Building a Jewish Home With Rabbi Yaron Reuven

0:12Good to be back, Baruch Hashem. We had a good turnout last time, B'ezrat Hashem. Hopefully, more people will come, but it is good to see you as well. We're going to talk about a few things. We're going to talk about how to build a Jewish home today. Building a Jewish home today is very different than in the past. Because in the past, Really, all you had to teach people to build a Jewish home was something you taught them before they got married. You taught the woman Taharat HaMishpacha. You taught the husband to make sure to make etim for the Torah, to make time to learn Torah. Pretty much, you were finished. Today, you don't teach things like this anymore. You teach it, but that's not how you build a Jewish home. If the Chachamim saw what we teach today, they would think we are in Gehenom. Why? Because they'll be surprised that this is what we're up to at this point. Meaning, in this generation, you can't teach people, keep Taharat HaMishpacha, make time for the Torah, everything's going to be okay. Why? Because today, you have to teach people how to behave. You have to teach people how to be a human being.

1:43this is what you have to teach people today. This is the basics because it's the foundation of all of Judaism. It's the foundation of the Torah. It's the foundation of humanity in general. If you know how to be a human being, In accordance with what Hashem said, not in accordance with what the news or CNN said. In accordance with what Hashem said, everything else follows. You'll eventually realize that you have to learn Torah. You'll eventually realize that you have to keep the mitzvot and so on and so forth. But if you're not a human being, it doesn't really make a difference what you do because you're going to find a way to do it wrong. So, To build a Jewish home today, ultimately the main thing that a person needs to know is that he has to educate himself on how to be a better person, how to fix his middot, fix her middot, fix the things that are flaws within the system. Now, we talk about how anger is not good, and having arrogance is not good, and being cheap is not good, and so on and so forth. We talk about all of those things. One of the things, one of the main topics

2:49that people love to hear about today is Emunah. People love to talk about Emunah. But the problem is that most of the time when people talk about Emunah, they talk about fairy tales that they're not going to be able to have as a useful tool if a test ever comes. To talk about Emunah is much easier than having Emunah. It's much easier. Why are you talking about Emunah? He'll tell you a story. You say, "Wow, it all worked out." But as soon as somebody gets a test, all of a sudden they forget everything. All of a sudden there's no money in the bank. What's Emunah again? Tell me. Oh, I have to go to Shul again, but it's too late. I'm already in the middle of a test. As soon as there's a problem with the marriage, Chas V'Shalom, there's a problem. No Emunah, no this. The point is that we need to not only learn about Emunah, but learn about why we don't have Emunah. Meaning the foundation of Emunah. What is the foundation of Emunah? Because Emunah, in essence, is one of the most important aspects of building a Jewish home. The fact is that if a person wants to build a Jewish home, he has to have very serious Emunah. And the reason why is because if he doesn't, if she doesn't have Emunah, the Jewish home, little by little, will become Christian. The Jewish home, little by little, will become atheist.

4:19Why? Because the reason why we don't have Emunah is because somehow, the Yetzer Hara manipulates us and convinces us that we have a better idea than God's. Why does somebody leave Hashem's way? Why does somebody leave Hashem's way? He leaves it because he thinks Hashem's way is too difficult. He leaves Hashem's way because he thinks maybe he has to help Hashem, give him parnasah, so he has to work on Shabbat. Maybe he has to help Hashem and he has to lie a little bit in business so he can make an extra few shekels because Hashem didn't send enough. Maybe she has to help Hashem and get the attention of the boss, so the skirt becomes a little shorter. People think they need to help Hashem. And the problem is that every time we try to help Hashem, instead of having emunah and withstanding the test, we're doing a few things. Number one, we're destroying what Hashem is trying to prepare for us in the first place. But more so, we're also destroying our Jewish home. Because everything that the parents are going to do, aside from Hashem watching it, listening to it,

5:29Writing it down, aside from all of that, the kids are doing the same thing. The kids are watching Abba and Ima and how Abba and Ima are reacting under stress. The kid is never going to remember how Abba and Ima were eating cereal with him in the morning. The kid's not going to remember that. The kid's never going to remember for real, the trip to Disneyland — he's not going to remember it. He's going to remember he went to Disney when he was 10, but he's not really going to remember all the rides and all the details. When he's 25 or 35 years old and starting his own family, he's not going to remember the Disney trip. The kid is not going to remember that Abba gave him an extra $20 more than his brother. Just don't tell anybody. You know, the little brother got $5 and the big brother got $20, but he says, "Don't tell your brother though, okay?" He's not going to remember that. The extra 15 bucks, he's not remembering it. The fact that you took him out for a sandwich and you had fun, maybe that's going to be remembered. Why? Because that's the personal touch. That's the personal attention. But even more than that,

6:39The kid is going to remember how Abba and Ima reacted as soon as everything failed, as soon as the bank called and said, "Sir, your check bounced," and he saw Abba and Ima start losing their minds. started yelling. He must have started yelling. Before you know it, stuff started breaking. The walls, everything. He remembers that. Oh, somebody says, "How was your childhood?" Childhood was tough. "Why, what happened in childhood?" You know, my parents used to fight. You remember your parents fighting? Listen, fights like my parents'—who doesn't remember it? And things would break. He remembers that. Even though it only happened once, he was in the house for 20 years. It happened only once, but he remembers that. And... He also remembers that anytime Abba asked Ima to do something, she always argued with him. He remembers that. So when his wife later on is arguing with him, he's like, ah yeah, that's how women are. My mom was arguing, so my wife is going to argue. He thinks all women are like this. She's going to remember that her father...

7:49forgot her mother's birthday, so when her husband forgets the birthday, she goes, "Yeah, all of you men forget." She doesn't realize it's not normal, actually, but that's the stuff they're gonna remember. It's the things that you don't think matter that the kids are gonna remember. it's the things that we think don't matter that matter a lot. The kids don't care about the Disney trip and the vacation, what you ate, the three-course meal, the five-course meal, and how many plates each bar mitzvah dish had. You know, today bar mitzvahs, Baruch Hashem, it's like a house. You want to get your kid to go to a bar mitzvah? You have to buy a house because that's how much it costs to get your kid to do a bar mitzvah. Instead, you should just buy a house and tell the kid, "Listen, just... Bring a couple of friends to this big house that we just bought and do whatever you want and break whatever you want. It's better. At least we keep the house. We don't keep the bar mitzvah dishes. The problem that we have, Rabotai, is that if we don't educate ourselves and fix ourselves and fix our weaknesses, then the only thing that our kids are going to have to remember is exactly that. We grow up

9:06We get older. We already realize that our younger ways were wrong. When we were angry, it was wrong. When we were cheap, it was wrong. When we were immodest, it was wrong. It was wrong, it was wrong, it was wrong. But it's too late. Why? Because our kids are already too old, and they're repeating the same sins we made. But you can't tell them, listen, honey, you know, really, you should be modest. What modest? You used to walk around with a tank top all the time. Okay, now you're 65, you're not going to walk around with a tank top. But I'm still 25. So you can't teach the kid once he's 25. You can't do it. It's too late. So that's why when people come to the Chachamim, for example, there was a couple that came to Rav Ovadia, and they told Rav Ovadia, "We just had a baby, and we want to get a bracha that the baby is going to be a big success. And we need some advice. We need some advice on how to raise kids." Rav Ovadia says, "You're late." The baby was just born a couple of weeks ago. He's still a baby. He says, yeah, exactly. You're late 20 years. You're late. You had to educate yourself 20 years ago, so hopefully you know what to do right now. Now, we can't all go back 20 years, but for those of us who don't have kids or have very, very young kids, if we educate ourselves just enough over the next few years, by the time the kids know what they're talking about, we should already be okay.

10:31But if we don't do anything, then the only thing we're leaving our kids is these bad lessons that we don't want them to remember. Now, when parents send their kids to yeshivot, they assume that a large part of the job is being done for them. You know, a kid grows up, you have a kid, you send him to yeshiva, you send them to kindergarten, you send her to kindergarten, you figure that these people are certified, you're paying them $500 a month, $1,000 a month, who knows how much, a lung, a leg, you're paying them pretty much half the house, the mortgage, you're paying them, so you figure that with all this money, they should actually be doing something that is at least half the job, if not the whole job. Well, breaking news is, they're not even doing half the job. And it's not their fault. It's not their job to do half the job. you send them to kindergarten, you send her to kindergarten, you figure that these people are certified, you're paying them $500 a month, $1,000 a month, who knows how much, a lung, a leg, you're paying them pretty much half the house, the mortgage, you're paying them, so you figure that with all this money, they should actually be doing something that is at least half the job, if not the whole job. Well, breaking news is, they're not even doing half the job. And it's not their fault. It's not their job to do half the job. The vast majority of the teachings that the kid is going to have, even if he goes to yeshiva, that's a great yeshiva, the vast majority is going to be home. Even if he's home only for three hours a day, he's in yeshiva all day, the vast majority of his learning is going to be at home. Why? Because every single kid is going to go to yeshiva, is going to learn from the teacher, she's going to learn from the teacher, eventually he's going to go home. And at that moment, the minute they come home, they have to make a decision.

11:57What's the decision? Is my rabbi, is my rebbetzin full of it or not? That's what they have to do. Why? Because the whole day the rabbi and the rebbetzin were in their ear, in their ear, in their ear. You should do this, you should do this, do this, do this, do this, do this. All of a sudden, everybody's pretending to be Moshe Rabbeinu in Sinai. And then you come home and it's like, oh, it's a lot of stuff to learn. You come home and they have to decide, do I have to listen or not? They don't decide at school. At school, they have to listen. But they come home, do I have to continue listening to this stuff? Or is this just how I have to behave in school? But at home, I can do whatever I want. So how do they make this decision? They're not going to ask their parents, hey, Abba, Ima, do I have to listen to the rabbi? Do I have to listen to the Rebbetzin? She said that I have to be more modest all the time, not just sometimes. She says that I have to have kavanah when I say Birkat HaMazon, not only when I eat. When I eat, I have a lot of kavanah. But also when I say Birkat HaMazon, I have to have kavanah. She said all these types of things. It's a lot of stuff. Do I have to listen? They're not going to ask the parents. You know what they're going to do? They're going to watch the parents. They're going to watch the parents and they're going to see, is Ima modest?

13:12If Ima is modest at home, even before she goes to sleep, then that means that the Rebbetzin that said that you have to be modest, she's right, I'm gonna listen to her. If Ima's not modest, if Ima's walking around with a t-shirt and a skirt that just barely covers the thighs, not even the knees, then the teacher's full of it. The teacher is, it's like wearing a uniform. teachers wearing a uniform, you know, they have to wear for work, you know, like you work for UPS, you wear brown with a little label on it. You work for FedEx, you wear purple with a label on it. You work for Best Buy, you wear blue like a Smurf with a label on it. Everybody has a label. So the teacher at the yeshiva also has a label, that's it. Meaning the whole modesty of the teacher is nothing, nonsense. Why? Because Ima wears tank tops. Ima wears, you know, clothes that barely cover anything, so Ima is right. It cannot be that the teacher is right. because that's Ima. The teacher is never going to be more right than Ima. It's not possible, especially when the kid's little. So the kid doesn't have to ask, "Ima, do I have to listen to my teacher?" The kid simply watches the teacher. Is the parent doing what the teacher said? If no, then the teacher

14:35It's meaningless. All of what they're going to learn in school, you're wasting your money. You're better off sending them to the park to play. Why? It's a complete waste of money. Secular parents that send their kids to yeshivot, it's a complete waste of money. Why? Because the kid not only is not going to keep mitzvot, most likely he's going to become an atheist, making fun of the religion. Because that's what he's watching his parents do every day. Teacher says keep Shabbat. The kid arrives home. The father is driving on Shabbat. So he's like, "Yeah, hey, of course Abba is right and the teacher is wrong. So I'm gonna do the same thing as Abba." He's gonna start making fun of the rabbis. "Yeah, you fools. You don't work on Shabbat. My father makes millions on Shabbat." So the parent not only wasted time, but he actually turned his own kid into a kofer, into a heretic. So rule number one is that the parents have to realize that the number one teacher is them. Number two, don't assume that just because you're sending your kid to yeshiva

15:42The yeshiva actually knows what they're talking about. The yeshiva is going to teach your kids all the things you want them to teach. The only way you're going to find that out is if you go watch it yourself. If you go sit in the class, hire a babysitter for the other kids that are home or for whatever you need, go to the school, and sit there for a week. If they don't let you switch schools, any school that does not want the parent to monitor politely, not interfering every two seconds, politely, you sit in the back like no one's watching you, like you're a fly on the wall. You're a fly on the wall. If you're interfering, then of course they're not going to let you. You're a terrorist. But if you're a fly on the wall, no one even sees that you're there. If a school does not want you to monitor what they're doing, there's something wrong. Something wrong, you have to make an appointment. Obviously, you have to go according to their system. But you have to watch what they're doing, and today more than ever. And I'll give you a chiddush why. Now, I told you some time ago that I, Baruch Hashem, hear information from all types of people. This is how I get the news. So...

16:51don't know whether I'm a magnet for bad news or if this is just the news that's available, but all I know is that there is a principal in the yeshiva that I told you about. He had a video clip, and for about five hours, they allowed it to go on Hidabroot's website. Hidabroot's website for about five hours before we complained and showed them that it's kefirah, what he said. This principal of a yeshiva made a video clip they allowed on Hidabroot's website saying, "In Judaism, we don't believe in miracles. The splitting of the sea was a tsunami. It was an accident, it was a tsunami because he saw it on Discovery Channel. Somebody did a special, and it was like an accident, and Am Yisrael happened by chance to be there and... ...is what a principal of a yeshiva here in Florida said. Now, you can't make stuff like this up. Now, if this is not enough, there's another school where they hired a non-Jewish woman to teach secular subjects. Okay, you don't necessarily need to have the rabbi teach secular subjects, but you have to make sure there's no danger...

18:05Well, this secular teacher, this non-Jewish teacher, decided that instead of teaching the class English, she's going to teach the class Christianity. And she's going to debate the Jewish girls about Christianity. Now, they're not paying her—the yeshiva's not paying her—to debate about Christianity. But that's what she's doing. Day after day, day after day, day after day. And what do you think? Every kid's winning the battle? You think every kid is saying, no, no, Judaism is right? Little by little, each kid gets weaker, more kids get weak, more kids get weak, and who knows what's going to happen by the time they finish the semester. Now, if this was not enough, today I get a phone call, I get a message from one of these kids, and he's asking me a question. And he's an innocent little 14, 15-year-old kid, and he's asking me, he's like, listen, I have this teacher in yeshiva, He goes to yeshiva in New York or New Jersey. He says, "I have this teacher who teaches me about how I'm supposed to think outside of the box, and maybe I should learn about Nietzsche and Machiavelli, and maybe the sciences and philosophy, and Plato, and other religions, and all types of things, not to be so narrow-minded like regular Jews."

19:34Because he himself is an atheist. The teacher at a Jewish school, at a yeshiva, is an atheist. So he's telling me that if God is real, this is what the kids tell me. I'll show you the recording after. If God is real, then why did He make such sins like wasting seed? It's natural. It comes naturally. It's like, what's the problem? Why did He make you not work on Shabbat? Like, what does He care? This is what the teacher is teaching him in yeshiva. I asked the kid, does anybody know he's an atheist? If the principal doesn't know, he doesn't know. He hired him; he doesn't know. The guy maybe looks like a uniform. He's wearing a uniform. I actually asked Rabbi Mizrachi, is this even possible for such a teacher to be in a school? He says, no, there's no way that anybody knows. This guy probably is like one of these Hasidim that went off the derech and is pretending and really wants to ruin everybody else. He's like the bad apple. That's what we thought for a second until the kid responded.

20:38And the kid responded, telling me, "Oh yeah, the principal knows. The principal knows that he's an atheist. He just told him, 'Don't teach it to the kids.' If this is the type of yeshivot that we're sending our kids to, it's better off not to go to school at all. Keep them home." Even if they're not going to become Talmidei Chachamim, maybe they will, maybe they won't, at least they're not going to become Kofrim. They're not going to start telling you one day, "Abba, by the way, which kind of monkey did you come from? I came from a chimpanzee, what about you? What kind of monkey did you come from?" You understand what's going on here? So, Rabotai, right now there's a big decree on Am Yisrael, a bad, terrible decree that's starting in New York, where the education system wants to force the yeshivot to teach their kids seven hours of secular studies and only two hours of Torah, which completely defeats the purpose of going to yeshiva. Now, I had a difficult time hearing this last week, that this is happening, but now I'm doing the math for the last week, now I understand why Hashem is doing it.

21:59If the teachers are already secular, atheists, Christian missionaries, it's better off they teach them secular studies already. It's better off they go to public schools, the kids, if that's what you're teaching them. The job of the Rosh Yeshiva, the job of the yeshiva itself, the job of the parent is to be a compliance officer. That's your job. You have to be a police officer. My wife always tells me, you know, I always feel like a bad person. I said, why? She goes, all day I tell him, no, no, no, don't do this, don't do this, don't do this, no. Every two seconds, no, no. The whole day is like a recording. I repeat it over and over. No, don't do this. Stop climbing the wall. Don't jump out of the window. Stop breaking stuff. Don't draw on the wall. No, the ceiling. No, my God. Oh, no. Like all day it's no, no, no, no. I said, Baruch Hashem, you're doing a fantastic job. She goes, but I feel like a bad person. I said, no, you're fantastic. Why? If you didn't say anything, they're going to continue, the whole house will go down.

23:01If you don't say no to your kids, no one else is going to say no to them. This is the job of a parent. Tell them no. That's it. Not even yes. For the first several years of their life, you have one-word vocabulary: no. Why? Because they don't know what they're doing. We don't know what we're doing. Even when we're 25 and 35 and 45, we don't know what we're doing. So first, we have to learn what not to do. Then you learn what to do. First yir'ah, then ahavah, first fear of the problems. Then work on developing the love and the kindness and all the wonderful things. Why? Because if you love, but your love is full of manure, it's full of mold, it's full of bad stuff, what kind of love is this? The reality is first we need to know what not to do. Don't send the kid to a yeshiva if you don't have any serious references from this yeshiva, from people that actually sat in a class.

24:06sat there, they saw it, you know who the teachers are, you know they're not one of these pedophiles, Hashem, you know they're not one of these psychopaths that wants to play with kids in their extra time, you know that we're not one of these people that's going to teach them about Christianity or atheism or some type of secular nonsense. You know it's not one of those, okay, then you feel safe. But if you don't know, you have no right to send your kids to yeshiva. And you're going to tell me, no, no, that's crazy. Well, just go on the internet and type type in religious people that are pedophiles. There's an entire organization that just raised a million dollars. They just raised a million dollars a few days ago. Why? Because there are so many rabbis that are pedophiles, not because there are no rabbis that are pedophiles. If there were no rabbis who were pedophiles, there would be no reason for this organization to exist. Because there are so many so-called religious people that are sick in their minds, that's why there's an organization.

25:06But this organization, what are they going to do? They can only do things after the fact. They can't save your kid before. They can only report it after so there's no more damage after. You're the only one that could do it before. You're the only one that could do it before. You have to go and check the yeshiva. You don't have time? Don't send them to yeshiva. Keep them home. Go on the playground. I'm telling you, it's much better to not send the kid to school than have your kid come home and say, "Abba, something happened." What? What are you gonna do? The kid's damaged forever. You have to think about this in this generation. We're in a generation of sick people. Sodom and Gomorrah are jealous of us because we're worse. This is the reality. And it's not America only. It's everywhere. There was a so-called Rebbetzin in Australia. She looked more modest than I think Sarah is. She had two kisui rosh, two, not one, like the Rambam says you have to cover your head twice. She had the kisui rosh plus a hat. She covered up to here. I've never seen anything more modest than this in my life, other than the pictures from the early 1900s, 1800s. They found her guilty of molesting over 75 girls.

26:28You cannot judge a book by its cover. You cannot judge a book by its cover, Rabotai. You have to go watch. You have to go watch. And then she pretended to be crazy. So they sent her to a mental institution. But then a private investigator pretended to also be crazy and found out that she's really not crazy. And Baruch Hashem, they're taking her back and they're putting her in jail and hopefully give her the death penalty if my prayers are answered. point is, Rabotai, that you have a job. You're going to bring kids into the world. You are the compliance officer. You have to know when to tell them no. You have to know when to tell yourself no. Parents, if you disagree about something, disagree in private. Don't tell the kids about all your disagreements. Oh yeah, Ima? Yeah, Ima is really mean. What do you mean Ima's really mean? Don't tell your kid Ima's really mean. don't tell Abba that Abba is, uh, and although you're right that he's all those things, but don't tell the kid that. You're right; he did all those things. You're right 100%, but don't think you should tell the kid that because the kid's not going to understand that. I'm sorry 20 minutes later because he realizes that his entire life is going to be destroyed if he continues with this behavior. So don't tell the kid. You want to have an argument? Have it in private. Go to another room.

27:50send the kids to another room. Why? Because that's what the kid's gonna remember. That's what the kid's gonna remember. You remember, "Oh yeah, yeah, my childhood was terrible. My parents always fought." About what? What did they fight about? I don't know, but they always fought. That's what kids remember. They don't remember that you took them on vacation and spent your life savings on that. They don't remember. They remember the fight. So you have to be a compliance officer. You have to be a person that tells your kid what's right and wrong, and you have to watch the kid's back. Before you send him to a friend's house, try to see if the friend can come over to your house. Why? It's better that his friend breaks something in your house than something happens to him somewhere else. All these sleepovers, in this generation, you shouldn't do them. There are just too many sick people. In the old generation, the mitzvah of bringing guests to the house, people think that if you bring your friends over for Shabbat, then you're making a mitzvah. It's a nice gesture. You're a very nice person and very kind, but it's not a mitzvah. There's no mitzvah. It's a nice thing. You're bringing your friends. It could be 500 people at your table, but there's not a single mitzvah being performed. You're just hosting people. The mitzvah of bringing guests in Judaism is if the person has nowhere else to be, meaning he's from somewhere else.

29:18He doesn't have a house here, and you're hosting him. If he has nowhere else to be, and you're hosting him, that's a mitzvah. That's a mitzvah. But if he lives next door to you, and his house is maybe a little bit bigger than yours, he has plenty of food, Baruch Hashem, but all you're doing is just, you're feeding each other every week, you're taking turns to feed each other, there's no mitzvah. It's nice, you should do it if you want, if you like guests, but there's not a single mitzvah. Don't get fooled. People think that they're making mitzvot because every week they have 25 people in their house. It's not a mitzvah, but it's a nice thing to do if you like it. A mitzvah is if he doesn't have a place to go. The problem is, in this generation, this mitzvah is almost impossible to perform. Why? If you don't know who this person is that lives somewhere else, you shouldn't bring him into your house. That's what Rav Ovadia said. If you don't know him, you don't have any references, don't bring him to your house. It doesn't matter if he's a rabbi or not. Have somebody else do it. Why? Because a lot of people say they're a rabbi, and the next thing you know, what happens? There's actually a real story that happened maybe 70, 80 years ago. Some of these really religious people in the previous generation were just so pure and naive to some extent that

30:39it's just, it's amazing, it's amazing how pure they were. But unfortunately, some of them got themselves in trouble. There was a family that hosted some guy who called himself a mekubal, and this mekubal, they said, "You're in our house, stay for as long as you want." And they literally saw this guy studying day and night. The wife would wake up in the middle of the night and see the guy still studying. Mamash, sleeping only a few hours, studying all day. They wanted to give him food? No, no, no, just a little piece of cheese, a little tomato, nothing. Mamash, almost not eating. One day, two days, a week, two weeks. They had never seen anybody study Torah so much. Then the wife tells the husband, "I'm sorry. I realized I made a mistake." He said, "What mistake?" She said, "It was too late by the time I realized it was a mistake. But one night that you were working extra, this guy that's been staying at our house and learning, this tzaddik, this mekubal, he whispered a secret to me. He said, 'I'm Eliyahu HaNavi.'"

32:02I'm Eliyahu Hanavi. But you know Eliyahu Hanavi, right? She goes, yeah, of course. Wow. Well, you know Eliyahu Hanavi has to come before Mashiach comes, right? I heard the Rabbi said it. Yeah, yeah, I heard. Well, the only way that Mashiach comes is if he's born from you. Mashiach has to be born from you. And it has to come from Eliyahu Hanavi. A meivin yavin. By the time she realized he's not Eliyahu Hanavi, it was already too late. That's it, finished, marriage is finished. The person learned Torah all day, fine. The person had a beard, so does the goat. Gemara says, if a beard was an indication of Yirat Shamayim, the goat would be a big tzaddik. Reality is, Rabotai, you have to be careful. That's rule number one of building a Jewish home. You have to be careful. You have kids? Hashem is giving you these kids, these precious little kids, to protect them. Tell them no a bunch of times. The more no, the better.

33:27they don't know what they're doing, they don't know what's right and wrong, they don't know that if they put their hand into the oven, it's not going to turn out really well. They don't know that if they hang out with the kid that comes from a Christian family, it's not going to turn out really well. They don't know that if they hang out with this girl that's not really halfway Jewish, maybe she's Reform, it's not going to turn out really well. They don't know these things, so if you're not serious about avodat Hashem, don't have kids. Do them a favor. But if you're going to be a parent, you have kids, you want to bring a family, make Am Yisrael bigger, bring more Kedusha to the world, you have to be a strict parent. It's the only way. All of these parents that try to become friends with their kids, the kids eventually treat their parents like friends. Meaning, if they don't feel like talking to them, they feel like talking to them, they curse at them, they yell at them, they treat them like friends. A parent should never be friends with the kid. Friendly, but not friends. There has to be yira. There has to be fear of the parent. Abba comes into the house, everybody stands up. Why? King. Ima comes into the house, king. But the problem is, what happens? Why don't the kids stand up? Because the Ima doesn't stand up either. Why don't the kids stand up? Because the Abba doesn't stand up either. The Abba and the Ima don't respect each other, so how are the kids going to respect them? If Ima is on the phone when Abba comes home,

34:56has to take off the phone. "Okay, sorry, I have to go. My husband's here." What does she do sometimes? "One second, honey, I'm gonna finish this call in a little while, then we'll have dinner together." And she goes back to, uh, Samantha on the phone. She goes back to, uh, whoever it is on the phone, to her, uh, guy friend that's gay because she thinks it's allowed to have a guy friend because he's gay. That's what women do. No, no, he's okay, honey. He's okay. He's just my friend. Yeah, but he's a guy. Yeah, but he's gay. So it's okay to have a gay friend. It's not okay to have a gay friend. It's not okay to have an opposite-gender friend. There's no such thing as a platonic relationship. That's a figment of our imagination. The point is, Rabotai, you have to be strict with certain things. Why? Because by the time you realize that I'm right, it's too late. It's too late. So when it comes to having kids, first and foremost, you have to make sure you protect them. Please protect them. I'm telling you today, there are so many tragedies that I hear about that I don't tell you about because it's just too disgusting, and just mamash, it'll probably make you all want to vomit, and it'll ruin the whole shiur. Because there's going to be vomit everywhere, and then who's going to clean it, because you're the guys vomiting, so you probably don't feel good.

36:20I'm stuck cleaning it. No, come on. You won't stop. I hear so many horrible things. You wouldn't believe it. You wouldn't believe it. I'm telling you, by the time you realize I'm right, it's too late. You have to just take this advice. Now, why don't people listen to this advice? This is Da'at Torah. This is what the Torah says. Everything I just told you is in the Torah. I can show you all the different halachot that say everything I just said. Why don't people want to listen to this? Why don't people take the Torah seriously? Hashem, when Hashem was at Mount Sinai, Shechina came down, He told Am Yisrael the entire Torah. He was serious. How come we don't take it seriously? He was serious, but we're not really so serious about His seriousness. Why? Because we always think that maybe we have a better way of doing things than Hashem. Because we have tests in life. And we figured that something went wrong with Hashem's system, so I have to fix it. No one's paying attention to me, so I have to wear tighter clothes so people pay attention to me. Because if they pay attention to me, then they'll probably like me. And if they like me, they'll probably hire me. If they hire me, I will make more money. And then I'll help my husband because I'm wearing nicer, tighter clothes that everybody's looking at.

37:39This is the logic of a woman in the tzibbur Yisrael that keeps Torah and mitzvot, but she doesn't realize that this type of logic could ruin a family. There's a horrible story that came out in Eretz Yisrael not too long ago. A company that was supposed to be a religious company, a religious company, where a lot of women went to work for this company while their husbands were going to kollel. This was like the company that you were supposed to work for. It's a religious company, all the holidays you're off, Shabbat you're off, everything is good. What happened eventually? Women started complaining about the boss. If you were going to get a raise, you had to talk to him a little bit extra. You had to do a few things extra that are not part of the... not part of the deal. Just sending your wife to go work so you can go learn is not such a great idea if you don't know where she's working and what she's working on. Meaning, you have to check everything because people are sick. They're very sick in their head. You have to start looking at people this way. I know this seems like a negative outlook. You're so pessimistic. Not everybody's so bad.

39:02reality is, a lot of people are too many to ignore. Now, when it comes to women, they want to be liked; they want to get attention. If the husband doesn't pay attention to the wife, she's going to look for attention somewhere else. She's not going to actually do something, at least if she's normal. But she needs attention. So if the husband is looking at other girls all the time, or on his phone all the time, or on TV all the time, then the wife is going to look for attention somewhere else. So what is she going to do? Automatically she's going to try to get attention from other people. How does a woman get attention? By being immodest. That's how a woman gets attention. Today you see that even people that are ugly in every aspect still wear less clothes, they walk around in their underwear. Why? Because they figured that if they walk around this way, people are going to say, "Oh wow, look! The zoo broke down, and this woman came out." They get attention because they have fewer clothes on. That's how people think. So a husband needs to know, if you want to have a happy house... ugly in every aspect, still they wear fewer clothes, they walk around in their underwear. Why? Because they figured that if they walk around this way, people are going to say, "Oh wow, look! The zoo broke down, and this woman came out." They get attention because they have fewer clothes on. That's how people think. So a husband needs to know, if you want to have a happy house

40:26You have to pay attention to your wife. Come home. Sit down with her. I know you have work. I know you're busy. I know you've got stuff on your mind. You're stressed out. You've got bills. You've got this. You've got all types of things. Spend a half hour with her. together, put maybe a little shiur (lesson) to love, 15 minutes together. Learn something, then go back to your business. It doesn't have to be five hours. Chazal (our Sages) say, don't talk too much to the wife, even to your wife. Don't talk too much, but spend some quality time without your phone, without this, without that—some quality time. And please, do humanity a favor: don't go on vacation with your friends. I There are some guys that are excited about going on vacation with everybody except their family. They want to go on vacation with their friends. If you're one of those people, you're not ready to get married. You're not supposed to go on vacation with anybody else other than your parents, your wife, and your kids. That's it. If guys want to go out with their friends, that means there's something wrong with their life. "I don't know, honey, it's okay. Just the guys. We're just going to Vegas. No big deal."

41:36Jews don't go to Vegas, at least if they want to stay Jewish. So these are just certain warning shots. The wife that gets attention from her husband is going to be much happier by being modest. Why? Because if he's giving her attention, She's not going to look for it anywhere else. All of a sudden, it's easier for her to put on a mitzvah hat, put a scarf on her head. All of a sudden, she's excited about putting on a hat. All of a sudden, she's happy to wear beautiful clothes in the house that are modest. She's not wearing her pajamas all day at home and the sexy dress outside. Some people are the opposite. As soon as the husband comes home, he looks at her like she just got out of bed. But when she goes to the supermarket, she's wearing an outfit like she's going to a runway show. Why? Because there's a problem with the relationship. So the key is to make sure that every time you see your wife, you give her attention. Attention means not just sitting next to her like, "Oh, hi, hi, what's going on? What's going on?" Not that type of attention. Attention means giving her compliments. Be generous with compliments. It doesn't cost anything.

42:59promise, and if it doesn’t, I'll give you a refund. Be generous with compliments. Notice every single thing she does. She put a mitpachat on? Give the mitpachat compliments like it just came from the Beit HaMikdash. She has a new dress on? Give her compliments like you've never seen anything so beautiful. Even if she knows you're lying, she's still going to be happy. "Honey, I'm pregnant nine months, and you still tell me I look sexy." "Honey, I prefer you stay this way." If it was up to me, you'd stay this way, honey. Even though she knows you're lying, she'll still like it. Why? Because she knows you're paying attention. Try it and test it. I'm married 15, 16 years. It works. My wife tells me something. She goes, you know, I'm about to give birth and you're telling me this nonsense, right? I don't believe you. I said, but it's good, right? works, guys, it works. You have to be romantic, you have to be romantic. Don't be one of these stones. Why? Because that's what your kids are going to watch. If they see affection between the parents, not physical, but mamash like affection, caring between the two, they're allowed to see you guys hug. The public isn’t, but they are allowed. The kids are allowed to see you hug and even a peck.

44:20But not like the goyim, starting to make out and doing all types of things you're supposed to do behind closed doors. If they see some type of affection between the parents, it's actually healthy, the Chachamim say. It's healthy for the kids to see affection between the parents. Why? Because where are they going to learn love from? It's either from you or from the streets. They have to learn something somewhere. So if you're not affectionate, if you give your wife high fives, instead of a hug, that's what the kids are going to think. They're going to think that the girlfriend, boyfriend is the same thing. This is what kids think about. Now, once the husband has achieved giving the wife attention and the wife has achieved giving the husband attention and making sure that she tries to understand him with all of his craziness, he tries not to understand her and all her craziness. Then you have established something. Then really all you have left is just following the rules of the Torah. That's all you have left. Now, how come we have so many problems with following the rules of the Torah? Because we think that as soon as something breaks, something went wrong with the system.

45:40We think we have a better system than God's. As soon as somebody robs us, we think that we should rob somebody else in return. As soon as somebody does something wrong to us, we think that we're supposed to take revenge. That's the problem with us. We question God just too much. Hashem says you have to be modest. We say, "Yeah, but modest maybe in a different generation, maybe only at home, maybe here, maybe there." Hashem said learn Torah twice a day. We say, "Yeah, but learn probably when you have time." We make exceptions and think we know the law, but we apply it selectively. This is actually one of the things that we learn from Yosef HaTzaddik in the last few weeks. In the parasha, we see that the life of Yosef is literally just one long test that never ended. Yosef was known as a ben zekunim, meaning he was the most righteous, he was the smartest, he was the most beautiful among his entire family. This means that Hashem tested him to a hair's breadth.

46:50Little tiny thing he did wrong, Hashem judged him that way. Why? Because I gave you so many tools, you're going to be judged according to all the tools that you have. If you have no tools, then I'll judge you as if you have no tools. But if I give you an arsenal of tools and you still mess up, I have to judge you accordingly. So when he said a few things about his brothers, and he said, listen, he told Yaakov, his father, Abba, listen, I saw my brothers eat some food, and I wasn't sure if it was kosher. And I also saw them talking to some women, and I'm not really sure what was going on there. Even though technically for us, if we did that, it really wouldn't be considered such a bad thing. Why, tell your father, tell, you know, Abba, you should ask my brothers what they were doing. Rebuke them, give them some mussar. On the level of Yosef, it was considered lashon hara. level of Yosef, it was considered Lashon Hara. Hashem judged him. He said, you said Lashon Hara about ten brothers.

48:50You get 10 years in jail. And he went to jail for 10 years. His brothers sold him, and eventually, he went to jail for 10 years. Along the way, he got tested again with Eshes Potiphar, one of the four most beautiful women in the history of mankind. She wasn't some woman with a gibbenet, a hunchback, that it was easy to say no. One of the Gemara says it was one of the four most beautiful women that ever lived. Not only that, she had prophecy. She got prophecy that she knew that something special was going to come out of Yosef. Am Yisrael is coming out of Yosef. She wanted a piece of it; she wanted to do good. She didn't realize that it was going to be through her stepdaughter Osnat, who was actually the daughter of Dina. Cousin, the niece of Yosef. She thought it was from her. She didn't realize it was her stepdaughter. She meant well. She was beautiful. She tested Yosef. Yosef said no. Yosef said, "You know who I am, right? I know I'm not gonna do it." She goes, "I'll take your eyes out." He says, "There's no problem. Hashem makes the blind see." "So, I'll break your back." "No problem. Hashem makes the crippled walk." "I'm gonna kill you." "No problem. Hashem revives the dead."

50:19do whatever you want. I'm not going with you. I'm going to send you to jail. Hashem frees the incarcerated. It's in our prayer every day. Whatever you want, I'm not doing it. He passed the test. What does Hashem do? Sends him to jail. So this looks like something is wrong with the system. If anybody had questions, it should be Yosef. Yosef says, listen, I learned Torah from my father all day, all night. What did you do? My brothers sold me. Passed the test with one of the most beautiful women in the world. What did you do? You sent me to jail? Something's wrong with the system. Next thing you know, two Egyptians get thrown in jail after he's there for ten years. They have a dream. They tell Yosef about their dream. He gives them the p'shat, and he tells one of them, "Please, you're going to go back to your job. Just remember to remember me," and... Remember to remember me. He said two extra words. Yosef says, "Oh, you're asking for help from people instead of from Me? Another two years." Again, Yosef has all the reasons to conclude there's something wrong with the system.

51:39But yet, we find out later on that it was all part of the plan. Part of the big plan of Hashem Yitbarach, of how Yosef HaTzadik, they hurried him out of the bor, they took him out of the bor, meaning that was the prison. The prison wasn't like today, they have buildings, you have TV in every cell, they serve you lunch, everything is good. It's like a vacation, a five-star hotel. There, they had a hole in the ground, and all the filth in the world went into the hole, including the people. That was the jail. They hurry him out of the jail. All of a sudden, he becomes the second to the king. In one day, in a few hours, he sees this as part of the plan. But now, in this week's parasha, we see that Yaakov has died and the brothers of Yosef have a very, very big question. What's their question?

52:42They come to Yosef and they start telling him, "You know, Abba told us that you have to watch our back, you have to take care of us, and don't kill us because of what happened." Yaakov never said that. They made it up. So Yosef says to them, "Vayomer aleihem Yosef, 'Al tira'u, ki hatachat Elokim ani? V'atem chashavtem alai ra'ah, Elokim chashavah le-tovah.'" Yosef said to them: "Fear not, for am I instead of God? Meaning, don't be afraid. What, do you think I'm God? I'm not in charge of who lives and who dies. Although you intended me harm, you intended to kill me, you intended bad things, God intended it for good in order to accomplish..." As it is clear as today, the vast people were kept alive. He says, "Yes, I understand that you had a bad plan. You threw me into a hole, hoping that I would die. I didn't die, despite it being full of scorpions and snakes. Then you sold me, figuring you were never going to see me again. You meant bad, I know, but you should know this: the bad that you meant was all part of the plan. Whose plan? God's plan."

54:09It was all part of the big plan. This lesson, Rabotai, if a person truly understands what Yosef HaTzadik is actually saying here, his entire life can change. His entire life can be worry-free. His entire life can be stress-free. You're going to have problems with or without the story. But if you know where the source of all the problems is, then you're going to have a much easier time sticking to your guns. You're going to have a much easier time sticking to the halakha. then you're going to have a much easier time sticking to your guns. You're going to have a much easier time sticking to the Halacha. Even though sometimes it doesn't seem like it makes sense to not work on Shabbat. Even though sometimes it doesn't make any sense to watch your eyes. Even though sometimes it doesn't make any sense not to shake the hand of the opposite sex because somebody said it's allowed, so you're figuring maybe you should make an exception. Even though it makes some sense to maybe go to the holiday party of the Christians in a few days. You know, everybody has these parties, and people say, oh, we should go to a party. It's an office party. What's the big deal? I'm not worshipping any idols. Yeah, but they are.

55:14Yeah, but I'm not eating anything. Yeah, but they are. It's something called Marit Ayin. Marit Ayin is a rabbinical sin, where it says, listen, if you act a certain way, somebody sees you, and that's a biblical sin. If somebody sees you walking out of a McDonald's, it's not a good situation. Why? You have a kippah, and they see you walking out of a McDonald's, they say, oh, he probably ate there. They're not giving you Kav Zechut, thinking, oh, he went to the bathroom there. thinking you ate McDonald's and then you became the rabbi of the shul somehow. So if you go to these Christian holiday parties, you should know everyone there is watching you: the non-Jews, the secular Jews, everyone there is watching you, and they're judging Judaism based on you. That's why a lot of people tell me, "No, Rabbi, you're so strict. All my Jewish friends eat pork with me all the time. All my Jewish friends eat, you know, food with me all the time. You're too strict." They judge Judaism based on their friends. So if they see their so-called Jewish friends at the Christian holiday parties, they're going to say, "It's not a problem to have a tree. It's not a problem to worship idols. It's not a problem talking about Jesus. It's not a problem to do all these different things. It's not a problem."

56:40You make exceptions. You have to realize this consequence for them. So, to stay strong doesn't mean stay strong when it's easy to stay strong. Stay strong means you have a test like Yosef HaTzadik. You have a test that doesn't make any sense. You have a test where you did all the right things, and Hashem sent you to jail for ten years. Those are the tests you have to endure in this life. Why? Because not only is Hashem watching, not only are all the other people watching, but your kids are watching. Your kids are constantly testing you, and they're asking, how much of this stuff does he really believe? Abba said kippah is important, but how come he doesn't wear it all the time? Abba said tzitzit is important, but how come he walks around with no tzitzit all the time? Abba says learning Torah is important and school is important, but I've never seen Abba open a book. Anytime the rabbi calls to come to a shiur, he's always busy. So how serious is this Torah that he says is serious for Abba? Meaning the kids are constantly judging you silently.

57:59They're watching you. And they're deciding, is he full of it? Is he not full of it? Is it serious? Is it not serious? Maybe he's just sending me because it's a punishment. He's sending me to school because it's a punishment. So if I'm good, then he's not going to send me to school anymore. You're constantly being tested. And how you handle yourself under pressure is what Hashem wants to know. Now, it's easy to say that you have emunah when you don't have a test. It's easy to talk about emunah when you don't have any big tests. It's easy to talk about emunah after you pass the test. What's hard is to have emunah during the test. Now, the problem with us is that there's only one reason why we don't have emunah. to say that you have emunah when you don't have a test. It's easy to talk about emunah when you don't have any big tests. It's easy to talk about emunah after you pass the test. What's hard is to have emunah during the test. Now, the problem with us is that there's only one reason why we don't have emunah. could say it in five different ways, but there's really only one reason. The reason why we don't have emunah is literally because we don't believe God. Not that we don't believe in God; we believe He exists. We're not atheists like this yeshiva teacher. No, we believe He exists; we just don't believe in what He said and what He promised. We think maybe He wasn't serious or maybe it wasn't meant for you; it's meant for everybody else except you. And if you really think about it...

59:27Yetzirah makes God into a really, really evil being, like Achzari. Why? Because He cares about everybody else except you. So it's important for us to know that if you want your emunah to be strong during the time you need it, you have to be strict, and you have to be strong when it comes to following every little thing, every big thing, everything, even when you think that maybe you can get away with this, maybe not. I'll give you a few stories that will give you an example. He was very small. I told you some stories about him in the past. He was tiny. If you see him, there are a few videos of him When he would give shiurim, many times he would stand on top of the table. Little, little person, mamash, standing on top of the table, and everybody was terrified of esh kodesh. Terrified. Mamash, the mussar that he would teach, the walls started doing teshuva. Now, Rav Galinsky, how did he get to this point? In Russia,

1:00:55During the time of Trotsky, he was a self-hating Jew—one of the worst Jews that ever lived. And he started Yevsektsiya. Yevsektsiya was an organization with a number one mission. What was the mission? Spread communism. What's communism? Kill Judaism, kill religion, kill God. That was the number one mission. They were Jewish; they would take other Jews, kill them, arrest them, report them to the government—all types of torture—just to destroy the foundation of Judaism in every way possible. To the extent where it became illegal to teach Torah in Russia. Rav Galinsky, alav ha-shalom, during this time when they made it illegal to teach Torah, do you know what he did? opening yeshiva. He saw all the other yeshivot closing, and the opening is like, "Yeah, but you're putting your life at risk." From who? From the sektsia? No, there's no risk. Why? They don't decide who lives or dies.

1:02:05Hashem does. He opened a yeshiva when all of the other yeshivot were scared to remain open. Some of them even closed. Some people got killed. Some people got arrested and so on and so forth. He opened a yeshiva and he's learning Torah all day, all night. Little kids are learning Torah. Big kids learn Torah. Everybody's learning Torah. But it's illegal. Illegal for who? Who's making the law? They said if you get arrested, you know, they're probably going to kill you. Not my business. I have to learn Torah. I have to teach Torah. That's my job in the world. What happens, the outcome of everything else, that's Hashem's business, not my business. One day, they got news that the Yevsektsiya were coming. And they're not coming to negotiate. Everyone ran away, except Rav Galinski and a few of his Colleagues, they didn't run away. It's like, "Why aren't you running away? It's Pikuach Nefesh." We don't see them in Pikuach Nefesh. We're learning Torah. We're learning Torah. The Yevsektsiya showed up, caught them, arrested them, and sent them to Siberia. They told them, "You know, nobody comes back from Siberia. People go to Siberia, but they don't come back."

1:03:34And for what you did, we're going to make sure you don't come back. Rav Galinsky lived to tell the story. He said, Siberia was very, very hard. But it wasn't the Holocaust. Siberia was hard. But me and all the people that stayed with Emunah in Hashem running the world, we survived Siberia. All the people that ran away died in the Holocaust. They all ran away. From who? From people? Oh, they died in the Holocaust. But you had a leniency there. You were allowed to run away. There's no problem with running away. You're allowed according to halacha. It's not against the Torah to run away. It's allowed. It's perfectly fine. It's not even a sin. Rav Galinski says, who am I running from? Who am I scared of? you can only get to that type of mindset if your whole life is like this. You can't just one day wake up and be a hero. If your whole life is that strict and glued to Hashem, that's the only way you get to that point. So even though Siberia was hard, it wasn't the Holocaust. Now

1:05:04was one time, not too long ago, probably within our lifetime, maybe about 10-15 years ago, a religious father moved into a house where the builder that built this house forgot how to build stairs. So the stairs that he built like, maybe for, like, you know, little cockroaches. Maybe they were walking on the stairs, you know, really, really thin stairs that you had to walk on your tippy toes. So every time that you walked up the stairs or down the stairs, like pikuach nefesh, it's life-risk. But what are they going to do? That's all they could afford. They went to this place. One day, the father is with a baby in a carriage. One stair, two stairs, three stairs... He and the baby are slipping down the stairs. And it's a long staircase. They get all the way to the bottom. He takes the baby to the hospital. The doctors come out shocked, sweating bullets, and they say, the baby is okay, but we have to do a surgery.

1:06:24if he's okay, why is there a surgery? He says, well, he's okay from the fall, but when we were checking, we saw that he has a tumor right next to his ear. If you had waited two more weeks, it would have been too late. Two more weeks and it would have been too late. Meaning, if the baby didn't fall down the unusual stairs, we would have never known until it was too late. Was the father thinking, oh, Baruch Hashem, they were falling down the stairs? No, during that time you were thinking, oh my God, why is Hashem doing this to me? I just had the kid, I'm making mitzvot, I'm doing good, I'm doing that, right? But Hashem had a plan. Everyone thought running away from the kollel was good, running away from yeshiva is good, we're running away, we're saving ourselves. Rav Galinski says, no, no, no, stay with Hashem. I'm afraid of Hashem, not people. so you see that sometimes the test is a minute, an hour, a few years, but one way or another, it always turns out to be the best, just like Rabbi Akiva said. Rabbi Akiva always said

1:07:42Everything that the Merciful One does is always the best. Meaning that even though Hashem has an infinite amount of choices of how to take us from point A to point B, whatever choice He chooses has to be the best one. Not the second best, the third best, sometimes the best, or it could have been better. It's always the best one, which means that anytime we veer off, we're not only choosing a choice that's less than Hashem's, we're usually choosing the worst choice. The driver is driving, but the passenger decides that we need to make a left, so he takes the steering wheel, surprisingly. How's that going to turn out? More times than not, it ends up in fatality. Why? Let the driver drive. When we interfere with the rules and regulations of Hashem, we're ruining everything. Sometimes the only thing you can do is the best thing you can do, which is just to be patient. Let Hashem make the picture clearer. And of course, it's much easier to talk about than it is when you're inside the fire.

1:09:05But these are the types of things that if you don't train yourself in these tests on a day-to-day basis, when the test finally arrives, you won't survive. You'll break like nothing. Always have to remember that even though the brothers meant bad, Yosef HaTzadik says, Hashem meant good. Hashem meant good. You thought it was a bad thing. You thought the robbery was terrible. You thought cancer was terrible. You thought losing this was terrible. You thought losing that was terrible. Hashem meant good. Meaning, by the end, you'll see it's good. When is the end? Depends. Depends on whether you're passing the test or not. Now, there's also a fantastic story I just heard from Rav Fein, a true story. There was a Rosh Kollel in Israel, in Yerushalayim, that, you know, today, the Rosh Kollel unfortunately doesn't have as much time as he wants to actually learn Torah. The bigger the Kollel, the bigger the yeshiva, the more money you need. If you have a thousand avreichim, that means you need at least two million shekels every month.

1:10:26Two million shekels a month is a lot of money. A thousand avreichim is a lot of avreichim. But two million shekels seems like more than a thousand. The point is, you have to come up with this money. And it's not like you're going to call Bill Gates and Bill Gates is going to write you a check. Just because he has a lot of money. It's not just because people have a lot of money that they give. In fact, many people who have a lot of money don't give. And part of the reason is that the more you like money, the less likely you are to give it. Because you don't usually want to give stuff you like. Now, this also is one of the indications of how much a husband loves his wife. The more modest a woman is, the more a husband loves her. Why? Because he doesn't want to share her with the neighborhood. If the husband tells his wife to wear miniskirts and tight clothes and not cover herself, that means he simply doesn't love her. Why? Because he's sharing her with the neighborhood. Everybody knows what she looks like when they're alone. They go to the beach together.

1:11:29So, a Rosh Kollel has to raise money on a regular basis, travel to different corners of the world. He has to go to America, he has to go to Europe, he has to go to Australia, he has to go anywhere people will allow him to get inside and hopefully give him a few shekels, on a regular basis. Now, this Rosh Kollel that had a lot of Avreichim, one of the Avreichim that he had was someone with a sickness called jealousy. It's a sickness. Who was he jealous of? The Rosh Kollel. They were neighbors. And anytime he could, he'd say something bad about him, constantly chasing him, constantly bothering him, to the point where everyone knew. And they asked the Rosh Kollel, "Why do you keep him? He's so jealous. He's always after you. He's constantly trying to find something wrong. Tell him to go fly a kite." "No, no, no," said the Rosh Kollel. "It's the mind of a tzaddik." One thing has nothing to do with the other. He learns well, let him learn in the kollel. He's jealous of me, it's my problem. That's the mind of a tzaddik. Anyway, one day, this Rosh Kollel gets a special blessing from Shamayim. He finds a bag with $100,000 in it. Cash. But also next to the bag is a wallet.

1:12:59identification of an Arab sheikh or sheik — I think in English, sheik or sheikh — they say sheikh. Now, if it was a Jew, if the identification was of a Jew, you have to call the Jew. You have to do whatever you can to go return the money. If it's a non-Jew, according to halakha, you don't have to return the money. If he lost something, you don't have to return the money. But you can fulfill a mitzvah called Kiddush Hashem. is that you go return the money and tell them, "I'm only returning the money because I'm a Jew, because it's in the Torah. Hashem told us to be nice, Hashem told us to be good," and so on and so forth. Meaning, you're sanctifying Hashem's name. It's the biggest mitzvah you can do. There's actually one tzaddik, I think he lives in New Jersey, who found like eighty thousand dollars in some antique desk. He bought it, and he called the owner and told her, "By the way, you know, you have all this money." He returned the money to her. He was all over the news, featured in specials, and so on. It was a big Kiddush Hashem. And this wasn't a rich person. He wasn't wealthy. Only Jews do things like this. You're never going to see, "Hey, oh, Mustafa returns $150,000 to a local rabbi"—never in the history of mankind.

1:14:22Ishmael returns the kollel a million dollars that's been lost for years now—never. Never has a Pope returned the menorah they stole from the Beit HaMikdash—never, never, never. It's never happening. So, he tries to return the money, but it's a bigger mitzvah. A bigger mitzvah is if you know that this person is going to use the money against Am Yisrael and... Not only is it a mitzvah not to return it, it's a sin to return it. Now, what does a sheikh teach? He teaches the Quran. What does the Quran teach? The Quran teaches, "Hey Arab, hey Muslim, the Jew is hiding behind the rock. Go behind the rock and kill him." That's what it says in the Quran. The Quran says, "Hey Muslim, the rock is talking to the Muslim." The rock is talking to the Muslim, come, come, the Jew is hiding behind me, come kill him over here. That's what the sheikh is teaching, he's teaching in the Quran, come kill Jews. So, to give him the money, he's going to go teach people to go kill Jews, it's a sin from the Torah. So, the Jew took the money and went his way. The test seemed like it was a fantastic kind of test, give me a test like this every day.

1:15:47But within literally minutes of him walking into the house, police, police, police, open the door, open the door, okay, okay, okay, yes, yes, yes, how can I help you? see Mustafa next to him, the sheikh. Oh, he starts cursing in Arabic, all the curses. He has rocks in his hand. "You have my money! You have my money!" "What money? What are you talking about? Listen, he was at a place, they said you were at a place, and he has your money." "I don't have anybody's money." "Have my money!" "I don't have anybody's money." "Can we check?" "Check, be my guest, be my guest." They went to the house; they checked. They found money; it wasn't exactly the amount of money the Arab said he lost. because he had some of his own money. But he said, it's a lot of money to have. I mean, why does somebody like you have such money? He said, well, listen, I'm not a normal person. Look at my passport. He gives them the passport. True story. Gives them the passport. They literally see this Rosh Kolel. Every single page in his passport has like 15 stamps. Why? Because he's constantly traveling every week to all these countries to raise money for the Kolel.

1:17:00He's in this country, he's in that country, he's in the Philippines, he's in Bahrain, he's in every place in the world that somebody is going to listen to him. He goes to Panama, he goes to America, he goes to Australia, he goes everywhere. I'm not a regular person. That's what I do. It's like, you have a kolel? Yeah, yeah, we'll call it. It's a payphone in a kolel. You call the payphone. Okay, let us call the payphone. They call the payphone of the kolel. if he's so important, somebody would know. Whoever's going to pick up? No, no, they call the payphone. Who picks up? Mr. Jealous Neighbor. Mr. Jealous Neighbor, as if the test didn't get good enough. Mr. Jealous Neighbor picks up the phone. "Hello, yeah, yeah, listen, we're looking to find some more information about Rabbi So-and-So. You know him?" The jealous neighbor is thinking, "Ah, this is probably like a donor..." Probably somebody trying to donate to this guy. I'm going to get him this time. Yeah, yeah, I know him. I know him. What do you need? He says, well, we just want to know, is he like financially okay? Is he somebody that...

1:18:10Jealous person says, "What? Financially okay? This guy is rich! There's nobody richer than him. He has so much money, this guy—I don't even know why he raises money anymore with how much money he has. He's as rich as it gets." And he starts going off, saying, "Why? If I tell this donor that he's so rich, what's he gonna do? He's not gonna donate; he has money already. Nobody donates to rich people." he's telling him he's the richest guy in the world. The detective says, "Okay, thank you very much, we appreciate it." Hangs up the phone. It's like, "Oh, we're sorry, we didn't know you were so rich. We're sorry, we apologize. This, of course, is your money, Sheikh Mustafa. Let's go find it somewhere else." Now, the Rabbi heard the call Goes to the kollel, gets everybody together. He says, listen, he tells them the whole story of what happened. And somebody answered the phone and said I was rich and everything worked out. Special divine assistance from Hashem. Somebody said all these things that are not true about me. Who do I owe the thank you to? I owe somebody a thank you. The jealous neighbor comes up and he says, I'm sorry.

1:19:27I've been jealous of you and going after you for absolutely no reason for years. But I realized that I intended bad, but Hashem intended good. There's just nothing I can do to interfere because Hashem wants good for you. And if He wants good for you, I want good for you. I'm sorry, all the sinat chinam is gone. Picked up his hands, if Hashem is doing such a thing, I just planned to destroy this guy, and Hashem made me say all these things, dafka for that, obviously this guy is righteous, this is a hishtabach shemo. Throughout the whole test, the rabbi could have broken down, could have said, listen, okay, I'm sorry, I found the money, here it is, oh no, could have broken down in 500 different ways. But he withstood the test. He withstood the fire. And eventually he saw how all the things, everything looked bad during the story. Every part looked bad until the end. That's our life, Rabotai. Every part can look in ways that you think it's bad. The headache seems bad. The foot aches seem bad. The bank account seems bad. Everything seems bad.

1:20:46But if you stick to Hashem through the difficulty, you'll always see that eventually Hashem means good. Meaning ultimately you will be good. David HaMelech, in our Tefillah—this is Tehillim number 25—says, The sins of my mouth and my iniquities do not bring to mind, meaning, don't remind me of my sins, don't judge me on my past sins. Remember me according to Your kindness. And David HaMelech mentioned this many times during this specific Tehillim. He says, See my afflictions and my toil, and forgive all my sins. He's constantly talking about his sins, his sins, his sins. If You judge me based on my sins in the past, I won't survive, and so on and so forth. What sins did David HaMelech even have time to do? I can tell you one thing.

1:22:08that for us, unfortunately, we can't ask the same question, "What sins did we do?" But we can't look at it in a way where the biggest sin that a person can make is simply not having emunah in Hashem. Not having faith that Hashem is going to somehow, some way, in His miraculous, infinite way, make it all work out. To such an extent that David HaMelech teaches us that even when a rasha prays to Hashem, a rasha, he's asking for Hashem, "Hashem please help me rob the bank," Hashem will help him. Someone tries to become impure, tries to make sins, Hashem opens the door for him, meaning He helps him out. He helps him out. Even when a rasha prays to Hashem, "Help me," Hashem helps him. Needless to say, He's going to help the tzaddik. Yeah, but what about all the sickness and the difficulty and the hardship and this and that? Yes, that's part of it. That's all part of it. If a person looks at things that way, then he's going to have a much easier time building a Jewish home. Why? Because everybody has the same instructions.

1:23:29What do we do, Abba? What does G-d say? What do we do, Imah? What does G-d say? Should we go? What does G-d think? Can we go to my friend's bar mitzvah? Well, let's see. What are they going to have in this bar mitzvah? Well, it's just going to be mixed dancing, just a little bit of mixed dancing. Oh, well, G-d says no mixed dancing, so G-d's not going to go to the bar mitzvah, and if G-d doesn't go, we can't go. If G-d doesn't go to the bar mitzvah, G-d doesn't go to a wedding if there's mixed dancing, then we can't go. Sefer Chassidim says the only people that go... The only beings that go to a mixed-dance wedding or mixed-dance bar mitzvah are two types: One is people who are fools, and two is the shedim, the demons. Two types of beings. We talked about demons last year when we were here. All those demons, they go to the parties, and then they go home with the people. And they don't leave. Why? Because now you own them. Or they own you. We're not really sure. The point is, Rabotai, if everybody in the family has the same instruction set, what does Hashem say? Ima, can I buy this dress? What does Hashem say about this dress? Let's see. Hashem says you have to be modest. This dress, not modest. Sorry, Hashem said no. No, but you're saying no. No, no, Hashem said no. I'm just delivering you the message. Don't kill the messenger. Don't kill the messenger. I'm just the messenger. What are you going to do? You get bills, you're going to start yelling at the mailman? It's not his fault.

1:24:54God said no. No, Ima, this dress is not modest. I'm sorry. Abba, I want to sign up for a course to learn how to play baseball. Sorry, God said no. Why? But I'm allowed to play sports. Yes, you're allowed to play sports. But signing up for baseball is a lifetime commitment. Signing up for baseball is a life choice. That means you're going to have to dedicate hours and hours to this thing every single day. And if you're doing that, then you don't have Torah. If you're doing that, you're going to have new types of friends, not all of them being Jewish. It's a life choice. Yes, playing baseball, playing soccer, and playing sports, doing exercise is allowed. But being part of an organized system is not allowed. Why? Because then you're making certain life decisions that would occupy an enormous amount of time. If you take three, four, or five hours a day of a teenager's life... and dedicated to throwing a basketball, playing baseball, and playing soccer; all of those things. How do you think he's going to have any energy to learn Torah and be a Jew? What do you think he's going to—who's he going to look up to? Rabbi Akiva or LeBron James?

1:26:04So the point is, Rabotai, that if the entire family is strict with the law in the sense of not bashing each other in the head every time somebody makes a mistake—that's not what I mean—but simply sticking to the system. What does Hashem think about this? Well, I don't know. Let's find out then. We can't make a decision without Hashem. We live in His world. We live in His kitchen. We live...

1:27:55...then, my friends, there's no Jewish home. It's just chaos; it's somewhat organized, but it's still chaos. Now, there are some examples where Hashem let us know what the world looks like when we interfere. But if we give examples based on us, we don't really know what we ended up doing... Hashem gave us examples from the best of the best, meaning somebody much smarter than us, much holier than us, much more righteous than us—the best of the best. He allowed us to get a view of what it looks like when you interfere with the system. There's nobody in Judaism that ever was or ever will be greater than Moshe Rabbeinu. No one ever came to Moshe. No one was as great as Moshe. No one ever will be as great as Moshe. Not even Mashiach. Now Moshe Rabbeinu saw that the evil Egyptians were trying to break the morale, the entire system, the mental system of Am Yisrael. How?

1:29:19They gave the men women's jobs and the women men's jobs. If they didn't fulfill their quota and build enough bricks, they used the babies as bricks. The pyramids are full of skeletons, full of bodies everywhere. Moshe Rabbeinu saw this, and it was killing him to see all these babies being killed. He just couldn't deal with it. He told Hashem, "Hashem, let me save them." Hashem said to him, "Don't worry. These neshamot, they're evil neshamot. They're bad neshamot. If I allow them to come to the world, they'll destroy the world." Moshe, it’s not that he had a doubt in Hashem, but he couldn’t understand how a baby He creates so much bad. Every baby is cute. Even Hitler was cute. Hitler, as a baby, was cute. Every baby is cute. So he looked at all these babies. How could this baby create so much damage? Let me save one, Hashem. I'll work on it myself. Let me save this one baby. I'll work on it myself. I'll take him as my talmid. Hashem says, "You have free choice. You want to save one? Save one."

1:30:43In essence, Hashem had a test, Hashem had a strategy, but He allowed Moshe Rabbeinu to interfere. He says, I have a strategy to destroy these souls because they're bad, and that's how we're destroying them. You want to save one of them because you want to help the soul, maybe make it do teshuva. Okay, no problem. Go ahead. Who was the soul? The soul was the soul of Micha. A person by the name of Micha was a child. from that moment on, followed Moshe Rabbeinu wherever he went. Now, in next week's parasha, at the beginning of the parasha, we see that Yosef HaTzadik dies, and they bury him. The Egyptians Because they benefited financially to such a great extent from Yosef HaTzadik, they started worshiping him after he died. He made them millionaires, billionaires, and so on. So they buried him and hid the body. They hid it inside the Nile River. So Yosef HaTzadik made his brothers promise. He said, "Listen, eventually there's going to be a message that comes from Hashem that somebody's going to take all of us out of Egypt. If I'm not alive, promise me..."

1:32:04you're going to teach your children, and they're going to teach their children and grandchildren, that whenever we leave Egypt, somebody takes my bones out and brings me to Eretz Yisrael. Make this promise for me. They made the promise, so when it was time to leave Egypt... Moshe Rabbeinu knew this promise. Through prophecy, he knew this promise that we have to take the bones of Yosef HaTzadik, take him out of the tomb, and bring him to Eretz Yisrael. What's the problem? Where's the tomb? The only one that could possibly know is somebody that was alive at the time. So there was a woman by the name of Serach. Serach Bat Asher. Serach, the daughter of Asher. And she was blessed by Yaakov Avinu to live forever. and she literally lived until Hashem took her to Gan Eden alive. She lived for hundreds and hundreds of years. So Serach knew where Yosef HaTzadik was. He was our uncle. She knew where he was. Why? Because she was alive at the time they buried him. And she told Moshe, if you want to find Yosef, he's in the Nile River. He's deep in the Nile River. So Yosef HaTzadik was in there. Moshe Rabbeinu has come to get him, but it's in the river. He's not getting scuba diving gear.

1:33:22What is he doing? There's no submarines. What did he do? Whatever a tzaddik does, ask Hashem. Hashem says, write a kame'ah. Write my name on a mate, on a piece of metal, engrave it, and then on the opposite side of my name, write the pasuk that symbolizes Yosef, that you're calling to Yosef, and throw it into the water. So what did he write? He wrote Hashem's real name on one side, On the other side, he wrote Aleh Shor Aleh. Aleh Shor Aleh means rise, bull, rise. Why rise, bull, rise? Because each one of the tribes had a symbol. Yehuda had a symbol of a lion. Yosef had a symbol of a bull. That's the tribe of Yosef, which was symbolized by a bull. So he says, "Rise, bull, rise." He threw it into the water. Before he threw it into the water, he said, "Yosef, I'm here to deliver on the promise. I'm going to throw this mateh. If you rise, good. I'll take you to Eretz Yisrael. If not, you're staying here." He threw the mateh, the piece of metal, into the water, and Baruch Hashem, the tomb came out of the water. He took the tomb and

1:34:36Went on his way. Now, all this time, who's following him? Little Mikah, the little boy that he saved years ago. He's following him, but he's not right next to him. He's hiding in the bushes. The Midrash Me'am Lo'ez says he's hiding in the bushes. As soon as Moshe is busy with the tomb, he jumps into the water and he takes the mateh. He takes the little piece because Moshe thought it's in the water. It's finished and I'm done with it. He doesn't know. He's not going after the mateh. He's really focused on Yosef HaTzadik, the mitzvah. He doesn't realize that this little boy took this mateh. He takes this little piece of metal and he keeps it. So far, we see the test is not so bad. Moshe saved the little boy. The boy is alive. He's even athletic. He jumped into the water. He took a little piece of metal. What's the worst thing that can happen? Fast forward. almost two months. We're at Mount Sinai for more than two months, almost three months. We're at Mount Sinai. Yes, Moshe Rabbeinu went to Mount Sinai. He's up there for 40 days and 40 nights. Am Yisrael

1:35:48calculated that he was supposed to arrive at a specific time, but they miscalculated by six hours. That was the difference. They thought he was supposed to come back, let's say, at two o'clock, but in reality, it was supposed to be eight o'clock. So they were wrong by six hours, the Midrash says. After they were wrong by six hours, they started questioning the system. They said, wait a minute, if Moshe is not here, who's going to help us? Maybe he died. Maybe he this. They started asking questions. They saw that a lot's going on, but hey, listen, maybe Hashem is wrong. Maybe there's a problem. Maybe we shouldn't be here. Maybe we should go back to Mitzrayim. As soon as they started questioning Hashem's system, Hashem gave them a test. What's the test? He sent the Malach HaMavet, the Yetzer Hara, with a trap. The Yetzer Hara told them, "Look, here's a movie. Moshe died. He's not coming back. You thought maybe he died. I'm going to tell you he did die, meaning I'm going to agree with your worst fears." The prophet Iyov, the prophet of Job, says, what's going to happen to a person? What are the things that are the worst things for him? Meaning, the things he's afraid of, he brings on himself. If somebody focuses a lot of energy on being afraid of losing all of his money, he's actually bringing it on himself. If somebody is afraid of never having kids, he's bringing it on himself. If somebody is afraid of something constantly, like he focuses on it too much,

1:37:15And he shows that he has no faith in Hashem. Hashem gives him that as a punishment. He says, it's your fault. You believed it's going to happen. I made it happen. So it's very important for us not to limit Hashem, even though we don't believe something is possible. As long as Hashem runs the world, everything is possible. So now, Am Yisrael was questioning. Hashem said, okay, you question. I'm gonna give you a test. The Yetzer Hara arrived, said, Moshe died and even shows him a movie of angels carrying somebody that makes it seem like it's really Moshe. So they all went to Hur. In English, he says, "Build us. We need another messenger to replace Moshe. We need somebody to communicate with Hashem. So build us something. Build us a Beit HaMikdash. Build us a place to serve Hashem." says, "No, no, there's no Beit HaMikdash. There's nothing to build. Moshe is going to come back. Just build us something or we'll kill you." He says, "I'm not going to build you anything. It's Avodah Zarah." They killed him. They killed Hur. Now they come to Aaron, Miriam's brother. They just killed Miriam's husband, Hur. They come to

1:38:38Now Yosef, Moshe's sister Miriam's husband, they killed him. Now they're coming to Moshe's brother, Aaron. "Aaron, build us a place to talk to Hashem. Our place of talking to Hashem was Moshe Rabbeinu. We go to Moshe; he was like a Beit HaMikdash. He was like going to the Knesset; it was talking to Hashem, talking to Moshe. So Moshe's gone, build us something else." Aaron says, "No, Moshe's going to come." "No, no, no. You heard what happened with Hur." Now, Aaron was also a prophet, and he knew that if they killed him, then Hashem would never forgive them. So he said, "Okay, okay, fine. Give me all of your gold." He figured that when it comes to Torah and mitzvot, it's very hard for people to give money. If somebody died, everybody wants to donate. If somebody has a flat tire, everybody donates. Some woman found a homeless guy... in the street, maybe like six months ago, and how did she meet him? She forgot her wallet at home, and the homeless guy gave her $20. He's like, "I only have $20. I'm going to give you $20. Fill up your gas." She was so enamored by this homeless guy giving her his $20 that she decided to make a fundraiser for him and raise, like, I don't know, a million dollars for this guy, $500,000, some absurd amount of money.

1:40:05He gave her $20. She went and raised money for him, half a million dollars or a million dollars. What's the problem with the story? There are two problems. Number one, the whole thing is fake. The whole thing is fake. The homeless guy never got the money. She raised the money for herself and her boyfriend. She raised the money. This is exposed online; you can see it if you want. It's news. They were both exposed. They're both going to jail. She never gave the homeless guy the money. She raised it for herself, but how does she... Listen, some homeless guy gave me $20. Can you give me a half a million? No one's going to give her. But if she says, no, no, I'm giving it to this homeless guy, it makes her look like she's Sarah Imenu, a Tzadika. So people, fools, gave some woman $500,000. She kept it for herself. That's the first thing that's wrong with this story. Second thing that's wrong with this story, how come nobody gave a half a million dollars to the homeless guy without the story?

1:41:06He's homeless. Why don't you give him a house? The reality is there's so much money that some people have. They can literally buy a house for every homeless person in America. Some people have so much money, they could literally buy a house for every single homeless person in America. But people are so selfish sometimes that you have literally veterans, people that served in the army, who are homeless. Over 40,000 of them. They served, they protected, so-called protected the people in the U.S. Army, but they themselves are abandoned by their own country. Homeless in the streets, over 40,000 of them. Why? That's human nature. Human nature without God is evil and selfish. So, when the people came to Aharon, they said, "Listen, build us a sanctuary, build us something that's going to connect us to Hashem." Aharon knew that human nature is such that nobody wants to give money for Torah. They want to give it to homeless people. They want to give it to dead people. They want to give it to churches. But to Torah, no one's going to give. That was the mistake. Aharon thought the yetzer hara wasn't watching. So, as soon as he asked them for money, the yetzer hara arrived and convinced everybody to even take off their earrings to give him the gold.

1:42:23Still, Aharon wasn't worried. Why? He said, okay, listen, you're going to give me all the gold. It takes a while. Anybody who knows anything about gold knows it takes a long time for gold to melt. It's not five minutes. You need a very, very high temperature to even build such a fire. It takes a long time. And then, on top of it, to melt the gold takes a long time. So he's figuring, by the time the gold melts, it's going to take a few hours. Then even after it melts, to build something out of it is going to take even a few days. By then Moshe Rabbeinu is probably going to come. Here's the problem. Moshe himself interfered with the test. When? Years ago. When he saved Micha. When he saved the little boy. Everybody threw their earrings. Everybody threw their rings. Everybody threw their bracelets. Everybody threw their things. What is the boy going to throw? The only thing he has, the little piece of metal that says, "Alei shor, alei." He throws it into the fire. What comes out of the fire? A bull. A bull comes out of the fire. No one builds the bull. Aharon didn't build the bull.

1:43:35The bull came out of the fire. Why? Because there was the name of Hashem on this piece of metal. It was a miraculous thing. It wasn't like some normal piece of metal. It was written, "Alei shor, alei" (rise bull, rise). Hashem said it. Why? His name is on it. So he throws it into a pot of gold. What comes out of the gold? A bull. And what is the bull? What do you think? It's a regular bull? Like you have on Wall Street? On top of Wall Street. I lived on Wall Street for many years. On top of Wall Street is a bull. That bull doesn't move. This bull came out of the fire and talked and said, “I am God that took you out of Egypt.” So what do you think? They’re not going to worship him? He just talked to them! If a bull showed up right now and said, “I am God that took you out of Egypt,” it’s a fact that we’re not going to stop worshiping him. It's a fact. Some bull, some golden bull the size of a building starts talking to you. Unless you really seriously learn Torah, most people are going to fail. Some golden bull starts talking to you. That's what happened. Why did it all happen? Because Moshe interfered with Hashem's test.

1:44:49interfered with Hashem's test. Hashem said, "I have a system. These souls have to be destroyed." "Yeah, but they're only babies." "To you, they're only babies. To you, it's only this and it's only that. To Me, I have a whole series of things. That's why no one can see My face and live. You can only see My back." Meaning, Hashem was telling Moshe, "You can't see what I'm doing and understand it. You could only understand it if it's from the back." Meaning, if after I finished it. I finished it. Last but not least, we also have a very, very famous, well-known tzaddik in our history called Shlomo HaMelech. Shlomo HaMelech was gifted with wisdom when he was 13 years old and he became king. Hashem asked him, "What do you want? What do you want as the gift?" And Shlomo, instead of asking for power, instead of asking for wealth, asked for wisdom.

1:45:50He asked for wisdom. He said, "Hashem, please give me wisdom so I can judge Your nation according to Your Torah. I can judge Your nation the right way." Hashem says, "Since you asked for wisdom to judge My nation, not only am I going to give you the most amount of wisdom in history, but on top of it, I'm going to give you wealth and I'm going to give you power." He was the richest man ever, and he was also the most powerful king. No wars aside from the beginning where he killed a bunch of enemies. After that, nobody messed with Shlomo HaMelech. But Shlomo, with all of his wisdom, thought that since he has all of this wisdom, not everything pertains to him. So the halakha is that Hashem said a king is allowed to marry 18 wives. But it also says, don't marry too many wives. Meaning, you're allowed to marry more than one wife. You're allowed to marry even 18. But you're not allowed to marry too many, meaning more than 18. But Shlomo wanted to bring Mashiach. Shlomo HaMelech wanted to bring Mashiach, and he says, listen, in order to bring Mashiach, a few things have to happen. Number one, there are a thousand powers of Tum'ah in the world. A thousand different levels or different facets of Tum'ah, of impurity in the world.

1:47:16on top of it, there has to be peace in the world. So how could I achieve both? I'm going to marry a thousand women, a thousand princesses from all the countries in the world. A thousand countries — I'll marry a princess from each one of them. That way, there's peace, and on top of it, I'm destroying all of the Tum'ah in the world. Why? Because I'm converting everyone to Judaism. It says in the Torah 18 wives, but I'm not marrying them for lustful reasons. I'm marrying them for a mitzvah. Marrying them to bring peace. I'm marrying them to bring the Mashiach. That was his idea. The problem is that at the end of his life, the Pasuk says that it was written that Shlomo did evil in the eyes of Hashem. Why did he do evil? Because he made decisions according to his amazing, extraordinary logic, but still human logic. Now, he married a few women that he wasn't allowed to marry. Even though everyone converted, they didn't convert for the right reason.

1:48:30So even though they were still Jewish, they weren't righteous Jews. Many people want to convert today, but not everybody wants to convert for the right reason. Some people want to convert for money, some people want to convert because they want to get a job. Not everybody is a righteous convert. The righteous ones among us, they're the best of the best. The wicked ones, that's the Erev Rav. There's a big gap between the two. The best, the worst. That's why the Gemara says that the converts are like a skin disease for Am Yisrael. If they're bad, they're like an annoying skin disease. If they're good, they're annoying because they're so good, they remind us how bad we are. They're so righteous, they're like, we have to do teshuva just by looking at them. It's like, wow, she's so righteous. She's amazing. I wish I was like her. I wish I were like her. She's so righteous. She's so amazing. I want to be like her. I want to be like him. He always goes to shul. I never go. He always learns. I barely know how to speak. You're constantly, you see how great they are when they're righteous. So some of these women that Shlomo married weren't exactly righteous. Two in particular were: one he actually married the daughter of Paro.

1:49:47every king of Egypt is called Pharaoh. It's not the same Pharaoh as the one in the time of Moshe, but it was a different Pharaoh and he married his daughter. The second one was the Queen of Sheba. The Queen of Sheba. These two particular women literally destroyed the world. How? As soon as he married, the Gemara says in Masechet Shabbat, page 56b, that as soon as Shimei ben Gera, the head of the Sanhedrin, died. Shlomo HaMelech made a decision that was not a good decision. Why? When the rabbi was still alive, he would always ask the rabbi, even though he had problems with this specific rabbi. Still, once he died, he started making decisions on his own. So he married the queen of Egypt. As soon as he married the queen of Egypt, Hashem sent Malach Gavriel, the angel Gabriel, who took a spear and hit the oceans.

1:50:48From hitting the ocean with such great force, the angel created an island. That island eventually became Italy. That island eventually became Rome. That island eventually became the Roman Empire that destroyed the Beit HaMikdash. The second woman was a woman named Sheva. The Chida, Rabbeinu Chida says that Sheva, the Queen of Sheba, had a son; they had a grandchild. Shlomo had a grandchild from this woman, Sheva. And this kid married a woman named Shmirnit. Shmirnit. And eventually, this kid ended up becoming a king. Even though he was Jewish, according to the Mesorah, he wasn't exactly the best Jew in the world. Why? His name was Nebuchadnezzar. Who is Nebuchadnezzar? He destroyed the Beit HaMikdash.

1:52:10The first Beit HaMikdash, Shlomo HaMelech's Beit HaMikdash, was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. Who is Nebuchadnezzar? The grandson of Shlomo. What's one of the signs that the Chida uses? It says, look, Nebuchadnezzar married Shmirat. Shmirat has the gematria, numerical value, of 1000. She was wife number 1000 of Shlomo HaMelech. What's the other thing that they say is a sign through Kabbalah? They said that Shlomo didn't finish his tikkun because of a few mistakes. He had to come back in a gilgul, in a reincarnation. Who did he come back as? Yirmiyahu. Who's Yirmiyahu? Who was Yirmiyahu friends with? Nevuchadnetzar. Nevuchadnetzar killed who? Everybody except Yirmiyahu. He killed everyone except Yirmiyahu. Why? He knew, "Yirmiyahu, you're my grandfather."

1:53:10Yirmiyahu, you're my grandfather. We see that we are our worst enemy when we interfere with Hashem's system. Where is this written? The prophet Yeshayahu, chapter 49, verse 17, says, Your ruiners, your destroyers, will come from within you. Meaning your biggest enemy is inside you: inside your heart, inside your school, inside your family, inside everything. Why? If you didn't pay attention to the law, to everything from day one, there's a poison, there's a cancer, there's something wrong that eventually will destroy the whole thing. A person that wants to build a Jewish home has to know it all has to start from the beginning. Where's the beginning? As soon as you found out, even though the kid is already 10 years old, you found out only when he was 10 years old that you're doing the wrong thing, it's still not too late. Why? The beginning is when he was 10 years old and...

1:54:23Even if the kid's 15, do what you can when he's 15. If he's five months old, do what you can when he's five months old. The beginning is as soon as you found out what you're doing is wrong, according to the Torah. Start doing everything right. Start asking yourself, what's God's opinion? If you start asking yourself what's God's opinion, already you're starting to fix things. You may not fix everything because you made some mistakes, but the poison, the cancer, is not going to grow any further at least. It's not going to continue growing. This, Rabotai, is, in my opinion, the most important thing that anyone can know about raising a Jewish family. It starts with you. It starts with being strict with the law and making sure that you're asking yourself, what's God's opinion and not really what I just want to do? And you live by it. Once you do that, you're not going to interfere with the test of Hashem because you know it's coming from Hashem. Even the great ones interfered, and you see it created destruction. So if Moshe Rabbeinu and Shlomo HaMelech, the greatest of the great, when they interfered with the system, it led to destruction. What do you think we do when we interfere with the system? You have a test, just like when we were in school—quiet while the teacher is speaking. Any questions?

1:55:50Good. Good, Baruch Hashem. Good to see you. Good to learn with you. Baruch Hashem. Hopefully, some more new chiddushim for you. At least it was for me. Baruch Hashem. We're going to have the next shiur on Sunday night at, what is it called again? Sha'arei Tzion. Sha'arei Tzion in Sunny Isles. Anyone who wants to join us, Baruch Hashem. We're available live as well as on YouTube. You don't have to come on YouTube. You can come live also. Baruch Adonai le'olam. Amen ve'amen. Amen.