if you're cheating, for sure. You know. No. Review the good stuff. The things that you thought were good. But what would lead you to now think otherwise? Because now you learned Torah. You learned Torah, you reviewed it, you found new insights, you learned a new halacha, you learned a new insight about something that you never knew before. Now it's time to fix it. Now you have to review and compare it to your actions. That's the amazing chiddush of the Ramban here. Now, when a person looks at things that way, All of a sudden, he turns himself into suspect number one. He no longer cares so much about what everybody else is doing wrong. You know, there are a lot of people who can point out what's wrong with everybody else. Oh yeah, she's cheating, he's lying, he's this, he's ugly, she's fat, she's that. Everybody has something wrong except themselves. A person does not see flaws in himself.

35:42Why doesn't he see any flaws in himself? Because he's only looking at everybody else except himself. Once a person does this, he starts reflecting on himself based on what the Torah really says and compares it to what he actually does in comparison to the Torah, automatically nobody else matters. Why? I'm the biggest criminal in the world. Even in my mitzvot, I'm not even sure Hashem is going to accept them. They're like a mitzvah on discount, like from a heretic that gave it to me. What kind of mitzvah? He starts analyzing how you're supposed to pray. And then he compares the last 20 years of prayers and he says, honestly, I'm surprised if Hashem just put my prayers on a do-not-call list. You look at your prayers, you look at what Hashem says you're supposed to do, Hashem Yerachem. You look at the tzedakah that you give, you look at what Hashem expects from us, Hashem Yerachem. So reviewing yourself, oh wow, you get embarrassed. You get embarrassed. That's why Rabotai says, In this week's parasha, when Am Yisrael was complaining, they want this, they want that, they complained to Moshe Rabbeinu. In parashat Beshalach, Moshe Rabbeinu and Aharon HaKohen, two of the greatest human beings on earth. The Gemara says, no one else was greater than them. The Torah didn't give such a high description, such high attitude towards

37:11such appreciation towards anyone more than them, even Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov. They called Moshe— the Torah calls Moshe— the man of God. He was your loyal servant. No one else was a loyal servant. What servant? Moshe Rabbeinu. Moshe Rabbeinu, the king of Am Yisrael. The man of truth. If it wasn't for him, we would all still be in Egypt to this day, 3,300 years later. No one else could do the job. No one else wanted the job. And Moshe Rabbeinu tells Am Yisrael, we are nothing. We're nothing. He tells them, you're not complaining to me. What? Drink, this, that. Complain to me? I'm nothing. How could somebody so amazing, strong, beautiful, smart, holy, everything you can describe he has. How could such a person arrive at such a conclusion that not only he's not all those great things, he's the exact opposite. He's nothing. Tell me honestly, who here really thinks they're nothing? Don't lie to yourself. Don't raise your hand. Nobody thinks they're nothing. You know how I know? It says in the Torah.

38:40No one is ever going to be, no one ever was, no one is ever going to be like Moshe Rabbeinu, the humblest human being that ever existed. No one is ever going to think again, "I'm nothing," like Moshe Rabbeinu. Even if you're depressed, you still think you're more than nothing. Even if you're suicidal, you still think you're more than nothing. I met one guy, who had some type of disease that, you know, makes him look very weird and act very weird to the average normal person. And he starts, you know, he talks to the guy. This guy's more arrogant than anybody else in the room. He's like, yeah. I'm like, "Oh, you're looking for a shidduch?" "Yeah, no. I don't want somebody like me, though," he says. So, that was a, he had a, what is it called? Some type of disease that, you know, makes him look very weird and act very weird to the average normal person. And he starts, you know, he talks to the guy. This guy's more arrogant than anybody else in the room. He's like, yeah. I'm like, oh, you're looking for a shidduch? Yeah, no. I don't want somebody like me, though, he says. So, What do you want? It's not, wow, nice, beautiful girl, this, that, that. I'm thinking about it. Does this guy ever look in the mirror? Does he understand the pretty big, you know, gap between where he is and what he wants? Like, is he in this world? No, he thinks, what's the difference? What's the difference? What? What's the matter? He doesn't think he's nothing. Nobody thinks they're nothing. Except Moshe Rabbeinu.

40:04Shaykh Rabbeinu says, "I'm nothing." How can you arrive at such a conclusion when you evaluate each one of your actions and you see how you perform them, how you can perform them, how you should perform them, how you're serving Hashem versus how you're supposed to serve Hashem? Anyone that's proud of their tefillah every day, you know, a lot of people tell me, "Listen, you know, I pray three times a day." They take three times a day. There's nobody like you. From now on, you come to the Beit Knesset, and I'm going to stand up because you pray three times a day. No, no. I put on tefillin every day this week except Shabbat. You know what? The next chidush is about you. You want to see somebody pray? Go watch the video that I have on my channel of the Klausenberger Rebbe, the Rebbe of Sanz, every single day. When I talk about Yom Kippur, every single day.

41:04Every single day, the way he would pray, I wish I could pray like that once in my life. Forget about every day. Once in my life, if I could pray like that, I'd be happy. Every day, the way he cried to HaKadosh Baruch Hu like a little baby, and he would continue for hours. It wasn't like a show. It would continue for three, four hours. People would just come there and just get chizuk just by standing there and crying with him. Not even knowing why he's crying because he's the biggest tzaddik in the world, but they're crying because he's crying. Shacharit, three hours, four hours. Mincha, ten-minute prayer for the average person. Fifteen minutes max. Two hours, three hours. Crying hysterically. Hysterical crying. Tears and everything. People would travel from all over the world just to show up, just to be in the same room when he prays. He didn't have to speak much. He cried. You hear him pray, you do teshuva. Either you do teshuva or you commit suicide. One or the other. Something's going to happen. You cannot stay the same human being if you hear him pray. Anyone that's proud of their prayer, you should hear how you're supposed to pray. That's actually how you're supposed to pray. If you believe the Borei Baruch, HaKadosh Baruch Hu is in the room, that's how you're supposed to pray. Where are we and where is he?

42:24So, when you start evaluating the stuff you think is good, no one says get into a depression. But be real, be honest. Is it really that good? Is it as good as it should be? Is it as good as it could be? Do you invest into it as much as you do into all the other stuff that you do? Once you evaluate it, you can start now finally understanding how Moshe Rabbeinu arrived at the conclusion that he's nothing. Because he knew his potential, he knew what he could do, and he also knew Hashem in a way that no one else in the world ever knew. He knew what was owed to Hashem. Now, the beautiful thing is that once a person evaluates these things, He starts looking at things very differently. Now, the Gaon of Vilna says that when you say pishpush, the scrutiny or examination of yourself, he says that that's the essence of the human experience. Meaning that's, in essence, the ultimate level that a person needs to get to immediately in order to

43:48start fulfilling their role in the world, evaluating everything. And he quotes Shlomo HaMelech, who says in Proverbs, chapter 20, verse 14, "It's bad, it's bad," says the buyer. When he goes on his way, then he boasts. He says that, you know, sometimes a guy comes to the store, and he wants to buy something, but he knows this dealer doesn't know who he is. So he's probably going to try to take advantage. So he says, "I want, I don't know, a phone. I have 500 bucks to spend. I want a phone. I want a car. I want whatever I want." And the guy's going to tell him, "Oh, hey, we have this for sale," especially if you go to a used car lot. For sure they're thieves. Hey, you want a car? Hey, good deal, 500 bucks. The buyer says, nah, it's no good. It's no good. I don't want this. So the guy says, oh, it's no good? Okay, he gives him another option. Okay, what about this one? This one is a good deal. A steal. Honestly, I can't believe I'm giving it to you. I'm losing money on this one. Yeah, I love those. "I'm losing money on this one." Why? He said, you lose money on every customer? How do you stay in business? "I'm losing money on this one." And he says, nah, nah, it's not for me. He says,

45:16not for me, it's no good, it's no good. And he says, it's no good, no good, no good. So the woman says, no good, no good. And eventually, the seller gets so frustrated. He's like, "I've already spent three hours with this guy. I gotta make a sale." So finally, what does he do? He gives him the best stuff. He says, "Here, here, take this one." "Okay, okay, I'll take it." And now the buyer goes home and says, "Ah, I got the best stuff. I got the best stuff." It's bad, it's bad, but on his way home he boasts, "I got the best stuff." The Gaon Mivilna says this is how a person needs to do with his own mitzvot. He has to evaluate his own Torah, his own mitzvot, and his own character traits the same exact way. In his quest for goals, a person can never be satisfied with what he's already done. Don't give anybody the accounting of all of the good things you did in your life. This is one of the worst habits people have. You meet them, and if you're in a... I don't know, for whatever reason, people love to tell me about all of the... 25 minutes they tell about every mitzvah that they've ever done in their life. It's almost like I feel like they're pitching me, but I don't know what I'm buying.

46:34Oh, you know, I know Rabbi this one. Okay. Oh, you know, I went to a lecture with Rabbi that one. Wow. Wow. You know, I donated to that Rabbi that one. Amazing. I can't believe I'm talking to you. But you know, my family built this place. Baruch Hashem. Baruch Hashem. I feel like I'm talking to Moshe Rabbeinu. No, you're a female. Miriam. Miriam. I'm talking to her. And they tell you, and they go on and on and on about all the people they know and all the mitzvot they did and all the tzedakah they gave and all the books they read and all the rabbis they had and all the students they had. And who cares? Yes. Who cares? You shouldn't care either, as Hashem says. You shouldn't care either. Why? Why are you content with what you did? You should look at what you have and always strive to improve by scrutinizing everything that you've done and saying it's not enough, it's not enough. And demand higher from yourself. All the rabbis that I met, good, I need to meet more rabbis. All the tzedakah that I gave, it's good, I got to make more money so I can give more tzedakah. I got to become more generous. I gave 10% my whole life, I got to give 20% now. All the different prayers you made, not good. Why? I got to do better tomorrow. That's the neshamah of a Jew. That's the neshamah of a Jew. That's what a Jew is supposed to be in this world. That's what he's supposed to do. Strive for more.

48:00You do it for business, you got to do it with your neshama, it's much more important. That's why HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave us different traits that come to people naturally. One of them is ambition. Ambition was only given to us in order to strive for more Torah, mitzvot, kindness, chesed. That's what we're supposed to use that ambition for. to make the next prayer better, to make the next tzedakah more generous, to make the next shiur even longer, even better, even more precise, with more sources. Stay alert, stay awake, do all these different things even better. Never get content with where you are. Why? That's not the way it's supposed to be. It's not the way it's supposed to be. Look at it as, I did it, bad, bad, I gotta do better. Not depressed like I'm never going to do better. People say, "Oh yeah, but if I always think like that, then I'm just going to be depressed." That's not good enough. That's a loser mentality. Saying "bad, bad" doesn't mean that you actually made a sin, like your mitzvah is a sin. It means, "I can do better. I can do better." Just like I strive for more when it comes to other things, I have to do better with serving Hashem. Now,

49:21The Ramchal has an entire chapter discussing this. We'll go over some of the things in this chapter. And he says that in chapter 3 of Mesilat Yesharim, he says there are two methods that are necessary for one who wishes to oversee his conduct. On one hand, he must ponder what constitutes a true good deed that a person should do, and one that he has to evaluate what is a true evil that he should run away from. Meaning, the first step the person needs to do when it comes to self-accounting, when it comes to cheshbon hanefesh, is first and foremost, you have to know the difference between good and bad. Now, as a human being, you have the ability to determine it once you know what it is. Most people don't know what it is, and the reason why is because they determine what it is based on whether they benefit or lose from it, not whether the Creator determined this good or bad. Now, for example, if let's say a woman says to you, like this tragic video that was sent to me,

50:46A woman comes to a clinic and she says, listen, I got this thing in my stomach. It's really bothering me. My husband says it looks terrible. And I need a doctor to help me. How? I need you to remove this thing for me. I need you to help me. Give me a little surgery. I'll pay money. I'll pay cash. No need for insurance. Whatever you need. I need you to take care of this. Why? It's bothering me. No. No. The doctor now, it's his business, that's his business to help people. Now, if he says yes, does that make him a good doctor or a bad doctor? That's your question. Good or bad? Based on just what I gave you. If I wanted to give you more information, I'd give you more information. Based on the information that I gave you, if the doctor performs his job, this is his job. She didn't go to him because he's a shoe salesman. She went to him because he's an expert in this stuff. She says, "I got something that's bothering me, and it's ruining my marriage. I can't stand it, and it looks horrible. Can you help me out by removing it?" The doctor says, "Yes." Is he a good doctor? The doctor says, "No." Is he a bad doctor? No? So far, so good. So far, so good. Smart boy. So far, so good. If he says, "Yes," he's a good doctor.

52:05Now, if we find out the hidden fact I haven't told you, which is that this is an eight and a half month pregnancy. It's 100% a real baby. It's not a goo. It's not an amoeba. It's not a reptile. It's 100% a living baby. You take that baby out right now, it's living a full life. But states like Colorado and other states in this awful Edom that we live in that have these rules, but unfortunately many other countries also, allow for doctors to murder these babies even at eight and a half months. Why? Because it's bothering the girl. It's bothering the guy. It's bothering somebody, and it doesn't bother the doctor to murder. Now, if you took that baby out, And he's crying. He's cute. You put a little diaper on him. You put a little t-shirt on him. He's so cute. But then the doctor comes and says, I don't like this baby. Let me see how it looks. What is that now? That's murder. So how come it's not murder when it's inside the mother's belly? That's human logic. Human logic cannot determine good and bad. It cannot determine good and bad because we look at it based on

53:24Do we benefit? Do we lose? She's going to look at it as, this is good. Why? It's bothering me. So it's good for me to kill this baby. I don't look at it as a baby because it didn't come out yet. The doctor says, this is fantastic. I'm going to get a few thousand dollars today. I could go on that vacation after all. For him, it's also good. But to anyone looking at it with clear lenses that understands what Hashem wants from us in this world, We view it as the worst thing you can possibly do. You're murdering a little baby that never did anything to anybody, at least in this world. That's why, Rabotai, the Ramchal starts this chapter with this. He says the first thing, if you want to do evaluation, you have to know what's good and bad based on the Creator's opinion. Because He's the only one that can tell you for sure, with no bias whatsoever, what's always good and what's always bad. What's always good and what's always bad. That's why He gave us the Torah. Now, once a person starts to evaluate their own deeds, the Ramchal says,

54:52that he has to look at them, he has to look at the things that he didn't do, he has to look at the things that he did do, based on whether they conflict with the Creator's mitzvot and laws, His statutes. Because anything that conflicts with what the Creator says, he must eradicate, like you would have a mitzvah of eradicating Amalek, which we also learn from this week's Parashat Beshalach. At the end of the parasha. If what you're doing contradicts what Hashem says to do, you must remove it from your life immediately. Like it's a plague. Like it's cancer. Like it's AIDS. Like it's murder. Like it's whatever you think is bad. You think that drug addiction is bad? Okay, eradicate it like a drug addiction. You think that murder is bad? Eradicate it like murder is bad. Whatever you think is bad, if you're doing something that's against the Creator, you have to remove it from your life. You have to chop it up. There is no leniency here. You have to be lenient with others, stringent with yourself. You have to be. Because if you're not, if you're constantly lenient with yourself, what ends up happening is that you end up turning the sins into mitzvot.

56:18Now he has to survey all of his deeds, oversee all of his ways in order to remove any bad tendency or trait, let alone a sin or a transgression. It's also necessary that a person be meticulous in his ways and weigh them daily, just like a merchant would. But when he does the accounting now, there's the next level. What's the next level? He has to do what the Prophets told us. Come and do an accounting. The sages tell us, on page 78b, "Come, do an accounting." What kind of accounting? Now, come and do an accounting on your sins. And don't just evaluate the sin, just, okay, you did a sin, you wasted seed, you stole, you cheated, whatever you did, okay. Now, that's not enough. You got to look at it the way God looks at it. How does God look at it? God looks at it that not only did he do something against Me, but with that time, he could have actually done a mitzvah, something for Me. Hashem doesn't look only at the sin.

57:40He looks at what was wasted as a result of it. What did you miss out on? Oh, instead of coming to the shiur, he went and watched a movie, and that led him to sin. So not only did he sin by going to a movie, by going to a game, by watching some type of other filth, but on top of it, he missed out on the shiur Torah that every second is a mitzvah. That's the way Hashem looks at it. Once a person looks at it from that perspective, it becomes a little more difficult to commit the sins. Because you think it's not worth it. I want to go to the game. I want to eat that burger that's not kosher. I want to go with that girl. That's not this. I want to do that. I want to do all. Everybody wants to do sins. That's what Rabban Gamliel says: Don't ever say you don't want to eat pig. It's not true. You want to eat pig. It's delicious. You have to say, what could I do that my Father in Heaven says it's not allowed? That's why I'm not eating it. Not because it's disgusting. Taste-wise, I don't know. People told me it's delicious. I'm sure they're right. Reality is, I'm not allowed. That's why I don't eat it. So a person has to look at it and say, wait a minute, I want to commit this sin. But now, God is going to look at it as not only did I go against Him with this sin, but on top of it, with that money that I spent on this sin, with the resources, with the energy, with the stuff that I put into this sin, I could have used all of that for a mitzvah. Now instead of taking another shot of heroin, I could have used that few hundred dollars to, I don't know, maybe help a Jew do teshuva. I could have bought another sefer for myself to learn from.

59:04But on top of it, with that money that I spent on this sin, with the resources, with the energy, with the stuff that I put into this sin, I could have used all of that for a mitzvah. Now instead of taking another shot of heroin, I could have used that few hundred dollars to, I don't know, maybe help a Jew do teshuva. I could have bought another sefer for myself to learn from. Instead of eating that non-kosher burger, I could have actually bought a kosher burger. Or maybe a little less, because it's a little more expensive. But the point is, I could have done something else. That's the way Hashem looks at it. He looks at the entire picture. And that's the way we have to look at it. Because if you look at it, it becomes much, much, much easier to stay away from sins. Not the person who doesn't sin anymore. But once a person starts thinking this way, already your desire to sin, the big sins, drops dramatically. Because now you're thinking about it. You're thinking about the whole equation. The problem is, Rabotai Yekarim, that Shlomo HaMelech says that unfortunately there are many people who are blind.

1:00:28They're so blind, it's like they walk in darkness. And he says in Mishlei, chapter 4, verse 19, the Ramchal quotes him. He says that fools walk confidently, stumbling and perishing, without any prior awareness or fear. As it says, "The path of the wicked is like darkness; they know not at what they stumble." He says, some people are so ignorant, they don't even ask themselves, "What's the consequence of my crime?" They don't even ask themselves, "What's the consequence of me going against Hashem?" They just, "Oh, do whatever they got to do. I'm going to live life. Let me live. You live. Live and let live." You know, that expression that people have when you tell them the truth and you try to rebuke them to change their... "You worry about your life, I worry about mine." I am worrying about your life and I'm worrying about mine also. Problem is, you're not worrying about yours. Because you're just living like a fool. It's blind. Not thinking about tomorrow. You're thinking about today. He says that the fool is filled with transgression, but yet he feels secure. The guy is driving on Shabbat to Beit Knesset, and you tell him, "Listen, you know you're not allowed to drive on Shabbat?" "Listen, buddy."

1:01:50If I wasn't allowed to drive on Shabbat, would God give me a Ferrari? If I wasn't allowed to drive on Shabbat, would everybody go as soon as I walk into the Beit Knesset? Would the Rabbi give me an Aliyah? If I wasn't allowed to drive on Shabbat, he walks in. says, you know, hello to everyone. I remember this one guy. Every time he walked into the Beit Knesset, he would give a kiss to every person. You know, he was like a Sephardi guy. So, you know, it's a tradition to kiss people. Not in the Beit Knesset, though. But he made a chumrah. He had a rule. He comes, he wants to make sure everybody knows he's there. He comes, he kisses you, hugs you, shakes your hand. A whole ordeal. Doesn't matter where you are. You're praying, you're not praying. It doesn't make a difference. You need to know he's here. Nice guy. Michal Shabbat sends to the Beit Knesset group pictures of him being on the beach with his wife. No one says a thing. Why? Why would they say anything? To him, it's perfectly fine. He's perfectly confident. You know how many people like this there are? Countless. I saw a video today of a person like this

1:03:12Someone sent me a video of this guy that constantly has videos about defending Eretz Yisrael's right to defend itself. Which, obviously, we don't necessarily need anyone doing videos to tell us we have a right to defend ourselves, but if you want to do it, fine. I don't know if you actually think that helps people realize we have a right to live. Anyway, he says that although he is secular, he doesn't keep the 613 mitzvot. He wouldn't mind if they started teaching Torah lessons in regular schools, public schools in Israel. He wouldn't mind if they told him to have a class about Gemara. He wouldn't mind if there was a little bit of Torah in their life where they at least knew how to say Kaddish when their parents died. He wouldn't mind. Why is that such a problem? Because he says... He doesn't keep the 613 mitzvot. He wouldn't mind if they started teaching Torah lessons in regular schools, public schools in Israel. He wouldn't mind if they told him to have a class about Gemara. He wouldn't mind if there was a little bit of Torah in their life where they at least knew how to say Kaddish when their parents died. He wouldn't mind. Why is that such a problem? Because he says... Our ancestors, you know, valued the Torah so much, they died for it. So I wouldn't mind. Now people are sending this like this is a chizuk. Like this is, wow, chazak u'varuch, for standing up for the Torah, even though you're secular. You know what the truth is? The only reason why people are so secular is because of people like him. But it's not even his fault. He doesn't know that he's at fault. Why is it not...

1:04:40He doesn't know that there's a consequence of going against the Torah. No one ever told him there's Gehinnom. No one ever told him there's hell. No one ever told him that tragedy comes to Am Yisrael only when we sin. No one ever told him that. So he thinks he's doing good. And other people that are just as ignorant as him are sending this clip around, also thinking that they're good, not realizing that this is the mentality that's the worst mentality in the world. It's better for the person to be completely on the left than to have such a mentality. Why? Because at least you can define what's good and bad. Here, it looks good, but it's really bad. That's what the Ramchal is trying to tell us. The fools walk blindly but yet they feel secure. He thinks he's doing a mitzvah. The people that are sending this video think he's doing a mitzvah. Why? You're not keeping yourself, but you're saying you don't mind it, because you think it's a good thing. There's no such thing. Either the Torah is from God, or it's from Buddha. Either it's from God, or it's from Yeshu. Either it's from God, or it's from your local 7-Eleven.

1:05:51There's no other option. If it's from 7-Eleven, Buddha, Yeshu, or anybody else, why do you follow any of it? Who cares what these people said? If it's from God, how dare you even think that you are allowed to sin, that you are allowed to go against it, and worse yet, do it openly as if it's not such a bad thing. It's like not only did you cheat on your wife, but you put it on the internet to let everybody know. And you're still expected to have her stay married to you. I mean, the audacity; it's unbelievable how foolish people are. But that's what happens when you never learn the truth for what it is. When people sell you Torah based only on reward, where if you keep it, you go to Heaven, but if you don't, it's not such a big deal. That's the mentality that it creates. It creates a mentality where you think, if I do it, I go to Heaven. If not, it's not such a big deal. So, therefore, I choose not to keep it, and I'll leave Heaven here. But that's why one of the 13 Principles of Faith in the Torah is Heaven and Hell, or Gehenom.

1:07:15Or a lot of other names. Seven other names for Gehenna, if you want. Be'er Shachat, the Churvah. You have wonderful names. Sheol, wonderful place in Gehenna. That's why we teach it that way. That's why reward and punishment is one of the foundations of Judaism. Without knowing there's a consequence for our actions, we will naturally do the wrong thing. Naturally, because there's no consequence. As-salamu alaykum, he says, the worst part, the worst type of error, the worst type of blind person is not just a person who doesn't know, but a person that actually interprets the information wrong. It's not that he's blind; he sees a little bit, but he can't make out what he sees, so he thinks it's something else. he says that's much worse. It's much more evil because they see the beneficial and the good as if it were harmful, and they see the harmful as if it were good. That's a much worse stage of blindness and error. Not only do they lack the ability to see the truth and perceive the evil that's before them, they also think

1:08:43that they can find analytical proof and concrete evidence to draw from life to support their evil ideas and their deceitful opinions. This is the overpowering evil that embraces them and carries them to the abyss, a.k.a. Be'er Shachat, a.k.a. Gehenom. That's what the Ramchal says. They can't even see the truth even if you help them. And they'll even tell you, "I can find you proof there's no God. I can find you proof that God says that homosexuality is not such a bad thing. I can find you proofs that you can do whatever you want. You can abort babies. You can do this. You can do that." He said, "Right, you're allowed to abort a baby if the mother's at risk, right? If the mother's at risk, you're allowed to abort a baby because her life comes before the baby." It's always going to tell you, listen, she's not really dying like what you think. God never described how dying really is. Maybe she's dying spiritually. Maybe she's dying emotionally. Maybe she's depressed. Maybe her marriage will die, and she's afraid of that. Maybe she thinks the baby's really not healthy and therefore the baby's going to die anyway, so she might as well kill it already early.

1:10:09That's what the resha'im do. They'll give you things and they'll say, "Oh, this is my evidence. This is my evidence. See?" They'll interpret it the way they want. This is very dangerous. It's dangerous because we can do it also and not even know that we're doing it if we're not honest with ourselves. Now, he continues and he says the way to get out of this The way to get out of this spiritual prison is to follow what Isaiah says in chapter 6, verse 10: "The heart of this people has become fleshy, and their ears heavy, and their eyes covered shut, lest they see with their eyes and with their ears they hear, and their hearts will understand." And Rav Kook says, All of this is because these people are living in darkness. People are sinning, and they're not willing to see; they're not willing to hear because they're sinning, and they've become slaves to their evil inclination. So how can they get out of it? Isaiah says, follow those that have already left this spiritual prison and know the truth of these matters completely because they are capable of advising others.

1:11:36The Ramchal gives us one of the sources where he says, if you want to know how to overcome your yetzer hara, how to overcome this warped logic that you've learned in public school and in universities and on the internet, you have to listen to somebody that overcame the same yetzer hara you have. Why? He was also in prison and he found a way out. That means he knows the way. You can't go and listen to someone who never got out. Why? How is he going to help you? You cannot ask, you know, somebody that never went to prison, "How do I break out of this prison?" He doesn't know. Who are you going to ask? You're going to ask the guy that broke out of the prison. And the Ramchal says you have to learn from the Baal Teshuva. You have to learn from somebody that knows how. Or someone that's a real Talmid Chacham. Because a real Talmid Chacham also learns the same things, not because he needs to escape out of this prison, but because he needs to help others.

1:12:39the Talmid Chacham learns all subjects. Things that are relevant to him and things that are relevant to others. That's why the Shas, the Gemara, covers all subjects, including things that thieves can use in order to steal better. It even teaches that. Why? Because we need to know what the thief is thinking, so we know how to stop it. And he says, One who walks along these paths is not capable of seeing or knowing at all if he's taking the right route or he's taking a mistaken one, since they all look the same to him from his perspective. By prior experience and a keen eye, having been there once before, he knows the route. Now, one who stands on the gazebo, meaning as if you're in a maze,

1:13:40and sees all of the paths that are before him, sees how the maze is, sees where the openings are, and discerns the correct ones from the false ones, is capable of forewarning those who are walking through them as we speak, telling them, "This is the route, take this one, take that one." Any person willing to place his trust in such an individual that has experienced this and got out of it will reach the designated place. And one who is not willing to listen to such a person and follows his own eyes instead will surely remain lost and fail to reach it. So here we see, Rabotai, that there is an extraordinary teaching here, where it talks about how There's a major advantage in learning from people like Reish Lakish, who was a major Baal Teshuva, or Rabbi Akiva, who was a Baal Teshuva, and obviously many others in this generation, thousands of years later, because their understanding of the yetzer hara is to the same level, or even more extensive level, than the average person, because they dealt with it also, but they overcame it. Now, with all of that, why did we really review all of this?

1:15:04Because this, rabotai, is the foundational teaching that a person needs to know as a Jew or as a Gentile, because this is the reason for all of your problems. We have countless teachings in the Torah that tell us that it's a principle of our faith. Where the Ramban talks about it, the Rambam talks about it, Rabbeinu Yonah talks about it. Many, many sages discuss this and say that the principle of our faith is that everything that befalls a person, whether to his benefit or to his detriment, is decreed by Heaven in accordance with his deeds. Meaning that there is no such thing as you getting hurt if you don't deserve to. There's no such thing as you losing if you don't deserve to lose. There's no such thing as a person dying if he doesn't deserve to die. You can say, wait, but he was such a nice guy. No problem, he probably is a nice guy. But God says he deserves to X, Y, Z.

1:16:32He deserves for that stuff to happen to him. So when someone says that, "Oh, such and such just lost all of his money," you're not supposed to say, "Oh, he deserved that." That's a horrible character trait. You're not supposed to make fun of people. You can think in your heart that this is what we learned. He deserved it. We don't know why. It's not your business why he lost it. But the point is, you're not necessarily supposed to ever think for a second that it's allowed for you to say, "Oh, why did God do this to him? He was such a good guy." As if God is wrong. "Why is God doing this to me?" As if God is wrong. You can ask, "Why is God doing this to me?" or "Why is He doing it to him?" to uncover what the problem is and fix it. But never for a second think that God makes mistakes. When people say, "Oh, where was God during the Holocaust? Six million Jews died." If you're asking it from the perspective of what can we do to avoid it from happening again, which the answer is to do teshuva,

1:17:43then that's a good question. Where was God during the Holocaust? Oh, He's the one that did it. Okay, so how do we stop doing it? How do we stop it from happening again? By doing teshuva. Okay, Baruch Hashem. But if you're asking that question, where was God during the Holocaust? Like, I can't believe He did it. That's a problem. That's a very serious problem. Because in essence, you are, you know, putting yourself on a stage, like an idol, as if you're right and God is wrong. if you think God was wrong for killing 6 million Jews, you have a very serious problem with God. If you think that anything that God ever did is wrong, you have a very, very serious problem with God. This is why we speak against certain people that give people at least the thought, if not the complete outright lies that they say, as if that can even be implied, that God can be wrong. Because if God can be wrong, then He's fallible, He's flawed. If He's flawed, why are we worshipping Him at all? So, when a person evaluates their actions, it leads to a lot of solutions. So the Gemara in Masechet Berachot, on page 5a, says that if a person sees

1:19:11that they have afflictions befalling them. They have all types of suffering in their life. They lost money, divorce, health issues, whatever kind of suffering people have. He should investigate his deeds, like we just talked about for the last hour, to determine which sin he may have made that would cause that suffering. As it says by the prophet in Yirmiyahu, in Eicha 3:40, "Let us search and examine our ways and return to Hashem." But what if he examined his deeds, the Gemara says, and he didn't find anything? He looked at his actions, can't find nothing. He says, I give tzedakah, Jeremiah says in Eicha (Lamentations) 3:40, "Let us search and examine our ways and return to Hashem." But what if he examined his deeds, the Gemara says, and he didn't find anything? He looked at his actions and can't find anything. He says, I give tzedakah, I keep Shabbat. I'm nice to my wife. I send my kids to a good yeshiva. I'm modest. My wife's modest. Why is God doing this to me? Why doesn't He just give me a pain in my leg, a pain in my this, a pain in my that? What's going on? God, what's going on? I got problems, God. What's going on? Rabbi, tell me what's going on. You talk to God all the time, don't you? No? What does He say to you? Did He mention my name?

1:20:41The Gemara says, you got problems? Review. Search your ways. Search for a sin. He didn't make any, he didn't find any sins. He should attribute these afflictions to a neglect of Torah study. Why do you have all these problems? You're not studying enough Torah. That's the first answer. There are several. That's the first answer the Gemara gives. if you've got problems, and you don't know why, because you reviewed all your actions, everything looks kosher, but that's to you. You look like an angel. You should really be put in a lab right now with your clothes on. So the Gemara says, oh, so if you have suffering, that's because you're not studying enough Torah. But then the Gemara comes, and it says, wait, hold on a second. How could it be? How could it be? He couldn't find anything wrong with him? So he should rely on the fact that he just made one of the biggest sins in the entire Torah, bitul Torah, not studying enough Torah. Not studying enough Torah is one of the worst things you could possibly do. It's like God wrote you a love letter, and you say, God, give it to somebody else, do me a favor. God wrote you a love letter, toiled over it with black fire and white fire, made sure that generation after generation of people survived.

1:22:03Moshe Rabbeinu, Aharon, Kohen, David, Shlomo, all these sages, all these people, good people, bad people, wars, pogroms, inquisitions. Why? So you, 3,330 years later, you're finally going to have this love letter from Hashem personally to you. And what do you say? Hashem, do me a favor. Give it to somebody else. I don't have time for this. I got to work. I got to go make more money. I got to go on a date. I got to watch the TV. I got to watch the game, Hashem. Do me a favor. Not for me, not for me. The Torah says that saying such a thing—not studying enough Torah—is one of the worst things you could possibly do. One of the worst things. So how could you not find something, and yet you are, oh, can you rely on the worst thing? Might as well just talk out, listen, you didn't find anything wrong, oh, because you rely on murder. You probably murdered someone. Wait a minute, if I murdered somebody, I would know. No, no, it's not murder. Okay, so rely on the fact that you just violated Shabbat on purpose. No, if I violated Shabbat on purpose, I would know. Okay, rely if you cheat on your wife. Wait a minute, if I cheat on my wife, I would know. So the Gaon MiVilna says, what does he really mean here? He attributes these afflictions to lack of Torah study. He says, it has to be lack of Torah study.

1:23:27Because if you didn't find anything wrong with your actions, for sure you did not study enough Torah to even know that what you're doing is wrong. You don't know anything. That's why you think that what you're doing is right when, in reality, it's wrong. So, of course, that's a sin, and there are many other sins, but you don't know that the other things are sins because you don't know anything. You're a donkey with two legs. You came into the world, you leave the world the same. Nothing changed. Bank account went up, bank account went down. You drank some coffee, you ate some steak. You worked to make some money so you could eat. You ate so you could have energy so you could work. And then you went back and you worked again to make some money so you could eat. And then you ate so you could have some energy so you could work. And you worked to eat and you ate to work. And you worked to eat and you ate to work. So you look like a donkey. That's what a donkey does his whole life. You ever see a donkey complain? Nope.

1:24:27You ever see a donkey say, "Listen, I want retirement?" No. Donkey complain about anything? No one understands him anyway. Like you, no one understands you when you complain. Nobody cares. So you came into the world, you ate, you worked, you ate, you worked, you ate, you worked, you don't know how to eat, donkey. HaShem says his failure to learn Torah, surely, is the reason why he doesn't know why he makes sense. Because if he knew Torah, he would know for sure a lot of things that he can do better. What about the ladies? Some people think that the ladies are not obligated to learn Torah. This is a mistake. Women are obligated to learn Torah every single day, just not Talmud Torah. They're not supposed to learn Gemara, they're not supposed to learn the Mishnah. But they are obligated to learn Mussar. They are obligated to learn the basics of how to keep Shabbat, how to keep the holidays, how to educate the kids. Because if she doesn't, how is she going to know? How is she going to know if she's keeping Shabbat and she doesn't know how to keep Shabbat?

1:25:52How is she going to know how to cook kosher food if she doesn't know what kosher food is? You're relying on her to cook for you, and she doesn't know the kashrut laws. You're probably eating treif. Who knows? Well, are you going to ask her every time she makes you a salad? "Oh, listen, honey, did you wash it 15 times? Did you wash it 4 times? Did you wash it 2 times? Did you wash it at all? Or did you just put it directly on my plate, fresh, with the bugs in it and everything?" I should say shehakol instead of ha'adamah. It's because the bugs are shehakol. If she doesn't know, if she doesn't know that she's supposed to wash it and salt it and take the bugs out, she doesn't know the kosher law. She doesn't know that if you eat one bug, it's like you ate pigs six times. Bugs are worse than pigs. If she doesn't know, how can she be in charge of the kitchen? If she doesn't know the laws of taharat mishpacha, which is the most important in a marriage. She doesn't know whether she needs to count four days, five days, eight days, twenty days, or thirty days. She just goes to the mikveh whenever she feels like it. You could have a bunch of kids that are people from nidah. Kids of nidah and you're surprised that your kid has eighteen earrings and fourteen holes. Kid comes out a gangster with a gun out of him. Where does this kid come from? Oh, I don't know. Nidah.

1:27:21That's what happens. Instead of going to yeshiva, he wants to go to all types of places that are not exactly kosher. A woman is obligated to learn Torah for the things that are relevant to her. She doesn't need to learn Gemara, she doesn't need to learn Mishnah, but she needs to know the basics: how to keep a kosher house, how to keep Shabbat, how to keep the holidays. how to do certain things in order to fulfill her role in the world, whether married or single. This is also why it's highly recommended for women to also come to shiur Torah. Find a babysitter and go to a shiur Torah at least once a week. Don't just rely on going to YouTube. If you have a good shiur Torah locally, go to the shiur Torah. It's much more significant to go to a shiur Torah than to watch one online. Now, If a person, if a woman or a man, sees all types of suffering in their life, the Gemara says, first and foremost, it's because you're not learning enough Torah. You're making mistakes, you're committing sins, and you don't even know they are sins. So Hashem is punishing you for them. He's punishing you for those sins that you're committing, and therefore you've got suffering. Now, Rashi says that we also have another answer.

1:28:55Baha continues where it says that if he couldn't find any reason to attribute these sufferings towards, he didn't find anything, then maybe he could say these are afflictions of love. These sufferings are coming to me because God loves me. God loves me, so that's why I'm suffering. Why? Because... are shogeg, they are accidental sins. They're not on purpose. So Hashem says, "Listen, I love you so much, my dear daughter. I love you so much, my dear son. I don't want you to go to Gehinnom. But there's a bill to pay. You made a bunch of mistakes. There's a bill to pay. I can't just say, 'Oh no, he didn’t make any sins.' I can't pretend. In Beit Din Shel Ma'ala, they review everything. So since I love you so much, and you're doing so well, you're not committing any purposeful sins..." those sins are shogeg. They're accidental sins. They're not on purpose. So Hashem says, "Listen, I love you so much, my dear daughter. I love you so much, my dear son. I don't want you to go to Gehinnom. But there's a bill to pay. You made a bunch of mistakes. There's a bill to pay. I can't just say, 'Oh no, he didn’t make any sins.' I can't pretend. In Beit Din Shel Ma'ala, they review everything. So since I love you so much, and you're doing so well, you're not committing any purposeful sins,

1:30:21You're watching your bris, you're watching your eyes, you're watching this, you're doing everything right, but you make mistakes here and there. So because I love you, I'm going to clean you up while you're in this world. So I'll give you a little bit of suffering. Instead of giving you, you know, five years in Gehinnom for that sin, I'm going to give you, you know, you're going to break your nail. It's going to hurt for, you know, a day and a half, two days. Instead of giving you ten years in Gehinnom for that sin, remember that sin that you did? Okay, remember that? Okay, instead of that, you know that $5,000 raise you were supposed to get? You're not going to get it. You're really upset, you're not going to get it. But I promise you, you'll be happy you didn't get it. Why? It's much better than ten years in Gehinnom. So Hashem gives us all types of suffering because He loves us. Why? Because we're making a bunch of accidental sins. So He says, I'm going to clean you up in this world. That's one reason. That's one reason. Another reason, Rashi says, is that Hashem wants to elevate a person to a higher place in Olam HaBa than what their merits would give them otherwise. He has a certain amount of merits, he learns an hour, two hours a day, he does whatever he possibly can do, but Hashem wants, He likes him so much, He likes us so much, He says, you know what?

1:31:41What your merits are going to pay for is the first level of Gan Eden. First level of Gan Eden. But I don't want you to be in the first level of Gan Eden. I want you to be in level 6. I want you to be in level 5. I want you to be even in level 2. Now, I can't just decide, hey, group discount, throw this guy in also. I can't do that. So what I'm going to do is give you some suffering. You're going to accept that suffering with love. You're going to overcome this suffering. Still stick with me. That is going to be as meritorious as all of the good things that you're doing. You're going to enter Gan Eden level 2, level 3, level 4, level 5. That's reason number 2. Rashi also says that there are certain people that also gets these afflictions of love. Where Hashem says, the Pnei Yehoshua actually suggests that even though Hashem runs this world based on reward and punishment, based on justice, based on emet, and a person that makes sins

1:33:04must be punished for his sins, a person who makes mitzvot needs to be rewarded for these mitzvot. There are exceptions in His rule book. What type of exception, if you will, where there are certain types of people where Hashem knows that this person is a new Ba'al Teshuva. This person has only been religious for five, six, seven years. And if Hashem gives him the suffering that he really deserves for things that he did, He knows it's going to break him. And that guy is going to get off the derech. He's going to go off. He's going to go back to the goyim. He's going to go back to being a gambler. He's going to go back to doing a bunch of bad things. And Hashem doesn't want to break him. But the problem is there's still an outstanding debt. There's a bill. There's a bill that's owed. You can't just ignore the bill. can't ignore the bill. The bill has to be paid. But Hashem in His infinite wisdom knows if He gets this guy to pay the bill, if He gets this girl to pay the bill that they owe, it's going to break them. And what's going to happen is they're going to turn into heretics again. So Hashem in His infinite wisdom says, okay, someone has to pay the bill. He can't afford it.

1:34:17He can't afford to pay the bill. It's going to break him. She can't afford it. If she pays the bill, it's going to break her. Since Hashem promised us that He's never going to give us a test that we can't pass, but yet we still have to pay the bill. What does He do? He says there's a tzaddik. There's a tzaddik somewhere in the world that he is on a very high level. And any suffering that he gets, he accepts with love. He accepts it with love. He says, "Hashem, thank you very much for making me suffer. I appreciate it, Hashem. I know you're cleaning me up. I know I did this. Thank you, Hashem. Thank you." He says thank you for suffering, like we say thank you when we want a lot. So Hashem says, "Ah, I'm going to give the suffering to him. I'm going to give the suffering to him. He's going to accept the suffering with love. He's going to go even to a much higher Gan Eden. And that way the bill is paid." That's what the 36 tzaddikim, the 36 nistarim, it's part of their role in the world, if you will. There are others as well, but the point is that sometimes you see that there's a very righteous person suffering. Quite frankly, it's very rare to see a righteous person not suffer, whether you look in the Torah or you look in the real world.

1:35:36You look at the Torah, there's not one righteous person that didn't suffer. Jeremiah, the prophet Yirmiyahu, cursed the day he was born because of how much he was suffering. How much torture Am Yisrael put him through. They tried raping him. Raping him. Imagine, you're the Baba Sali. You are Rav Ovadia. You are the Steipler Gaon. You're coming to people and telling them, listen, you gotta do teshuva. What do they do, these disgusting, filthy people? They try to rape him. Can you imagine such a thing? God willing, you can't. But that's what he had to go through. He cursed the day he was born. That's how much suffering he went through. And he still tried to help everybody. He still tried to help them do teshuva. Unfortunately, it didn't work out because it was destroyed. But, Rabotai, the suffering that he went through, might as well begin on. Moshe Rabbeinu? Imagine

1:36:38Moshe Rabbeinu just saved you, broke you out of prison. You were in prison, no end sentence. You were going to get life. Life in prison, forever. That's it. Never going out. On top of it, slavery. On top of it, you may not even make it. They're going to kill you in there or chop off some body parts. Have fun with them. All types of fun stuff. He broke you out of prison. And better yet, he broke your wife out of prison also. He saved her. And he helped her do teshuvah. He helped you do teshuvah. He helped the whole shidduch go through. That's a good thing, right? That's what he did. With millions and millions of people. What did they do to him? "Moshe, why did you break out my wife? What, you want my wife? You have your eye on my wife? Why are you looking at my wife? Why are you talking to my wife?" All of them started accusing Moshe Rabbeinu, the holiest man that ever walked on this earth. The only person that spoke to G-d face to face, like you and I are speaking right now, not seeing an image, but rather speaking like right now. They accused him of wanting their wives. Why? Because they noticed that the wives are listening to the Rabbi, Moshe, much more than they're listening to the husband. So they got jealous. They didn't like it so much.

1:38:06Not that I'm even the shoestring of a shoe of Moshe Rabbeinu, but that feeling I know a little bit. Why? Sometimes you see people, you help them out, you help their marriage out, but then the husband says, "Listen, stop talking to Rabbi Reuven." Why? "I don't know, I think he's got something for you." She says to him, "What, something for me? He's in Florida, we are in Arkansas. I never saw the guy." "No, no, I don't know, something, something." People are psychotic. Why? Because the wife is asking a lot of questions. You answer them, "Oh, no, no, no, no." Psycho. That's what happened to Moshe Rabbeinu. That's what happened to Moshe Rabbeinu. If that's not bad enough, they accused him of wanting all of their money, trying to steal everybody's money. Take the money for the Beit HaMikdash, put it in his pocket. You should press the battery in the back, Sonny, the phone. They accused him of trying to steal all the money.

1:39:11Moshe Rabbeinu. Eved ne'eman karata lo. Hashem, you call him a loyal servant. Moshe Rabbeinu. They accuse him of wanting wives. They accuse him of wanting their money. Moshe cries to Hashem and says, "Hashem, they didn't even pay me for my donkey to come to freedom from Egypt. I came on a donkey. They didn't even pay me for my donkey." They didn't even pay for my airfare either. Nothing. Not even gas. But they're blaming me for wanting their money and wanting their wives and wanting everything. So sometimes there's a righteous person in the world that Hashem has, and God shifts the onus of punishment that's meant for the average people. Unto the righteous people who will bear it with love, since the righteous person who is afflicted for this reason is suffering on behalf of others and he is credited with reward that is consequently taken from the people. This is in Derech Hashem, Chapter 2, 3:8. So now, this explains a lot because sometimes you are going to see...

1:40:37A righteous person suffering. Why is this person that learned so much Torah and does so many mitzvot suffering? What kind of sins does he even have time to commit? He's learning Torah all day. It could be that it's not even his sins. The Derech Hashem says it could be that he's not suffering for his own sins. It could be he's suffering for your sins. It could be he's suffering for somebody else's sins. That's actually where the Christians got the demented idea for their god. for their idol, Yoshke. Oh, he's suffering for our sins, he died for our sins, all that nonsense. Any idea that has any validity whatsoever, or even a remote validity, has to come from Judaism. But they have turned that into idolatry, where it's talking about righteous people, people of flesh and blood. They go to Gan Eden, they die, and so on. Now, the Gemara in Rosh Hashanah, there were ten says that even a person who observes all of the mitzvot and doesn't sin might still feel some desire for pleasure in this world. Now, this inclination, even though it's a natural inclination, stands as a barrier between him and his full potential, his full spiritual potential. And in order to free him

1:42:07From this limitation, God will afflict him with suffering, which has the effect of distancing him from the pursuit of this world and muting their siren call. God sees how hard you're working on serving Him. But He knows you have a desire to go to a casino. He knows you have a desire to go play some cards. So what does He do? He takes all your money away. That way, you can't go to the casino. No one's going. You can't go to the casino broke. What are you going to do? Just look at everybody? He knows you want to go, but you're trying to serve Him at the same time. But you want to go, but you're trying to serve Him. You're trying to go. That's all you're going to do. He just takes all your money. That way, you can't afford to go. Can't afford to go. He knows you want to play football. You know you want to play football. You love the game, but it's only if you exercise. No, I'm not going to. That's all you do. He breaks your leg. Breaks your leg. Why? That way, you can't play. Meaning sometimes Hashem will do certain things in order to actually elevate you because you're already doing something good, to keep you away from Yetzer Hara. He's fighting for you. He's fighting for you. Lastly, the Tzelach says, a person who's weak and ill finds it more difficult to study Torah.

1:43:30and perform mitzvot than someone who is strong and healthy. Therefore, their reward is greater. Accordingly, just like the Mishnah in Pirkei Avot says, chapter 5, verse 23, the reward is in proportion to the exertion. So this means that by bringing suffering on the righteous, God is increasing the opportunity for reward. Meaning, Abotai, that because Hashem knows that it's much more difficult to learn Torah if your back feels like there's lava going through it instead of blood. He knows. He's the one that put it there. He knows how difficult it is. Hashem knows how difficult it is to learn Torah with a headache. Hashem knows how difficult it is to learn when something hurts. Financial issues, marriage issues, health issues. Hashem knows that it's difficult. And He's still going to reward you. Why? Why? He says, look, if you would study Torah with one leg over the other, drinking coffee, eating some Bamba, okay, you're going to get a reward. You'll get your reward. You'll go to level one. But if you study despite the headache, despite the financial crisis, despite the marriage crisis, despite the health crisis, you're going to learn Torah anyway. You're going to level ten. Why? Because it's that much more difficult. This is why, Rabotai...

1:45:00There are many stories in the Torah where some of the sages actually brought suffering upon themselves. One of the famous stories in the Gemara is about Rabbi Elazar ben Rabbi Shimon, the son of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. When he found out the value of suffering in this world, he was, he was a very great person. and he would eat enormous amounts of food in order to learn Torah for 30, 40, 50, 60 hours straight—something that's not human. With full passion and fire. Now, one day somebody insulted him and he questioned himself. Maybe I deserve this. Maybe I did something bad. Maybe I impurified myself. So,

1:46:00He checked it. How did he check it? The Gemara of Bava Metzia says that he told his friends, "Do me a favor, take some fat out of my body because I want to see what happens to this fat. Are the flies going to go there? Are the maggots going to eat it? What's going to happen? Did I sanctify my body and make it holy or is it just like everybody else?" So you have a Gemara that specifically talks about the first liposuction in history. But the liposuction they're describing is something that's not even available today. They took three buckets, three buckets of fat. You can't do that today. They had much more advanced technology in the Gemara 2,000 years ago than they have today. They took this out, and he put this, where did he put this? He put it on the roof. In Eretz Yisrael, over here on the top of the roof, where there's hot sun, just to see what happens. He comes back later on. Now, if you put a steak outside in Florida, Within a matter of a few hours, that steak is not only bad. There's stuff coming out of it. Maggots and all types of disgusting stuff. You're not eating this thing. Needless to say, if you put fat of a person with the blood and everything else, within half a second, there's enough flies to build a new city. He takes the buckets of fat. He leaves it there. They come back later on. I think it was the next day or a few days later. Not a single fly.

1:47:24The fat is still fresh, like they just took it out of his body. So this is how holy he was. Just imagine who this person is. He found out how valuable suffering is. So every night, he would pray to Hashem to bring suffering on himself. Don't try this at home. I promise you, you'll get suffering without praying for it. You're alive; you'll get suffering. You don't have to pray for it. He was in a much higher stage than we could even imagine. He prayed for suffering to come upon him. You know what kind of suffering came upon him? Do you remember when I told you that I went to the hospital for an abscess, or two abscesses, or three abscesses? Remember I told you that? I went to the hospital, I was in pain, agony, surgeries, all types of fun things. His entire body was full of abscesses. Not one abscess. His entire body became like Iyov (Job). They would have to change the bed sheets

1:48:2560 times every single night because of all the pus and blood that would come out of his body throughout the whole night. And in the morning, he would tell them, my dear friends, go your way, I have to go learn Torah. And miraculously, he would heal. He would go learn Torah the whole day. And then at night, my dear friends, he called them, my dear friends, come, come, my dear friends. And he would have this agony and pain the whole night. Now his wife didn't know. One day his wife hears him pray for this agony and pain. And she says, "You're doing it? You're praying for this? I wasted my entire inheritance on bed sheets for you, and you're the one that's wasting all of our money! If you don't stop it, I'm divorcing you. I'm leaving you."

1:49:29Rabbi Elazar ben Rabbi Shimon says to her, "Fine, no problem, you can leave. You want to leave? Leave. But I'm doing it for Hashem. I'm doing it to sanctify myself." She didn't understand, so she left. Now surely, if you don't have a wife, you don't have somebody taking care of the house, your house is going to turn into a mess. Doesn't take long—24 hours it looks like there was a Churban Beit HaMikdash. But HaKadosh Baruch Hu loves, loves, loves people that make sacrifices for Him. So He makes a hurricane happen in the middle of the ocean, right next to a ship full of businessmen. The ship is about to sink. The businessmen start screaming to Hashem, Saying, "God, please save us. If You save us, the next land that we see, we're going to stop there. We're going to find the biggest tzaddik over there. We'll give him all the money. We'll give him all the money for Torah." In a second, the whole wind stopped. All of a sudden, everything is clear.

1:50:43And they see there's a beach right there. They stop at the beach, they go, who's the biggest tzaddik in town? Who's the Gadol HaDor? Oh, Gadol HaDor, no question. Rabbi Elazar ben Rabbi Shimon. His father was Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, who wrote the Zohar, Kodesh Kodeshim. He saw somebody sinning, put him on fire in a second. Another guy made fun of Tveria, he looked at him, and he turned him to bones. That's how holy he was. Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai saw one person, made fun of him. Not that he wanted to kill him. He just thought, oh, he made fun of me. Like, it hurt him a little bit. Hashem says, well, somebody hurt you? He turned the guy to bones. Just turned to bones. Bones. That's it. You know, give it to your dog. Another guy was violating something. We're on fire. Rabbi Elazar was not that much less. He was also at a high level. Also did some amazing things. They came in. They saw Rabbi Elazar. He's there. They went to his house. They see this mess. Blood everywhere, mess, there are all types of things. What? The Gadol HaDor is living like this all day, brought all types of cleaning people, turned the whole house into a castle. A little time passed by, a few months passed by, his wife missed him. So she sent her son, saying, listen, go to Abba and tell him, listen, I still love you and I'm willing to come back if you just please stop. So the son comes.

1:52:04And he sees the house turned into a castle full of servants and people working there. And he says, "Abba, what happened here?" He goes, "Listen, when your mom left, my Father in Heaven sent me other employees to help me. He helped me. She's supposed to help me. She's supposed to be my chavruta. When she quit her job, Hashem sent me other employees, other helpers. But tell her I love her too and she can come back." She came back. This, rabotai, a person who understands the value of suffering, should not pray for it. Because like I told you, it'll come naturally. You won't have to pray for it. But this should give us a perspective a little bit, where if you have suffering, you have to thank Hashem. That's what the Gemara in Masechet Berachot says. You're supposed to thank Hashem for the suffering as much as you thank Hashem for the reward. Because even the suffering is good for you. It's good for you. Now, one of the ways that you can understand, and I can understand, is by looking at our own perspective. Now, since we all believe in the 13 Principles of Faith, we all know that there is no suffering without sin.

1:53:32Whether you sinned today, or you sinned ten years ago, or you even sinned in your previous incarnation, previous life. Whatever sin, whatever suffering you have in this world, it's coming for a reason. This life, past life, doesn't make a difference. For most of us, it's for this life. We're making enough sins. The point is, suffering is coming for a reason, right? Hashem doesn't just do anything for no reason. He's not having a good time with you. Now, we complain to Hashem, Because we don't like this suffering. We don't like not having money. We don't like not having a spouse. We don't like not having kids. We don't like having health problems. We don't like not having whatever it is that we don't have. We don't like having these problems, right? So we think that Hashem is shortchanging us. But Hashem is saying in the Torah, not only am I not shortchanging you, I'm actually giving you the best thing that you can possibly have. How is that possible? Your perspective is so far from Hashem. You're saying, "Hashem, why are You doing this to me? It's not fair that I don't have any money. It's not fair that I don't have this, I don't have that. It's not fair." And Hashem says, "What I gave you is actually the best thing in the world for you." How can you be so far apart? That's because we only think as a human, and Hashem thinks like Hashem. We have a limited perspective; He has an unlimited perspective.

1:55:00And I'll give you a little bit of light on what that means. We're thinking that whatever sins we have, it doesn't necessarily deserve this punishment. Okay, whatever I did is probably bad, but it doesn't deserve that I don't have any money to pay rent for three months in a row. It doesn't deserve the punishment of my wife wanting to throw me out. It doesn't deserve that something happened to the kid. It doesn't deserve all these things. We're thinking from our perspective it's not such a big deal. I deserve to be rich. I deserve to be successful. I deserve to have this, this, this, and this. God, on the other hand, says not only are you wrong where it is a big deal, but also even worse, there's a bunch of other sins you owe Me on. So now what does that mean? Your options are no longer the options you think you have. Meaning, you no longer have the options of being rich. That’s an option but not for you. You no longer have the option of marrying this girl or this guy. That’s an option but not for you. What options are now available to you? The options that are available to you are now based on these actions.

1:56:18Once you've turned, there's a road, there's a split road. Let's say it's split into ten ways. Once you took a right to the right road, the destinations of the other nine roads are no longer an option. You now have a whole new set of options because you took a right. By making a sin, by doing something, you now have a whole new set of options. And out of all of the options that are now available to you, This is the best one. What was available? Oh, hospital, death, the government putting you in jail for 20 years, your wife cheating on you, your kid, all types of horrible things. What did you get? Oh, your foot broke. Hashem says, out of all the options you deserved, I took the best one for you, because trust me, the other ones were much worse. The other ones that were available to you based on your actions were much, much worse than the one that I gave you. That's why it says, everything Hashem does is always for the good. What does it mean, always for the good? Is it good from our perspective? No, because we don't know what's available to us. But once we know that, based on our actions, the things that are available to us are horrible, and what we got is actually the best-case scenario, that means that if a guy is homeless,

1:57:39If a guy is homeless, him being homeless is actually the best-case scenario of what was available to him. It's not necessarily good. You shouldn't say, "Oh, you're homeless. Good for you." No. But based on his actions, out of what was available to him, that was the best option available to him. If a person is sick, he's sick, or a person died, you don't celebrate that he died. You don't celebrate that someone's sick. But you never question Hashem. Why? Because Hashem, whatever options were available to that person, that was the best option. Him getting sick was the best option. Why? It's better than death. Him dying, how can him dying be better? What's worse than that? Well, he died. Maybe he died before he made a sin that would be too far where he would lose Olam HaBa. So Hashem took him without losing his Olam HaBa.

1:58:41The point being, Rabotai, is that everything Hashem does is always for the good. Always for the good. But that's what it means. It means that we have a new set of options every time we make a decision, whether to do good or to do bad. You make a mitzvah, you are now changing eternity. all of the infinite amount of options that you had available to you before you did that mitzvah, before you helped kiruv, before you helped somebody do teshuva, before you learned another daf Gemara, before you gave somebody a chiddush, before you invited someone to a shiur, before you gave somebody a CD, before that you had, let's say, a thousand options of things that were supposed to happen to you. Once you made that one mitzvah, you have a whole new set of options that are much greater, much better, than anything you had before. Unfortunately, it also works in the opposite way. So, a person needs to know that whatever they're getting, whatever suffering they're getting, the reason why our sages call it "Yissurim shel Ahavah" (sufferings of love), because in reality it is. Hashem is always going to pick the best option for you, the least painful.

2:00:02But it's not his fault you keep making bad choices. He can't make the choices for you. He can't force you to do a mitzvah. He can't force you to go to Gan Eden. You have to choose. That's your test in the world. You have to decide whether you're going to learn Torah or not. You have to decide whether you're going to marry a Jew or not. You have to decide whether you're going to convert or not. You have to decide whether you're going to do the right thing or not. You have to decide these things. That's your purpose in the world. And that's why the sages constantly said that you have to review your actions. Review your actions day and night. Don't lie to yourself. Rabbeinu Yonah says in his essay, Shaarei Teshuvah, one strategy to do this is to divide your day into manageable segments. He says, divide your day into the times you eat. You eat three times a day? Okay, so divide it into three. Where? Wake up in the morning, say to yourself, I'm not going to sin. I'm not going to sin until breakfast. Not, "I'm not going to sin all day." That's a big commitment. You know, people want to make big commitments. "No, I'm never going to waste it again, Rabbi." Hold on there, guys.

2:01:26Hold on. You've been addicted to this sin for 20, 30 years. Are you really going to abandon it all of a sudden? What are you, some kind of goon who can quit 80 years of smoking cigarettes in one second? Relax. Relax. Don't sin until breakfast. Can you do that? That's what Rabbeinu Nachman is saying. Don't sin till breakfast. Can you do that? Can you handle that? Oh, for sure, Rabbeinu Nachman. Okay, do that. Now, once you get to breakfast, it's time to do the first cheshbon nefesh, the first self-accounting. What did I do till now? I just woke up two hours ago. I finally had breakfast. What did I do till now? Did I make any sins? I prayed, I put on tefillin, because you're not allowed to eat before you put on tefillin. So, I did everything I need to do. Oh, Hashem, I didn't do any sin. Okay, so now you did the first cheshbon nefesh, the first self-accounting. Now you make the second commitment, Rabbeinu Nachman says. Commit not to sin from breakfast until lunch. Until lunch, that's it. Not so hard. Small time frame. The whole week, the whole year. No, no, just to lunch. I can do this.

2:02:31I can do this. The guy goes on. He wants to make a sin, but it's 11:30. It's almost lunch. I want to sin. I want to sin. But it's 11:30. I only have to survive another half hour. I only have to survive another half hour. That's it. I can make it to the finish line. He gets to 12 o'clock. He gets to 12:30. He's got his lunch. I got my burger. It's a kosher burger. I didn't sin until now. He feels like a Malach Hashem. He thinks he's floating because he hasn't sinned at 12 o'clock in the afternoon. Rabbeinu Yonah says, Cheshbon Nefesh number two. Accounting number two. What have you done so far? You make any sins? No? Oh, Baruch Hashem. Any mitzvot? Oh, Baruch Hashem. Whatever you did, okay, good. Now commit, now that you've accounted for what you did, what’s good, what’s bad, what's going on, evaluate what you did, if it's really good, if it's really bad, and so on. Now commit not to make any sins until dinner. Until dinner, you got what? Five, six, seven, eight, nine hours? Commit. That's it. Not the whole day. Don't be crazy now. Commit until dinner. Survive until dinner with no sins. Once you've survived until dinner, well, how much time do you have left? How much time do you have left? Say, I'm not going to sin until the morning. I'm going to learn for an hour or two. Go to sleep. That's it. Chalas. Finish. Finish the day. You survived an entire day without committing big sins. Without committing purposeful sins.

2:03:58That's how cheshbon works. That's how it works. When you look at your day in such a meticulous, precise way, you can find out how you can literally sanctify yourself in a relatively short period of time, and see how where you are today, and where you are in six months, twelve months, two years, three years from now, is worlds apart. But you've got to put yourself in a place where you know you're not putting yourself into a trap, because you know your own limitations. We'll finish with this. We always talk about the sages as if the sages do not have flaws, as if the sages are not human. Well, I'm going to give you a couple of short stories to show you that they are human, just like you, even if they learn to walk.

2:05:01The Steipler Gaon, at his time, in those days, the doctors of that day used to say that smoking cigarettes was healthy. Healthy. And many people, religious people, used to smoke a lot of cigarettes. Inside the Beit Midrash, the Steipler Gaon, Rav Kanievsky's father, used to smoke so much that he would see, he didn't know how people learned Gemara without smoking. The Beit Midrash was a cloud. They would smoke inside the Beit Midrash. As soon as he finished one cigarette, he had another one to light it. It would never stop. It would constantly be in his mouth. Eighty years passed. Medicine advanced. One day, he goes to the doctor. The doctor tells him, I'm sorry, but you know the cigarettes, we found that it's a little dangerous. It's getting dangerous. How much do you smoke? Oh, it's dangerous? Okay, then I'll stop. The doctor left. Why? Because he knew, you didn't have to look for another smoker. Why? You see where there's smoke. There's smoke. There's a cloud inside. Oh, he's there. There was so much smoke. You knew where he was.

2:06:29He smirked. This type, smoking for so many years, can he stop? Oh, okay, no. Slow down, maybe. Slow down, maybe. But the doctor was curious. So he went to the Beit Midrash the next day, and he walked inside, and there's no smoke. So he asked one of the Avreichim, "The Rav here?" He goes, "Yeah, he's in the back." He says, "He's not smoking?" He goes, "No, he hasn't smoked all day." Well, so he said, "Oh, maybe he's told somebody, so maybe he's hiding it. Maybe he's hiding it. So, he went back to the Beit Midrash at night, when everybody left. He peeked into the window. He knew the Steipler was still there, learning Torah non-stop. Maybe he's going to light a cigarette while nobody's there. Nothing. Wow. Okay, I'll survive a day, two days, three days. After a little while, I'll stop. Stopped. Never, never, never smoked another cigarette again. After a little while, he came to the photographer and said, "How did you do it? Please tell us. How did you do it? Please teach us because there are people that are smoking for ten years and they can't stop. Five years and they can't stop. You've been smoking your whole life and you just stop just like that? Did you take something? Did you do kabbalistic practices?" He goes, "No. What kabbalistic practices? No, nothing." He said, "So how did you stop?" He said, "Doctor, you said it's dangerous."

2:07:57He said, "Yeah, but I say a lot of things, and no one listens to me. What do you mean?" I said, "No, you say it's dangerous. In the Torah, it says you have to preserve your neshama, you have to preserve your body. If it's dangerous, it's not allowed, so that's it." He said, "Yeah, but how?" He goes, "What do you mean how? It says it's not allowed in the Torah." A lot of things are said in the Torah, but people don't do it. He goes, ah, I'm a meshugeneh. He gets crazy people that do things that are against the Torah. So that's a story that makes the sages' life there unreachable, impossible, right? I'm going to give you another story. It was so difficult for him when he was smoking. When he was smoking. It was so difficult for him to learn Torah on Shabbat because he was so used to smoking cigarettes. that he would put smoke into a bottle and close it. And on Shabbat, he would open the bottle and take a little whiff of the smoke. So it would help him with learning Torah. You could see how high the addiction was. The addiction was enormous. But once he knew Hashem said, no, no, that's it, finished. Last story, Rav Dessler.

2:09:24I love HaShalom. The doctor told him, "Kevod HaRav, you're not allowed to smoke. It's not allowed. It's not good. It's dangerous." So Rav Dessler said, "Okay, so I'll stop." Rav Dessler, Mechtav Me'Eliyahu, Kodesh Kodashim, Gadol HaDor, said, "Okay, I'm going to stop. I'm going to quit smoking. I'll quit smoking." Do you know how hard it is to quit smoking? I smoked for 20 years. When they told me I have to quit smoking, I started crying. "What do you mean quit smoking? I like smoking." Why are you taking everything I like? What's the matter with you people? I'm already suffering as it is. Rav Dessler says, "Oh, okay, I'll stop." Okay, he stopped. One day, first day he stopped. First day he stopped. Not a week, not a month, not a year, first day he stopped. And Rav Dessler comes into his office in the morning. and asked him, "I was learning this and can you give me an answer? I don't know. I didn't understand this." Because he gives him the answer and he goes, "Oh, by the way, you know I stopped smoking, right?" Oh, okay. Strange. Extra comment. The rabbi doesn't usually talk extra. But fine, he left. As he left, somebody else comes in. "Oh, I have this issue. Can you help me with what it says?" Oh, he gives him the answer. He goes, "Oh, by the way, you know I stopped smoking, right?"

2:10:49And all day, whoever walks into his office, the janitor, the cleaner, the helper, the guy that fixes the shtenders, the guy that fixes the lights, all the avreichim, the other rabbis, every single person that walked into the office, he told them, "By the way, no, I stopped smoking." For three days straight. Even if the guy already came to him and he told him already. He tells me, "No, I stopped smoking. You know I stopped smoking. You know I stopped smoking." After three days, he says, "What's with you and the stopping smoking? Okay, I stopped smoking. What do you want? What's the smoke?" He goes, "No, no. I know my yetzer hara. I know my yetzer hara. My yetzer hara likes to smoke. I like to smoke. But I know I'm not supposed to. But I know my yetzer hara says you are supposed to. So how could I do it? How could I do it?" Now, you all did me a favor. I included you. You all did a chesed for me. I already included you in my mitzvah. Wow. I told you I stopped smoking. So that means that all of you, all of you are witnesses to me stopping smoking, which means that if I smoke, if I smoke, you're going to see me. That's going to be a chilul Hashem. I don't want to be a chilul Hashem.

2:12:12But then I say, okay, so, I thought to myself, he says, Rav Dessler says, I thought to myself, if I smoke, I'm going to smoke in the Beit Midrash, but then they're going to see me. Oh, so maybe I'll hide in the bathroom, but then somebody else is going to see me. Oh, I'll hide downstairs, somebody else is going to see me. Oh, maybe I'll hide behind the building, yeah, but the janitor is going to see me. Maybe I'll go in the middle of the city, but people over there know, I told everybody I possibly could, so that way, I can't smoke. I don't have any place to smoke. I don't have any place to smoke. I don't want to discredit Hashem's name. I put myself in a situation where now I can't smoke. It's not that I don't want to smoke. I can't. Because it's against God now. A genius gadol hador using a tool that an average person can use. The difference is, do we believe in the same God he does? If you do, you can do the same thing. You can quit smoking, you can quit any addiction, you can overcome any desire, you can overcome any sin, you can be a full Baal Teshuva going straight to Gan Eden with your clothes on. It all starts with reflection, who you are, be honest with yourself, and grow from there. B'ezrat Hashem. Next week we'll continue...

2:13:28Tomorrow night we have a shiur of She'elot u'Teshuvot, so any questions that you have that are urgent, you can ask today. If it's not urgent, there's no harm in keeping them for tomorrow, especially if they're Torah questions, because your questions usually after the camera's off are sometimes better than the shiur. Baruch Adonai le'olam, amen ve'amen.