Can We Be Idolaters Without Knowing It?

0:06To say that any kind of obsession aside from being obsessed with the Torah can be considered idolatry? You're supposed to fall in love with Hashem. You're supposed to fall in love with His Torah. Anytime you give anything else more mashmaut, more significance than the Torah, than Hashem, it can be considered idolatry. Do we learn this from the meeting after 22 years between Yaakov and his son? You see in the parasha that after 22 years, Yaakov Avinu had been crying over his son for years, for decades, because deep inside he knew that something was wrong. He didn't die. do we learn this from the meeting after 22 years between Yaakov and his son? You see in the parasha that says that after 22 years, Yaakov Avinu has been crying over his son for years, for decades, because deep inside he knew that something was wrong. He didn’t die. You’re supposed to... already stopped mourning the dead after a year. Not just stop mourning, but also stopped the feeling of God who gave us a gift of loss of memory. So naturally, a person should have less of a feeling of anguish after a year. That's one of the gifts that Hashem gave us. But Yaakov felt the same anguish, the same pain after 20 years, just like he did after 20 minutes of the loss of his son. So now he's been waiting for him and crying for him for 20-plus years.

1:29Finally, he sees him. He goes to Mitzrayim after the, uh, the, the brothers tell him that he's there. He's the viceroy—he's the second in command in Egypt. And Yaakov comes to see his son, and he sees his son in power. And it says in the parasha that Yosef hugged Yaakov, but it doesn't say that Yaakov hugged Yosef. You've been crying over him for 20 years... you hug him, give him a nice Middle Eastern kiss on the cheek or something. No, nothing. Why? Chazal say the moment that Yaakov saw his son, he felt so much passion and compassion for his son, and he was so happy. He stopped himself for a moment. He says, wait a minute, that I'm going to have that much passion, that much love for anything other than HaKadosh Baruch Hu? So at that moment, while his son is hugging him, he said, "Meaning, Hashem, only you. All of this passion, all of this love only belongs to you. It doesn't belong to my son, it doesn't belong to my wife, it doesn't belong to anybody." Yeah, but you've been crying for him for over 20 years. Mistake.

2:51All that belongs to G-d. All that belongs to G-d. At that moment, the son is hugging him, but he's not hugging him back. Why? He says, no one is allowed to have so much of my heart. No one. And we see many of the tzaddikim. We see many of the tzaddikim followed Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, zt"l. I told you guys a story a couple of weeks ago. They asked him one time, how come he stands so still, like a pillar, when he's praying. He says, one time, a Cossack put a gun to his head and said, if you move, I'm gonna kill you. And he says, I was so afraid that he's gonna kill me, I literally didn't move. But then I realized that this feeling of fear and trepidation, for what? Just losing my body for this Cossack? put a gun to his head and said, if you move, I'm gonna kill you. And he says, I was so afraid that he's gonna kill me, I literally didn't move. But then I realized that this feeling of fear and trepidation, for what? Just losing my body for this Cossack? Big deal. That feeling only belongs to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. I should only be afraid of HaKadosh Baruch Hu like this. So from that moment on, every time I talk to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, that's how I am. I'm afraid, deathly afraid. Every time he's praying, every time he's praying, he's talking to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. And he stood just like that as if Hamas has a gun to his head. Because he's talking to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. So you see the tzaddikim emulated the ones before them...

4:05ones before them. So, you are supposed to love your wife, love your husband, love your children, love everybody, no problem. But nothing, nothing in the world takes precedence over the Torah. Not even anything. So it's, it's a... And the only time that you're allowed to put the Torah... Not a side, but the Torah gives you permission. Permission to say, let's say, for example, a white lie for the sake of Shalom Bayit. It's not that you are violating the Torah for the sake of Shalom Bayit. The Torah allows you; you're following the Torah for the sake of Shalom Bayit. There are different intricate details within this, but generally speaking, you are never ever allowed to love or care about anything in the world more than HaKadosh Baruch Hu and the Torah. If you do, it can be considered at the very least Avak Avodah Zarah, the dust of Avodah Zarah. Not Avodah Zarah Mamash, but the dust of Avodah Zarah. Meaning, it's the feeling, it's the sensation, it's the look,

5:15...to smell. Mmm, it's almost, it's almost like a form of avodah zarah (idol worship), and it can be. And that's what's happening actually with some people who are idolizing their Rebbe, living or dead, idolizing something. And because of this, many people's treatment of money is a hundred percent avodah zarah. The way they treat money and how obsessed they are with money is 100% avodah zarah. Sometimes you see people how they treat their phone... way they treat their phone, how obsessed they are with their phone. They lose their phone: "I can't do anything!" Okay buddy, relax. I understand you have your whole life and business and stuff, but it's just a phone. In a few hours, you'll get a new one, and tomorrow you're going to know it's not God. It's not like God went on vacation; you're not godless right now. It's just a phone, okay? It's fine, and it's inconvenient. I don't like it either, but take it easy. They lose their mind. They lose their cool. They lose everything. So at the very least, it's avak avodah zarah. If not, avodah zarah mamash. But sometimes the way women shop for clothes. They go spend, Rabbi Yagen said, women go spend six, eight hours looking for a dress. He says, at the very least, it's avak avodah zarah. He goes, six hours looking for one dress? You know how much you could achieve in six hours?

6:36Okay, fine, you want to shop, change this, that, an hour, two hours, six hours. So anytime that you've made something more significant, where it pretty much surpasses your value of the Torah, it becomes very, very problematic. Isn't that like almost every majority of the moments of the majority of the people, religious, not religious, that are living? It's almost as though if you're not spending every moment sanctifying Hashem's name, loving HaKadosh Baruch Hu, then it's going to lead almost to Avodah Zarah at some point. So, Baruch Shekivanta, you're saying what Torah says, the Gemara in Masechet Chagigah, page 4. I think it's A, but maybe B. says that if you did not find a way to sanctify HaKadosh Baruch Hu's name today, it was better off you didn't come to the world. Meaning, if you didn't find a way to sanctify HaKadosh Baruch Hu's name every day, find a way to do Kiddush Hashem. Better off you didn't come to the world. Why? What's your purpose? What's your purpose now?

7:54We always hear when there's a shiur Torah or there's a minyan and they say that HaKadosh Baruch Hu wanted to bring merit to Am Yisrael, so He gave them a lot of mitzvot. What does it mean? Another understanding could be that He wanted to give merit to Am Yisrael by keeping them busy with constant mitzvot, because each one of those mitzvot, when you fulfill it in the name of Hashem, is a way to sanctify HaKadosh Baruch Hu's name. with constant mitzvot, because each one of those mitzvot, when you fulfill it in the name of Hashem, is a way to sanctify HaKadosh Baruch Hu's name. It's a way for you to constantly think about HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Oh, you are about to have water. Are you going to do a blessing or not? Oh, if you do a blessing, why are you doing a blessing? You're thinking about Hashem. Oh, it's a way of sanctifying His name. Oh, are you going to learn Torah? Are you going to do a blessing before you learn Torah or not? Oh, you know the Beit HaMikdash was destroyed because they didn't bless the Torah before they learned. Oh, you didn't know? Okay, now you not only learned, but you also did a blessing. And so on and so forth. Every single thing, every single thing you benefit in the world, you find there is a blessing for it. There's a way to sanctify HaKadosh Baruch Hu's name for it. And that way, you're constantly busy living your life while sanctifying HaKadosh Baruch Hu's name. You don't have to stop your life and everybody in the world become an avrech. That would be Mashiach days.

9:09you could live your life, says, you could live your life, you could go to work, you could, uh, pick up boxes, you could drive a car, you could, uh, I don't know, drive a ship or something. You do whatever it is that you're doing as long as it's a kosher job. But remember, in whatever it is that you're doing, you're eating, remember to do a blessing. Remember that it has to be kosher food. Remember that you're only allowed to eat in this place, not in that place. If there's a dead body, don't eat next to it. Don't eat next to it. Why? Because the dead body is there. The dead body is there. And you're eating. The dead body is still there. There's a neshamah there. And then you're going to cause it suffering that it can't eat and you're eating. So, this is a simple concept that if you dealt with the dead, you realize, I have to know, okay, so even eating, I can't eat next to that body. Yeah, but I have to be there when somebody's dead, somebody died, and you can't be buried at that time. You have to, or the minhag really is that you have to have somebody there. You have to have somebody there. It can be a man, it can be a woman, ideally a man. But what about, okay, you have to go to eat at some point. It says you can't eat next to him. So what do you do? Okay, go to the next room. Go to the next room.

10:14The point is that there are all these little intricate details of how to live your life like a regular person, but still remembering Hashem along the way. All of the Tannaim, all of the Amoraim, all of them did something. They didn't necessarily all just learn Torah all the time. They all did something. You know, they sold shoes, they made shoes, they sewed stuff, there are all types of professions. There were doctors, and so on and so forth. No one is saying don't work and just be an avrech in a kollel from morning to night, and that's the only way that you can go to heaven. No one is saying that. You can be; that would be fantastic, that is a dream, but for most people, it's not a reality. Not necessarily just because they don't have the emunah to do it and the belief that HaKadosh Baruch Hu will send them the financial power to do it, but also because a lot of people just don't have the mental capacity. The mental capacity to just sit there for 12, 14 hours learning. Some people, you know, they can listen to a shiur for three hours, but you give them a book, three minutes. Or they can learn a book, but for three hours.

11:2914 hours? You're a little crazy. Enough. Okay, so you can be a Ba'al HaBayit. You can work and you can study. There's no problem with that. No one says that you have to study full-time all the time. Just study a set amount of time every day. You get to the Torah and learn it in the morning and at night. You make time for it in the morning, and you make time for it at night. Rambam says that you should study the majority of your Torah at night. And if it didn't say "learn it day and night," we would literally only study at night and never in the morning. Because the Torah that you learn at night is Torah from which you get your real wisdom. That's where you get your real wisdom from. So much so, the Rambam says, if anybody understood the magnitude of learning Torah at night, they would never waste a single night on eating, sleeping, drinking, or doing anything mundane other than just learning Torah. That's how valuable Torah is at night. But again, if you have a day job, and that day job requires you to go there at 9 o'clock in the morning, learning all night every day is not possible. Why? You have to wake up in the morning. You have to go to work. And you can't say, "Oh no, I studied Torah, so that's why I'm sleeping on the job." That doesn't work. Then you're stealing.

12:43Because the guy's paying you not to sleep. He's paying you to work. So, again, everybody has to be a grown-up and evaluate themselves, but you're 100% encouraged, not just allowed, encouraged to live your regular life, work, do, but keep Hashem in mind. Keep Hashem in mind. And if you do that, you'll see that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is literally at the tip of your tongue all day. You're doing a blessing before you eat. You decide whether this deal that you're doing is kosher or not. You decide whether to make this arrangement or not. You decide whether to go to a place or not because there are certain people that are anti and certain people that are for. You decide how to pick, all types of things. If you have the Torah constantly in your mind, every decision that you make throughout the day has that, you know, as part of the consideration. It's not something, the Torah is not something you think about only when you're learning. The Torah is something that's constantly on your mind, and you make your decisions based on what the Torah says, not necessarily based on what your desire says. The average person makes their decisions based on what they want. Someone who wants to comply with the Torah and wants to go to Olam HaBa makes decisions based on what the Torah says.

14:05has nothing to do with what they want or not. First, is it allowed or not allowed? Then I'll decide whether I want to or not. The average ignoramus is going to decide, what do I want? Is it allowed? What do I want? He decides what he wants and then decides, is it allowed or not allowed? Why is that a problem? If you decide, is it allowed or not allowed according to the Torah, and then decide whether you want it or not, that means that you've already looked at things based on the Torah's mindset, HaKadosh Baruch Hu's mindset. Allowed or not allowed. Not allowed, okay, I'm not even considering whether I want it or not. It immediately gets rejected at the door. But if I decide whether I like it or not, and then review whether it's allowed or not, I'm already noge'a. I'm already biased. Why? I like it. It's delicious. I'm already tasting it. I'm already smelling it. I already see myself doing it. It already becomes harder to say no. So what do you do? You manipulate the Torah, find a way to make the pig allowed. You find a way to make a leniency. You know it's not allowed, but I like it.

15:18So how could I make it allowed? Is there a way, Rabbi, to make it allowed? Like somebody asked me the other day, "Is there a way to make it allowed to do such and such?" I said, "No." "Yeah, but this Rabbi said it's allowed." Oh, I don't know, Rabbi or Smurf. I don't know what this guy is, but it's not allowed. "But is there a way to make it allowed?" No, there's no way to make it allowed. "How come he said it?" I don't know. I can't speak for him. I can't speak for him. I can't speak for everybody. I can tell you what's allowed, what's not allowed. So that's why it's ideally our... Goals should be to get ourselves to a point where, one day, we are reviewing things based on allowed or not allowed, based on the Torah, and then decide whether we like it or not. That's the ideal. That's the tzadik. It's not always that way. It doesn't always necessarily work that way, but that's the ideal way to do it. Anything else?