Anger Management Or Gehinom - MUSSAR Iggeret HaRAMBAN (6)

0:12Good to see some new faces, some old faces. We're continuing our Teshuva journey. Try to learn a little bit about HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Try to learn a little bit about Torah. Try to learn a little bit about life. Please have the food. It's delicious and at least it smells that way. I think if there was food for my lecture, it would have come also. Somebody wants to speak and I'll eat. Sounds like more fun. But anyway, our Tuesday night is, Baruch Hashem, about the Iggeret HaRamban, the Nachmanides, who almost 900 years ago wrote one of the most important letters that we can learn a lot from, to the extent that we literally have been studying it word for word. You know, in today's world, Letters, in general, are not really common anymore. The only letters you usually get today are bills. You get bills. Bills are always on time. I wish people were on time like bills are on time. But bills are always on time, and usually, no one really cares what the bill says except the number, even though there are a lot of words.

1:24Funniest thing is sometimes the somebody or some company will send you a bill for like a dollar fifty for something that you bought from them. We didn’t I pay for whatever it is, but the stamp itself is fifty cents, and they'll keep sending you the bill for six months. They'll spend ten dollars just to collect a dollar fifty, meaning that bills today have become more of an ancient product that most likely will become extinct at some point and everything will become digital. Even more so, letters between people. Letters between people are very uncommon. We have text messages, we have emails; handwritten letters or even typed letters have become less and less common. Every time we send packages back and forth from Israel, he sends me from Israel to here, and I send him to Israel. We always try to include a letter in there, talking about specific things that we haven't discussed.

2:28or any time I communicate with anybody that's important. We always try to write something in a book or in a letter, but for the most part, rabotai, it's very, very rare to write a letter. I would dare to say that most of you guys are very young. Most of you probably never wrote a letter in your life. And the reality is that most of you may not write a letter at any time during your life. But you will write a lot of text messages. you write a lot of text messages, a lot of WhatsApp messages, a lot of emails. And we've gotten so used to that system that we try to, because we're in such a fast environment, we want to get things done so quickly. We shorten words, we use acronyms. We change the words; instead of writing the whole word "you," it's very common for all of us, myself included, to just put the letter "u." Or instead of saying something is funny, you put "LOL" or some other acronym.

3:28so much so that unfortunately, in this generation, people need spell check when they actually need to spell something because they've forgotten how to spell since they're so used to using short words. For the most part, if you actually pay attention to your own letters, your own text messages, your own emails, 99% of it is 99% of what we write each other, it's complete nonsense. How are you? Good. How are you? Great. What are you doing tonight? Nothing. What are you doing tonight? Nothing. What did you do last night? Oh, it was great. What did you do? No, not so much, but it was great. Those are the conversations people have. Absolutely nothing. And they'll go back and forth for an hour and a half. Those are the conversations people have. Literally about nothing. Meaning that if somebody came between us, somebody came 800 years from now, and took our phones, took our letters, our text messages, and evaluated them, he wouldn't spend more than 30 seconds. Why? It's complete nonsense. It's complete nonsense. We write nonsense. That's the reality. But here we are, 800, 900 years later, evaluating a letter that was written from the Ramban to his son.

4:49and learning about it word for word, literally how to live life. This is just a little bit of an interesting insight to give us an idea of whom we're learning from. You know, you don't necessarily want to learn from someone who is not necessarily the best teacher. You want to learn from somebody that you admire. So if you can see someone from 900 years ago, someone from 900 years ago, he wrote a letter, and for 900 years people have been studying this letter and still learning to this day. It must be that there's something in this letter. It must be that there's a lot of secrets, a lot of insights, a lot of wisdom in this letter. And if there's that much wisdom in this letter, that already makes it worth it for us to learn this letter. Now, when we started this letter,

5:49We saw that literally every word that the Ramban used was picked very carefully. He used verses from the Torah. He made sure that every sentence was literally written like a Sefer Torah, where each word was picked carefully. And he started by telling his son, accustom yourself to speak gently to all people at all times, meaning that it doesn't matter what the other person is. It doesn't matter if the other person is Jewish or not Jewish, be nice to them. Some people think that just because someone is not Jewish, therefore you're allowed to do whatever you want with them. There are actually many, many halachot in the Torah that discuss our behavior and how we're supposed to treat non-Jews. If they are righteous non-Jews, we have to be very honest and courteous with them. If they are wicked and hate Am Yisrael, then we have to stay away from them. If they are idol worshipers and they are trying to be missionaries, meaning they are trying to entice other Jews to become idol worshipers, then we are not even allowed to talk to them. So, for example, if Chas V'Shalom, the day will come,

7:07and some Christian missionary will knock on your door. And he's going to say, "Hi, how are you doing today?" And he sounds really nice, and he has a nice friend next to him, and they all, you know, they look all appropriate, like they work at Staples. And, you know, "Hi, how are you doing, sir? Have you reviewed your Bible? Did you learn about Jesus lately?" That guy? Don't even have a conversation with him, even if you're an expert. Even if you're an expert... The only thing you're supposed to do is shut the door in their face. Why? Halacha says, the Torah says, you're not allowed to speak to such a person because even if you just simply let him speak and you don't respond, listening to his words can hurt your neshama. So much so that the Gemara in Masechet Avodah Zarah says, Rabbi Eliezer HaGadol, the rabbi of Rabbi Akiva, one time was approached by one of these Christian missionaries. And this Christian missionary said some things, and one of the things that he said was funny, was entertaining. Not necessarily a thing of wisdom, not necessarily something that we'll learn from, but Rabbi Eliezer found it funny, found it entertaining. Later on, Rabbi Eliezer found himself punished by HaKadosh Baruch Hu, where the Romans almost killed him after torturing him. And when he reviewed his own actions, like every one of us is supposed to do every day, review our actions, why do we get good, why do we get bad, where do we stand in our life, when he reviewed his actions, he realized that the reason why HaKadosh Baruch Hu

8:28found himself punished by HaKadosh Baruch Hu, where the Romans almost killed him after torturing him. And when he reviewed his own actions, like every one of us is supposed to do every day — review our actions, why we get good, why we get bad, where we stand in our life — when he reviewed his actions, he realized that the reason why HaKadosh Baruch Hu punished him and almost killed him was because he allowed himself to listen to the words of a missionary and was actually entertained by it. So much is the danger of listening to something that's impure. So if somebody comes to you and tells you they want to talk to you about something like this, you have to literally shut the door in their face because the Torah says you shouldn't be even six feet, even six feet next to them. Torah says you shouldn't be even six feet, even six feet next to them. Because they're that dangerous. In this generation, they're more dangerous than they've ever been before, these missionaries. These Christian missionaries are the most dangerous. And the reason why is because, for the first time in history, they're pretending to be Jews. In the past, the Christians and the Catholics would come to the Jews and try to force them to convert to their idol worship. If the Jews said no, they'd simply kill them.

9:51But if you kill a body, at least you're killing a body that's here temporarily anyway. If you kill a soul by convincing it to become an idol worshiper, you're killing it permanently. And unfortunately, that's what's happening today where a lot of people from the church, either Jews for Jesus or One for Israel or Michael Brown and many, many other wicked reshaim from Christianity, are constantly working really hard to convert Jews to Christianity. And the best part about it is that you see that this is one of the biggest missions of the Satan. And the reason why is because it doesn't make any sense. Technically, right now, there's somewhere in the neighborhood of two and a half billion Christians. And only about 15 million Jews that we know of, for sure. There are more that we don't know of, but 15 million we know of. Meaning, out of 2.5 billion Christians, even if chas v'shalom, they recruited all the Jews, it still wouldn't make a difference. From 2.5 billion to 2.5 billion and .5?

10:58Doesn't make a difference. Meaning, so, it doesn't make any logical sense for them to invest even one dollar, one cent, one minute on Am Yisrael. Why don't they go spend it on the rest of the world? You see here that there is obviously a very serious problem: part of their mission is to destroy Am Yisrael, and that's actually one of the nevuot, one of the prophecies that will happen before the end of time, that they will try to do this very hard. point is that we need to know this now. Most people don't care for Christianity and are not going to care for it anytime soon. But still, you need to know enough of what to stay away from. Now, does anybody know or at least want to volunteer why does Hashem hate idol worship so much? Whether it's praying to some guy that died 2,000 years ago, or some statue they bought in Chinatown, why does Hashem hate idol worship? Who wants to volunteer an answer? No? Chas v'shalom. Place everything with nothing. Place everything with nothing. Okay, next. It's faith. Huh? It's faith. Faith? Faith. Okay. Okay, next. No? No?

12:18Why does He hate it? He says it's not good, one thing. It's not good, one thing. I agree why it's not good. But Hashem says, "I consider it disgusting." Like He considers idol worship an abomination. Abomination, it's like disgusting. What's disgusting? You guys ever see a dead animal on the road? splattered into 50 pieces after a few cars ran over it. The mind, the whole stomach, the intestines, everything is all over the place. There's blood everywhere, the teeth are over here, the tail is over there. You're not really sure what it was. You ever see that? And it smells filthy after a couple of days. That's disgusting, right? That's what Hashem thinks of idol worship. That's what Hashem thinks of Christianity. Why? That it's not good? I agree. That's easy to understand. That it's fake? I agree. That it's replacing HaKadosh Baruch Hu, who is everything, with nothing. I agree also. I said it in the lecture. That's where you learn it from. But why does He hate it? No, Chavot. I want an answer. Because it makes you run around in circles looking for something that's here that you'll never find. Chazak, chazak. We're in there. We're getting there. We're getting closer. No, no, no, no. You guys don't fight today. No? Chavot. I like it. No? More. No? From the ladies. No? What do we have? Somebody has something. Okay, you know what? I'm going to give an answer for the women.

13:47And I'm going to give an answer for the men. Imagine this. I had an employee when I was working on Wall Street. I had a lot of employees. And one of my employees, she got into a depression. It got me concerned. Poor lady. She got into a depression. They don't work the same. When somebody's depressed, they don't work the same anymore. So even though you're here to work, you feel bad for people. So I asked her, what's wrong? And she says, "I can't get over it." I said, "What? What happened?" She said, "No, my husband, he left me." I said, "Yeah, but you were complaining about him for a long time. So he left. It's a good thing, no? You should be celebrating." She goes, "Yeah, but I can't get over it." I said, "Well, what's the problem?" She says, "I don't understand how he can leave me for her." I said, "Well, what's wrong with her? Let's talk. We're talking, all right? Let's talk. What's wrong with her?" She says, "First of all, she's three times my size. Not in a good way. She's not exactly a supermodel. Second of all, she's missing a leg. She has one leg."

15:01Third, she has a skin problem that you're not really sure what kind of species she is exactly. You're not really sure, maybe she's from the ocean, maybe she's from the Amazon, we're not really sure. Last but not least, if this is not enough, she has one eye. One eye, one leg, skin problem, and she's as big as an elephant. Now, my employee was a normal, decent-looking woman. I said to myself, you know what? You're right. You're right. I would be hurt too. I would be hurt too. I wouldn't be able to get over it either. If he left her for some supermodel, that's understandable. It's logical. It's logical. this, that got it. If you're, uh, taking, you know, maybe a little, uh, you know, sandwich with some pastrami on it, you replace it with a steak. Okay, we got it, everybody understands that. But you take the steak, you throw it in the garbage to replace it with some, uh, filth that you found in the garbage? It doesn't make any sense, it doesn't make any sense. She says, "I can't get over it." Imagine, rabotai, you work your whole life to find a good woman...

16:17You work really hard to make a little bit of money. You buy her the house that she wants. You put all the things in there that she wants. You buy her the jewelry that she wants. You answer every question that she asks, the way that she wants. Even if you disagree, you pretend like you agree. And one day, you come home and you see some guy that came out of the garbage pail replaced you. some homeless guy, he has one eye, one leg, he doesn't speak because he doesn't speak the language, he doesn't even have the ability to speak either. But she says, honey, I'm sorry, I'm leaving you. For who? For this guy. It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense. It's very easy to get into a very, very depressed state of mind after you see that she left you for that. that she left you for that, it's very easy to get into a depressed state of mind after you see that he left you for that. Why? If he left you for somebody that just came out of the garbage pail, what does that make you feel like? I must be worse. I must be worse than her. Listen, everybody else agrees that she shouldn't even be considered a human being. Everybody else agrees she may be considered a new species we'd put on the Discovery Channel.

17:44But he left me for her. So what am I? What am I after all if he left me for her? I think I'm good looking. I think I'm a decent human being. I think I'm smart. I think... But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm wrong. You see, Rabotai HaYekarim, HaKadosh Baruch Hu is telling us, I hate idolatry. I find it disgusting. Not because the idol is going to talk back to you. Not because the idol can do anything to challenge HaKadosh Baruch Hu. But in essence, what it does is a combination of all of your answers. Aside from making the person chase his tail his whole life looking for the truth with the impossibility of finding it, aside from being something that could lead Jews astray, aside from everything else where you're replacing everything with nothing, in essence, you're putting Hashem in a position of something worse than filth.

18:47when somebody worships an idol, whether it be Jesus or some rabbi that died, or it's a Buddha statue, or it's anything but God, Hashem says you just replaced me with filth. And that's not a good look. Does everybody agree with Hashem's perspective that it's not so nice to worship an idol? Now, I'm gonna ask you a question. It's a little personal. Don't feel bad. It's not meant to make you feel bad. I just need to know what I'm working with. How many people here keep Shabbat? Baruch Hashem, I didn't know I was going to a religious community. I didn't know you guys are Chareidim. Maybe you guys should give me a lecture. The majority of us are keeping Shabbat. You know why I asked? You know why I asked if you keep Shabbat? Because sometimes people don't understand, like me, I didn't understand that Shabbat was so important. I figured, Hashem says don't work, so I won't work. I'll go to the casino instead.

20:07I figured Hashem says don't light fire. Yeah, maybe that was relevant 3,000 years ago, but not so relevant today. So sometimes people forget that HaKadosh Baruch Hu, when He wrote the Torah, He took this generation into consideration also. Because if the Torah had to change, you have a Torah that changes. But the Torah doesn't need to change. So when He wrote that you're not allowed to violate Shabbat, not allowed to drive on Shabbat, not allowed to play video games on Shabbat, be on a phone on Shabbat, light fire on Shabbat, drive on Shabbat, you're not allowed to do all those things. He took everything into consideration during this, even this generation 3,000 years later. So much so, that in 12 places in the Torah, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says that says that someone who violates Shabbat and does not do teshuva, meaning not accidentally violating Shabbat. If you have to do teshuva, you fix it, and everything's okay. If you don't even realize that it's Shabbat and, let's say, you wake up in the middle of the night, you're running to the bathroom, and you forgot that it's Shabbat because you're still half asleep, and you turn on the light...

21:27that you have to do teshuvah for. Say, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have forgotten Shabbat for a second. I'm sorry." Everything will be fine. If you ran into a light, you know, not even turning it on on purpose, you just bumped into a wall and the light turned on, that's not even a sin at all. Not a sin at all. Because you ran into it, you didn't turn it on, you didn't have any intention. But if you actually had the intention, you turned on the TV, you drove a car on Shabbat, even if you drove to the Beit Knesset, Some people think it's allowed; you're not allowed to drive on Shabbat except to the Beit Knesset. I don't know how they came up with this logic. It's like you're not allowed to kill except if the person makes you angry. Who else are you gonna kill if he's not gonna make you angry? Go ask all the mafia guys. They kill only people that make them angry. They make a whole business out of it, $25,000 a head. Who are you gonna kill if you're not gonna kill somebody angry? I'm not gonna drive unless it's to the Beit Knesset. Who makes this logic? I used to live in Boca Raton. A very big synagogue over there called Boca Raton Synagogue. When I moved over there, I was so fascinated. Such a beautiful shul. Wow, amazing. I thought this is like the most religious place on earth until I got to Shabbat on Shabbat Friday night.

22:47It was night, so I got there. I said, "Oh, there's a lot of cars, Baruch Hashem." They closed the parking lot. There's a parking lot next to the shul. And there were a lot of cars. I said, "Ah, Baruch Hashem, a lot of people are coming." The shul had five or six hundred people. Unbelievable. But then, as I left the shul, we all prayed for Shabbat. You know, we sang, we danced. Everything was great. We left the shul. I saw out of the five hundred people, maybe four hundred went back into their cars and drove home. I said to myself, am I in a Reform shul? Or is it Conservative? Is this a church? How do they call themselves synagogues? It should be false advertising. The next day, I thought maybe this is a one-time thing, something happened, they forgot it's Shabbat, I don't know. The next day I go to shul in the morning, I see all the people, they're driving into the shul. Hundreds of them, not only 20 people, hundreds of people drive to this separate parking lot, and they come out with their tallit bag, with the big kippah, and they come out like it's perfectly fine. I couldn't believe this. I said something to the rabbi, he said, no, look, there's nothing wrong with it. Chaverei HaKehillah, under no condition is someone allowed to drive on Shabbat unless they're driving to a hospital to save somebody's life. The Torah says you have to keep Shabbat. It doesn't say you have to go to shul. You should go to shul, but not if it leads you to violating Shabbat. So much so that HaKadosh Baruch Hu said,

24:13if you violate Shabbat, there's a heavenly death penalty, which we've discussed in previous lectures. But in these 12 specific times that I'm telling you about, Hashem also gives us a little bit of a secret. He says, "Listen, I love you. You're my son, you're my daughter. You keep Shabbat, we're good. But if you don't keep Shabbat..." right next to Shabbat you're always going to see one or two verses next to it. Hashem says the violator of Shabbat has a death penalty; the violator of idolatry has a death penalty. And the sages tell us, what do we learn from here? In the eyes of Hashem, someone that drives on Shabbat, someone that works on Shabbat, someone that discusses business on Shabbat—I'm going to buy this building, I'm going to rent this house—somebody that's doing that, is the same thing as the idol worshiper we just talked about. The same one that cheated on Hashem. The same one that left Hashem for some unknown species. Same thing.

25:22idol worship, the Ramban says, you have to make sure to communicate these things to people, but you have to do it in a way that's not necessarily judgmental. Nonetheless, you have to take into account that if you don't tell them, they may never know, and they may continue driving on Shabbat for 20-30 years without realizing how bad it is. Which is something that I learned from my first student. Five, six years ago, I was doing a shiur every week at my house. And the first shiur, there was only one guy there. His name was Nisan. And I told him, "Nisan, I don't know what you keep, what you don't keep. I'll tell you what Hashem said, you do whichever you want. I'm not judging you, I'm not a judge, I'm not a jury. I'll just tell you what Hashem said." Within the first few minutes, I start talking about Shabbat. He said, "Wait a minute, what are you talking about? I can drive though, right?" I said... No, you can't drive on Shabbat. He goes, no, no, I know you can't drive to the mall. That I know, he tells me. "I can drive to shul though, right?" I'm looking behind me, maybe it's like a practical joke, maybe there's a camera. I said, "No, no, you can't drive on Shabbat to shul. You can drive to the hospital if you're dying or somebody else is dying, but you cannot drive on Shabbat." He's like, "What do you mean? I've been driving to shul, the Boca Raton shul, for 20 years. No one ever told me this."

26:48I said, "I don't know, replace a rabbi, replace, I don't know. I didn't make it up." He started keeping Shabbat that week. All he needed to know was the truth. It wasn't that it was so difficult. It was just that he never knew. And he didn't spend any time learning Torah. He was a mover. He wasn't exactly, you know, someone that was an Einstein. He wasn't someone that needed to be an Einstein for what he did. And he didn't spend much time learning Torah. All he needed to know was, am I allowed or not allowed? Yes or no? That's what the majority of the generation is. As soon as I told him no, he said, okay, fine, I'll keep it. What's the big deal? Okay, now I won't drive. I don't have to drive. And now, Baruch Hashem, five, six years later, Baruch Hashem, he still keeps Shabbat. He ended up getting married, ended up having a kid, Baruch Hashem. A lot of blessings came to him as a result of keeping Shabbat. All he needed was a little bit of information he did not have a day before. The Rambam says you have to communicate this information to people at all times, but also, you have to make sure

28:01That sometimes, you're going to tell people the truth. You're going to tell your cousin the truth. You're going to tell your friend the truth. And he or she is not going to like it. You're going to tell your girlfriend, listen, I heard from this rabbi, this guy, he said, you don't have to drive on Shabbat. I know you don't really come from a religious family, but according to Hashem, you love Hashem, right? Yeah, you love Hashem. Okay, Hashem says, if you drive on Shabbat, you're considered an idol worshiper. And he gave us this whole depiction of what an idol worshiper is. You don't want to be one. You don't want to be one. Your friend all of a sudden looks at you and horns come out of her mouth. She's like, "Who are you to judge me?" She starts yelling at you and screaming at you. The Rambam says, don't get mad. Don't get mad. Don't get mad. First and foremost, understand, you just challenged her truth. She believed something her whole life. You come over here and just start messing it up. It's not so easy to accept. It's not so easy to accept. Second of all, you're challenging not just her truth, but her intellect, his intellect. How could it be possible that you know this and I don't know this? Then people feel that they're being attacked. Why are you telling me what to do? Who are you to tell me? As if you created the law. The important thing is, Rabotai, that sometimes you're going to tell the most important people in your life the truth,

29:27And instead of accepting it and saying thank you and kissing your hand for saving their eternity, they're going to get really upset at you. Your job is simply to tell them the truth. After that, move forward. Don't get angry. Don't start fighting with them. Don't start getting all bent out of shape because they don't want to listen to you. It's not listening to you, after all. They're not listening to Hashem either. So the Ramban says, if you speak to them, with a specific way that you are trying to help them, this will help you stay away and be protected from anger. Now, out of all the bad things in the world, why did the Ramban pick anger as the one thing to start off in the letter that you need to stay away from? And he tells us in the next section, he says anger

30:27this anger is the most serious character flaw that there is because it causes a person to sin. How much does it cause a person to sin? He says, he says anyone that gets angry all types of Gehinnom, all types of negative, horrible, nightmare types of things end up taking control over that person. Now, first and foremost, let's understand what the Ramban is trying to tell us here. He says, this anger, it's not something that you want in your life, even though everybody gets angry. Some of the most important people in your life—you've seen them angry—you have gotten angry at them too. You sometimes get angry at yourself. Sometimes we get angry at God. For the most part, most people think, like I thought, that anger is just simply a part of life. Sometimes you have it; sometimes you don't have it, but...

31:50not necessarily something that you need to protect yourself from. If you have a habit, I told the guy one time, like, listen, you have to work on your anger. You get angry; you're a hothead. It's very dangerous not just to your neshama, but also to your body. People that get angry could even get angry to such an extent where they get a heart attack. A lot of diseases result from this. He says, no, no, listen, I'm not such an angry guy. I only get angry when people make me angry. I don't get angry. I said, yeah, obviously, you get angry if people make you angry. If you get angry without people making you angry, then you don't need to work on your anger. You need to work on everything. We don't put you in a mental institution because you get angry for no reason. You get angry because people made you angry. That's everybody. Everybody gets angry because people made you angry. That's the point. The Ramban says you have to make sure to stay away from this. Why? One of the best pieces of advice that the sages tell us in Orchot Tzaddikim is that before you decide who your friends are, before you decide if you're going to make somebody a friend, not an acquaintance—everybody has acquaintances. People you give high-fives to, people you see once in a while, people you go to school with, people you work with, those are acquaintances. I'm talking about a friend. A friend is somebody that you share personal things with. A friend is somebody that you call when you have a problem.

33:19A friend is somebody who's going to help you move. That's how you know if somebody's your friend. If he's going to help you move, she's going to help you move, that's your friend. But if you need to move and all of a sudden nobody wants to answer the phone, everybody becomes busy, guess what? They weren't your friends. They were your acquaintances. Doesn't make them bad people, just not your friends. You get to know a lot about people when you're having a bad time. So the Ramban says, before you decide who you're going to pick as a friend... You have to test three things: How does he act after he drinks a little bit of wine (koso)? How does he act when he loses a little bit of money (kiso)? How does he act when somebody makes him angry (ka'aso)? The Gemara says, if you want to get to know somebody, you want to get to know them when they're vulnerable. When everything is good, most people act normal. But once somebody has had a couple of drinks too many, the truth comes out. Liquor comes in, truth comes out. That's what the Gemara says: wine comes in, truth comes out.

34:35if before he had a few drinks he was always nice, but all of a sudden, as soon as he had a couple of drinks, he starts talking about anti-Semitism, he starts talking about things that are a little strange, things that are not normal, guess what? That's who he really is. What he says, what she says when they're drunk, that's who they are. So the next day, when they say, "Listen, I'm sorry I said such and such, I was just drunk," no, no, no, don't be sorry. That's you. You just hide it really well without the drink. Don't be sorry. That's who you are. I'm sorry that I didn't know this, and I had to see it after you drank. A person who starts losing their mind and starts saying things that are awful when they're drunk, that's actually how they really feel. Unfortunately, if that feeling is not a good one, they have to work on themselves. Another thing that you learn to get to know people is how they act once they lose a little bit of money. When I was in the stock market business, all we had was money. Some people are so poor, all they have is money. Now, the clients loved me when we were making money. I had some clients that called me their best friend.

35:55They asked me not only for financial advice, but also for marriage advice, business advice, and every type of advice possible. When we were making money, I was like the Mashiach. The minute we lost a little bit of money, all of a sudden, every curse in the book came out. Every single curse, like they had a book, a dictionary—you're this, you're that, do-do-do-do-do-do. I said, how many curses do you know? How do you know all these things? What happened? Once you lose a little bit of money, the truth comes out also. You put some money in front of people, and they'll tell you who they really are. When two guys are starting a business, two women are starting a business, a husband and a wife are starting a business, everything is good. Why? They're both really excited about the same goal, the same aspiration. They both feel like, oh, this is going to be a winner. We're going to build this together. Oh, I love you. Oh, I love you. You're my best friend. You're my best friend. Oh, yeah, everything is good. You buy little keychains and half a heart for her and half a heart for you. Everything's great. Guess what? Once that business makes a bunch of money, all of a sudden it's like, yeah, by the way, that heart, I didn't mean it. Can you give it back? Give me that. Why? I work harder than you. You don't deserve half the business. You don't deserve half the business. You deserve maybe 10%. 10%. Once there's a lot of money involved, all of a sudden the friendship changes. Same thing if a lot of money is lost. Kiso. A person behaves very, very differently.

37:22But it's their true version of themselves once there's a lot of money involved. And last but not least, ka'as. What does a person do once they lose their mind? Once they get angry? How do they behave? Some people, they get angry and they're strange. Why? Because you're not really sure what's going on. They're very quiet. Some people are this way. They get angry but they don't say a single thing. Those people can either be decent people. That's problematic or very dangerous. They could be a serial killer. We're not really sure why because they're very quiet. They don't respond; they don't respond at all. You talk to them and they don't respond, but then eventually, they explode. Other people, they explode at any little thing. They curse, they yell. Other people, they break stuff; they're violent. Point being is that when you see somebody angry, you get to see a certain version of that person that's not so pretty. And the Gemara says in Masechet Shabbat that if a person gets angry, it makes him less of a human being. But if he expresses his or her anger with violence,

38:45if they hit somebody, if they take money that they have, and they're upset because the guy lost, he counted the money that he has. He has, I don't know, 300, and he saw that earlier today he had 320. He lost 20. He's not happy about losing 20, and he gets so upset he just decides to throw the money in the air. You know, some people get crazy, they just do stupid things. Otherwise, some people, they gamble and they lose a small little hand, they end up going on tilt and flipping the table. He throws money in the air. He takes a pen, he takes a pencil, he takes a hammer, he takes a remote control, he takes a phone. Phone makes him upset because the battery's run out. Phone makes him upset because he got a text message from his wife saying to go buy some groceries and he's really tired. The phone makes him upset because his boss just sent him a text saying you're fired. He takes the phone and throws it. The Gemara says in Masechet Shabbat, page 105b, that person needs to be viewed as an idol worshiper. Yes, again,

40:03The same idol worshiper we've been talking about for the last little bit of time, that HaKadosh Baruch Hu despises and finds disgusting. Why? Why does Hashem find somebody that expresses their anger in a violent way disgusting? Because, Rabotai HaYekarim, somebody that expresses their anger that way, Being angry is one thing. Expressing your anger in a violent way is something completely different. The Gemara says that once you express your anger in a violent way, that means that the Yetzer Hara, the Satan, has taken control over you. Today he tells you to throw your phone. Today he tells you to kick the car. Today he tells you to punch the window. Today he tells you to kick the door. Today he tells you to do something that's not so nice to your wife, you hit her in the face or something like that. Tomorrow, he's going to tell you to do something else. And the next day, he's going to tell you to do something else. And the next day, he's going to tell you to do something else. And since you already have become a slave to him, the Gemara says, it's only a matter of time before the same Satan, Malach HaMavet, tells you, go and worship J.C. Penney. Go and worship Jesus. Go and worship Buddha. Go and worship some idol.

41:22Meaning that that anger will lead you to the idolatry that Hashem despises. Therefore, it's already despised as it is. Now, even a good guy, even a good person can get angry. It's very normal for a person to do that, especially when they don't know how bad it is in the eyes of Hashem. But there's a famous story where one of the Chassidim in Eretz Yisrael used to visit jails. And one time he went to a jail to visit different Jewish prisoners, and he saw that there's someone who's religious and has a life sentence. He talks to him, asking how he's doing, how they're treating him, and so on and so forth. And the guy tells him, "Rabbi, you're probably wondering why I'm here, right?" The Rabbi says, "No, I already know why you're here."

42:23He goes, "You heard?" He goes, "Yeah, yeah, I read your file. In the file, it says you killed your best friend on Yom Kippur." He says, "Yeah, that's right." He goes, "That doesn't shock you?" He said, "Obviously it shocks me, but I don't know why you did it." He says, "Listen, you know how it says in the Torah, someone that gets angry, that Gehenom takes control of him?" He says, "It's true." He goes, "One day, on Yom Kippur," Went to pray. We're praying all night. Then we rested a little bit. We prayed in the morning, the whole afternoon. And then there was about an hour and a half break. It was an hour and a half break in the afternoon. So my friend and I went back to my house. So we went back to the house. And we started talking, chit-chatting about soccer. He likes Yerushalayim. I like Haifa. Next thing you know, we get into an argument. And he curses my mother. I said, wait one second. I went into my room, I took my gun, and I shot him in the face. Because at that moment, when he cursed my mom, it wasn't me anymore. At that moment, it wasn't me. The fact that I'm friends with him since we were kids. We grew up together for 25, 30 years. We're best friends. I love him. I miss him. I cry about him all the time. But the minute he cursed my mom, just something, the screw came out. Something came out. I got so angry. I just...

43:51don't remember what happened, meaning that even a person that's religious, even a person that's really nice, even a person that's normally a calm person, if they do not work on controlling their anger in the most difficult times, they could fall and literally become a massive failure for eternity. Now... The Chafetz Chaim talks about it extensively, about how a person could literally lose everything. Lose everything as a result of anger. The Gemara Masechet Pesachim talks about that even if the person knows a lot of Torah, if he allows himself to express his anger in a violent way, starts yelling, screaming, cursing, all of the wisdom that he gathered his entire life, even if it was as much as Moshe Rabbeinu, gone. Once a person starts expressing their anger and... talks about how even if the person knows a lot of Torah, if he allows himself to express his anger in a violent way—starts yelling, screaming, cursing—all of the wisdom that he gathered his entire life, even if it was as much as Moshe Rabbeinu, is gone. Once a person starts expressing their anger in a

44:55negative way—that's yelling, screaming, cursing, breaking stuff—anything that he ever learned in his life goes in the garbage. Even if he was a prophet, meaning someone who speaks to Hashem like Moshe Rabbeinu, prophecy is gone. The Gemara says, why? Because the moment that a person gets angry and The wisdom escapes him. And what's wisdom? What's Chochmah? Chochmah is Torah. Chochmah, the real Chochmah in the world, is called Torah. And as soon as a person gets angry, they lose that Chochmah and it has to be replaced by something. What is it replaced by? It's replaced by something other than God, other than HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Now, one time, anybody here ever heard of the Baal Shem Tov? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Okay, so all you guys heard of the Baal Shem Tov? You heard of the Baal Shem Tov? I'm going to tell you a story about the Baal Shem Tov. Somebody came to the Baal Shem Tov one time, and he said, Rebbe, I don't know what's going on with me. I come to Yerushalayim, I learn everything. Prayer, for me, became a waste of time.

46:18Rabbi says, why? He says, I don't know. I come to shul. I look at the siddur. I'm praying, but the whole time I'm thinking about mamash. Rabbi, I'm embarrassed to tell you what I think about. I'm embarrassed to tell you what I think about. I don't know what's going on. I take the siddur. I take it. I'm thinking, as soon as I open the siddur, I'm thinking about women half-naked. I'm thinking about casinos. I'm thinking about the worst things in the world, Rabbi, when I'm speaking to G-d. The Baal Shem Tov says, "Oh, okay, yeah, I know what's going on." He says, "It's your siddur." "What's wrong with my siddur?" He says, "You see, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, you're not allowed to look at the face of a rasha. You're not allowed to look at the face of a wicked person. Why? Because even looking at him will affect your neshamah." Your siddur, you probably lent it to somebody, or you left it somewhere, and you didn't use it, right? He goes, yeah, of course, I went away, I forgot my siddur, it was gone. He goes, yeah. So what happened? Somebody picked up your siddur and used it. And that somebody was a rasha. So now every time you open your siddur, your neshamah is looking at him.

47:36It's not reading the words of Hashem. It's looking at this person's face. And it's affecting you. You're thinking what he thought. When he was praying to Hashem, instead of thinking about Hashem, he was thinking about girls, he was thinking about guys, he was thinking about everything except Hashem. So now when you look at your siddur, you're thinking like him. Change your siddur and everything's going to work out. So much so that when a person prays, if he actually starts realizing that his mind is elsewhere, the Baal Shem Tov says, change your siddur. Because maybe somebody used it. That's why I advise everyone, if you're going to take Torah seriously, buy yourself a siddur. Don't use the one in shul. Buy yourself a siddur. Even though the shul is very accommodating, very nice, very gracious, you're all grown-ups, get 20 bucks in your pocket and buy yourself a siddur. You can leave it in the shul if you want. If you live in an eruv, But you should have a siddur for day to day. Have yourself a siddur. Why? Because the reality is that you want to have something, number one, that you can take with you, regardless of where you are, that you can get used to, regardless of where you are. But most importantly, you want to have something that's yours and no one else can hurt in any way, even spiritually. Even if this is beyond the scope of this generation altogether, I still recommend for people to buy their siddur.

49:05It's telling me to change it. She do, and that's how you're gonna change your tefillah. I'll take the Baal Shem Tov at face value. If you have a complaint, before you go to sleep tonight, you say, "Shema Yisrael, Hashem, please make a meeting between me and the Baal Shem Tov while I'm dreaming, and maybe you can have a meeting with the Baal Shem Tov. He'll explain to you why he said it, but according to the Baal Shem Tov, you should have your own siddur." Why? Because sometimes somebody that's not so nice looks at that siddur. Now, that somebody that's not so nice doesn't necessarily need to be a murderer. It could simply be one of those people that I used to see at the shul that drove on Shabbat. Doesn't need to be a murderer or some type of pedophile or some type of psychopath. No! It could simply be somebody that Hashem decides, according to His laws, that's a rasha. What's a rasha? Somebody who drives on Shabbat. But Hashem says it's an idol worshiper. What's an idol worshiper? Disgusting. What's disgusting? Rasha. Wicked. Yes? There are many biblical heroes or characters who are rashaim according to your definition because they did things that are wrong. Moshe hit the rock. David saw Bat Sheva on the balcony. They messed up. We're human. They're human. So how do you know what a rasha is? Because people can do something wrong and they're still a good person.

50:28Like I said in the beginning of the shiur, if somebody makes a mistake, that simply makes them human. Human. First of all, the Gemara Masechet Shabbat says that anyone that says that David HaMelech sinned is mistaken. You simply do not understand all the details. She was single because there was a law at that time that anytime somebody goes to war, they get a get. So he was allowed to be with Bat Sheva. There's no sin there. As far as Moshe Rabbeinu hitting the rock, on his level, it was considered a mistake. On our level, it's considered a mitzvah, meaning according to the Torah there's no problem. But on his level, Hashem did not like it, and he did not sanctify Hashem's name. The point being is that neither one of them is ever called a rasha in the Torah, so we need to clear that up. More importantly, even if someone in the Torah... was called wicked, like, for example, Menashe. Menashe was one of the worst human beings that ever lived before he did teshuva. Every sin you can possibly commit, he committed. The Prophet Isaiah was his grandfather. He cut him up into little pieces. Literally, he cut him up into little pieces. The biggest tzaddik in the world, and he cut him up into little pieces.

51:45Idols, he brought into the Beit HaMikdash. Brought Buddha statues into the Beit HaMikdash. Raped his family members. All types of horrible things. All types of the worst things you can imagine, he did. But, he did Teshuva. And HaKadosh Baruch Hu accepted his Teshuva. Before he did Teshuva, he was the worst human being on earth. He was considered a Rasha Merusha. After he did Teshuva, he's considered a Tzaddik. True, it was accepted according to the Torah. In the book of Chronicles, it says that it's true, it was accepted. The point being, if somebody makes a mistake, that simply makes them human. The way that a person is titled according to the Torah is while they're making that mistake. If that mistake is intentional, if they undo that status, they undo it. Somebody stole, they're a rasha, but if they give the money back... They're not a rasha anymore. In fact, they're a tzaddik. Not only are they not a rasha anymore, they're a tzaddik now. Somebody violates Shabbat, rasha. Somebody says, "Oh, I'm sorry, Hashem. I didn't know I'm not allowed to drive on Shabbat to that extent. I know it's not good. I just didn't know that you consider me an idol worshiper, that I'm this, that I didn't know it was that bad, Hashem. I didn't know. I'm sorry. Even though I've been driving for 20, 30, 40, 50 years, even to the Knesset,"

53:07I'm going to stop now. I'm 50 years old, I'm going to stop driving now. From now on, Hashem, I'm never driving on Shabbat. From now on, Hashem, I'm going to be Your biggest tzaddik on Shabbat. Guess what? HaKadosh Baruch Hu is dancing. Dancing, look at My tzaddik son. He calls that person a tzaddik. Why? It's a baal teshuva. Baal teshuva, what's a baal teshuva? The Gemara says a baal teshuva is someone who does teshuva. Someone who does teshuva on such a high level, even someone who was born religious. that never needed to do teshuva is not on his level. Someone who was born religious into a religious community, whose father's a rabbi, grandfather's a rabbi, all the way to Moshe Rabbeinu—everybody's a rabbi. That person is not on the same level as any one of you if you choose to do teshuva. That's how high a Baal Teshuva is. Why? The Mesillat Yesharim says, If you want to learn Torah, you go learn from a Baal Teshuva. Why do you go learn Torah from a Baal Teshuva? He says a Baal Teshuva is at a high level, higher than even someone that's a tzaddik gamur. Why? Because someone that was born religious only had certain types of tests. He saw one part of the world.

54:16He was born into a religious family, so therefore, it's not necessarily like he chose God. It was gifted to him on a silver platter. So the tests that he had were limited. The tests that she had were limited in a certain aspect of the world. Someone that was born into a non-religious family, someone that perhaps went off the derech, born into a religious family but left, and saw the other side of the world, the disgusting stuff, the homosexuality, the idolatry, the theft, the despicable nature of the world we live in, saw that, experienced it, but then said, you know what? This is disgusting. I don't want to be like the rest of the world. I want to be like Hashem wants me to be. That person being a Ba'al Teshuva, that person Hashem says is on the highest level. Why? He saw the other side, she saw the other side, and still chose G-d.

55:17You saw, you enjoyed the flavor of bacon, but you still choose to eat kosher only? That makes you special. But if a person chooses to not do teshuva, if she chooses to continue walking around half-naked, if he continues to steal, if he continues to lie, if he continues, or she continues, to drive on Shabbat and Mashiach comes, or they die, whichever one happens first, guess what? There's no more teshuva. There's no more teshuva; there is teshuva, but it's not the same way as here. And that's what the Ramban is trying to tell us. If you are an idol worshiper, a Mechalel Shabbat, someone that does not work on his anger, what does it mean? He says, one of the commentaries, it is impossible for an idol worshiper to avoid going to Gehenom permanently. Now, I have a shiur about Gehenom.

56:24It's not for everybody. It's not for everybody. Why? Most people would probably get a heart attack within the first 10 minutes, once they understand what actually happens. Because we live in a generation where, unfortunately, people who look like me and call themselves rabbis lie to people. They tell them that Gehenom doesn't exist. Hell doesn't exist. They tell them, no, no, everybody's okay, don't worry. Even though the Torah says otherwise in many places, including this week's parasha. Gemara in Masechet Sanhedrin says what happened to the Meraglim that lied about Eretz Yisrael, that spoke against Eretz Yisrael. It says they have no share of the world to come. So what does it mean they have no share of the world to come? It says, first of all, they were punished in this world. They spoke against the land of Israel. Hashem took their tongue and connected it to their belly button and let them rot in front of everybody. A vicious, horrible, disgusting death. This is this week's parasha. But aside from that, after they died, he says they have no share of the world to come. What does no share of the world to come mean? It means Gehinnom. What does Gehinnom mean? Anyone that wants to know a lot of details should watch my show about Gehinnom. It just hit over 10,000 views. So apparently, a lot of people want to know about Gehinnom. A lot of people want to know about Gehinnom, but it'll scare you. It'll scare you. And the reason why is because it's real. And you need to know a little bit about it.

57:47Anyone that knows a little bit of Hebrew, I brought a book, you can read a little bit about it. I can't give it to you because it's my book, but I can show you. And I give you a verse. A verse in the Torah where Yeshua ben Levi, one of the greatest tzaddikim that ever lived, one of the ten people that never died, went to Gan Eden with a suit on. Ten people in history never died. Hashem decided to take them from this world into the next world. One of them is Eliyahu HaNavi. One of them is Yehoshua ben Levi. One of them is Binyamin. One of them is Eliezer, the helper of Avraham Avinu. And so on and so forth. Yehoshua ben Levi, he had a good friend. Who was it? Eliyahu HaNavi. Eliyahu, the prophet, he was his friend. They were friends. So Eliyahu HaNavi comes to him and he says... Are you interested in seeing Gehinnom? And he says, yeah, sure, why not? Why not? I want to see it. Anybody here interested in seeing Gehinnom? Not so much, right? I promise you, you don't want to see it. But I'll tell you a little bit about it, just so you know a little 1% of 1% of 1% of 1% of 1% of 1% of what it sounds like.

59:03So you understand? This is real. Why do you need to know it's real? Because if we continue driving on Shabbat, if we continue being idol worshippers, if we continue eating treif, if we continue going against Hashem, if we continue being immodest and causing guys to sin, this is the option. Hashem doesn't want to send you there. I promise you He doesn't want to send you there. If He wants to send you there, He'll take you there right now. First class. It's not a hard thing. But if a person knows, if I drive really fast, could potentially die. Most likely they're not going to drive really fast. If a person knows, "If I drive really fast, I'm guaranteed to die," they're definitely not going to drive fast. That's the point of Gehinom. Hashem says it's there, it's available. A lot of people are there, some are not ever leaving, unfortunately, their sins were too great to the extent where they have to be destroyed. It's real. and anyone that tells you otherwise is considered 100% a heretic, meaning you cannot count them as a Jew. Even if they have a beard longer than mine. Even if they call themselves a rabbi. Even if they're a famous rabbi. Why? Because this is one of the ikarim of Judaism.

1:00:20Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi says, one time I was walking around and I saw Eliyahu HaNavi. And Eliyahu HaNavi said to me, do you have any interest in seeing Gehenom? I said, sure. So he took me there. He took me there. And what did he say? He showed me people in Gehenom that are being hung by their nose. Why are they hung by their nose? You guys know sometimes women wear a lot of perfume, right? You enjoy that perfume and she's not your wife? That's the punishment. Some people are hung by their hands. Why are they hung by their hands? Have you ever taken something that's not yours? That's what happens. Have you ever said something that you're not allowed to say? You lied? You spoke Lashon Hara about somebody? That's what happens.

1:01:40Some people are hung by their legs. Have you ever gone somewhere that you're not really supposed to go to? Instead of going to a shiur Torah, you went to the bar? You went to the pub? You went to a nightclub? You went to one of those places? That's part of the process. He showed me women hung by their chests. You know, sometimes a woman, she likes to get attention. She wants all the guys to look at her. So she wears a shirt that perfectly shows everything. Meaning it's almost like it's not there. She shows everything. She shows everything. It's almost like it's not there. Or, better yet, she calls herself a Chabadnik because she covers everything, but it's so tight, it might as well not be there. Because with the clothes, without the clothes, you're not really sure if she's wearing anything. It's so tight. So Hashem says, those people, they're going to have a special section, they're hung by that. You want to show your chest? No problem. We're going to show everything to the whole, every single person that goes is going to see you hanging by what you want to show the whole world. He showed me people that are hung by their eyes. You know, some guys, they like to look at those girls.

1:03:06They like to look at those girls. Hashem says, you want to look at them? No problem. That's what you do. They hung them by the eyes. We're almost done with this section because I'm already seeing that you guys are scared enough. And He says, He showed me people that Hashem fed them their own flesh. Why? They ate neveilot v'tereifot. You ate non-kosher food? I said eat kosher food, no? Oh, you ate non-kosher because you liked the little pepperoni on your pizza? You liked the little worms in your salad from Subway because you thought it was kosher even though it doesn't say kosher on the door. The only thing that was kosher is something that you thought about but not in the restaurant. So I'll feed you something else. Who? Yourself. Now, someone's going to tell you, "Wait a minute, once you die, there's no body anymore. There's no body anymore. So what happened? How could the body—how could the neshama—suffer all of this stuff?" Well, rabotai yikarim, the neshama, according to the Gemara, feels 60 times more than the body does.

1:04:20Our perception of what the neshama is as something that feels nothing, as some, you know, ghost that just flies through the wall or something like you saw in movies, is incorrect. That's not what the neshama is. The neshama is actually restricted by the body, to the extent that once the neshama leaves the body, the feeling is 60 times more. It goes into a lot more detail, but you get the point. If you want to know more, just watch my shiur about Ge'enom. Why do I tell you all this stuff? I don't necessarily want anybody to have nightmares, but you need to have a little bit. You need to have a little bit. Why? Because when a person does not watch his speech, does not watch his behavior, does not watch all the things that they're doing, they could simply become their own worst enemy. Now, on one end, they can become their own worst enemy by leading their own soul into a place that's called Gehenom, which is real, which is painful, which in some cases the Gemara says never ends. Some people go to Gehenom for a limited amount of time, a year, a month, five years, a thousand years, but then the Gemara in Masechet Rosh Hashanah in several places,

1:05:45says that some people go there and never leave. Here the Gemara in Masechet Rosh Hashanah, page 16b, says, "Many of those who sleep in the dusty earth will awaken, these for everlasting life and these for shame, for everlasting abhorrence." says there are certain people that will get punished but they'll be resurrected with the dead. they'll get out again. they'll eventually go to Gan Eden. But there are certain people that will never leave Gehinom because they died as idol worshipers, because they died as someone who did not do teshuva. One of the sources for that is the last verse in the book of Isaiah. Last verse of the book of Isaiah, you can look at it. Isaiah says, "And they will go out and see the corpses of the men who rebelled against Hashem, against Me. For their decay will not cease, and their fire will not be extinguished. They will lie in disgrace before all mankind." Here we see that the prophet Isaiah literally says there's a place of, unfortunately, eternal suffering. Now,

1:07:03Gehenom doesn't necessarily need to just be what I just described, meaning this eternal, horrible, horrific place. Anybody here ever see a scary movie? You guys saw scary movies before, okay, this is worse because it's real. The movie ends at some point. Now, it doesn't have to be this way. Again, can somebody sometimes be in this world... How? Somebody that lives with anxiety constantly. Someone that's constantly depressed. Someone that's constantly angry at everything that moves. That's an emotional Gehenom. That person is constantly suffering. It's not fire per se. They're not being hung. They're not suffering physically, but they're suffering emotionally. They're constantly depressed. They're constantly thinking negatively. They're constantly thinking things are going to work out in a bad way. They constantly look at everything in a bad way. They have no hope. They have no dreams. They have no aspirations. They simply can't wait to die because they think their troubles will be over. David HaMelech said in Tehillim 30, verse 4,

1:08:26Hashem, You've raised my soul up from Sheol. You took my soul out of Gehenom. Now, David HaMelech was alive when he said this. Meaning that, what is David HaMelech saying? He said, Hashem, I was down, You took me out. Meaning that even being in a depression, even being in a horrible state of mind, that's also a section of Gehenom. It's just you put yourself in there. You put yourself in there. The Gehenom in this world, we put ourselves in. The Gehenom in this world, we also put ourselves in, but we don't realize it. If a person thinks about his actions, thinks about his behavior, thinks about what she’s doing, thinks about what he’s doing, they’ll realize that most of the problems that they have in their life are actually within their hands. They brought it to themselves. And Rabbi Fink says, my Rav, he says, if somebody told you, do you want cancer? How many people here, by a show of hands, how many people here say yes, you want cancer? Anybody here want cancer? Once, twice, three times? No? Same price, no? Anybody here want diabetes? Diabetes maybe? Anybody here want AIDS? Anybody here want...

1:09:51Heart attack? No, right? With the exception of AIDS, the other three, people bring on themselves. AIDS also. But the other three, they bring on themselves without even realizing it. And if somebody told you, do you want any one of these horrible, deadly diseases, if I paid you a million dollars, how many people would say, you know what? I'll take a little chemo for a million bucks? How many? How many people? Two million dollars. Two million dollars to get a little cancer. No? How many? Two million dollars, cancer. Two million dollars, diabetes. Two million dollars. You're actually thinking about it? You have to come to every shiur. You have to come to every shiur. Two million dollars for cancer. No? Who? Anyone that's actually contemplating it, you should go to the cancer unit and tell them, I want to see what a cancer patient looks like. No, you need to see it because then you'll realize that you don't want it.

1:10:52Of course, no one here would take cancer for any price—not one million, not two million, not two billion. No one here will take diabetes for any price. No one here would take a heart attack for any price. Now, if I'm asking us, then why are we giving it to ourselves for free? If you're not going to take it for 2 million, for 5 million, for 100 million, why are you giving it to yourself for free? By living a life full of anger. Do you know how many people die all the time because they got so angry they had a heart attack? Do you know how many people lose their minds to the point where they literally make themselves sick? The truth is that it's the majority of people. What we wouldn't take for an endless amount of money, well, if one reminds us, we unfortunately sometimes give it to ourselves for free. We give ourselves Gehinom in this world even though we didn't want it by simply not paying attention. Now, if a person, before they got angry, thought about what they're about to do,

1:12:14nine out of ten times they wouldn't do it. For example, have you ever seen guys get into a fistfight? You guys saw a few guys get into a fistfight. Sometimes they fight about girls, right? One guy looked at the other guy's girl, and the other guy decided that his fist in his face needs to make a match too, right? You heard one of those things. I'm not the only one that heard this stuff. Guys fight about girls sometimes. gets a little worse sometimes, not a fist, sometimes it's a knife, sometimes not a knife, sometimes it's a gun. One guy looked at the other guy's girl, one guy decided he wants to talk to the other guy's wife, "Ah, what are you doing with this loser? Come with me." Happens sometimes, and the other guy says, "Oh, you wanted to go with him? Okay, this bullet will go with you also." It happens, right? You see, Rabotai, before the guy shot the bullet... and gave himself a 50-year, a life sentence in jail. If he simply would have thought about it for no more than 30 seconds, he wouldn't do it. Why? Think about it this way: A person shoots another person, kills him.

1:13:35More times than not, he's not going to get away with it. He's going to go to jail for a very, very long time. If he ever gets out, and if he's in certain countries or certain cities and states, most likely they'll kill him too. If he doesn't get the death penalty, he'll be there for probably 30, 40, 50 years. Now let's do the math here. Let's do the accounting. If he's in jail for 30 years, anyone that's leaving can just do it quietly, please. If he's in jail for 30 years, do you think the girl is going to stay with him? The one that he defended? No, once she finds out her boyfriend, her husband, or whoever it is, is going to be behind these bars for the next 30 years, guess what? She's finding another husband. She's finding another boyfriend. Yeah, I love him and thank you for defending my honor, but I don't want to be alone for the next 30 years.

1:14:36Guess what? That relationship you defended ended. You defended something that wasn't yours to begin with. The woman you defended is not your woman anymore. You defended somebody who is not going to be a part of your life. And then, if you told the guy, "Listen, you know what? Before you shoot him, I'll pay you a million dollars not to shoot him," most guys would say, "Of course, a million dollars! I'll give you the gun too." you go to jail for 30 years, it's much more than a million dollars. Why? If you get a regular job—not even a top lawyer, top accountant, or top hedge fund manager making millions. No, no. Regular job. Over 30 years, for sure you'll make a lot more than a million dollars. For sure you're going to make it, unless you live in some third-world country. reality is you live in America, you live in Israel, you live in modern society. For sure you're gonna make more than a million dollars over 30 years, probably make two, three million dollars. You might buy housing, money to buy cars, money to spend, and so on and so forth. You make fifty thousand dollars a year, over ten years that's half a million dollars. With inflation, you're most likely to get close to a million dollars. The point being, if you take these things into account, you realize that you're putting so much on the line for what?

1:15:54for a simple moment of anger. A moment of anger that, at that moment, all the wisdom that you possessed simply exited out of your mind. You wanted to express your anger because you wanted to show him who's boss, you wanted to show him that you're a giver, you're a hero, and unfortunately, you gave yourself a death sentence. If you would have thought about it, if you would have been reminded of this, you of not just the gehinom in the next world, but the gehinom you're giving yourself in this world, thought about it for 30 seconds, you wouldn't do it. Now sometimes, before we're finished, sometimes, sometimes if a person thought about this stuff in his own house, his marriage would still be a marriage. The Chofetz Chaim says that one time, Family member sent him an invitation for a wedding. He's getting married. Doesn't exactly go to weddings. But, as you would have it, we're having a very, very big party. Spent tens of thousands of dollars on the wedding.

1:17:19Just the invitations alone were 50 to a hundred dollars. Each meal was a few hundred dollars. Every person was glad to be invited. A lot of people didn't go. But he found out a week later that even though the wedding was a big celebration, everybody celebrated. The bride looked good, the groom looked good, everybody looked happy, everybody looked glad, everything was great. A week later, they got a divorce. Why? As the story would have it, the bride's parents didn't really like the husband so much. So they didn't chip in for the wedding. Didn't chip in. Listen, his family has money. Let them pay for it. So the groom, the husband said, ah, whatever. They don't want to pay for it. Don't pay for it. Whatever. No problem. Probably they'll give us a gift. So at the end of the wedding, at the end of the wedding,

1:18:36party, everything's good, everything was done after a day or so. The husband and the wife, the new husband and the wife, they're saying, "Okay, what did we get? What did we get?" You know, like part of the celebration is to, you know, count your blessings, if you will. "What did we get from him? What did we get from him? What did we get from him?" And they start saying, "Oh, Steve gave us $100. Joe gave us $500," and so on and so forth. Everybody counts. The husband was really interested. What did the parents give? What did her parents give? They didn't give any money for the wedding, so they must have given something. So he says, "Honey, what did your parents give?" The wife says, "They gave us a present." He says, "Okay, how much?" "No, no, they didn't give us any money." "What kind of present is not money?" "Oh, they gave us this present, this big box over here. You want to open it?" The husband, "Yeah, okay, let's open it." He opens the present and he sees a fan. Fan, $125 at Walmart, if that much. He looks at this fan and says, "Do you know how much money my family spent on this wedding? We spent tens of thousands of dollars—$30,000, $40,000 on the wedding. Your parents give us a fan. What am I going to do with a fan? What is this?" "Hey, hey, hey," she says. "At least they gave you me." "It's cute, right?" He didn't find it cute.

1:20:00It's cute, though, right? He didn't find it cute. He didn't find it cute at all. He took the fan and he smashed it. And she took the marriage and she smashed it also. Smashed it. In the moment of anger, "Daddy, who cares what they bought you? What are you, marrying the gift? You married her for the gift, who cares?" He didn't think about that. He thought about what? If they don't give me a gift... They're disrespecting me, you know, and the ego continues to build and build and build. She didn't exactly know how to soothe his pain, soothe his ego, soothe his stupidity. She said the wrong thing. Even if she said the right thing, she probably would have made a mistake anyway, because that's the mood that he was in anyway. He overreacted, expressed his anger in a way she had never seen before, took the fan that her precious parents gave her, and broke it. And she says, "If you break the fan, I'm breaking the marriage." Now, let me ask you something: Does anyone here think that he made the right decision? Obviously not.

1:21:17Problem is, Rabotai, that when we get angry, we cannot make the right decision. It is impossible for us to make the right decision. And that's what the Ramban says. Once you allow anger to control you, you are allowing all of the worst things in creation to control you as well. Those things will control you to make every mistake under the sun. Those things will lead you to make the worst decisions that you can possibly make. Break up a marriage that was supposed to last forever. Break up a relationship that was supposed to be the best thing ever. Break up something that you thought was going to be a permanent part of your life. that anger will ruin it. And if that's not bad enough, if you don't do teshuvah for this anger, and you live your whole life as this angry monster, and just make it as if it's okay to get angry. In the beginning, you break pencils. Then you break pens. Then it's not enough, you break the cup. Then it's not enough, you break the computer. Then you break the phone. Then you start punching windows. Then you start punching walls. And you become accustomed to breaking stuff.

1:22:39HaKadosh Baruch Hu is telling you each and every single one of those actions is considered 100% idol worship. If you do not do teshuva for such a thing, Gehinnom will eventually control you. That place we talked about some time ago that scared the living lights out of everybody here, including myself, that place. Meaning if we learn anything... And all from the Rambam's letter, the first thing we need to learn about anger is that it doesn't pay. It doesn't pay at all. It only ends up in bad. Anger, last but not least, the Chachamim say, is like drinking poison and expecting the other guy to die. That's what anger is. because when you start expressing your anger in such a way, in essence what's happening is that you are angry at them. But the problem is, by expressing your anger, you're hurting yourself; you're not hurting them. So you're drinking your own poison, yet you're expecting them to die. It makes no sense, and that's the point about anger—it makes no sense.

1:24:00Anger leads us to depression. Anger leads us to anxiety. Anger leads us to every single sin in the Torah. So much so that Eliyahu HaNavi, the same one that gave us the Torah of Gehinom, said in the Gemara, Masechet Berachot, page 29, if you work on your anger, you can become a perfect human being that never sins. Why? Because anger leads to all the sins in the Torah. Every single sin in the Torah. Every single sin can start with anger. Whether it's anything and everything, it can start from anger. Somebody kept Shabbat, worked on themselves, everything else, but his wife made him really upset. The husband made her really upset. She can't take it. I'm leaving. Forgot it's even Shabbat. She got into a car and started driving. Guess what? In Shamayim they say, oh, Here's the Mechalel Shabbat that drove on Shabbat. No, no, I kept Shabbat. No, no, you didn't keep Shabbat. You drove on Shabbat. Don't you remember? Let me show you. Hashem shows our movie. Remember when your husband got you angry, he didn't like the food, you got in the car, and you drove around the block a few times. That's why you didn't keep Shabbat. If you didn't do Teshuva for that, you have a very serious problem. You have a very serious problem. The point is, Rabotai HaYekarim, that we remind ourselves of all of these things.

1:25:23Because if we take this stuff into account, then we can work on it. Then the next time we get angry, we think, is it really worth it? Is it really worth it for me to punch this wall? What am I gonna get out of it? What, the wall hurt me? What, is the wall gonna say ow? Is the wall gonna give me back whatever I want back? Somebody hurts their finger, they get so upset, they punch the wall. How does that make any sense? How does that make any sense? Somebody lost a little bit of money. He decides to lose even more money. How? His phone broke. His phone broke. He dropped the phone like it happened to me a couple of weeks ago in the shiur. I was in the parking lot. It came out and it fell out of the car, and the glass broke. Baruch Hashem, I didn't get angry. Baruch Hashem. If I would have gotten angry, I wouldn't have been able to teach Torah. But what happens? The glass breaks. But it still works. But the glass breaks. What do they do? They take the phone and use it as a football. So, instead of losing, I don't know, $30 or $40 to fix the phone, put the glass, they lost $1,000. They lost $500 because these phones are expensive. Why? $30 got them so angry, they expressed that anger. The anger flew in the air like a football. And now you have to say Kaddish on the phone. A person lost $30 but ended up forcing themselves to lose $500, lose $1,000. Happens a lot of times. Somebody cuts the person off.

1:26:49figures he's gonna lose this appointment. He ends up going into a road rage and ends up losing his life. It's a simple decision. It's a simple decision and that's why my last advice, before you guys can ask any questions you want, is this: one of the ways that I tried myself to work on my anger. Because for me, it's almost like I was born angry. I And Baruch Hashem, I've worked on it a lot. And I continue to work on it. One of the things that I realized along the way from learning from the Chachamim is that we're working on anger the wrong way. We're working on our emotions the wrong way. Most people look at life as if it's all one big mistake. where they think whatever their circumstances—lack of money, lack of a spouse, lack of a job, lack of significance, lack of something—is like a mistake in the system. Like I'm supposed to have this money and I'm angry and depressed and miserable because I don't have it. Meaning they justify their negativity and their mood because of the circumstance. So when they pray to Hashem,

1:28:15If they pray at all, they pray for Hashem to change the circumstance. And after they pray to Hashem, "Please, Hashem, give me money," and He doesn't give them money, they get angry at Hashem. And they sever their relationship with Hashem. Why? Because they prayed for the wrong thing. You see, Rabotai, if you want to work on yourself, if you want to overcome the obstacle of anger, the obstacle of anything, don't pray for Hashem to change the circumstance. Because trust me, if He wants to change the circumstance, He'll do it. Don't pray for Hashem to change the circumstance as far as, "Hashem, give me money." No, Hashem. Pray for Hashem to give you the strength to change yourself, to change your perspective of the problem. Don't say, "Hashem, please make the air conditioner work. It broke on Shabbat and it's 90 degrees in this house. The house has turned into a volcano. Please, Hashem, make the air conditioner magically fix itself." No, don't pray for that.

1:29:37Pray for Hashem. Hashem, please give me the strength not to get angry because it's so darn hot in this house. It's easy to get angry when it's hot. Please, Hashem, give me the strength to overcome this test. If you pray for that, I promise you, Hashem will change the circumstance. Why? Because then you pass the test. If you're praying for Hashem to give you the strength to overcome the test, that means you acknowledge it's a test. Therefore, there's no point for the test anymore. It's like playing hide and seek. But you know He's hiding behind the wall. The game's over. Game's over. There's no point in playing anymore. I know where you're hiding. Hashem, I see it's You. It's You. Oh, You got me. Okay, game's over. Game's over. Here's the money that you needed. Here's the money that you needed. Here's the problem that you haven't solved. What? The circumstance takes one second to change. That's in the hands of Hashem. You are what's hard. Because that's in your hands.

1:30:45if we pray for Hashem to change us, meaning for us to have the strength to overcome our own negativity, our own depression, then we're praying for the right thing. This is the only thing that's worked for me. I can tell you that from experience. Every time I've prayed for the circumstance to change, sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't work. But either way, I knew for sure it had nothing to do with me. Hashem simply decided that this is going to work now, and it's not going to work then, and then it's going to work again. It had nothing to do with my prayer. The only times my prayers actually felt like they were working is when I asked Hashem, please, please Hashem, give me the strength to overcome this big test. I have no idea how I'm going to do it, but if You give me the strength, I'll do it. I have no idea how I'm going to fly from here to there, and my whole body hurts, and this and that. I don't know, but if You give me the strength, I'll do it. I have no idea how I'm going to overcome this such and such, but if You give me the strength, I'll do it. you pray for that, you'll pass the test, your perspective of life will change, you'll never be depressed again, you'll never be angry again, you're never going to miss Hashem for a second again, because He's simply going to be a permanent part of your life all the time. And Gehinnom not only does not exist in your life here, it will never exist in your life ever.

1:32:10Because it has nothing to do with such a person. Because Hashem is glued to you at all times. If Hashem is glued to you at all times, He's not taking you to Gehinnom. He's walking with you in Gan Eden. Any questions? Yes. Would it be better to serve Hashem not in fear? Because some people might do it just because they're scared of... Rabbi Akiva says that Rabbi Shimon repeats the same teachings in the Zohar HaKadosh. Rabbi Akiva says it and I believe it. He says that connection to HaKadosh Baruch Hu simply because you're afraid... that I'll punish you in Gehinom, that I'll take your money in this world, that I'll take your health in this world, meaning Gehinom over there, Gehinom over here, irrelevant, the point is you're afraid. That kind of relationship that only depends on fear is an incomplete relationship, meaning it is a relationship nonetheless, but it's not ideal. It's not ideal.

1:33:27The ideal relationship, he says, is if you fear Hashem and you love Him. Why? Because fearing Hashem is one of the mitzvot in the Torah. It's one of the 613 mitzvot. You're obligated to fear Hashem. Loving Hashem is also one of the 613 mitzvot. Meaning that every time you're afraid of Hashem, and you love Hashem, you're fulfilling mitzvot. If you're not afraid or you don't love Hashem, you are making aveirot. The point is that he says if you fulfill the ideal relationship, you're both afraid and you love Hashem. That's the ideal relationship. If you're only afraid of Hashem, it's incomplete. But if you only love Hashem, it's nothing. It's zero. Why is it zero? Why is it zero? Shouldn't it be better? Like you said, it should be better. I love Hashem. I do everything because I'm happy. I'm like one of these chassidim who dances in a shul for three and a half hours in the morning for prayer, for Mincha. It takes nine hours just because I want to dance. No, it's not good. No. Why Rabbi Akiva says this? Why?

1:34:31He says, if you understand what Hashem is, for a second, to the level of our capacity, meaning that He's in control of Gan Eden and Gehenom, that He's in control of your Gan Eden and Gehenom, that He's in control of everything that happens in the world, and there's a good option and there's a bad option. There's Moshe Rabbeinu, and there's also Tzlofchad in this week's parasha. Tzlofchad didn't go to Gan Eden. Moshe Rabbeinu did. If you understand that this is in the hands of Hashem, any normal person will be afraid of that, even if you love Hashem. Which means that if you know Hashem, you're afraid. Which means if you only love, you're not loving Hashem; you're loving something else. It is impossible to love Hashem without being afraid of Him also. And that's why the Chachamim say, if you just love G-d, you don't love G-d. You love yourself and you love the stuff G-d gives you. But the moment G-d doesn't give you what you want, or perhaps the Satan gives you something that you want,

1:35:36Guess what? You'll betray G-d in a second. In a second. The only way you will overcome the obstacles in life, the real obstacles, not eating kosher when you have 15 kosher restaurants next to your house. No. The moment you have a test where a woman that's half-naked comes and she's in front of you and you decide, I'm not going to look. The only way is if you're afraid of G-d. Loving Hashem will not allow you to have such strength. Why? Because you love yourself also. You love your pleasure also. But if you're afraid of Hashem hanging you like the Reishit Chochmah said, guess what? You're not going to look at anything. You're barely going to look at yourself in the mirror. You're barely going to look at yourself in the mirror if you're afraid of Hashem. That's why. So a relationship with Hashem that's just based on fear is incomplete. It's not ideal, but nonetheless, it's still a relationship. A relationship based on love alone is not a relationship at all. Ideally, it's supposed to be both, but if you have just fear, you're still doing okay. How okay? Rabbi Nachman of Breslov says, "Halevai, my generation of righteous people will only have fear alone." Meaning that Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, a couple of hundred years ago, said, "Halevai, everybody had just fear of Hashem."

1:37:01Halevai. Why? Because people don't have fear of Hashem. People think they have love of Hashem. They don't even know what fear is. Point being, Rabotai, is that loving Hashem is beyond the scope of most people. Most people will never reach it because they don't understand what it means. The highest level of fear is the beginning of love. The highest level of fear of Hashem is the beginning of loving Hashem. What is that? What is the highest level of fearing Hashem? That's when you serve Hashem, even if He tells you, "I'm going to punish you for it." Meaning you're serving Hashem just because you know it's going to do good for Him, not for you. He tells you, "Listen, by the way, every time you keep Shabbat, I'm going to kill you." But you know it's still good for Him, whatever that means. He wants you to keep Shabbat, but He's going to punish you for it. And you still do it—that's loving Hashem. Show me one Jew. in the world that's an average Jew that does that. Most Jews are doing things because they want reward. We want reward. We're not doing it because we're getting punished. If everybody said, "Listen, every mitzvah I'm going to get punished for," no one's going to do a single mitzvah.

1:38:12So the point is that most people that say loving Hashem and loving Hashem, they simply don't understand what the Chachamim, what the Torah says about loving Hashem. Loving Hashem is far away from us. That's why, yes, it is important to love Hashem and appreciate Him for every single thing that He does, but do not think for a moment that that is something to base your relationship on, because simply speaking, the Tzaddikim themselves say, you can't do it. You can't do it. You have to fear Hashem. You have to fear Him because He's Almighty. He's extraordinary. And every normal human being should be afraid of God. that that is something to base your relationship on, because simply speaking, the Tzaddikim themselves say, you can't do it. You can't do it. You have to fear Hashem. You have to fear Him because He's Almighty. He's extraordinary. And every normal human being should be afraid of God. Hopefully, if you continue to work on it, you'll see that that fear culminates and becomes partially love. But for it to be just love is impossible. Impossible. Supposed to get to love. I love Hashem. Everybody can say, "I love Hashem." But to truly understand what loving Hashem really is means you have to be at a very, very high level of Yirat Shamayim, which means that purposeful sins are no longer part of your life. Looking at girls that are immodest is impossible for you. Just thinking about an immodest girl makes you want to vomit. I'll give you an example. One time, I'm in Yerushalayim.

1:39:33I think it was Yerushalayim. And an immodest woman is walking by. And at the time I'm in the beginning of my teshuva, I didn't look, but I saw she was there. And everybody else in the world saw she was there. And I'm walking next to Rav Ephraim, and I see that he's not acknowledging at all, doesn't bother him, nothing. And you know, you have to learn from your rabbi. So I'm looking, I'm looking just to see maybe he's going to peek, maybe this. I want to see. Nothing. Nothing. After the whole thing passed, I said to him, "Doesn't it bother you? Doesn't it bother you?" He says, "What?" I said, "The girl, the half-naked girl that just passed us." He says, "Yeah, of course it bothers me." I said, "Oh, you saw it?" He says, "No, no, it bothers me that you guys, everybody else, is looking." I said, "Why does it bother you that everybody else is looking?" He says, "I don't understand why everybody is looking." I said, "What do you mean you don't understand why everybody's looking? The girl was beautiful. She was almost like she was born, with no clothes on. She forgot about tzniut. What do you mean you don't understand why people are looking?" He said, "I don't understand why people are looking." Now, to me, today I understand it. Baruch Hashem, I understand. I'm not saying I'm at that level, I just understand why. At that point, I didn't understand. What do you mean you don't understand why everybody else is looking?

1:40:59So then he told me something that to this day shocks me. He says, "How could everybody look at something so disgusting and not acknowledge the fact that her skin is melting from Gehinnom, and she’s going to burn in it?" His eyes are not like our eyes, physically, yes. Physically, yes. He has eyes. There are little balloons that are cameras that record everything. But we see flesh and blood. He sees the outcome. The outcome is this person will melt in Gehinnom for walking around immodestly. So to him, it's easy. It's disgusting. Who wants to see somebody melting? Who wants to see somebody burning in Gehinnom? It's a nightmare just thinking about it. That's what you're supposed to get to. That's what we're supposed to get to, every single one of you here. Everybody is supposed to get to that point. You have to get to a point where you see immodesty or anything that HaKadosh Baruch Hu views as disgusting, as disgusting. That's Yirat Shamayim. That's not even love yet.

1:42:18Once we get there, then we can start talking about loving Hashem and "I love Hashem, I love Hashem." Quite frankly, I don't know that many people like Rabbi Ephraim who have that level of Yirat Shamayim. So, if we're going to work on Yirat Shamayim, then we can potentially get to Ahavat Hashem. Of course, you should appreciate everything that Hashem does for you. Of course, you should be grateful for everything Hashem does. Of course. But in the process of appreciating and being grateful, you have to fear Him. Because the time will come when every single one of us will be tested in a test where that love and appreciation will not be enough. It just simply won't be enough. A woman walks around, and 90% of the guys in the room looked at her. That means they should have stayed at this, you are not left. Because this part was for them. The point being, that was a test. Many failed. Some passed. If you look, you failed. That means you have to work on yourself. If you're looking at anything but your wife, you have a very serious problem. Why? It's called your eyes.

1:43:28Your eyes are cheating on your wife. You are not cheating, but your eyes are cheating. That means your mind is going to cheat. You have to work on yourself. Same thing with women. You're looking at what your neighbor has, and you're complaining to your husband, "How come you don't have a nice house like my neighbor, and how come we don't have a nice car like our neighbor?" Guess what? Your eyes are cheating also on your husband. How? You're jealous of your neighbor, and you're making your husband work overtime instead of learning Torah because of it. point being, who says don't follow your heart, don't follow your eyes. Meaning, you start looking at places that don't belong to you, it's going to lead you to sin. And the only way that you will overcome these sins is simply by having your mind. You have your mind, you have everything. You don't have your mind, you have simply nothing. Anything else, when a person gets bothered by something and they get upset. Is that in the same category as being angry? Being angry mentally makes you a human being. If somebody makes you upset, for example, you gave him money, and he intentionally tried to give you the wrong change, tried to cheat you, tried to lie to you...

1:44:49For you to be upset about it makes you simply a human being. To not get angry or not get upset at something like that, you simply have to be dead. So it's not possible. That's not a problem. That just makes you a human being. What is a problem is expressing that anger in a violent way. Meaning that you got angry mentally, and you expressed it by cursing, by screaming, by breaking things, and perhaps even by hitting him or her. That's a problem. That's idolatry. That's a serious, serious issue. Now, the physical part, the breaking, the hitting, is relatively easy to stop. Just stop being an animal, that's it. The cursing and the yelling take a little bit more work. It takes a little bit more work, a little bit more self-control, and a little bit more time. stop being an animal, that's it. The cursing and the yelling take a little bit more work. It takes a little bit more work, a little bit more self-control, and a little bit more time. So, so long as we understand it's a problem, that means that even after we fail in the beginning, we're working on ourselves, and we fail, you know, you're not going to hit, you're not going to break, but a curse came out, a yell came out, something came out that's inappropriate. If we understand it's wrong, what is that going to mean? That means that as soon as we calm down, as soon as everything calms down, a little bit of time passes, half an hour, an hour, whatever, a day,

1:46:09you start coming to your senses and you realize, I'm such an idiot for yelling at her and screaming at her and cursing at him and screaming at him. And not only that, I just betrayed Hashem who gave me the house, the car, the wife, the husband, the kids, the this, the that. I just betrayed Him with what? With garbage. you start recognizing there's a problem. It's no good. So that means you're going to do teshuva for it. You need to offer it. It's already a fantastic step. You do it for it. You feel bad, do teshuva for it. You're going to do it probably a bunch of times. It's not going to go away like, you know, like in one, two, three. Teshuva for one time, two times, five times, ten times, eventually... You're going to be tired of doing teshuva for it. So you're going to simply build up the immune system, the spiritual immune system, to just not get that angry, or at least not get angry so often. So then you're doing teshuva for it less often because it's just not necessary anymore.

1:47:19At least not as often. Instead of getting angry every day, now it's once a week. Then it's once a month. Then maybe it's once or twice a year. And b'ezrat Hashem, hopefully it's never. People do get angry, but the way we express it is everything, and how often and how common it is. But if you simply do not acknowledge that you have a problem, then your whole life will simply turn into one big gehinnom, because you will have constant, constant emotional problems. You'll be depressed. You'll have anxiety. You're just going to be someone that people are not going to want to be around. And no one's going to want to tell you the truth because they're going to be afraid of how you're going to express yourself in your anger. So they're going to know, okay, yeah, he's wrong about that, but I don't want to tell him. Why? If I tell him, he'll probably rip my head off. so no one's going to want to tell you the truth, no one's going to talk to you, which means that you're not going to have the opportunity to do teshuvah in a normal way. This means that you're forcing Hashem's hand to force you to do teshuvah. Like I said, Hashem's ways are a little bit more painful than my speech, so it's better to work on ourselves. But again, getting angry mentally, that's not the issue. The issue is letting it extrapolate into something that's much, much worse than it needs to be.

1:48:37And that's something that you can work on immediately. The first thing is never, ever get violent. That's the first thing. Don't break anything at all. Don't even crush a cup. Nothing. Then work on not yelling, screaming, or cursing. First and foremost, don't curse at all. Try to work on not cursing. Cursing people, you know—I know I lived in New York, so cursing for us was like normal language. You know, the F-word to us meant nothing. So, it became part of our language. It became part of our language. Well, it's not the language of God. God doesn't like it. It's considered disgusting. And it can create a lot of problems. Point being, Abutai, is that those words can affect you. One of the things that affects your language is the stuff that you listen to. If you listen to music full of curses, you will definitely curse. You listen to rap, you listen to hip-hop, you listen to different types of music that have curses in it, you're guaranteed to curse. It's impossible for you not to curse. Why? Because if you listen to curses, that means that your spiritual immune system is numb to cursing. You simply don't view it as anything bad; therefore, you will do it.

1:49:51if you do it, you're creating problems for yourself because those things lead to other things. The point being about that is that it has a lot of things. So stop with violently expressing it in a physical way, then in a speech pattern: yelling, screaming, cursing, and eventually even mentally. But it has to start with the biggest one and then eventually come with other things. Anything else? Tomorrow night, we have the questions and answers series. Come tomorrow with a few more questions. Last week had some good action, so we got a lot of views. You were speaking about people who get violent when they get angry. I actually knew this kid from high school. Something happened with his car, something went wrong, so he got out of the car and punched a hole, and broke his hand. It happens all the time: people break their hands, people break their heads, sometimes they even die. because of the anger. It happens all the time. A very sad set of circumstances. Thank you.

1:51:16The first look at the girls in front of you, the first look is normal because it's something in front of you. Staying there is the problem. Somebody's in front of you, otherwise, somebody's in front of you, you're going to look naturally. Unless you're on a high level of spirituality, you don't even look; you're looking at the ground. The first look is normal. It's the continuous, staying there, not looking away, that's the sin. has that look at it, yes, that means but continuing the whole road down, that's where we have a Now it's not the eyes, yeah. But now the heart is there. The heart is following me. Hashem says if the heart is over there, it's not with me. Yeah. That's part of their issue. And it was the Shulchan Aruch. Shulchan Aruch with the Nechalei Shabbat. What the...

1:52:38No, this week's Parashah, it's the last week. Every week is a nice, Baruch Hashem. These last few Parashot have, you know, like three or four different major events that you could do an entire series on. And then I want to talk to you right now. Okay. A couple of days ago, I was talking to Yom, and he was talking about somebody's message. No, that wasn't hair, that was wigs. No, so the Gemara Shabbat says that they used to have the wigs, that's the whole machloket that started 400 years ago; it was based on the Gemara, Shabbat. It says that there were certain women that had bald spots, or in general and so on, but still had to cover it. Why? Because if you just wear something coming here, it's got to the floor, so they would have these wigs. So they say, the Gemara is, did they sew this wig to the actual... Right, the bunch, the bunch.

1:54:03But that's not even our look. The issue of Unfortunately, it's a... Well, then how would you respond to people who prefer synthetic? Synthetic is easier. The same group of guys that I was working with did some synthetic wigs in the lab. And they found that 3% of the hair is real hair. Because the real hair is so cheap, it's sometimes cheaper than synthetic.

1:55:09So even the synthetic has some real hair. It's a problem. But... Oh, the price. The price? I don't know. But... Oh, the price. The price? I don't know. We did real research on it. It's... It's a battle. No, it's just... The modesty issue, I'm not even allowed to fight that battle. There's a Da'as Yachid that says it's okay. No one says it's okay. And that we can learn. I have guys in England who still live in India right now. We did real research on it. It's... It's a battle. No, it's just... The modesty issue, I'm not even allowed to fight that battle. There's a Da'as Yachid that says it's okay. No one says it's okay. And that we can learn. I have guys in England who still live in India right now. went to the temples, took videos, asked people, interviewed everyone. But what if you know whose hair it was? It's a different story. Then it's the Maharsha. Then it's no longer Avodah Zarah. The Maharsha is a different story. You could rely on Ashkenazi poskim and say it's okay. That's not even an issue. That's not for me. The issue is the Avodah Zarah. If you know exactly where it came from, a woman or... And my daughter, my single daughter.

1:56:32I don't remember. Ideally, you should live with your wife. With the father. That's that. No, I know she does once in a while. Ideally, it's to stay like that all the time. I'm not a judge or a jury. I bring the information. Like everything else. Baruch Hashem, some people eventually realize, okay, you know what? It's not working. If it's for my husband, it's my husband. It's only with my hand. It's at home. There are certain things that I'm a failure at also. Everybody's a failure at something. There are certain things that we're good at, but not so good at. Certain things that we're fantastic at. Everybody has their strengths. That's it. A woman wearing a wig does not mean that she's bad, that's for sure. It's just a part of the tikkun of being in this generation. And it's felt that for many, many years it was perfectly fine because we simply didn't know.

1:57:41that there was, that it was, the other issue, the big plus game. Then, whatever, you have a few to rely on I know you have a lot of good things going on. Yes, yes, we have a lot of good things going on. And I think, listen, I think right now it's with these kids, Baruch Hashem, you see them. That's all. Some guys, Baruch Hashem. Atlaat, forget it, forget it. Shalom mitzvot. Can I ask you a very off-topic question? How do you determine if a shaver is halakhically permissible? Like a shaver, how do you know if it's halakhically allowed? Oh, they cannot have a lift-and-cut technology. Usually, the lift-and-cut technology is in most shavers today, so you have to go to a frum store, a frum company that either removed it for you, or they just sell ones that are certified kosher, that they don't have that lift-and-cut technology.

1:58:54There used to be a website called koshershavers.org, but they shut it down. It actually showed you how to remove these lift-and-cut technologies if you already bought one. But in general, I mean, if you already have, for example, a beard, it's not really a problem for you. No, here you can cut whatever you want. You can cut whatever you want. Yeah, you can cut whatever you want. Here is the problem. Here on the cheeks, you're okay. You can cut with a buzzer or with a... Here, the peyos is a problem, here is a problem, and here. Over here. You cut with a razor. You can cut with a razor on your neck. Thank you very much. I actually use a buzzer. I use a buzzer, the same one that you shave hair with, but just on zero for the neck. But yeah, the neck, you don't need the buzzer. You don't need to shave it. Thank you, Rabbi. I like a few reasons why I shouldn't sleep.