Cheshbon Nefesh, Blessings, Peoples Opinion, Evil Babies, Heretics vs Sages - STUMP THE RABBI (20)

0:14We're glad to be back, Baruch Hashem. We're in Sunny Isles, Florida, in Shaare Zion. Thank you very much to everybody for all the prayers over the last week. It was definitely a nice adventure, and I really, really do appreciate all the prayers. Everybody prayed for us, Baruch Hashem, Baruch Hashem. And Baruch Hashem, HaKadosh Baruch Hu, have mercy on us, and we're back. Today's shiur is also going to be le'ilui nishmat Avi Mori, David ben Nesria, Doris bat Jorah, Levana bat Sara, Esther bat Zipora, Devorah bat Mercedes, and Elisheva Chaya bat Sara. And all of Am Yisrael, b'ezrat Hashem, will have refuah shlema, refuat hanefesh, refuat haguf. Sound's on? So, yeah, it was interesting, you know, it's a... One of the amazing things the Chachamim tell us is that, you know, everything that a person does

1:37is going to be recorded in Shamayim. Everything is recorded in Shamayim. And Chachamim, when they read books, say something, that's it. It's enough. But the people that are always looking for a way out try to rationalize things. Oh, how is this possible? How could this be? How is this? How is that? You know, the people that... They call themselves skeptical. It's good to be skeptical, but only if you're the type of skeptical person that actually looks for the answer, not if you're just a skeptical person who likes to ask questions without really looking for an answer. A lot of people like to ask big questions, but not really because they care about the answer. They just want to confuse everybody else or to show everybody that they can come up with a big question. So people ask, how could it be that everything is recorded? So, when the radio originally was invented, some of the Chachamim started crying. They started crying. When the TV was invented, even more crying. Why? You would think, oh yeah, because so many sins are done through the radio, so many sins are done through the TV. Yeah, that too. But that's not the reason they were crying.

3:00They were crying because they realized something that the Gemara, Torah Kedosha, said many, many years ago, which is that everything that we're going to do is going to be recorded. And HaKadosh Baruch Hu, in the generations before Mashiach, is going to give us all of the opportunities to do teshuva by showing us the emet in different ways, shapes, and sizes according to the generation, according to the person. And the Chachamim realized, ah, that's what it looks like when you're recorded. Why? The guy is talking in Japan, but I can see him here in the United States, minutes, seconds later. The guy did something 25 years ago, but I can see it today because somebody recorded it. Somebody recorded it. And you can see this is, in essence, a visual, a physical visual of what it's going to look like in Shamayim when each and every one of us has our own personal judgment day after we complete our life, whenever it is, b'ezrat Hashem, after we do teshuva or after 120, whichever one comes first. And the point is, Rabotai, that the Chachamim saw, oh, that's what it looks like to be recorded.

4:19Everything's going to be recorded. Why? Because you know, up in Shamayim, they're going to show you a movie of yourself. Now, if you would have said, you know, 500 years ago, they're going to show you a movie of yourself, you would have said, "What's a movie? What does it mean, a movie?" Now, I say "movie" and everybody here understands. Everybody understands. Even people in third-world countries know what a movie is because they've seen it at some point, even if they don't own a television. And it's funny that Sometimes it takes something bad to see what people think. And it was very interesting, you know, once in a while I like to see what people think. They send me messages, they send different letters, Baruch Hashem, in the mail, or they send emails and all types of text messages. Also, people write comments on the internet and And one of the people, one of the tzaddikot, she publicized, "Please pray for Rabbi Yaron ben Doris for refuah shlema." And Baruch Hashem, a lot of people commented, you know, "refuah shlema," "refuah shlema," and all types of other things. But out of all of those "refuah shlema," and Baruch Hashem, there were many, and I appreciate every single one of them, and I saw every one of them, that at least HaKadosh Baruch Hu allowed me to see. Out of all of the "refuah shlema" comments...

5:42that I got from everybody. And some of them wrote megillot. And they sent me letters, all types of things. But there's only one that I remember. Like, it's... this one is never ever going to leave. And I know in Shamayim, it's also not going to leave. One woman decided that she's going to write her opinion. Everybody else, but she decides she's going to write her opinion. She says, "Rabbi Yaron Reuven eats too much shawarma." So that's why he got sick. And if he goes on a vegetarian diet, then he'll be better off. She decided I eat too much shawarma. First of all, I haven't eaten shawarma in maybe a year. But needless to say, why? Because I'm Mizrahi, because I'm Sephardic, I eat too much shawarma? Is that why? What does that have to do with anything? What does that have to do with anything? One guy, tzaddik, wrote, "How dare you write this? You know, tzaddik stood up for the truth. How could you say such a thing?" Everybody else, baruch Hashem, ignored her. But...

6:54I find it hysterical that people cannot, even at a moment like this, where, you know, you see somebody who's pretty much in the hospital, almost died on camera, but, baruch Hashem, she has to say her statement. Why? It's too much trauma. They have to express their hate. Why? What else is there to do? And I feel bad for her. I feel bad for her. I'm going to pray for her. I'm not upset at her. I feel bad for her. Why? Imagine being a person like this. You have to live with yourself with so much hate in your heart. Imagine you wake up in the morning and you hate. You're in the afternoon and you hate. You go to sleep and you hate. You're alive and you hate. Anything, you're always just hating, hating, hating. For what? No reason. He's Sephardi, so he must eat too much shawarma. I mean, aside from the stupidity of the statement and just showing the level of intellect of this generation in general, it shows even more. It shows how much Sinat Chinam, that's practically one out of every two lectures, is simply alive and well, and it's absolutely not going away unless we each do teshuva seriously.

8:07Unless we each take ourselves by the hand and start doing something called cheshbon nefesh, self-accounting. Everyone likes to talk about their strengths, especially when they're meeting somebody important. You meet somebody that is a rabbi, automatically he'll tell them, "Rabbi, don't look at me like a regular person. I give that shul over there, you know, down the street on 176th. And now what? I built it." And by the way, that other kehillah, I'm not a member there anymore, but that other kehillah, do I have to say? I did it. That kehillah, I built it. Do I have to say it really? And by the way, Sefer Torah, I'm not going to say who. I'm not going to say who. I'm not going to say. You know, whoever understands will understand. And by the way, Rabbi, you know, I pray three times a day. But sometimes I also do Tikkun Chatzot. And Rabbi, I do that. And they like to give the accounting to the Rabbi. Why? Because they want to impress the Rabbi. The bigger the Rabbi, the bigger the resume. You go to a job. Go to a job. Well, hi, boss. Hey, what's going on?

9:14Within 30 seconds, you start telling them your achievement list. Oh, yeah, when I was eight years old, I was the first in my class, and my teacher said I'm going to be something in my life, and I see today. And you start giving the guy a resume of all the things you ever did since you were in diapers. Oh, you know that trade last year that caused a big chaos in the market on CNBC? Do I have to say who did it? And everybody likes to give their resume. There are times that it’s needed to say things that you know. If you need to get a job, people need to know if you're someone that has the experience; you need to state it. If you're on a shidduch, the other person needs to know that you're a normal person. So they need to know a little bit of your background. There are times and places that it's necessary. But realistically speaking, between us, those are few and far between. Most of the time, we all say our achievements and our accomplishments when it's completely unnecessary. Now, even if this is not something that we notice and acknowledge or even do on purpose, a little suggestion for all of us, myself included, is to take the initiative of this month of Elul, the month of Teshuva.

10:38The month that is a countdown before Judgment Day. Whether you like it or not, Rosh Hashanah is not a celebratory holiday like people have made it out to be, where you're supposed to start singing and dancing and feel free and everything is good. The Chachamim heard Rosh Hashanah is coming. Elul is here. They fainted. In the Kehillot, in just the previous generation, we're not even talking about 500 years ago, 30 years ago, 50 years ago, 100 years ago. The Gabbai of the Beit Knesset would say, Rabotai, it's Motzei Shabbat, or after Tefillat Arvit. He said, "Rabotai, Elul is here," and banged on the table. Some of the tzaddikim were mamash faint. Faint from fear. Why? I only have 30 days to prepare for the case of my life. Mamash, my life. Why? That's when HaKadosh Baruch Hu, the Gemara says in Masechet Rosh Hashanah and a few other places, that's when HaKadosh Baruch Hu decides: Are you going to be living or dead? Are you going to make money or lose money? Are you going to be married or divorced? Are you going to be this or that?

11:45believe it or not, it's not only if you're Jewish; it's actually if you're simply alive, Jew or non-Jew. Judgment Day on Rosh Hashanah is for all of mankind. And a person who understands that understands that this is a time for us to do teshuva. If not before, then at least now. And one of the prerequisites to do teshuva is to take the preparation period seriously. If you had a very big case, a capital punishment case somebody's accusing another person of murder. And whether they're innocent or not, they still have to fight for their life. Now, if they just show up to the court case that's going to decide whether the judge is going to give them a death penalty or not, they show up in shorts and a t-shirt and they're still hungover from last night's party, what do you think their chances of winning that case are going to be? But if they show up, dressed the part, looking the part, but also most importantly, mentally prepared. Why? They've been studying the case. They've been studying the evidence. They know what they're going to say before they say it. They know what the opposite side's case is also, what they're being accused of, and how they can defend themselves against every accusation. They know more about the other side than the other side knows about themselves. They're prepared.

13:11That person has a much higher chance of succeeding. This is what we are supposed to do right now during the month of Elul. The Selichot that we do every day for the Sephardim during the month of Elul, and the Ashkenazim do just, you know, the last several days. It's not really just for you to get together and sing together and make some nice ancient songs. You know, make you laugh, make you cry, make you this. It's really if you listen to the lyrics of the songs, you're admitting to HaKadosh Baruch Hu that you know you're a sinner. Chatanu Lefanecha. Chatanu Lefanecha means Hashem, we sinned in front of you. We're not denying it even. Rachem Aleinu. Have mercy on us. We know we sinned, but have mercy on us. We know we sinned, but have mercy on us. We know, we're not denying it. We're not coming to You and saying, we know You wrote the book. You recorded it in a video. We know. But please have mercy on us. Give us another chance. This year we'll do better. And this is a sign that we're going to do better, but we're already preparing for the case now. So one of the things that a person can do other than just sing is to prepare themselves mentally and

14:30What I would say is instead of focusing on what we traditionally all do, which is all of our achievements, all of the nice things that we've done in our life, all of the money we donated, all the classes we attended, and all of the learning that we've done and so on and so forth, we should change it a little bit. Use this month as a time to take on something called Cheshbon HaNefesh, which is a time where you're going to analyze not all of your achievements. That's good. But analyze all of your flaws. Analyze all the things you messed up on. And pick one, two, three. Pick a few and say, you know what? I'm going to fix this. I say lashon hara, no more. Next time somebody says lashon hara to me about somebody, I'm going to say, "I'm sorry, I got to go somewhere." Where you got to go? Somewhere. Where is that somewhere? Wherever that where is, it's just away from this lashon hara. You want to say something about somebody else? Remember, Judgment Day is coming. Judgment Day is coming. Somebody asks you for tzedakah, don't have them beg you.

15:42Well, how much do you have? What are you looking for? To raise 10,000? How much do you have so far? What difference does it make how much you have so far? What difference does it make? You know that the Torah says that there were some leaders, rich people, in Am Yisrael, that when they were collecting tzedakah for Am Yisrael, for the Mishkan, they waited till the end. Why? They figured, listen, let everybody else donate. Let everybody else donate, and whatever's missing, we'll fill. HaKadosh Baruch Hu punished all of them. Why? If you want to donate, to do a mitzvah, donate. What difference does it make how much they raised? They're raising 10,000 and they're only missing 2,000, they're raising 10,000 and they're missing 9,000, or they're not missing at all. If you want to donate because this is a good cause, donate. When a person does Cheshbon Nefesh, he'll say, wait a minute, why did I ask the guy, how much did he get? Why did I ask the guy, where is he from? Why did I ask the guy this? What's the point of my question? When a person does Cheshbon Nefesh, he starts analyzing all of the different details of his own day. Each day he does it. Every day...

16:52You take a few minutes, you take 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes, whatever it takes. Just analyze your day. But don't analyze all the wonderful things you did only. You could do that if you need to cheer yourself up and give yourself a pat on the back because you need it for some reason. Fine. But don't just do that. Cheshbon HaNefesh means accounting of our own flaws, our own failures. But not to get ourselves to a state of depression. Rather, get ourselves to a point where we realize, you know what, I gotta do something about this. You know, today I lost my mind on this guy, I gotta do something about it. Next time, I gotta keep my cool. What am I gonna do to keep my cool? So you start figuring, okay, so I lost my cool today, what am I gonna do next time it happens? Because it's definitely gonna happen again. Maybe not with this guy, because he's probably gonna run away from you, but somebody else is gonna say the same thing to you that got you to lose your mind. You already heard from the shiurim, you're not allowed to lose your mind. Not allowed to be angry. It's considered avodah zarah. So how do I prepare myself to not lose my mind next time? And you analyze and you figure out, where did I fail? What did I do? Today I prayed and honestly, the prayer was so bad, I don't even know if I'm taking it out of the Torah and directly into the deleted box. Sometimes we pray and we're thinking about everything except HaKadosh Baruch Hu.

18:13Everything else in the world we thought about except HaKadosh Baruch Hu. We're saying HaKadosh Baruch Hu's name. We're thinking about money. We're thinking about zivug. We're thinking about the kids. We're thinking about food. What am I going to eat for lunch? Oh, the food wasn't good. It's giving me a stomach ache. Everything except HaKadosh Baruch Hu we're thinking about sometimes in our prayers. So that's what you add to your cheshbon nefesh. That's what you add to your cheshbon nefesh. Say, you know what, prayer, what do I need to do in order to make prayer better next time? Don't say, oh, prayer was no good. Okay. Oh, I got angry today. Okay. Oh, I stole some money today. Okay. No, it's not okay. Musar is something that is not something that you're supposed to listen to like it's music. And just say, oh wow, that sounded, I like that idea. Wow, chazak u'baruch. Wow, that was a good idea. I like how you said that. Wow, chazak u'baruch. That's not learning mussar. That's listening. Learning mussar means you're going to take something that you've learned and that you've heard and you're going to think about it, meditate over it, and figure out a strategy of how you could apply this to your life.

19:19You heard some good chiddush. You heard some new insight. A five-minute clip that we've made. A ten-minute clip. An eight-minute clip. A three-hour shiur. You heard it. You got something out of it. Don't just say chazak u'baruch. Say, how can I apply something from here, from this three hours, what can I take out of it and apply it to my life now? Not tomorrow. Now. What can I do now with this? That's the point of Mussar. And a lot of people say, oh yeah, I've been learning Mussar already, I'm learning your shiurim already for two, three years. Baruch Hashem, you're learning for two, three years, but how come you still, nothing changed? How come nothing changed? Listening, okay, you listen for two years. Okay, listening, okay. If you're listening for two years, nothing changed, I don't know, it's not a surprise. But if you're learning for two years, it's impossible. for you not to change. If you're learning for four months, it's impossible for you not to change. Why? Because learning means that you're applying what you have heard into your life. And that's the point of all of Torah. All of Torah. Now, there's a lot of different things that...

20:27I have to say about some other things in regard to bitachon, but I don't want to take too long in case you guys have some questions. So after people run out of questions, I'll add a few nice chidushim that I learned in regards to bitachon, also a little bit of mystical stuff, things that are very interesting, but also very applicable to the times that we face ourselves today, Elul and right before Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur. But I'm hoping that you guys have some questions. Anybody have questions? Are you guys on strike still? No questions? Okay, can somebody do me a big favor, please, and give him the microphone? Thank you.

21:30So, when you say a beracha, in essence, what are you doing? You're thanking HaKadosh Baruch Hu for what you're about to benefit from. The Gemara in Masechet Berachot says, anyone that benefits from anything in this world without blessing HaKadosh Baruch Hu, meaning without saying thank you to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, is considered a thief. A thief. Why a thief? You're stealing from HaKadosh Baruch Hu. He gave you water, and you didn't even say a beracha. How can you benefit from something that HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave you without even saying thank you? What kind of manners? Where did you learn your manners? In a zoo? So, Am Yisrael, our sages made a takanah to make sure, made a halacha to make sure that you have a blessing before everything that you benefit from in the world. There are even blessings for things that you don't necessarily benefit from in a traditional way. Like, for example, water you're benefiting from because you're satiating yourself. You're thirsty. Food you're benefiting from because, again, same thing. You are hungry.

22:42You go to the bathroom, you say a blessing because thank you that the body worked. If it doesn't work, then Hashem Yerachem. But Am Yisrael also has blessings even for things that you don't see as a traditional benefit. For example, when you see lightning or hear thunder, you also have to say a blessing. When you see unusual people, certain people who are unusual-looking. Not unusual by your opinion, but unusual and just unusual. Somebody that's an albino, for example, or if you see somebody like that, you have to say a blessing for such a person. If you see a leader, you see a king, you have to say a blessing. You see a chacham, see someone that's a gadol ha-dor, comes to your beit knesset, comes to your location, he's next to you, you have to do a blessing. There are different blessings. There's a very good book called Birkot Eliyahu. that gives the blessings and also explanations for all the different blessings, but it also has a very good way for food. It has almost every food, every kosher food you would eat. It has a picture of it and a blessing next to it.

23:55So you don't have to think too much. Oh, Chex, cereal Chex. What is it? You go to the page, Chex, cereal, over here. You know, carrots. Carrots, you go to carrots, you see a picture of a carrot, it tells you the blessing, and so on and so forth. Every Jewish home should have this on their table. It's very good because there are some things that are not so obvious. A carrot, you know it's from the ground. But there are certain things that you don't know. For example, what's the blessing for a mushroom? Some people, unless they learned halachot of blessings, don't know about a mushroom. They might think it's from the ground, but it's not true. The mushroom doesn't grow from the ground. It grows from the air. It doesn't grow from the ground. There are no roots. Mushrooms don't have roots. So what do you say? A bracha for the air? What are you going to say? It's shehakol. A mushroom's blessing is shehakol. Same thing when it comes to rice. Rice is an exception. Rice, instead of what we would think it would be shehakol, it's actually mezonot. It's mezonot. So the point is that these little blessings you need to know because these are the small little details of how to live a Jewish life. Now, what happens if a person makes a blessing, like you said, on, let's say, on a drink, and...

25:12A short while later, something else comes up. Let's say he had a drink, and a short while later, he has a piece of candy or something else that he wants to eat that's also the same blessing. Can he piggyback off of the original blessing or not? The answer is, if he had in mind when he did the blessing, "I am blessing just this water," And all he thought about is the water. He cannot use that same blessing for anything else. Why? Because all he had in his mind is just this water. Just this water. So he cannot piggyback. Even though it's the same blessing, he has to do another blessing on the other item. But if you have in mind, I'm going to be in my office for the next hour, two hours, five hours, I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to be in my house for the next hour, two hours, ten hours, I'm not going anywhere. And instead of doing a blessing every time I'm going to eat something, I'm just going to do Shehakol on this drink or on this whatever thing it is, but include everything else that I'm going to eat or drink that's under that same blessing, even if I don't know what it's going to be.

26:22As long as I'm under that same roof. So if I'm in the office or I'm in the house and I want to do a blessing, and I know I'm going to be there for five hours... I say, I'm going to do shehakol blessing, but that's going to include everything else. Even if I don't know I'm going to eat it yet. But everything else that's going to include it as long as I'm here, that's included. You can use that one blessing for all of the things that you're going to eat or drink. But if you leave the house, even if it's just to throw out the garbage, you have to start all over again. Because as soon as you leave the house, even if it's for a moment, your mind is no longer on that same original blessing. But if you have it in your mind, it's pretty much, as long as you're under that same roof, you could piggyback off of the original blessing. The same thing goes with the other blessings, whether it's mezonot and other things. But also remember, there's one major difference, which is that there's also a bracha acharona. There's a last blessing also, that you have to do under certain conditions. So for example, if you do birkat hamazon, you eat bread. can't say, "Okay, I'm gonna eat bread now, and you know what? I'm gonna be home all day. I'm gonna be in the office for the next 10 hours, so let me just not say Birkat Hamazon until I leave." It doesn't work that way. You have to say Birkat Hamazon up to 72 minutes after you complete eating. So if you want to carry that blessing for longer, for example, if you want to have a longer meal, you don't want to just eat now, finish, and then, uh, you want to, you know, continue munching on a few things.

27:47you have some company over, you want to talk Divrei Torah, and you guys are going to be together for three, four, five hours. And you don't want to do Birkat HaMazon yet because you're going to continue eating stuff. So what you can do is that every so often eat something that's connected to the meal, some real food, whether it's a piece of bread or some piece of food, so that the 72 minutes continue extending. Don't not eat for an hour and a half and then say, okay, I could just do the Birkat HaMazon now. Because the maximum is 72 minutes. In reality, even if it goes beyond 72 minutes, you should still do it. But nonetheless, the Chachamim said you should not do it beyond that because 72 minutes is usually the longest amount of time that you've maintained this meal, the benefit from the meal, after you've completed it. Next question. Give him the mic if you don't mind. What if you move away from the spot that you started eating bread at? Can you still say Birkat HaMazon, even if you're away from the spot? Moved away from the spot, meaning you left the house? Or you moved to another spot, like you went to the bathroom? You left the house. Oh. So what you're supposed to do is, you're supposed to actually, the Gemara actually has a ma'aseh, a story, that discusses a debate between the Chachamim...

29:06say somebody has to eat but he, uh, you know, he forgot to do Birkat HaMazon, and he left. Should he come back? Should he come back or should he just stop what he's doing right there and then, wherever he is—stop on the road, get off the horse, do Birkat HaMazon, and then go back on the horse and leave? Or should he go back to where he ate? Should he go back to where he ate? I mean, he should go back to where he ate. He should go back to where you ate because that's where you ate. But if it's already too far, meaning, let's say, you already ate, you forgot, something came up, whatever, you started driving, and you're already an hour away. You're already an hour away. Obviously, you can't go back. Why? Because if you go back, it's going to take you an hour. By the time you come back, it's already past 72 minutes. There's no point. So you stop what you're doing at that minute, at 60 minutes, wherever it is, half an hour, whatever it is, you stop at that moment, you do Birkat HaMazon exactly where you are. But generally speaking, you're supposed to do the blessing where you ate. It doesn't necessarily need to be, let's say, for example, in the same exact chair, just within the same vicinity under the same roof. Like, for example, if you sat here, if we have, let's say, a table all the way to the end of the room, and you sat over here at the beginning of the dinner, but then, you know, along the way, you saw Michael in the back and decided, "I want to sit next to Michael." And you sat over there, but then somebody else sat over here. Don't go, "Birkat HaMazon? Okay, you get up over there." Don't go over here and tell the guy, "Get out of my chair, I have to do Birkat HaMazon." That's completely assur. Don't do that.

30:34Go, pray over there, wherever you are over there. You're still within the same vicinity. It's perfectly fine if you do the blessing as long as you're within the same vicinity. The issue as far as leaving place is only if you actually leave the location, meaning you leave the building and go somewhere else. And in that case, if you're close enough, go back. If not, just stop wherever you are and do the Birkat Hamazon. But always remember that when you're doing blessings, you're supposed to have focus. So you can't just walk around. Like, or drive and do blessings, like somebody asked me one time, "Can I do Amidah while I'm driving to work? Can I do Amidah while I'm driving to work?" If you're on a bus or on a train and you're not the driver, yes, no problem. You stand, you sit, you're full focus, no problem. But if you're the driver, absolutely not. Why? It's not possible for you to have thoughts of HaKadosh Baruch Hu being in front of you right this second while you're driving. It's not possible. So, you have to stop, pray, and then go back on the road. Next question.

31:38Somebody behind you had a question, I think. Michael had a question. Yes? I got a question about . Where do we hold in regards to that today with things like almond milk? Is it more for the individual to not slip or for the people observing the individual? For example, if I'm buying meat for my dog at Publix, I have tzitzis on, picking up steak. People assume it's for me. It's for my dog. Am I more concerned with what they think? Or is it more so that I keep an active solid boundary from me transgressing and saying... Marit Ayin specifically is for them, for other people, what they see. So the Gemara says if, you know, in last week's parasha, we learned that you're not allowed to eat specific animals, but also even the animals that you're allowed to eat, whether it's a cow, a deer, or a lamb of some kind—whatever it is—even those animals have to be slaughtered in a specific way. And you're not allowed to eat their blood or drink their blood. Not allowed. They have to be salted in order for all of the blood to leave the body. You're not allowed to eat the blood. So then you're gonna ask, wait a minute, hold on a second. When I eat a steak or you buy a steak, you buy chicken from the butcher...

32:57There's blood over there. You see the blood over there. That's not blood. That's water with blood color. Because, in essence, all of the blood has already left. If there's still blood in it, then it's problematic. But generally speaking, the stuff that you see at the butcher shop and places like that doesn't have the blood anymore. ...um, and anyway, by the time you cook it, all that stuff is gone. As far as the animals that we're allowed to eat, we're not allowed to eat their blood. But when it comes to fish, a fish doesn't even have to be cooked. You can eat a fish raw, and you can even drink a fish's blood because it doesn't have the same laws as the animal... So, anything that's not slaughtered is not, you're allowed to eat it completely. Meaning that you can eat the blood, you can drink, you can do whatever you want. Now, of course, I know that some of you Americans find this disgusting. But I would tell you that some of your ancestors from Russia and Poland found blood from a fish to be a delicacy. They found it to be delicious. So, to each his own. The point is, is it allowed or not allowed? It's allowed. But the Gemara says...

34:07you're going to make a drink from blood. Let's say you have a cup, and your cup is a piece of glass, and it's going to be a glass full of permitted fish blood. You're allowed to drink it. Even though you're allowed to drink this blood, make sure that the skeleton of the fish is next to the cup. Why? If somebody's going to walk by you They're going to say, wait a minute. This rabbi is drinking. This Jew is drinking blood? It's not blood. It's this, it's that. So don't let them think anything automatically. Already have that in mind that somebody is going to think that you ate too much shawarma, and that's why you got sick. Someone's going to think, so don't eat shawarma. No, not that. Have the fish skeleton next to the cup. So at the least, you've done your hishtadlut, your effort to give them the benefit of the doubt that just in case, hey, look, it's kosher blood. No problem. You don't like it. That's your problem. I like it. I'm going to drink it. That's it. So when it comes to marit ayin,

35:11Specifically, specifically, it is because of other people thinking. So you have to constantly be thinking of what other people are thinking of you and where you are. So the Gemara says, there are certain sins that Yom Kippur, perfectly fine, you do real teshuva, you cry to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, Hashem deletes the sin as if it never happened. There are certain sins that are a little more difficult. You have to say sorry to somebody you offended. Hashem is not going to erase the sin of you insulting another guy. You have to erase the sin by going and saying "I'm sorry." If you insulted him in front of a hundred people, you have to say "I'm sorry" to him in front of a hundred people. If you insulted him one-on-one, you have to say "I'm sorry" one-on-one, and so on and so forth. If you stole money, you have to return the money. Saying "I'm sorry" is not going to help you. So, there are certain sins that are easy to fix. And certain sins are a little more difficult to fix. But then there is a certain sin that's not possible to fix until we die, which is the sin of Chilul Hashem. Chilul Hashem. So the Gemara says, what is an example of Chilul Hashem? Desecration of Hashem's name. It says if you go to the butcher shop, you're the rabbi, let's say.

36:35You go to the butcher shop, and because you're the rabbi, you have a position. You take meat from the butcher without paying for it. Just like you have an understanding with the butcher that you're paying back—you have a cheshbon. You take the meat, and you just take it. Yeah, and that's it. That's Chillul Hashem. Why? Because other people that are there at the butcher shop, they don't know you have a cheshbon, that you have an accounting with this butcher. You're going to pay him back, pay him not. What are they thinking? They're like, "Oh, look at this sleazy rabbi taking advantage of the poor guy. The guy's working day and night to slaughter and give us kosher animals. This rabbi, because he's the one that's giving them kashrut, is taking stuff for free. I want to be a rabbi. What a thief, this guy." And they have all types of thoughts in their head that you just took some food for free. So what is that sin? That sin is marit ayin. Marit ayin, what? People saw him taking food, and it looked to them as if it was free. It's not free. He's going to pay it back, but they don't know that. Meaning that we have to be very, very careful of how we behave, not only for ourselves and our own accounting between Hashem, who sees everything,

37:48but even more so to take into account that other people see us. Other people are watching us. If a person really took that into account, where they literally... Said, you know what? There's a Big Brother. There's a big camera watching me at all times. Just like in the casinos. There's five zillion cameras. There are more cameras than people. There's no way you can steal. Why? There are 500 cameras looking at you. You have to think about it. There are 500 people looking at you at all times. Yeah, but I can't see them. Yeah, but they can see you. So if you're going to do something, just think. Not just Hashem is watching you. That's enough. But for most people, it's not enough. There are 500 people watching you right now make this transaction. That's illegal. There are 500 people watching you go buy this thing, so you have to take that into account. But you also have to know the law. Where is it allowed to do certain things? Where is it not allowed to do certain things? So, for example, if you are buying food for a dog, go buy dog food.

38:50Don't buy non-kosher meat. Why? Because the average person is not going to do that accounting for you. It's not going to do that accounting for you. Say, "Oh, this, I'm going to buy steak, but it's really not for me. It's for my dog." They're not going to do that accounting for you. It's just... It's leaving too much in the open. So what can you do? You want to do it another way? Your dog is not eating dog food. He has to eat a cow. He has to eat something. That's it. No problem. You want to feed him? Order it online. Have it arrive at your house. Don't go out of the way, don't do it. Why? Because somebody's going to look and say, ah, you see? You see, Aaron, that noheig, that rasha, that gives lectures, he's buying non-kosher food. You see that guy? See, he doesn't even eat kosher, this rabbi. I knew this guy's fake. I know. They're going to say all that stuff about you. Why do you need that problem? Why do you need that problem? Why? Because you have that problem, and Shamayim, they go and say to that guy, hey, you said Lashon Hara, but Aaron, oh, I did? When? But it looked to me like he was eating non-kosher food.

39:53And Shamayim is saying, you know what, you're right, let's bring Yaron. Yaron, how come you did that? How come you allowed him to think this about you? Meaning you both go up to Shamayim. When it comes to Lashon Hara, the Chafetz Chaim says there are three parties. There's the person that said it, there's the person that listened, and there's the person that's being talked about. All three of them are guilty. Wait, okay, the person that said it is a rasha, we all understand, I don't have to explain that part. He says Lashon Hara about somebody. He's a rasha. Everybody knows. Not nice. The person that listens is listening to him say Lashon Hara. We also can understand why. Why are you enabling him? Why are you giving him a stage? That we can also understand. But why is the person that's being talked about also guilty? Poor guy didn't do anything, right? That's what we think. Wrong. Wrong. The Maharsha says in Moed Katan, if somebody's talking about you, about you doing something wrong, there must be a reason. Meaning, you did something wrong. Maybe you didn't do as much wrong as what they're saying about you. But they cannot be 100% fake. There has to be a little bit there. Meaning, you ate shawarma in the last year. Maybe you didn't eat a lot of shawarma, but you ate shawarma at least once or twice this year.

41:13That's why, if somebody says you don't eat too much shawarma, it's not that you did nothing wrong. Just be careful. No, you're allowed to eat shawarma. The fact that they're using it in a negative way is their own stupidity. But you're allowed to eat shawarma. You're allowed to shop for your dog. You're allowed to do everything. Just make sure that you have done everything possible to do the kosher thing and to make it look kosher as well. That's it. You fulfilled your responsibility. If they're mistranslating what you did, there's no case against you. Why? You've done everything. You've done everything. You've done all of your hishtadlut to do everything kosher. Therefore, in Shamayim, they worry about it to make sure that a person like that is not spoken about. Why? Who knows who deserves it or who doesn't? He's the one that designated it. Meaning, if somebody is going to talk about somebody, then HaKadosh Baruch Hu has to allow it to happen. He's not just going to talk about somebody without HaKadosh Baruch Hu saying, "Oh, you know what, yeah."

42:25Everything that happens in the world, HaKadosh Baruch Hu has to allow it to happen. Where do we learn it from? David HaMelech. David HaMelech is Kodesh Kodashim. He cried to HaKadosh Baruch Hu almost 24 hours a day for 70 years straight. Mamash. Unbelievable. David HaMelech, after what happened with Bat Sheva, that looked to people like a sin, but the Gemara Masechet Shabbat says anyone that says David HaMelech sinned is wrong. He didn't sin. But even though he didn't sin, the Gemara says he didn't sin, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says he didn't sin, David HaMelech says it looked like a sin. It looked like a sin, David HaMelech fasted for over 20 years. Over 20 years. Day and night. Not like fasting. We didn't eat until the night. Break the fast. Again the next day. Like fasting for 20 years. Why? Because it looked like a sin. It looked like a sin. He was begging HaKadosh Baruch Hu to forgive him. For something that looked like a sin. Even though it wasn't a sin. Now, one day, David HaMelech is with his soldiers and the head of the Sanhedrin, Shimi ben Gera.

43:34who was one of the supporters of Shaul HaMelech, the enemy of David HaMelech, even though Shaul was also a tzaddik. Shaul had some ruach shtut, some crazy thought in his mind, that he thought that David HaMelech was trying to kill him. And he chased David, trying to kill him, his whole life. So, Shimei ben Gera was head of the Sanhedrin, the head rabbi in the world, and he was one of the big supporters of Shaul HaMelech. He sees David HaMelech and his soldiers, and he doesn't hold anything back. The Gemara says he curses David HaMelech, king of Am Yisrael—Melech HaMashiach comes from David HaMelech—in front of everybody, using every curse in the book. You're a bastard child. You're this. You're that. You're the worst person in the world. You're a rasha. He embarrasses him in public because he believed himself that he was a rasha. He was wrong. Now, the general of David HaMelech says, "Why should we let this kelev, this dog, speak about my highness like this? Let me chop off this dog's head." That's what it says in the pasuk. "Let me chop off this dog's head." David HaMelech says, "No! Chas v'Shalom."

44:55He didn't curse me. Hashem did. Hashem cursed me. What Hashem? Hashem didn't curse him. Shimei ben Geira cursed him. Everybody sees it. Everybody saw it. Everybody heard it. Everybody saw it. There's a movie about it. It's a pasuk in the Torah. It didn't say Hashem cursed David. It says Shimei ben Geira cursed David. David HaMelech understood the deeper meaning. He said, if Shimei ben Geira wanted to curse me, Good. But it doesn't mean that Hashem will allow it to happen unless I deserve it. The fact that he wanted to curse me and he hates me, yeah, that's his choice. That's his free choice. But is he going to be able to exercise it to such an extent? That's HaKadosh Baruch Hu's choice, based on my actions. If I deserve to be publicly embarrassed, for whatever reason, then I'll get it. The fact that he wanted to curse me, that's one thing. Whether he's going to be allowed to curse me, that's something completely different. That's depending on my free choice. So if he cursed me, that means that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is telling me he's allowed to curse you. Which means you have to do teshuva for something, David. There's something here. And at that moment, Chazal say,

46:11At that moment, David HaMelech passed the test of all tests. Even though he was Kodesh Kodashim and HaKadosh Baruch Hu decided to bring Mashiach from him, and even though he wrote the Sefer Tehillim, and even though he built the foundation of the Beit HaMikdash and his son Shlomo built the Beit HaMikdash, and all of these wonderful things, he was really an Eved Hashem only at that moment. After he passed the test where he understood the deeper meaning of how Hashem runs the world, did Hashem decide to make him the fourth person, the fourth soul to carry the Merkava. There's Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, and David. Why? Because David understood that nothing bad in the world happens to anybody unless HaKadosh Baruch Hu decides it based on your actions. So if you have done everything possible to make sure that your actions are kosher, you'll know it. Why? Your world around you will change. Your world around you will change. If it hasn't changed, that means there's still something stinky in your actions. There's still some rotten fish somewhere, and you have to find it. Sometimes it's a test. More times than not, it's a combination of a test and a stinky fish.

47:30You have to find the stinky fish. Next. Yes? Hashem has decreed that I am warranted to have this Lashon Hara spoken about me, so that, in fact, I do Teshuvah. The fact that the Lashon Hara is spoken about me is actually for my benefit. Yes? So, what is the person speaking it guilty of? He's still guilty of speaking Lashon Hara. But if it's something that people are publicly aware of, more than three people, it might be unpleasant for me to know that people know it about me. Right. But it's commonly known knowledge, so it's a fact. if it’s commonly known knowledge, then it’s not even Lashon Hara in the first place. If, let's say, for example, you went on public television and you decided that you're going to support, I don't know, Dick Cheney. I don't know, you're going to support, I don't know, the politician, so I don't follow this stuff. But you're going to support some guy that murders millions of people quietly, okay? And somebody says, "Oh yeah, Michael, he's supporting Dick Cheney, the guy who shot George Bush and George Bush's buddy in the face, and the guy said sorry he shot him in the face. You heard that? That's not Lashon Hara. Well, you went on TV; everybody knows. If you showed up to a wedding with a miniskirt and...

48:35show up to a wedding with a miniskirt. And people say, "Oh, you heard, you hear what happened? She showed up to a wedding with a miniskirt." That's not Lashon Hara. You made it public yourself. But if it's something that's not massively, it's not known by everybody, that's a different story. But generally speaking, even if... You have a benefit that you've acknowledged that somebody spoke Lashon Hara about you, and therefore you need to do teshuva, and you've done teshuva. They still get punished. You don't, but they do. Why? Because they still had the free choice of whether to actually do what they did or not. Where do we learn this from? What's the source for it? The Egyptians in Mitzrayim. The Egyptians in Mitzrayim. So, Hamim asked, how come HaKadosh Baruch Hu punished the Egyptians in Mitzrayim? How come He punished Paro? How come He punished everybody? He killed Paro's son, killed all these people's sons, made them drink blood. Why? In essence, HaKadosh Baruch Hu already told Avraham Avinu this is all going to happen. HaKadosh Baruch Hu already told Avraham Avinu this is going to happen. All Am Yisrael had to do certain things, and good things came out of it. Why did they get punished? They were supposed to be slaves, right?

49:47The reason why, Rabotai, is that even though HaKadosh Baruch Hu decided that Am Yisrael is going to be slaves for a while before they get the Torah in order to soften them, He never decreed for the Egyptians to kill us and to kill babies, and He never gave them the permission to do that. He gave them the permission to be the masters of the Jews and be the ones that enslave us. He didn't give them the permission to kill us, meaning they took it a step further. Decreed for the Egyptians to kill us and to kill babies, and He never gave them the permission to do that. He gave them the permission to be the masters of the Jews and be the ones that enslave us. He didn't give them the permission to kill us, meaning they took it a step further. They took it a step further, and for that, they got punished. Not for the enslavement. For the enslavement, they got permission. But the fact that they took it a step further, that's what they got punished for. What is that like? If somebody, let's say, for example, you work for someone, and there are some companies that have something called petty cash. It's like a little box in the office, and they put a bunch of cash in it. Then anybody can use this cash for different things that are office-related. Company-related, you could take some money out of there. And every so often, the manager counts the money. Okay, what's missing, what's not, and so on and so forth. One day, the manager finds out, okay, there's a misuse of the petty cash. We're missing $5,000. He starts doing accounting. He starts seeing people are overspending. Instead of buying one pen, they're buying 500 pens. Instead of buying one stapler, they're buying five. Everybody's guilty.

51:17But he only punishes one guy. Why does he only punish one guy? Because that one guy, he didn't buy the pens. He bought himself a bicycle to go home with. He bought himself a nice watch. So everybody overspent the company funds. They're all guilty. But he's the most guilty. Why? He didn't even use it for company reasons. He used it for personal reasons. He took it a step further. Same concept. Same concept. The Egyptians took it a step further. Kabbalah. Next question. So I have two questions, actually. The first one I have is, what if somebody doesn't speak Lashon Hara about you, but what if they say something that's an outright lie? You obviously don't get punished for that, right? Like you said with Lashon Hara. No, that's called Rechilut in Lashon HaKodesh. Rechilut, they're saying slander about you. That's actually even worse than Lashon Hara. But again, the Gemara says that if somebody says slander about you, it cannot be 100% fake. There has to be a little bit of truth in it. There has to be a little bit of truth in it, which means that if somebody is saying something bad about you, there has to be something in it.

52:31something in it that's true. Not necessarily the whole thing, but you are still guilty of something. Of course, if a person does teshuva every day, he does cheshbon hanefesh every day, little by little, HaKadosh Baruch Hu is going to uncover different sins that he's made throughout his life that he forgot. And one of the segulot, This is really higher-level teshuva for people that want to take things to the next step. For now, everybody just take this for learning purposes. Don't take this as something to do every day. But if you're at a higher level, there is a segula. There is something that you can do in order to remember forgotten sins. In reality, all of us have plenty of memorable sins. Work on those first. Work on those first. But in case you're such a tzaddik, That you've worked on all of the main sins you remember. But you know you still have to do teshuva. Why? Because you're still alive. You're still alive, you have to do teshuva. But you forgot. You don't know what you did or didn't do. So there is a segula. What's a segula? You learn all night. You learn all throughout the night. Serious Torah, serious Gemara. If you're already at that level, you're definitely serious in Gemara. You're not just learning Sipurei Tzadikim anymore. You learn all night, serious Gemara.

53:47And don't go to sleep. Continue all the way till prayer. All the way till prayer. And pray. During prayer, Hashem is going to put a memory in your head of something that you forgot about. It works. Next question. Okay, so I also learned that you said this already, but I learned that... that if you see lightning or hear thunder, you have to say a blessing right away. What if you don't have the blessings memorized and you have to look in the siddur and you hear thunder and you don't say it right away? If the siddur is right next to you, then perfect. There's no problem. There's no special obligation to remember all the prayers by heart. the siddur is right next to you, then perfect. Open the siddur, say the prayer—perfect, it's within moments. But if the siddur is nowhere near you, and you're not going to be able to pray, then that's already something to do teshuva for. That's something you take down as a little reminder: as soon as I get home, I'm going to commit this bracha to memory. I'm going to learn this bracha and apply it to my memory. Read it a hundred times; by the hundred and first time, you're going to remember it forever.

55:00In the back, they have a question. If you could give them. In the back, in the back. Okay, so you ate already? You finished eating? You finished eating? So let's say you had a sandwich, and you forgot to do netilat yadayim, you forgot to do the blessing on the bread, you ate the sandwich, you forgot to do the original blessing, but you already finished the food. You ate the food, you finished the food already. If you already finished the food, there's no blessing anymore, because the blessing has to be on something. If you're still in the middle, of eating the sandwich, you stop eating, and you go, you do netilat yadayim, you eat, next thing, you do hamotzi, you eat at that point. If you already completed, there's nothing to bless about. But you still have to do Birkat Hamazon. Even though you missed the first blessing, it doesn't mean that it doesn't affect the last blessing. You still have to do Birkat Hamazon. You still have to do the last blessing anyway. But the first blessing, you missed out on. Next question. You have? Somebody? It's you.

56:33we learned that nothing happens by coincidence. Hashem rules everything. Okay. So, regarding the story about the Hebrews, although Hashem did not plan for the Egyptians to kill them, the fact that... And we know Hashem does not let anything happen by chance. Why did Hashem enslave us before we had committed any sins? That's the question. So technically, well, since it happened, the babies got killed. Are they innocent? And we know nobody, I mean, Hashem rules the world. Very good question. Very good question. So there are two questions here. One, why did we become slaves? I'm asking the question. I need to ask the question. Why did we become slaves before we even did anything? Because HaKadosh Baruch Hu already decided to tell Avraham Avinu, your descendants are going to be slaves. They're not even alive yet. Why are you going to decide that they're going to make sins and make them slaves? Why did He make them slaves? They didn't do any sins yet. They weren't alive yet. They weren't born yet. The second question is, what about all those cute little babies?

57:47cute little babies. What sin did they commit? Why did Hashem allow these evil Egyptians to take these babies, these Jewish babies, Israelite babies? Every time their parents, their father did not meet their quota in making stones to put into the pyramids and the Egyptian structures, the punishment would be that they would take his child and put it in there instead of the stone. And He would crush the baby. So what did the baby do to get crushed? He said lashon hara. He doesn't know how to speak. What did he steal? He doesn't even know how to use his hands yet. What did he do? Just two questions. A very, very serious question. So the Gemara in Masechet Chagigah says there were certain things that were created before the world. One of them is the Torah itself. The Torah was created before anything. created 974 generations before the world came into being, before the world was created. The Torah was created, HaKadosh Baruch Hu took black fire and used it to write on white fire and wrote the original Torah scroll. Now, Chazal asked, what does it mean 974 generations? Is it mamash 974 generations like an actual time? Like Hashem just created the Torah and just waited there, did nothing for several thousand years and then decided to create the world? Why didn't He just write the Torah and a second later create the world? What's the whole 974 generations part? Why does Hashem have to wait? So in reality He didn't wait a second.

59:04Chazal asked, what does it mean 974 generations? Is it mamash 974 generations like an actual time? Like Hashem just created the Torah and just waited there, did nothing for several thousand years and then decided to create the world? Why didn't He just write the Torah and a second later create the world? What's the whole 974 generations part? Why does Hashem have to wait? So in reality He didn't wait a second. There's no 974 generations actually passing. What happened? The Gemara says, HaKadosh Baruch Hu knew that the Creator knows His creation. He knew that the world would not be able to sustain itself without the Torah coming within a certain amount of time, because the evil of people simply would be too much without the Torah. So He knew that there was going to be a lot of evil people. So He took all of the evil people that would exist, all of the really, really evil people that would exist without the Torah for the first 974 generations of the world had it been created without the Torah yet. He took them and spread them out into each and every generation.

1:00:28Because had He put them all in one, He would have simply destroyed the whole world. Not even like with Noah. He would have simply destroyed everything. So there's no point. But they had to exist. So He took those generations, those evil people, and He spread a little bit of them in every single generation. So on one hand, those evil people answer the question of why were the babies killed? The babies were evil neshamot. They were part of those people that were supposed to be created that were evil. Where do we learn that from? We learn it from a story between Moshe Rabbeinu and a little boy named Michah. Moshe Rabbeinu saw all of these little babies being killed and he said to Hashem, let me save one. He didn't know the whole story. He didn't know they're evil, they're not, they're this. So HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, no, no, don't save him. It's an evil neshamah. But you might question, "Yeah, but he's a baby. What evil? What did he do?" Moshe Rabbeinu pleaded, "Let me just save one. They're killing millions. Let me save one." Hashem says, "You have free choice. You can save whoever you want." So Moshe Rabbeinu saved the baby and named him Michah. Michah, as if from Limach, which comes from the root of the word Limach, meaning to crush. Had he not saved him, this baby would have been crushed by the stones. He literally took him out of the stones.

1:01:50And he saved this kid, and the kid followed Moshe Rabbeinu around. Now, I told you the story some time ago, that one day after the whole Makot happened, the ten plagues happened, Hashem said to Am Yisrael, "It's time to leave." Am Yisrael started leaving, but Moshe Rabbeinu had to deliver on the promise of taking the grave, the tomb of Yosef HaTzaddik out of Egypt. But he didn't know where it was. So he went to a woman who was alive at the time named Serach. Serach, the daughter of Asher, the original Asher, the son of Yaakov. And since she was the only one who was alive at the time, because she got a blessing from Yaakov Avinu to live forever, she knew where the tomb of Yosef HaTzaddik was, her uncle. She told him that the tomb was actually hidden inside the Nile River. So Moshe Rabbeinu went to the Nile River and He had to take the tomb out, but he didn't have forklifts. So what did he have? He had Hashem. So what did he do? He knew the real name of Hashem. It's called Shem HaMeforash. And he inscribed the name of Hashem on a piece of metal called a maté. And on the other side, he inscribed the words, Aleh Shor Aleh. Rise, bull, rise.

1:03:10And the reason why is because each one of the tribes, Yehuda, Yosef, and so on and so forth, each one of the tribes has a sign, has a symbol. Yehuda is a lion, Yosef is a bull. So he wrote on the maté, on this piece of metal, one side was the name of Hashem, the real name of Hashem that you could do all types of mystical things with. And on the other side, he wrote, Aleh Shor Aleh, meaning, Yosef, get yourself out of the water. And before he threw it, he said, "Yosef, I'm here to deliver on the promise that my grandfather made. The tribe made a commitment to take your tomb with us when we leave. Hundreds of years have passed. It's time to leave. We're leaving. But if you don't get yourself out of this water, you're staying here." He threw the mateh inside the water and the tomb of Yosef miraculously came out of the water, and Moshe Rabbeinu took the tomb and carried it himself. That’s the reason, by the way, the Gemara says, since he delivered on the promise. miraculously came out of the water, and Moshe Rabbeinu took the tomb and carried it himself. That’s the reason, by the way, the Gemara says, since he delivered on the promise and

1:04:13and carried the tomb of Yosef himself. While the rest of the nation was collecting gold from the Egyptians, Hashem said, "I'm going to return the favor measure for measure by burying Moshe Rabbeinu myself. He worried about delivering the promise by taking the tomb of Yosef, so I'm going to do him a favor in return." So now, this is all happening, this whole story is happening, and the boy Micha is watching from behind the scenes. He's hiding in the bushes, and he's watching all this happen. Moshe doesn't know that he's there. He's focused on the action. He took it, he left, and the boy Micha jumps into the water and takes the mateh out. He takes the piece of metal out that Moshe Rabbeinu threw in the water. It's gone. The boy took it out and hid it. Because he was an evil neshama, evil neshamot, what do they do? They do evil things. So what happened? You fast forward. Moshe Rabbeinu goes to Har Sinai with Am Yisrael. HaKadosh Baruch Hu gives him the commandments and He says, "Moshe Rabbeinu, come up to the mountain, I'll teach you the Torah, and then you bring it to Am Yisrael." Moshe Rabbeinu goes to Har Sinai, 40 days, 40 nights. Am Yisrael makes a mistake, miscalculating the time that Moshe Rabbeinu is supposed to come down by six hours.

1:05:33And because of that, they think that Moshe Rabbeinu died, and they tell Aharon to build them an intermediary, a new intermediary. It's going to connect them to Hashem. First, they go to Hur. Hur says no. They kill Hur. They come to Aharon HaKohen and say, "You build us something." Aharon knows that if he doesn't do it, they're going to kill him. And then they're not going to have a Kohen to purify the whole nation. So he says, "Okay, fine, fine. I'll build you something." He's thinking to himself, "Let me just buy some time. So what's the thing that's hard for people to give usually?" People like to give everything except one thing. What do they not like to give? Money. So he said, "Give me all your money." What money? "Give me all your gold. Everybody, give me all your gold. I'll make you a statue." He thought it was going to take a while for them to give the gold. But they had a big yetzer hara. All of a sudden, he sees people ripping out their earrings, ripping out everything, giving them, throwing the gold at him. He already amassed a huge amount of gold in seconds. Only the women didn't give their gold. Only the men gave.

1:06:35But then he figured, okay, whatever, I thought it's going to take me a few days to get this gold from people, and then by then already Moshe Rabbeinu will come back. But even though, it doesn't matter, I'll take all this gold and throw it in the fire. It takes hours and hours and hours for the gold to melt. It has to reach a few thousand degrees. Either way, by then Moshe Rabbeinu is going to be back. So he threw all the gold into the fire, thinking that, okay, it doesn't make a difference. take a while. I buy myself more time. Everybody threw their gold into the fire, threw their gold into the fire, through the gold in the fire. But then we have Micha, Micha the evil neshama. He doesn't have gold. What does he have? The mateh. He throws the mateh inside the fire. What does the mateh say? Rise, bull, rise. What does Aharon say to Moshe Rabbeinu when Moshe Rabbeinu comes down and asks him, why do you hate these people so much that you built them a statue? Aharon says, I didn't build them a statue. The statue came out. What does it mean the statue came out? because of this special mateh that had the Holy Name of HaKadosh Baruch Hu on one side and the verse saying Alei Sho Alei on the other side, guess what? The gold was there, the mateh was there, and magically, miraculously, a bull came out, created literally by the gold. The gold turned into the bull and the bull came out talking, saying, I am God that took you out of Egypt. The actual bull actually talked.

1:08:03So that's why everybody worshipped it. So that explains when HaKadosh Baruch Hu says there's an evil neshama, it's supposed to be killed as a baby; you saved it, mistake. You're going to see the mistake later on. How much later on? At the time of Mount Sinai. So that explains the issues with the evil neshamah with the babies. In regards to a shorter answer, why HaKadosh Baruch Hu enslaved Am Yisrael in Egypt before we even sinned, is because Am Yisrael is a very, very unique neshamah. The highest level neshamah in creation is the neshamah of the Jew. But because Am Yisrael was so much more powerful, smarter than everyone else, they also were much more arrogant. And they were unbearable for the rest of creation. Anyone that wants to see a little insight into how much superior we were in comparison to the rest of the nations, just go to Midrash Me'am Lo'ez. In the third book, at the end it says, "The wars of the twelve tribes." And it talks about the wars of literally the twelve sons of Yaakov against all the nations. Twelve people against all the nations. They killed everybody because they literally had superhuman powers. They were so powerful, so smart, so everything. They saw they were better than everybody else. So HaKadosh Baruch Hu had to ground us. How do you ground somebody?

1:09:27giving him difficulty. So in order to make us a vessel to receive the Torah, humble to receive the Torah, He had to ground us by having us go through major difficulty. So that's why the slavery happened, at least one of the reasons. Avod in the back, there's a question. If you could give him the mic, it'd be good. Why do women have miscarriages? Why do women have miscarriages? The Arizal writes in Sha'ar HaGilgulim that everything that happens to a person in the world, every sin that he has, is an indication of something that he did himself. Meaning, the Gemara says in Masechet Chullin, I think it is, that there's not a finger pricked in this world... Where a little rose is going to prick your finger and generate some blood without you being guilty of something. So the Arizal extrapolates it and says, what does it mean? If you sinned with your finger, you'll be injured in your finger. If you sinned with your eyes, you'll be injured in your eyes. Whatever you sinned with, that's how you're going to get punished, measure for measure. So...

1:10:52If somebody, either during their current life or even in their previous life, their previous incarnation, sinned with either wasting seed, promiscuity, abortion, These are small different reasons why HaKadosh Baruch Hu will give them the punishment. For example, a woman had an abortion because she was 16, 17, or 18 years old and promiscuous. She didn't want to have a baby, but she got pregnant. So she had an abortion; she committed murder. Later on in her life, when she reached 26, 28, 30, or 35 years old, she wanted to have a child because now she's married. So what's the punishment? Hashem says, okay, when you got pregnant originally... You didn't want to have the baby, and you killed the baby. So now the punishment is that I'm going to kill the baby that you do want. Sometimes it's during the life that you're living right now, and sometimes it's even in a previous life. But the point is that a person does not get punished for no reason. Why does the baby inside, what does he deserve? How come he deserves it?

1:12:05It's 100% murder. The baby's alive. It's not a dead baby. It's not a piece of meat like people think. If you look at the videos that show abortion, you see the baby is 100% alive and well. After 40 days, he has a heartbeat. He has brain waves. He's alive and well. He's just little. 40 days, alive 100%. Two months, three months, he's got everything. You kill a baby two, three, four, five months old, inside the stomach, just because it's inside the stomach, it's 100% murder according to the Torah. So how come the baby deserves it? One simple, logical reason is that the baby used to be a murderer. What kind of murderer? He had an abortion. He killed a baby. He got some girl pregnant. Oh, he was the girl who was pregnant, and he had an abortion in a previous life. And he killed a baby. So Hashem says, "Oh, you killed a baby. I'll kill you." How? The same way you killed a baby. You got the baby crushed and the head was crushed with this plier and torn apart from the body in little pieces, and they cut the legs, and they cut the arms, and they cut the fingers and everything else. You did it. You didn't care. Why? Because you can't see the baby. Therefore, you think it's not really happening. Well, you'll see it's happening. How? It's going to happen to you. So, for anyone who has made the mistake unknowingly of having an abortion...

1:13:28Baruch Hashem, there's hope for you. What's the hope? You can do teshuva for it and not have to come back as a gilgul, as an abortion. What's the teshuva? First and foremost, like anything else, realize you've made a very big sin. Learn about it, like what we just talked about, and cry over it. Cry over the murder that you've committed. Second, commit that you're never going to do it again. Never going to do it again. Doesn't matter if you're ready or not ready. Never going to waste seed again. Never going to have an abortion again. Never. No matter what. Third, pass this on to as many people as possible in order to stop them from making the same sin or at least getting them to do teshuva after they've made the sin unknowingly. Share the information to help other people do teshuva. Do all of those things, and you will merit to do full teshuva, and you will not have to suffer what I just explained. That's only if he's alive. You said it's a miscarriage. A miscarriage didn't come to the world.

1:14:50If somebody's alive, that could be one of the explanations. Somebody's alive, but they only have to, you know, correct something that's, let's say, being born 30 days in this life, or two years in this life, or five years in their life. That could be a very, very good answer for such a thing. But you didn't say that. You said somebody had already died in the stomach. Somebody had already died in the stomach. Nobody prayed for nothing. Nobody knows. Nobody saw him. Except the doctor that killed him, yemach shemo. Next. Everybody solved the Torah. Everybody solved everything else. Can I go in the crowd and ask you guys questions? I got a question for you. When Yaakov wrestled the man, the angel of the Lord, what was sitting in the vessels on the shore of the river? What was sitting inside those things that he took? Inside them? Inside.

1:15:52What's inside those vessels? What was the significance of the vessels? The significance of the vessels, they meant significance as far as different mystical things for Yaakov Avinu. As far as specifically what's inside them, you got 50 bucks. I don't know. If there's an answer, I have to double-check if there's an answer. If there's an answer, I'll give it to you. But if there's no answer, and it's not written in any Midrash, then it's a nafka mina. It's like a mystical significance. Mystical significance for sure. But as far as specifically what's in it, you know, flowers or incense and what kind of incense and the details and all that stuff, that, I'm sorry, I don't know. I don't know if there is an answer, I'm sure. that it's possible that it's an answer and I'll have to double-check. On the same question, if it was Esav's angel that blessed Yaakov, isn't that kind of contradictory? Can you elucidate that a little bit? The fact that there's an angel that does things that are not good doesn't make the angel not good.

1:17:04The angel was an obstacle in the journey of Yaakov Avinu in order to enable him to get to the next level. Similar to how we have a Yetzer Hara. The Yetzer Hara is not an angel that simply wants us to fail. The Yetzer Hara actually wants us to succeed. We learn this from the times in the Gemara where the Yetzer Hara was actually good friends with some of the Tzaddikim. He loved them. He loved the tzaddikim. Because of the tzaddikim, he saw them as equivalent to him. They're servants of Hashem. He's a servant of Hashem. So even though he's the obstacle that's trying to make them fail, that's his job. That's his function in the world. It's not as a goal in life like he wants it. It's his job. It's his function. Like a bus driver drives a bus. The yetzer hara is an obstacle in your journey. But to see also another example that someone, that the angel has a... a mission, but that doesn't necessarily mean that that mission is their belief, if you will. We know that the Yetzer Hara, when he saw the significance of Moshe Rabbeinu, and how holy Moshe Rabbeinu was, the Yetzer Hara gave Moshe Rabbeinu a present. And that present is what we repeat in prayer. The Sephardim repeat it every day. I think the Ashkenazim, maybe on Shabbat, I'm not 100% familiar with the Ashkenazi prayer,

1:18:30But the Sephardim do it, and that's the Ketoret. The secret of the Ketoret. The secret of the Ketoret is what the Yetzer Hara taught. One of the things the Yetzer Hara taught Moshe Rabbeinu, which in essence is one of the things that can bring mercy to Am Yisrael, even after they've made the worst sins. So that's one of the gifts that the Yetzer Hara gave to Moshe Rabbeinu. Why? Because he liked him. He didn't hate him, but he still had a function. So who does the Yetzer Hara hate? He hates people that are ungrateful. Ungrateful to his master. Who's the master? HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Who's ungrateful? Somebody that sins. Why? Because HaKadosh Baruch Hu is giving you money and you waste it on nonsense. HaKadosh Baruch Hu gives you legs and you go to places that you shouldn't go. HaKadosh Baruch Hu gives you a mouth. Instead of saying Divrei Torah, you say Divrei Kefira. And so on and so forth. So the Yetzer Hara... even though part of his job is to give you that obstacle, it's not because he wants you to fail, it's because that's his function. If you fail, he also has a function of hitting you. If you succeed, he'll definitely give you a high five when you leave this world. Next question. So with that being the case, how come in the Gemara it says that the Yetzer Hara gets slaughtered or killed at the Day of Judgment? Very good question.

1:19:52The Yetzer Hara, its function is going to be slaughtered. Not that he's going to be killed. Meaning he's going to not exist where Hashem is going to punish him. Hashem is not going to punish the Yetzer Hara for doing his job. Hashem, in essence, the Zohar HaKadosh says HaKadosh Baruch Hu made everything with, in essence, an equivalent, if you will. or an opposite. There's light, darkness. There's tall, short, fat, skinny, stupid, smart, and so on and so forth. Now, HaKadosh Baruch Hu, since He's the source of all good, He had to make an opposite. He made the Yetzer Hara. And since HaKadosh Baruch Hu has a throne of glory for Himself, He made a throne of glory, mamash, a throne of glory for the Satan himself. So the Satan actually sits on a throne of glory, and he only gets up for specific types of people, specific types of things. Most of the things that happen in the world are usually the messengers of the Satan, not the Satan himself. He has employees because he's a king also. He's obviously an employee of Hashem, but nonetheless, he's still a king. The king has kings under him.

1:21:12And the king, the Malach HaMavet, has employees, many, many employees. And every time a person sins, he creates more employees for the Satan. He's a factory of employees for the Satan. Now, the Satan, at some point after the Mashiach comes, it's not immediate, because immediately after the Mashiach comes, there's going to be a war. It's going to be a war. It's going to be a time. It's not right away. But after all of that balagan happens, the war, the burial of the dead, and so on and so forth, then the Satan, the Gemara says, will be slaughtered. Then the Satan, the Gemara says, will be slaughtered. What does it mean the Satan will be slaughtered? It means that his job, his function as the Yetzer Hara and as the Malach HaMavet and as the Satan, that job function is slaughtered, is cut off from the world. And he'll become an angel without that function anymore. without that function. Similar to other angels like Gavriel, Micha'el, and Refael, and all of the other angels, who have different job functions, the Malach HaMavet will have a different job function. He will no longer have, there will no longer be a purpose for him to get people to sin. He will no longer be telling on people that sin, because no one's going to be sinning anymore. And there's not going to be any more death. No one's going to die anymore.

1:22:37So, he's not going to have those job functions. And also, Hashem is going to slaughter, meaning cut off from the world, this job function. That's what the slaughter actually means. So, since all the sinners and whatnot have been removed, is it because there's no one still there to scapegoat that his role will be thus dissolved? Well, there's going to be three things. One, the inclination to sin will be removed. Meaning even the tzaddik that doesn't sin has an inclination to sin. Even though he doesn't sin as often as the rasha, he still has just as many, if not more, inclinations and desires to sin as the rasha. The difference between a tzaddik and a rasha is that he doesn't sin as often. And when he does sin, he does teshuva right away. That's the difference. A tzaddik is not someone who doesn't have a yetzer hara. He has a yetzer hara. He just doesn't sin as often. He doesn't fall for it. Once the Mashiach comes and that process gets to that point, that inclination to sin will be removed from people. They will no longer have the inclination to sin anymore. They'll have the inclination only to do good and only to serve HaKadosh Baruch Hu and learn Torah and fulfill His will 100% on a much, much higher level than humanly possible now. Since no one's going to sin, the second position of the Satan, which is to go up to Hashem and tell Him that people are sinning, is not going to be valid anymore.

1:23:58And third, since no one's going to die anymore, because there's no purpose for dying anymore, as the only reason people die is because of sins, either their own sin or Adam HaRishon's sin. But since all that is going to come to a culmination point, there won't be any more death anymore, so there's no more purpose for that to occur. But it all starts with that original thing, which is that there's no inclination for people to sin anymore, because that job function will be removed from the world. Once that job function is removed from the world, the other two become null and void. The other two that follow. Halvai that we see those days. How come I learned then that the Mashiach is going to pass away from this world eventually? I'm not responsible for what you learn, unless you learn it from me. If you learn it from me and I made a mistake, I'm sorry. But if somebody else taught you a mistake, it's not my problem. So you have to be very careful with who you learn from. A lot of people say a lot of things for different reasons, either mistakenly or without an explanation. And that's why the Mishnah in Avot says, "Be careful with the things you say." Why? Because if you say things incorrectly, it can lead people to Gehenom instead of Gan Eden. So the blanket statement that the Mashiach is going to die is incorrect.

1:25:24What is the full or, at least, a little bit more body on that statement, is that there's going to be two Mashiachs: Mashiach ben David and Mashiach ben Yosef. Mashiach ben David will never die. He's going to have Ruach Elohim in him. He's going to have the soul of Moshe Rabbeinu and David HaMelech inside him, and he will never die. He will be the king. But then there's Mashiach ben Yosef. Mashiach ben Yosef will be the warrior that fights the wars, and there is a possibility that he will die. He will not definitely die; there's a possibility that he might die. And there's a group of tzaddikim from around the world that pray every day and do special learning and mitzvot every day for him not to die. So there's no guarantee that he will die. It's a possibility that he will. That's Mashiach ben Yosef. And anyway, even if he dies, he'll be resurrected like all of the other tzaddikim. But Mashiach ben David will never die. So if somebody told you Mashiach is going to die just like that, that's simply a wrong statement. But if they told you everything I just said and more, then that's correct. Next question. So the...

1:26:45Questions always come from people in regards to someone who said something, and sometimes the mistake is made by the speaker, where the speaker assumes that you know what he's talking about, meaning he will say a story, And then I'll mention some side comment, like, "Yeah, you remember what happened with Avraham Avinu and his father," and continue, assuming you know what he's talking about. If you're talking to a bunch of people that have learned this with you, it's correct to do. But if you're talking to the general public, for the most part, it's incorrect. Unless it's just too long of an explanation, it's incorrect to do it simply because it's assuming people know what you're talking about, and many times they don't, which makes them actually very, very confused. To assume people know the basics is incorrect in this generation.

1:27:55and probably quite a few generations before us even, but definitely this generation, because most people today, including religious people, do not know the basics. How do I know? I deal with them every single day. I deal with religious people. I deal with non-religious people. I deal with all types of people. And quite frankly, the vast majority of people do not know the basics. They simply do not know the basics. So assuming they know the basics is incorrect. So if you're going to say something with the assumption that people know the basics, then you're going to have a lot of confused people, and the audience that you have is going to be underserved. But that's sometimes the reason why people have confusions. Sometimes that's the reason why somebody will answer that question the way that you just said it, whether Mashiach is going to die. Assuming you understood there are two Mashiachs and one is not going to die and one is going to die, he assumed maybe that, maybe that's the reason. He was talking about Mashiach ben David. If he talked about Mashiach ben David, then he has to learn again. The other reason is sometimes that the listener mishears or misunderstands what the speaker says.

1:29:06Mishears and misunderstands. He says something, and the listener just doesn't hear it the right way. He misunderstands it. And this happens even more often. Even more often, this happens. That's why HaKadosh Baruch Hu invented and created YouTube and video. which allows you to rewind 10 seconds, rewind 20 seconds, rewind 30 minutes, and hear it all over again, because you obviously did not arrive at the right conclusion. You hear it again, you play it again, and you hear it enough times, you'll understand it. Sometimes I myself listen to the same recording that Rav Chaim gave, sent me, of an answer 15 times. I heard it the first time. It’s a two-minute recording. Two-minute recording. I heard it once, twice, three, four times. I'll hear it 15 times. Why? Because until I know that I understand every word that he said in there, I'm not finished. Again and again and again and again. If I were you guys, if I were sitting in there, what would I do with my rabbi? If I talk to my rabbi, we have a shiur. Every day there's a shiur. I have a pen and paper in front of me. I write down as many words as I can. And after I write,

1:30:20I listen to the shiur, just like everybody else listens on the internet. They listen to Rabbi Efraim's shiur. I listen to the shiur also, just like them. I'm one of the viewers. Sometimes two, sometimes ten, sometimes twenty. Why? I want to make sure I understand every word, depending on the shiur. If it's material that we've never covered, it's brand new, I'm going to hear it as many times as I have to until I remember it. But people listen to shiurim, they listen to shiurim every day, three, four, five, six hours, ten, for ten years. Nothing changes. Why? Because they're listening. They're not learning. They're listening superficially, like music. So, sometimes the listener mishears the speaker, misunderstands the speaker, and arrives at the wrong conclusion. But then sometimes, The speaker is a rasha. Sometimes the speaker is a rasha, and he simply has so much ego that he decides that he's going to contradict all of the chachamim before him who said the opposite. He decides to say something that's completely unheard of. He decides to say something from his own mind as if he's equivalent to them.

1:31:38Like one of my dear friends went to visit Russia. He went to a Beit Knesset over there in Russia. Unfortunately, another terrible Chabad story. He goes to a big multi-million dollar building, and he sees almost every single person. drove to shul on Shabbat in a kehillah. Big kehillah. Not like five people. Big kehillah. Almost every single person drove to shul. As if it became mutar. Allowed to drive. Then, since he's familiar with the people, starts... Wait. Almost every single person is married to a goyah. As if it became mutar. into marriage became allowed. Now he's there on Shabbat. Who's going to get an Aliyah to the Torah? There are a few people that keep. Who's going to get an Aliyah to the Torah? Every single Aliyah. Mechalel Shabbat. Married to a Goyah. Every single Aliyah.

1:32:49Then he says, here's the caveat. Here's the bonus. He says, here's a picture of one of the new baalei teshuva. He did teshuva. What did he do? One guy did teshuva in a kehillah. What did he do? He got a huge tattoo on his back: "Shema Yisrael Hashem Elokeinu Hashem Echad" tattooed on his back, with an angel on top of it. See this big giant Russian guy, 400 pounds, with a tattoo of a verse from the Torah. You're not even allowed to erase it now. Not allowed to erase it now. Because it's a verse and it's Hashem's name. Now let's erase Hashem's name when it's inscribed like that. Engraved like that. But it's a sin. It's a Baal Teshuva. Baal Teshuva. Baal Teshuva. He says, Hashem Yerachem, the things he told me. Some of the things, honestly, just giving you guys kavod that I don't want to mention. Some of the things he told me. Hashem Yerachem. What's happening? Anyway, now you would think, okay, so if somebody, all these people are off, this, that, somebody says something to get them to do teshuva, oh no, so he decides to take the initiative and start saying some chizuk to a few guys. No, listen, you can't be married to this woman, you have to do teshuva, you have to keep Shabbat, Mashiach comes, he's only going to save people who do teshuva.

1:34:08rabbi, the rabbi of the kehillah, the rabbi of the kehillah comes, interrupts him and says, "Hey, don't listen to him. He doesn't know what he's talking about. That's not what he's talking about. Mashiach comes, the rabbi told us, Mashiach comes, everybody's saved. So he's coming, he knows what he's talking about." "No, no, rabbi, I'm sorry, but uh..." We have verses in the Torah. It says, the verse in the Torah says specifically that the goel, the Mashiach, is only going to save people that do teshuva. Not people that just drove to shul on Shabbat. People that do teshuva, keep the mitzvot. No, no, no. Okay, but... What about, it says in the Torah, Yetzias Mitzrayim, Chamushim left Mitzrayim, only a small portion of Am Yisrael, of Bnei Yisrael left Mitzrayim. Hashem killed the rest of them because they didn't do teshuva. He says, no, over here, we don't believe that. Here in this Chabad, we don't believe that. It's a mefurash in Torah. No, no, we don't believe that. The guy wanted to start crying.

1:35:19The guy started crying, mamash. Why? This, Rabotai, is literally destroying any chance that those poor people have of doing teshuva. Why? Because even if they've already made the mistake of marrying a non-Jew, even if they've already made the mistake of not living a religious life, even if they've already made the mistake of driving on Shabbat, even if they've already made the mistake of... mistakes they're making. What's their hope? Their hope is that the rabbi, rabbi, rabbi, rabbi, is what? The rabbi is going to tell them, "Oh, my dear son, listen, Hashem says, 'Now let's drive on Shabbat.' Hashem says, 'Now let's marry a non-Jew.' Hashem says this, Hashem says that." The rabbi's job is to do that? That's the point of the rabbi? But he doesn't do that. What does he tell them? Rosh Chodesh Elul, drasha on Shabbat. The only mitzvah, he tells it in the kehillah, my friend is over there. The only mitzvah you're all responsible for is to give tzedakah to Chabad. That's it. I know that not all of Chabad is like this, but this is another example. Unfortunately, a lot of the bad stories come from Chabad. Not necessarily because they're all bad. There are many that are bad because they're the most common.

1:36:43It's as common as Starbucks. I mean, there's one on every corner, Baruch Hashem. Halvai, they all actually had people do teshuvah before they become rabbis. Before you become a rabbi, do teshuvah first. This is happening all over the world. You think the story is bad? It's happening all over the world. I have the same exact story in Australia. Same exact story in Seattle. Same exact story in New York. Same exact story in Florida. Same exact story in all four corners of the world. I have the same exact story. It's like I keep asking, how do these people know each other? How do they all have the same story? What? They all go to the same Chabad? It's that big, this Chabad? It's four continents? Out of seven, this one covers all four? Where's this building? I can't see it. Everywhere, rabotai. Why? Because, rabotai yekarim, the Gemara Masechet Sotah, page 49, says that before Mashiach comes, most of the rabbis are going to be Erev Rav. They're going to be resha'im. Most of the people that are supposed to be doing one thing are going to be doing the opposite. And people that tell you the truth are going to be publicly embarrassed and made fun of.

1:37:59Chutzpah tizgeh. The chutzpah that people have, the nerve that people have, will reach new levels where they literally tell people, "Do whatever you want, just give us money." That's your teshuva. If that's not bad enough, the rabbi knows that all the guys that are married to goyot don't say a single thing. He tells them, "Give money." All the guys that are not married, he knows they all go to prostitutes on Shabbat. That's their mitzvah for Shabbat. They all go together. I have another Chabadnik over here. Calls himself a Chabadnik. He married a Goya to a Kohen. All types of people. All types of people destroying the Chabadnikim. Destroying the Chabadnikim. Destroying it. Why? You know what kind of tzaddikim Chabad had? You know what kind of tzaddikim Chabad had? The Rogatchover Rebbe. The Rogatchover Rebbe, alav hashalom, was a Chabadnik. You know, Rabbi Kodesh Kodeshim, he met Einstein. Or better yet, Einstein met him. Five minutes, Einstein came out of the room. He says, with his brain, you can make four Einsteins. They came to the Rabbi, came to the Rabbi, later on, this Einstein was very impressed by you. He says, you can make four of him with you. He goes, what? What was he so impressed about? All we talked about is hishtuyot.

1:39:29His nonsense about the E equals MC squared, I just showed him. All of that stuff is already in the Torah from thousands of years ago. All we talked about for four minutes is his nonsense. If he wants to be impressed, come learn Gemara with me, I'll show you. Meaning, Einstein, what was Einstein impressed by? He wasn't impressed that the Rogatchover Rebbe was able to show him different halachot inside some verse in the Torah in some magical way. No. Einstein was impressed that in a matter of seconds, His 40, 50, 60 years of work was on a fingertip of the Rogatchover Rebbe, who knew more about it than he did. From the Torah, though. The Rogatchover Rebbe, rabotai, was very charif, very, very sharp. And you couldn't fool him for nothing. And he was very, very hard on people that wanted to be chachamim. He didn't give you an easy route. He'd rip you apart. And some, mamash, a lot of people would, mamash, leave meetings with him, crying, hysterical. One time, this rasha, that was a rosh yeshiva, very arrogant, known to be arrogant, coming into town, and, uh,

1:40:59He asked me, "Are you going to go meet the Rogatchover Rebbe?" He says, "Yeah, you know, I'll go meet him." So he went to go meet the Rogatchover Rebbe. He said, "He's here in town." So the guy did what I was talking about in the beginning of the shiur. As an introduction, he told him his resume. "Oh, you know, I wrote this book and this and that. I did this and that." He's showing his glory. He says, you know, that's it. He was nice to him. So before the guy left, he says, you know, it's not nice what they say about you. He says, well, what did they say about me? He says, they say that you're very harsh on Talmidei Chachamim. He says, I am. I'm harsh on Talmidei Chachamim. If he didn't get the joke, he's telling the guy he's not a Talmid Chacham, so why should I be harsh on you? Very, very sharp individual. Somebody that had enough Torah in his mind that somebody that was a Chacham, a Talmid Chacham, had a sugya, had a complication. He couldn't arrive at a solution in the Torah. Studying it, studying it, couldn't find something. So he wrote a letter. In those days, they didn't have computers.

1:42:25So I heard this story from Aron Levi, Shlita. And he says, somebody sent a letter to the Rogatchover Rebbe. He said, I have this sugya, this complication. I can't find an answer, and it's just bothering me at night. I can't go to sleep. What should I do? Can you give me an answer? So the Rogatchover Rebbe writes him a letter, gives him over 50 different sources. He didn't give him the answer like I give you guys an answer. I give you the whole story; you ask a question, I give you a 15-minute answer, and I show you how to make sense out of it. No, he just says, look, page 37a. Look over there. Look at this one over there. This one over there. This one over there. Page numbers, and then. Because the guy's a Talmid Chacham. He's not... starting out, gives them all 50 different sources. So the guy gets a letter, starts looking at the sources. They have nothing to do with his question. There's no way, he's not like giving me a wrong answer.

1:43:33studies, studies all the sources, over 50 different sources, everything he said, look at the Tosafot here, Tosafot there, Tosafot here, Tosafot there, nothing. After a month of studying it, he writes another letter, "I'm sorry, I studied all the sources, all the Tosafot that you gave me. I don't even know, I may make a mistake, but how is this relevant to my question?" The Rogatchover Rebbe writes him a letter back. He goes, if you notice, all of the places that I gave you, the Tosafot over there, Tosafot was a group of almost 2,000 Chachamim. It wasn't one person. I actually used to think it was only one person. Tosafot was like Rashi, one person. No, Tosafot was a group of over 2,000 Chachamim. He says, if you notice, Tosafot in all of those places had a question, unanswered question. had a question about what was happening but didn't have an answer, but yet you continue seeing Tosafot everywhere else. This means that even if you reach a complication you don't have an answer to, you keep going. Don't worry; you keep going. That's the answer. That's more valuable than just giving you the answer on a silver platter. Don't decide, "Oh, I can't learn anymore until I find the answer." Sometimes you have to keep learning even if you don't know the answer.

1:44:53So, one of the things that you'll notice as you learn more and more Torah is that the Chachamim, the real Chachamim, write more with less. More information with fewer words. The books that you buy today, you know, a lot of the modern stuff that people write, Quite frankly, you know, everybody put a lot of toil into their work and so on and so forth, but you cannot compare it to the writings of the Gedolei HaDor. You cannot compare it to the writings of the Acharonim, the giants of the generation. You cannot compare it to anything before them. And, you know, it's a nice book. It gave me a little emunah boost. It's a nice book, gave me a little chizuk, and, you know, explained to me a couple of stories. But you can't compare the two. It's a world of difference.

1:45:54But then you see also a very interesting thing that the writings of the Acharonim, the Acharonim were the latest sages, the most recent ones. When they write answers to a question, they write mamash chapters and, in some cases, entire books on just one answer. books and chapters and hundreds of pages on one answer. And in there they have literally dozens, if not hundreds, of sources. But then you look at the Rishonim, the Rambam, the Ramban, all of the giants from, you know, 600 years ago, 800 years ago, 900 years ago. They don't write that much. You see the Rambam's Mishneh Torah. He writes an answer. What paragraph? Sometimes two sentences, one sentence. Sometimes it's a page and a half, but generally it's small. But if you look at some of his talmidim from 500 years later, or 800 years later, let's say, writing an explanation of what he wrote 900 years ago,

1:47:17He wrote five books on this little paragraph. So the question is, how come the answers of the Rishonim from 900 years ago are so simple, if you will, so minimal, if you will, but the Acharonim are so elaborate? Now everyone knows that the Rishonim, the Rambam, the Ramban, the Rashba, all of the giants, they're bigger than the Acharonim. Rabbi Yosef Karo is bigger than anyone that lived in the last 100 years. You can't compare the two. So how come Rabbi Yosef Karo wrote a halakha in three sentences? The Rambam wrote a halakha in two sentences. But if you see somebody in the last 20 years write a book, he wrote a whole book on one halakha. What, they have more Torah? No, it can't be possible. They're better, they're higher. How come? I heard a fantastic answer from, like I said, Rabbi Aaron Levi. He says, everyone knows that the generation of the Rambam and the Rishonim were bigger. Everybody knows. No one is saying that their Torah is less. So how come the ones that...

1:48:44live more recently have a more elaborate answer. He says, when somebody's blind and he's looking for an exit, what does he do? He touches all the walls. He touches all the walls: "Let me check here. No, it's not here. No, let me check here." He checks and checks and checks everywhere. They touch everywhere just to make sure until eventually they find the door. When someone can see, they go straight to the door. Meaning that even though the Acharonim, Gedolei HaDor, Kodesh Kodeshim, the Admor HaKadosh, still they were considered blind in comparison to the Rambam. We're talking about people, Malachei HaSharet, the Chazon Ish, Chafetz Chaim, the Steipler Gaon, these people were Malachim. considered blind in comparison to the Rambam, and the Rambam is considered blind in comparison to Rabbi Akiva. Such is the difference between the Chachamim, even though they're all big, they're all Tzaddikim, they're all great, they're all everything. Needless to say, people today who speak freely and say things freely and

1:50:07If the giants of the generation were considered blind in comparison to the previous generations, who are you, and who do you think you are to come up with a chiddush that contradicts them? So how come their Torah is so elaborate? It's because they're not contradicting them. What are they doing? It's like, I have a chiddush. I have a new thing. But it's not really me. I'm going to give you 50 different chachamim, 50 different proofs that said the same thing. It's just I'm going to condense it into one book. All of these chachamim that came before me, they said the same thing. I'm just going to show you all of it in one book. It's not really my idea. I'm just shedding light on it. I was shedding light on a pre-existing idea, but it was spread everywhere. So I'm going to give you 50 different sources, 150 different sources, that say what I'm saying to you in a simple way. But because I cannot contradict the Rambam, I cannot contradict anybody before me, what I'm going to do is give you the sources that show this actually already exists, just in a nicer format. So the real chachamim, they're not bringing anything new, if you will. They're, in essence, showing you that everything already exists and has existed before.

1:51:23which means that if anybody here comes today and has the audacity to tell you they have a new tradition, a new idea, run away as far as you possibly can from that person. And the reason is they're either evil, like this guy from Breslov, and anyone that does what he does, That tells people that the only mitzvah they have to do is give tzedakah. Or they're too stupid to even deal with. They're too stupid to even know they're stupid. Thinking that their idea, their chiddush, their chiddush has legs to walk on. And they can challenge the Gedolim before them. It's not a problem to have a chiddush, as long as your chiddush has legs. Meaning, what does legs mean? Legs mean there are other chachamim that have said the same thing, that agree with your idea. It doesn't contradict anything before you. But unfortunately, a lot of people don't understand this, and they think that the Torah has changed. And that's why they fall trapped to such wicked people.

1:52:51that run Kehillot and speak against the Torah, speak against the Emes. So what do you do in a situation like this? What do you do in a situation where you have wicked people that are supposed to be leaders surrounding you? Rabbi tells you that you're allowed to go gamble. Rabbi tells you you're allowed to be with a prostitute as long as she's not Jewish. Rabbi tells you you're allowed to drive as long as you're driving to Shabbat. Rabbi tells you all types of things that are complete nonsense. There's no source for it in the Torah, but he tells you stuff like this. What do you do? Or perhaps you have family members that say things like this. Number one, if it's a rabbi, run away from him. There's no hope for such a person. You're not going to change the rabbi. Run away because if you don't, he'll turn you into him. You have to run away as far as possible. Don't learn from him. Don't listen to his lectures, not even to a joke. I would say,

1:54:02Something that's impure only produces impure. Meaning that even if it's something that seems neutral, like a joke, you shouldn't learn it, you shouldn't listen to it if it's coming from such a person. Because it's full of venom. But if it's a family member or just a regular person in the kehillah that's just confused, ignorant, and so on, Try to, if you have the strength and the knowledge, rebuke them, try to bring them the truth. But if you don't, if you have, let's say, a family member, you have a cousin, you have an aunt, you have a mother, you have a father, you have somebody in your family that's like this, and you're in a situation where you don't have much to do, then if you can't rebuke them and you cannot run away, meaning you're stuck, let's say you're a 15-year-old kid and your father is a heretic, Your father is, he tells people to drive on Shabbat. And you can't move out. You're 15. What do you do? Nothing. Don't do anything. Focus on yourself. If you're in a situation where you cannot rebuke, then you focus on yourself. Because that will be the rebuke. Like I said, you can always send them my lectures, my clips, and so on.

1:55:26But aside from that, don't even worry about rebuking them. Just simply focus on yourself. Focus on you doing teshuva and perfect yourself. Because that will be the biggest rebuke in the world. And again, this is only if you don't have a choice. You're a 15-year-old kid, you can't move out and your father is a kofer, your mom is a kofer. But if you have a choice, then obviously do something else. And every case has to be evaluated. But sometimes people tell me, "Listen, what do I do? I'm married to this guy, and he's this and that." I'm not going to tell everybody to get divorced. You have to try to get him back. You've got to try to get him to do teshuva. It's going to take some time, and so on and so forth. In the meantime, how? Focus on yourself. Why? Because what ends up happening is that if you increase your own kedusha, if you increase your own kedusha, you increase your own knowledge. you apply this knowledge to your life, that itself is going to be something that's going to get people to want to do what you're doing. More than anything that you can say. More than anything else that you can say. Why? Because what ends up happening is that they see how your life is turning out.

1:56:48And they see how their life is turning out. Two years have passed. Three years have passed. You're listening to this rabbi. You're doing teshuvah. You're fixing yourself. And what happens? You're becoming a better person. All of a sudden, the market crashes, but... No sweat. All of a sudden, there's traffic, but no sweat. You're calm. All of a sudden, there's a hurricane and no sweat. You think, "Wow, there's a hurricane. I didn't know." You don't care. Why? You know HaKadosh Baruch Hu runs the world. It's as if you're on autopilot. You're just living in the world and you understand Hashem runs the world. You have no stress. You have complete bitachon. Whether you have money or you don't have money, you're perfectly happy. Three years have passed. They're still the same beheimah they were three years ago, if not worse. They still curse like filthy animals. They still look at everything that moves. Their marriage is even worse today than it was before. Their kids have gotten worse. Their life has gotten worse. At best case scenario, it stayed the same miserable life as it was three years ago, while your life has improved. That you cannot ignore. Because they see your life is turning out peaches. Their life is like a rotten apple.

1:58:00that, rabotai, inspires people more than anything else that I can say. Eventually, what ends up happening is that those people, if they have a little bit of truth in them, start asking for advice and eventually maybe even ask you for blessings. Now, the point is, it all depends if they have a little bit of truth in them and they are willing to break their arrogance, which is very hard for people. Now, what ends up happening sometimes is that people, instead of focusing on the basics like I just recommended, try to do something else. They try to do something supernatural. They try to go to a tzaddik, or somebody that says he's a tzaddik, or a mekubal. They say, maybe if I get the blessing of the mekubal, my brother will do teshuva.

1:59:02Maybe if I get the blessing and the special water and the red string or purple string or the kameya of the mekubal, then my wife will do teshuva, start putting some clothes on. Or my father will do this. Or my father, maybe this, maybe that. They start looking for a shortcut. And they ignore, in essence, not only do they not rebuke anybody, but they ignore rebuking themselves. They ignore their own Shabbat. They figure, okay, I'm keeping Shabbat. I'm keeping a few basic things. I'm good. I'm on autopilot. I just got to get everybody else to catch up to me as if they're okay, as if they're the level to catch up to. They forget about their own Shabbat. This, Rabotai, is a very, very big mistake. Because relying on all of these mystical things to solve your problems is another problem in itself. And many of these people People go to are not only not mekubalim, but even if they are able to do something, usually they're using the kochot hatumah. They're using impure powers, and they create more problems than anything else. Now, how do I know this? We go to those same Rishonim, the same Rishonim that I just told you that they are walking on...

2:00:19Like people with perfect vision, well, the Acharonim, the sages of recent generations, are walking like blind people. Us, we're like, I don't know what we are. We're like worms with no eyes. Blind is not even in the description. We go to these Acharonim, what they say. We go to the Rivash. Rivash lived in Barcelona 600 years ago. Rabbi Yitzchak Bar Sheshet. He had several Rabbis. One of his, he was one of the Gedolei HaDor. After his Rabbis, who were the Gedolei HaDor, passed. One of them was Rav Peretz HaKohen. And the Rivash answered a lot of things in regard to halacha. And one time somebody asked him a question. What do we do in regards to all of these special prayers that people add to their siddur? These things are called kavanot. If you look at specific names and letters, you see an extra prayer above and beyond the norm.

2:01:38the extra stuff, small print, that a special siddur, that has special kavanot from the Arizal, and so on and so forth. Should we do all of those prayers or no? So in Siman Aleph, in Siman Aleph, Amud Kaf Nun, he says, what do we do in regards to all of these special sefiros and so on? says regarding all of these sefirot, all of these holy names, and special kavanot, that are added to the siddurim, that people, you know, make themselves a little poster, and read this special prayer above and beyond, that some mekubal wrote to them, or some kameya that somebody gave them, and so on and so forth. The Rishon, the Rivash, says regarding all of them, we do not use them at all.

2:02:39And my Rav, he says, Rav Peretz HaKohen, would never even speak of them, nor use them in any way, shape, or form. And I know that the Gadol HaDor, Rabbi Shimshon MiKinon, himself said, meaning somebody that's even before him and his rabbi, 700 years ago, Himself says what about all of this special Kabbalah stuff? What about all that stuff? He says, when I pray, I pray to HaKadosh Baruch Hu like a Tinok. What's a Tinok? A baby. What's a baby? What does a baby ask from Hashem? Abba, give me some food. Abba, give me some candy. Abba, I need to go to the bathroom. But the basic stuff, the simplest, simplest of all. Now, how can this be? The Arizal was Kodesh Kodashim. No one disagrees. The Mekubalim, I mean, all of these giants that I mentioned, they all knew Kabbalah. They're all Mekubalim themselves. So how come they're saying they're not using this? What does it mean? In fact, they're saying now they're using it to pray like a baby. So what's the idea?

2:04:03One of the ways that these fake Chabadniks fool people into believing that they're tzaddikim and they know better than everybody else is by teaching people mystical Judaism. And it's not just fake Chabadniks, it's also other fakers. I mentioned Chabad because it's, unfortunately, again, like I said, more common and more, just more of them teaching this type of stuff. is by teaching people mystical Judaism, telling you You have to look at the Shoresh HaNeshama. You have to go into the source of your Neshama and find this and look at this and the Sefirot and the Kavanot, and they give you all types of letters that make a name of some angel, and they tell you for $550 you can get this and put it on your wall. It's going to solve your problems. And then when you get more problems, it says, oh, that's because you only have the first part. The second part is $4,500.

2:05:04and you're so desperate you buy the second one for $4,500, and then you have even more problems. Why? Because now you're missing $5,000, and that's more problems. And so, I have a segulah for you. What's going on? And I give you a segulah for parnassah. You go to some segulah for parnassah, and you buy the segulah, and you go home, and after you paid him a thousand dollars, guess what? Nothing changes. But it's true, it is a segulah for parnassah. It's just for him, though—a segulah for his parnassah. He got a thousand dollars. It's good for his parnassah. One of these jokers went to Rav Efraim. He says, you know, how are you doing? He goes, Baruch Hashem, everything's good. He goes, why, what do you do? He says, I write kame'ot for people. You need a kame'ah? He tells Rav Efraim, because you need a kame'ah, I'm going to write a kame'ah for you. He goes, what kind of kame'ah? He goes, I can make you a kame'ah for parnassah. He goes, "Oh, okay, no, I don't need, thank you." And he says, "So how about you, are you doing okay?" He goes, "Ah, the guy, the mekubal." He goes, "No, I'm struggling a little bit." He goes, "What's wrong?" He goes, "No, parnassah is weak." So he says, "So why don't you write yourself a kame'ah? Write yourself a kame'ah, it's good for parnassah, no? What does it mean to write a kame'ah for parnassah? It's their parnassah. If you're giving them a thousand dollars, it's going to help their parnassah, it's not going to help you."

2:06:29And unfortunately, a lot of these fakers, they teach the masses things that have truth in them, but are simply not relevant to the speaker or the listener. It's not relevant to the one speaking, and it's not relevant to the one listening. But since it's so out of the ordinary and you start mentioning angels and special things and spirits and names, it fools the people into a state of mental numbness. Take whatever this guy says to them. They're never gonna question anything that he does. It's unusual. He's raising five hundred thousand dollars for the shul, but the shul itself, the whole building, cost three hundred. What do you need five hundred thousand for? He didn't tell you that's because the extra few hundred is for his own kitchen. Yes, you don't understand what's going on here. How come? How come this? How come that? How come nobody in the kehillah keeps Shabbat? How come nobody in the kehillah does anything?

2:07:31You don't know anything. How come this rabbi speaks so strongly against you? How come? If everything is good, how come there's so many problems? So, it's because people, Rabotai, are being taught things that are not relevant to them. Most of the time it's complete nonsense and falsehood. But it sounds good. because they'll mention a tzaddik's name, they'll attach it to their stuff, they'll mention some things that are unusual and mystical, they'll attach it to this. They'll do all types of mishmash to make it sound like they're all-knowing and let you completely ignore the basics. And many times these resha'im that mislead the public do it in the name of Chassidut. They don't teach you the truth about Chassidut, but they'll teach you things in the name of Chassidut. So, Chassidut was started by the Baal Shem Tov. Even though Chassidut is already mentioned in the Gemara, over a thousand years before the Baal Shem Tov was even born, Chassidut as a movement, from which Chabad, Bobov, Vizhnitz, Breslov, and other Chassidut groups all broke off into,

2:09:01And everyone says, oh, well, it starts with the Baal Shem Tov. So the Baal Shem Tov, alav hashalom, was Kodesh Kodashim. He performed miracles that, I mean to say, anyone that believes all of the stories in the name of the Baal Shem Tov, all the mystical things that he did, literally, is a fool. But anyone that doesn't believe him is a kofer. What do you think? He couldn't do it. Some of the stories are 100% as they're told. Crazy stuff. Mamash knew what's going on in Shamayim. Some of the stuff is a little bit of embellishment. But that doesn't mean that he couldn't do it. Mamash, he mamash understood what's going on in Shamayim. The Baal Shem Tov had a talmid. Originally wasn't his talmid, was actually his enemy. Made him his talmid. His name was the Ba'al Toldot, Rabbi Yaakov Yosef, from Poland. And the Ba'al Toldot, one day the Ba'al Shem Tov comes to him and he says, I want you to be the one that is the toke'a of the shofar. Blows the shofar on Rosh Hashanah for us on this holiday.

2:10:23Go blow the shofar. It's not like today. Everybody goes on the internet, goes on Amazon or something, or some Judaica store, they order a shofar. Two months later, they get a shofar. What shofar? They learn on the internet how to blow a shofar. No, to blow a shofar, first of all, you should pick somebody that's a tzadik to blow a shofar. The rest of it is irrelevant. If you have a tzadik, the rest of it you'll have. But anyway, the Baal Shem Tov says, I want you to be the one that blows the shofar for us. I'm not at this level. I don't know all the kavanot that you have, the tikkunim, the things. No, no, don't worry. I'm going to teach you. I'm going to teach you all the kavanot that you need to have in mind when you're blowing the shofar. And if you remember everything I teach you, You will be able to save all of Am Yisrael from any judgment for the entire year. Because of this, these kavanot I'm going to teach you for a month straight, we're going to learn all month of Elul. We're going to learn every day the whole month of Elul. I'm going to teach you. You're going to know all the kavanot. And when you blow the shofar, this shofar,

2:11:49With these special names you'll have in your head, it's going to open all the gates where none of the prosecutors against anyone in Am Yisrael will be able to have a case. Such a zechut, such a merit, such an honor, but at the same time, such a responsibility. They start learning. Learning, he's teaching them all these things just so you know. You'll find them in all of your siddurim. You have a little bit of it; some of it, you know. The siddurim of the Mekubalim are very different than the traditional siddur. For example, the Sefirat HaOmer that you have in your siddur, usually you have two pages, maybe three pages. You count the Omer: "Today is this day of the Omer," and so on and so forth. The Mekubalim, the real Mekubalim, this Sefirat HaOmer is a siddur itself. 500 pages. Just for Sefirat HaOmer. We're not talking about Amidah, Shacharit, no, no, no. We're talking about just Sefirat HaOmer. That's those two, three pages with all the special names of angels and this and that. It's almost 500 pages. When you pray on Yom Kippur, you're going to pray in the morning for several hours.

2:13:02The Mekubalim, the real Mekubalim, every day is like that. The whole year. Arvit. Arvit. It takes, I don't know, 10-15 minutes. It could take them 3 hours. But that's real Mekubalim. They have these Kavanot, they have all these Shemot, and so on and so forth. So the Baal Shem Tov told his Talmid, I'm going to teach you all the Kavanot you need to have in your mind when you're blowing the Shofar. To remember all of them. And they're learning, and they're learning, and they're learning. He says, I can't remember all of this. I can't remember. It's too much. So, I'll write it on a piece of paper. In shorthand, because it's so much, you can't write it all. It's going to be a whole book. In shorthand, to memorize everything. Okay? Rosh Hashanah comes. I'm praying. The time comes for blowing the shofar. The Baal Shem Tov told

2:14:05His mind goes blank. He forgets all of the kavanot. Everything he learned for the last month, he forgets everything. He thinks, Baruch Hashem, I have the paper. So he looks into his machzor. Paper, paper, paper. The paper has vanished from the world. Nothing. Now, this is the Beit Knesset of the Baal Shem Tov. It's not your regular Chabad or Breslov Center. This is the Beit Knesset of the Baal Shem Tov. All of his kehillah, Kodesh Kodashim. Everything is relying on him. Am Yisrael is relying on him right now. There's nothing that he can do. It's time to blow the Shofar. He forgets everything. There's no hope in sight. And he takes it so hard, he starts hysterically crying while he's blowing the shofar. And you see water, water coming out of his eyes. Water, it's like a fountain. But he has no other kavanot. He's just blowing like a regular, average guy.

2:15:15But he's crying, miskin, the poor guy. He's like, I just let Am Yisrael down. I let the Baal Shem Tov down. I let the kehillah down. What did I do? Maybe in Shamayim, that's what they're telling me. What are you doing dealing with the things of heaven, you little nothing? Well, that's what they're telling me. Who says that we're going to allow you to have the kavanot? Who says that we want you to say these Names? Who says that you have the permission to say these Names? Who do you think you are? Why? Because you came to this Beit Knesset? Why? Wait. Oh, wow. The poor guy takes it so hard. He's hysterical, crying, blowing the shofar. After he finishes blowing the shofar, prayer is finished. Comes to the Baal Shem Tov, he sees the Baal Shem Tov smiling like this. He's crying his eyes out, he's got tears everywhere. Looks like he just had a tragedy. In his life, he did! He says, you probably know, but I forgot everything. I didn't think of any of the kavanot. He sees the Baal Shem Tov laughing.

2:16:30He goes, "No, no, no. Even the piece of paper that I wrote everything on, I lost it." And he sees the Baal Shem Tov giggling. He goes, "No, no, no. I not only forgot, I not only didn't have the paper, when I blew the shofar, I didn't have any kavanot at all. Nothing." And he sees the Baal Shem Tov giggle. He goes, "What, are you making fun of me?" He says, "No, no, my son." I prayed a special prayer, a special prayer for you to lose that piece of paper. "What? For the Rav, you prayed for me to lose the paper?" "Yeah. But you're the one that taught me everything for the last month." So why? He says, I already knew you're not going to remember everything in 30 days. All those kavanot take a long time to remember. You can't remember everything in 30 days. So I knew you're not going to remember everything. But then when you came up with the idea of writing the piece of paper, I said, HaKadosh Baruch Hu, please, please, please, HaKadosh Baruch Hu, take this piece of paper. Why? Because I can't steal it from you. That's gezel. So I prayed to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, please take away this paper somehow. And Baruch Hashem, my prayer...

2:17:46God accepted. He says, "Yes, but Kvod HaRav, why? Why? Why did you teach me this just so I could fail?" He says, "Because the kavanot, you see, the kavanot, they are keys. Each kavana is a key to a different gate in heaven. It's a key. But a broken heart, a broken heart full of tears, One that tried to do the will of HaKadosh Baruch Hu but failed, but is crying about failing HaKadosh Baruch Hu, failing Am Yisrael—that breaks the whole door down. What you did, your crying, did a whole lot more than any kavana in the world can do. So you see that even though the Baal Shem Tov knew all of the kavanot, knew all of the Kabbalah you can possibly imagine, and the Mekubalim know all of that stuff, they're never going to tell you to replace a broken heart with a kavanah, with the mystical stuff, with the stuff that's above and beyond nature. No, that's an extra additive. If you're an expert in everything else, then you add a little sauce on it.

2:19:11Then you add a little bit of flavor into it. But there's nothing ever better than the prayer of the Tinok. What's the Tinok do? My little baby Yosef, you know what he does in the morning? As soon as he wakes up. If he wants something, if he's hungry, if he has something in his pants he doesn't like, guess what he does? Why? Because what do babies do? They cry. They cry like a little baby. And as soon as you give him his bottle, as soon as you change his diaper, guess what he does? He smiles. As happy as can be. That's what we're supposed to do. Simple, simple stuff. Not the elaborate stuff that gets us into trouble, believing in false teachers, believing in false teachings. all of this nonsense that people are falling victims to, but in reality, they're also criminals themselves because they allow themselves to fall into this stuff. They're looking for a shortcut because they don't want to do the hard work. They don't want to keep Shabbat, change their behavior, be honest in their business, and do all the things responsible. So they're looking for some shortcut. Can I just buy Judaism? Can I just buy Olam HaBa? Can I just buy Gan Eden with the money that God gave me?

2:20:34God gave me money; can I buy Gan Eden too? If He's God, didn't He also give you the money? Never thought about that? No, the Rebbe never told me that. Yes, because the Rebbe never told you anything. You never read his books even. So, a lot of people say things in the name of the Rebbe. The Rebbe was a tzaddik. Don't believe anything that people say unless you read it for yourself. Read it for yourself. He has, Baruch Hashem, many, many books. It's all published on the internet. Most of it is free. If something that's being said by some tzaddik contradicts the reality that we learn, the basics that we learn, double-check it. And I promise you, almost 100% of the time you'll see that they never said it. Almost 100% of the time you'll see they never said it. And even when they said it, they didn't say it exactly like some person is saying it.

2:21:35There's nothing that's ever going to change from the Torah. The basics, basic mesirut nefesh, self-sacrifice, the basic sacrifice that we have to do in order to overcome all of the obstacles in this life, in order to serve HaKadosh Baruch Hu, in order to arrive at Gan Eden one day, there's no two ways about it. No one can buy their ticket with money. No one can buy their ticket because they go pray in a specific tzaddik's grave. There's no shortcut. There's no easy way of doing it. If you do not learn Torah every day, you simply do not have a chance. Why? Because you're not going to know how to live a Jewish life. If you do not fulfill mitzvot as if it's air that you're breathing, you're not going to get there. And no rabbi can help you. No rabbi can help you. If you allow yourself to be vulnerable by simply depending only on what people said and not on what you read yourself, you're making yourself the victim. It's nobody else's fault. They're not going to tell you in Heaven, "Oh, what, the rabbi over there, he misled you. Oh, okay, okay, we'll let you in Gan Eden anyway." That's never happened in history. Why? Because even though this fake rabbi

2:22:59He's going to get Gehinnom for sure. That does not give you the right to sin. Why? Because you had to double-check what he said. You still had a responsibility to learn Torah. And if you really wanted to learn the truth, HaKadosh Baruch Hu would have provided it to you on a silver platter, even after somebody taught you falsehood. Plenty of people Come to me, Baruch Hashem, believing in complete nonsense, but leave knowing the truth. To such an extent that we have people that believed in 100% idolatry, in Christianity, in Catholicism. They tried to missionize me. Now, Baruch Hashem, some of them are already converted. Some of them are in the process of conversion to Judaism. They're more religious than any Jew I know. But they came to me believing in some idol, in a statue, in a man. But now they see the truth. How? They were looking for the truth. They thought they had it. They thought they had the truth. But it was shown that they had falsehood. And the truth still exists, and it's not what they had. They adopted it. That's it. Finished. No convincing necessary. No, let's argue. No, I don't argue with anybody. You argue with me, I hang up.

2:24:17Oh, delete. Usually, it's delete because I don't usually pick up the phone. Oh, let's have a debate. No. How about that? How about the answer no? You want to have a debate? Go debate yourself. Smash your head against the wall until it hurts enough. You don't want to debate anymore. And then when you wake up from that headache, press play on the YouTube video. Finished debate. You got action, and you got information. What? What do you want? Debate means that your information has any value to me. And I'm insecure about my information. I'm perfectly secure with my information, and your information about Christianity and Catholicism has zero value to me. Zero value, zero merit. There's no debate to be had. No, but explain this. I don't want to. No, but you have to. No, I don't. There's plenty of information available to answer every question that you have. You go to my shiur, it answers 90% of your questions. If it doesn't, there's plenty of other shiurim that we recommend, Rabbi Mizrachi's debate, Rabbi Tovia Singer's, and so on and so forth, if you're coming from that part of the world. If you're coming from the Jewish world, there's, Baruch Hashem, over a thousand videos, Baruch Hashem, Baruch Hashem, that we've done over the last five years. A thousand videos that you can learn from. By the time you learn a hundred, you're already a tzaddik.

2:25:42200, you're a rabbi. You go learn those videos, you're never going to believe any nonsense ever again. So how come some people learn two, three hundred videos, but they're still kofrim? How come? Because while they're learning that, they never abandon the Avodah Zarah. They learn both. They're being entertained. So that's one of the things that we have to understand. It's very, very important to know that, yes, there are mystical things in the world. There are things in the world that can help. But nothing goes above and beyond the basics. The basics are what we need. The basics are the only thing that's going to get us to Gan Eden. There's no shortcut whatsoever. And I promise you that the day is going to come when all of these wicked people who mislead others will have to pay for it. The question is how many people they're going to take down along with them.

2:26:44Realistically speaking, anyone that wants to know the truth seriously will find it. That's a promise in the Torah. That's a promise that HaKadosh Baruch Hu has given us. If you're really looking for the truth, HaKadosh Baruch Hu promises to give it to you. He promises to give it to you. But if you're looking for a shortcut, you'll get that too. You'll get that too. I know I was planning on talking a little bit about bitachon, but it just didn't... fit with some of the other things that we mentioned. But I can tell you one last thing in regards to bitachon, and then we'll finish for the night. We'll see you next week. In order to handle all of these wicked people, these false teachers, whether it be on the internet or live, you have to have bitachon. The reason why is, can you lower it a little bit? It's making too much noise. You have to have bitachon. Why? Because bitachon means you have to have confidence in HaKadosh Baruch Hu that He knows what He's doing. He knows what He's doing. Because it's very easy to say, wait a minute, if there are all these wicked people that are misleading people, how come Hashem lets them live? I ask the question also. I ask the question also.

2:28:02Some people are so wicked, they really manipulate the Torah to such a high extent. I'm thinking to myself, how does Hashem let such a rasha live? The guy is really destroying the Torah. How does Hashem let it? And he does it in broad daylight. Big video telling people, "No, Hashem needs you. Hashem needs you. Hashem needs you more than you need Him." There's one clown that says this in almost every single video. Hashem needs you more than you need Him. He needs your mitzvot. Why? He created you. Why? Because He needs you. You didn't create yourself. Look, he has this stupid logic and people, they like grab onto him like it’s a... Where does Hashem need you? Hashem needs you. Saying Hashem needs you is kefirah. Hashem is perfect. When you pray, you're telling HaKadosh Baruch Hu, I'm sorry for all of my failings. Every day. Why do we say the beginning of Arvit? Why do we say the beginning of Arvit? We say to Hashem, we acknowledge our failures because we have our failures. It's unbelievable. People never understand what they actually read. Just look at the beginning of Arvit. Everybody has this.

2:29:25He, the Merciful One, will forgive our iniquity and will not destroy us many times, and will not turn and will blow, and will turn away His anger, and His anger will not be aroused, and His wrath will not be aroused. Hashem, Hashem, the King, answer all of our prayers. Even before we start our tefillah, we're already acknowledging our failures and shortcomings. Please give us another chance, in so many words, and don't destroy us. So why would a Creator that needs you—why should you be afraid of Him destroying you if He needs you? If I need something, I'm not going to destroy it. If I need money, I'm not going to start burning money in the streets. If I need anything, I'm not going to start destroying it. People say Hashem needs you. It's complete stupidity. It's humanizing God. But people do this all the time. And so you have to ask yourself, how come Hashem lets such people live? And not only live, but become so popular. If you look at some of the most popular speakers, they're the worst people on earth. In the Christian world, you have the most popular ones. They get literally 50, 100, 200,000 people to watch them live every Sunday, and millions around the world every Sunday. All they say are things against Hashem.

2:30:52the Jewish world, Hashem, you see some people have three, four hundred thousand views on a video that's complete heresy. In one case, I saw one guy has a video with 1.1 million views. The entire video is kefirah, but his beard sweeps the floor, white as Santa Claus, and nobody calls it out, nobody says anything. How come? How come Hashem lets these people live? You have to have bitachon that HaKadosh Baruch Hu knows what He's doing. You have to have confidence that HaKadosh Baruch Hu allows these people to live because it's part of our test to see whether we're going to stick to the system, the basic, the seemingly boring system, the seemingly mundane, the seemingly unexciting system. Do we stick to it, or do we go into something a little more exciting? Do we go into something with more bells and whistles, a few more cool names—maybe I can put them on my walls? Go and delve into the Zohar before I even finish the Chumash. Go into the Kabbalah Centre before I even understand how to spell Kabbalah in Hebrew.

2:32:15Go and learn all the mystical stories of the Mekubalim before I even understand what a Mekubal really is or what it actually means. Go there. Why? It's part of that test. How do we know? David HaMelech. David HaMelech told us. David HaMelech in Tehillim number 115. he says, And Tehillim number 115, verse 9. It begins, and he says, David HaMelech says, "O Israel, have bitachon in Hashem," meaning they have trust in Hashem, their help and their shield is He. Meaning that because they have trust in Hashem, Am Yisrael, because of that, HaKadosh Baruch Hu is their shield and He helps them. The house of Aharon, trust in Hashem, their help and their shield is He. Wait a minute, but Aharon is not part of Am Yisrael? And he says, and those who fear Hashem,

2:33:44Trust in their... Yeah, you who fear Hashem, trust in Hashem, their help and their shield is He. Wait, hold on a second. You just said, Am Yisrael, trust in Hashem, He's going to be your shield. Then you said, Beit Aharon, trust in Hashem. Wait a minute, hold on a second. Beit Aharon is not part of Am Yisrael? And then another one said, Yirei Shamayim. Those people that have Yirat Shamayim, Hashem's going to protect you also because you have Bitachon in Him. Hold on a second. What? The ones that have Yirat Shamayim are not Jewish? Why? If you have Yirat Shamayim, you're not Jewish anymore? It makes you more Jewish. So the Malbim writes, and he says, here we see that David HaMelech is explaining that there are levels, levels of closeness to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. This is the basic level. Everyone. It's Am Yisrael. Am Yisrael. Am Yisrael, even if you don't know a lot of Torah, Even if you're not the biggest tzaddik in the world, even if things don't make sense, like false teachers, poverty, cancer, and all types of things that don't make sense, you have confidence that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is going to shield you. He's going to help you.

2:35:01Okay, that's the average guy, poor guy, doesn't know anything. Oh, yeah. Well, he's like desperate. Anyway, what other choice does he really have? Anyway, who's gonna trust Donald Trump? Who's gonna trust his bank account? What's he gonna trust? He has no other choice. So then David HaMelech says, but even if you are Aharon, even if you are Beit Aharon, what's Beit Aharon? Beit Aharon is the Mekubalim. The ones that know Kabbalah, the ones that know all the stuff that's happening in Shamayim. What’s Aharon HaKohen? The Gemara in Masechet Yoma says, what’s a Kohen? If a Kohen does not have Ruach HaKodesh, we do not give him the Urim and Tumim, we take it back, we kick him out; you’re not a Kohen anymore. Somebody wants to be a Kohen. They're going to Beit HaMikdash, they give them Urim and Tumim, and they ask HaKadosh Baruch Hu questions, and Urim and Tumim show it on the Choshen. What's going on? What does Hashem think over here? But if he doesn't have Ruach HaKodesh, the Urim and Tumim don't work. So the Gemara says, if he doesn't have Ruach HaKodesh, we kick him out. He's not a Kohen anymore. That's what it means to be a Kohen. Beit Aharon, who? You're a Mekubal of Mekubalim.

2:36:19No, no, no. Even if you're a Mekubal. Even if you have Urim and Tumim. Same thing. If confidence in the Lord is with you, you're safe. Hashem is going to help you. Hashem is going to help you. But look at who's the highest level. Look at who's the highest level. It's obviously not the Amcha. It's not the regular people. And it's not even the Mekubalim. It's who? It's the people that have Yirat Shamayim. The people that have Yirat Shamayim. They're the highest. And even they, as the highest, have to have Bitachon in HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Have to have Bitachon in HaKadosh Baruch Hu. How do we know they're the highest? The Gemara, Masechet Berachot, page 6b, says the following. Rabbi Chelbo said in the name of Rav Huna, Rav Huna was one of the biggest mezakei harabim, biggest influencers of the public, in history. When he died, they were burying him. He and another tzaddik were being buried at the same time. And they were going on a river. They were going on a...

2:37:46On top of a river, on a bridge, on a thin bridge. So the Arab that was on the camel carrying the tombs, there were two of them. One was carrying his tomb, one was carrying another tzaddik's tomb. And he says, ah, let him go in front of me because he's bigger than Rav Huna. This other tzaddik is bigger than Rav Huna. On the spot, all of his teeth fell out. Why? Are you speaking against Rav Huna? Saying somebody is bigger than him, somebody is smaller than him. All of his teeth fell out. That's how much of a tzaddik Rav Huna was. Rav Huna says, anyone who fears Hashem, fears Heaven, his words are heard. As it says in Ecclesiastes 12:13,

2:38:46The sum of the matter when all has been heard: fear God. Meaning that the only purpose, the only thing you have in the world is to fear HaKadosh Baruch Hu. And Amar Rabbi Elazar, Rabbi Elazar says, in the name of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, HaKadosh Baruch Hu Amar, HaKadosh Baruch Hu Amar Rabbi Elazar... ...that HaKadosh Baruch Hu Himself says that the only reason I created the entire world is for this person alone. Who is this person? This person that fears Me. This person that fears Me, fears HaKadosh Baruch Hu; the whole world is for him. And that's what the Gemara here continues to elaborate. It says... The entire world was created for this one person that fears HaKadosh Baruch Hu. That's it. So, from here we see the Gemara, the Orot Torah, the Rabbeinu Tam, everywhere testifies that someone that has Yirat Shamayim is higher than even the Beit HaLevi, Beit HaAaron, Beit Yisrael, and so on and so forth. So, Rabbi Ephraim says,

2:40:06Look at this. On one end, we see here that HaKadosh Baruch Hu says you want HaKadosh Baruch Hu's prayer to be answered, you have to have bitachon no matter who you are. You're regular, traditional, ignorant, but you're trying your best. Or you're Aharon, Mekubal, all that stuff. Or you have Yirat Shamayim. All of you have to have Bitachon. All of you have to have Bitachon. But how come the Yerei Shamayim, the Yerei Shamayim is considered the highest? How come? How come it's not the Mekubal or the regular Am Yisrael crying like a baby? Why? How come? He says because a lot of people can have bitachon, but false bitachon. Bitachon that's not going to stay forever. Why? He has bitachon under the circumstances. The line between bitachon and desperation is very thin. Sometimes a guy has bitachon because he has no hope. So what is he going to do? He says, "Ah, it's not the same thing; it's going to work out." So you owe the IRS a million and a half dollars. Yeah, it's going to work out. Why is he saying it's going to work out? Because he doesn't have the money. What else is he going to say? He says it's going to work out as if he has bitachon. It's not real bitachon. It's not real bitachon. It's like it's desperation.

2:41:22The guy is sick. The guy is sick as a dog. No, what's going on? Doctors know what's going on. You know Hashem runs the world. If it's not Hashem, things are not going to work out. If it's not Hashem, if it's not Hashem, the doctors have no answers. So what am I going to say to you? What am I going to say to you? Doctors have no answers. I went to the doctors. Doctors have no answers. So I'm desperate. I only have HaKadosh Baruch Hu. That's not real bitachon. That's desperation, really. But it's like a dust of bitachon. Rabbi Fahim says the reason why Yirat Shamayim is the top priority is because if you have Yirat Shamayim, your bitachon will be real under all conditions. Why? Because you're afraid of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, and you're afraid in order to serve Him under all conditions, whether those conditions are favorable to you, obviously, or unfavorable to you. You know, whatever it is, you're serving HaKadosh Baruch Hu because you fear Him. But now, that fear is going to lead you to have confidence

2:42:29that He's going to pay you in the end. That everything is for a purpose. That that punishment is really, you know, Him really holding you like a baby, helping you. That that difficulty is really for your favor. That lacking, that missing, that whatever it is, it's all for you. So it starts from the fear of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, but it leads to bitachon. It leads to having the bitachon in Hashem, the trust in Hashem that everything's going to be okay. So that type of bitachon lasts forever, no matter what the conditions are. Whether you have the money to pay the IRS or you don't have the money to pay the IRS, either way, you have trust in Hashem that He knows what He's doing. He puts you in this blunder, He puts you in this little situation. Why? That's His business. I'm here to serve Hashem no matter what. I'm here to serve Hashem no matter what. This, rabotai yekarim, is the only type of bitachon that's going to help you in all messes that you get yourself into. Whether it's because your family is upside down, or your boss is upside down, or the whole government is upside down, or your life is upside down. The only type of bitachon that's going to actually help you under all conditions is that type of bitachon. Bitachon that's coupled with yirat Shamayim. But that type of yirat Shamayim is not going to come from some trick or some string.

2:43:52or some quick book or some quick little reading you're going to do for 40 days straight. All of those things are cute and they're all good, and some of them are actually even true, but they're all additives. They're all like sprinkles on a sundae. They're not the sundae, they're not the ice cream, they're not the food, they're not the main course, they're little sprinkles. That's all it is. The main thing is to work on the basics, to work on yirat shamayim, to work on yourself and make sure to fix your middot. Fix how you are, but also fix how people view you. Don't give them a reason to suspect you of sins. Don't suspect other people for no reason either. That's also a heap of trouble for yourself. The point being, don't just listen to the shiur. Learn the shiur. Don't just listen to Torah. Learn the Torah. But don't learn from just anybody. Learn from somebody that you want to be like them, or at least what they're trying to be.

2:45:10Don't learn from somebody that, oh, he's funny. What, are you trying to be a funny guy? Because funny people go to Gan Eden? Just because they're funny? No, they have to have other things too. You have to make sure that you take this stuff seriously because there's just really not much time. There's just not that much time. Even if we have 10 years, it's still not considered much time because to do teshuva is day in, day out. It's toiling every day. It's accounting every day. It's fixing every day. And after you've finished fixing one thing, you realize you have even more than what you had in the beginning. Why? Because the more you fix, the more you realize other things have to be fixed. It's like fixing a house. You remodel a house. You start with the kitchen. By the time you finish three-quarters of the kitchen, you want to do the bathroom too because it's connected. Then you do the bathroom. You say, I can't just do one bathroom. So you have to do the other bathroom also. Then you finish the bathroom and two bathrooms. Yeah, I'm going to have these two beautiful bathrooms, but the hallway is disgusting.

2:46:14So then you do the hallway. Then you do the hallway. It's like, yeah, I'm going to have a nice hallway, but who sleeps in the hallway? Why even do the hallway? So you want to do the bedroom now. Then you do the bedroom. It's like, I'm going to have bedrooms, a hallway, bathrooms, and everything else. But the whole den, the whole dining system is completely like homeless. How can I do it? So then you do the dining room. Then you do the dining room. It's like, I'm going to have a dining room with still an unfinished basement, unfinished garage, unfinished this. Next thing you know, you finished the whole house. That's teshuvah. That's teshuvah. Teshuvah is the more you do, the more you realize you need to do more. In this case, you have to do it. It's not like the house. You don't have to do anything. Teshuvah, you have to do. This, Rabotai, is something that's not easy, but it's not impossible either. Come to the shiur, you learn them, you address them, you apply them, and HaKadosh Baruch Hu will bless you for here and forevermore. Any questions? Okay. i don't know if it's going to be a simple one. None of your questions are simple, but they're good. So I was actually, I guess this wouldn't apply to someone who takes the role of a teacher, the responsibility of being a teacher. But I've heard that there's many that hold that today's generation, that there's a thin line between...

2:47:35A tinok shenishba, an am ha'aretz, and a rasha. So you really can't call someone who didn't quite grow up with a full appreciation of true Torah Judaism a rasha because they never really embodied the law or experienced it the way it should have been. So I know there are some scholars that hold that, you know, for example, our friend Rav Dror. He's an am ha'aretz. He's not learned enough in the Gemara. Should he be teaching? No. But is he wicked? I have my own personal feelings, but I'm curious about yours on the general topic, not the specific one. So, in regards to the topic of tinok shenishba, I've answered this before, and it's important to know this is a very, very misunderstood term and misunderstood topic in general. But I'll do my best to explain it, b'ezrat Hashem.

2:48:37The fact that the generation is weak in knowledge and strong in ignorance is not a secret. Everybody knows it. But Shlomo HaMelech says there's nothing new under the sun, meaning that every generation has its own tikkunim, every generation has its own sins. The modesty crimes that we have today also existed in the past in different forms, in similar forms. Wasting seed exists today; it existed back then. We see the prophet Yirmiyahu talk about it almost 3,000 years ago. We see Moshe Rabbeinu talking about it over 3,000 years ago. So the sins of today are not new. The way we're sinning—some of them are innovative or innovations of the past, some of them are exactly the same. Nothing has changed. The ignorance that we have today is perhaps more common in... And you can just put it inside this too. The ignorance that we have today is more common. Yes, that's definitely a fact, but ignorance of the law does not absolve you from the law. You cannot say, "Oh, I didn't know that the speed limit here is 40 miles an hour, so I decided to drive 300, and I want to be absolved from the law because I didn't know." It doesn't absolve anything; you're going to jail.

2:50:05Why? Because it's your responsibility to know the law. You have a brain that you have to use, just like you use that brain to make money, or you use that brain to do everything else in the world. You have a brain to learn what's the purpose of life. So to simply say that just somebody that was born not religious, that absolves them from the law, and by calling them a tinok shenishba is a mistake. To think that the generation is weak and therefore Hashem is just going to remove certain mitzvot from the Torah is actually heresy because that is one of the violations of the 13 principles of faith that says the Torah will never change. Meaning, Torah will never change means that it's applicable to every generation as is. It does not change. To say that a change is based on a generation is actually kefirah. Anyone that says that, you cannot count them to a minyan. He's not considered part of Am Yisrael. He's considered a Kofer. It's no different than a Christian missionary. It's a Kofer, especially if he's a teacher. So what does it mean, Tinok Shenishba, then? What does it mean, Tinok Shenishba? Okay, so if the guy was born religious or not religious, he still doesn't have a get-out-of-jail-free card. So what's the point of Tinok Shenishba, then? Tinok Shenishba means a captured baby. That is not a get-out-of-jail-free card. No, it's not a get-out-of-jail-free card. It's a halachic term.

2:51:26They asked Rav Wasserman, and they said, are you really saying that all of these secular people are all going to go to Gehinnom? He said, of course. What do you mean? He yelled at them. He said, of course they're going to go to Gehinnom. He said, yeah, but they don't know. They're ignorant. He goes, Ignorant, not ignorant. They're all going to Gehinnom if they don't do teshuva. Why? He says, what is it like? It's like somebody was lost in a desert. But then they found a castle. And the castle's brand new. And they go inside the castle. And it's all clean. And there's perfectly fresh food. And it's full of diamonds and full of jewels and full of food. And everything is wonderful. And they start taking whatever they want and put it in their pockets. And then the guard catches them and says, what are you doing here? And they arrest them and take them to court. And the judge says, what do you have to say for yourself? And the guy that says, "Oh, I just thought that the castle came by itself. I didn't know it belonged to anybody." The judge is going to punish him even more. Why? One, for the crime. Two, for the stupidity of thinking that this castle, with all the beautiful, perfectly fresh fruits, came by itself and didn't belong to anybody.

2:52:33So he says a secular person thinking that they're going to leave the world, secular, and still go to heaven and everything's going to be okay, they'll get punished additionally for such stupidity. Thinking that they got all this life, 70, 80, 90 years of benefits from HaKadosh Baruch Hu for free. They'll get punished extra for that. So what's the benefit of being a Tinok Shenishba? First and foremost, we need to know that there are only three major Poskim that have mentioned that the generation has more Tinokot Shenishbu than any other generation before. The Chazon Ish, Rav Moshe Feinstein, and the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Even Rav Moshe Feinstein, who mentioned it, didn't mention it as people think. It's actually to a lesser extent. But nonetheless, the whole Tinok SheNishba situation has been misunderstood to mean that if he's a Tinok SheNishba, meaning he was born into some secular family, or perhaps even his family is full of kofrim, then he's absolved from mitzvot.

2:53:35This is 100% false. The Chazon Ish never meant this. The Lubavitcher Rebbe never said this. And definitely not Rabbi Moshe Feinstein or any chacham in the world. What does it really mean? First and foremost, Tinok Shenishba is mentioned in the Gemara Masechet Avodah Zarah, which is originally speaking about captured babies, Jewish babies that were captured by the goyim, and were led to believe that they're goyim. Meaning, they were captured by the Christians, which is what actually happened during the Holocaust. They were taken by the Christians as if they were going to protect them. But then, when the Jews came back and said, "I want my kid back," the Christian guy says, "I don't know who your kid is. Everybody here is Christian." And some of these kids continue living lives like this, not knowing they're even Jewish. If somebody is like that, that follows that term 100%. He doesn't know he's Jewish. He's not going to be judged like a Jew. But that's rare. That's rare and few and far between. The way that they're using it halachically is people that were born simply into a non-religious family. It's not Christian. He knows he's Jewish. He just doesn't know the details of being a Jew. He doesn't know about driving or not driving on Shabbat and so on and so forth. So,

2:54:49Rav Ovadia, alav hashalom, says that no one in Eretz Yisrael is a tinok shenishba. Why? Anyone that knows that a synagogue exists or even attended a synagogue cannot be considered a tinok shenishba because obviously he realizes there's a God in shamayim that runs the world. There's a law whether you follow it or not. That's your choice, but obviously you know that there is a law. You know that Shabbat exists. To say that you know there's a synagogue, and you know there's a rule, there's a Torah, and just feel like you're not following it, you know it exists, you know the law exists, you know that it's applicable to you because you're a Jew, you don't feel like following it. That doesn't make you a tinok shenishba. That follows, that same argument also follows New York, Florida, California, different parts of Maryland, and so on and so forth, all these Jewish communities around the world. But even if you don't want to apply it that way, even if you don't want to apply it that way, you don't want to apply it that way, the Kabbalah says, let's see what does it actually mean, tinok shenishba. Tinok shenishba is simply a term, a halachic term, that is used for somebody that had a certain type of upbringing, that doesn't know, is not aware of all of the details.

2:56:02So what does it mean? Does that mean they're absolved from mitzvot? No. It only means that you treat them differently than someone who is knowingly sinning. Meaning, if someone knowingly drives on Shabbat to Beit Knesset, if he goes to Beit Knesset, obviously he knows about the religion. If he knowingly drives on Shabbat, he knows that there are holidays, he goes to the synagogue once or twice a year, he knows that there's a religion. If he drives... Violate Shabbat, that person you cannot count in a minyan. That person is considered an idol worshiper. What if you invited them to your house for dinner, and he picked up the bottle of wine or the cup of wine you have, and you have fancy schmancy wine that's not cooked? And he picked up the cup, just to pick it up. You can no longer drink that wine. You have to throw that wine in the garbage. In fact, you giving him that wine, if he asked you for a cup of uncooked wine, you're not allowed to give him a cup. Why? Because he would actually ruin the wine. And that's actually a violation. A violation of Shabbat. So the point is that this person is a problem. Because he knows. What if he doesn't know?

2:57:16he doesn't know, meaning if he's classified as a tinok shenishba, then even if he touches the wine, it's still okay. It's still okay. Even if, let's say, he comes to your beit knesset and you want to give him an Aliyah, even though he doesn't keep Shabbat yet, you give him an Aliyah. He's not an idolater. But that's just halachically treating him as such. Doesn't mean he goes to Gan Eden. It just means you don't treat him like the Rasha. That's completely excluded from all Jewish ceremonies. You can't use him as a witness. If he touches your wine, he ruins it. You can't give him an Aliyah. If he says Kaddish, you don't have to say Amen. You just can't, you don't treat him like the Rasha. But it doesn't mean that you treat him like a Tzaddik. Meaning, if he dies tomorrow, he doesn't go to heaven. He still goes to Gehinnom. Nobody who is not keeping mitzvot goes to heaven. It’s not a get-out-of-jail-free card for not keeping mitzvot. It just means you don’t treat him as aggressively as the guy who is willingly doing it. He’s doing it ignorantly. So now you tell him, your responsibility is to save this captured baby. You’re not allowed to keep him tinok shenishba.

2:58:33If he's a captured baby, and you have a way to get him out by telling him, by the way, you're a Jew, and Jews are not allowed to drive on Shabbat, which is a very, very simple way to save a baby, you're not allowed to not tell him. Meaning, you're not allowed to keep him tinok shenishba. You're not allowed to keep him a captured baby. And the minute you tell him, by the way, Jews are not allowed to drive on Shabbat. By the way, you are a Jew, you have to keep Shabbat. You go to Beit Knesset, and so on and so forth. At that moment, he understands the responsibility. But if he chooses otherwise, guess what? He's not atoned on Yom Kippur anymore. And even if he was, it still doesn't absolve him from the crime, meaning if he died, he won't go to heaven. he doesn't go to heaven. My cousin who died a month and a half ago, two months ago, he's not in heaven. Let's not fool ourselves. He's my cousin. He's my family, but he's not in heaven. Why? He didn't keep Shabbat. He didn't keep anything. It's sad, but there are millions more like him. If you have family members that died without keeping mitzvot, they're not in heaven. Don't fool yourself. I have plenty of them that died. They're not in heaven. Hopefully, Hashem has mercy on them, perhaps through a gilgul, a reincarnation, so they can do teshuva. But you cannot go to heaven without keeping Torah and mitzvot. It's not possible. There's no get out of jail free card. There's no mechalel Shabbat that ever entered Gan Eden.

2:59:56There's no idolater that entered Gan Eden. There's no like an entry department. Oh, this is the heaven department for the Mechalel Shabbat. This is the heaven department for the idolaters. These are the guys that eat pig and cheeseburgers over there in heaven right next to the Etz Hadaat. No, there's no heaven for those people. The Tinok Shenishba only means how you treat them while you are trying to get them to do teshuva. That's all it means. It's a halachic term. ...of how you treat them, the level of aggression. The level of aggression. If he's not a tinok shenishba, meaning he's doing it willingly, you simply have to be as aggressive as possible. Meaning, if he touches your wine, you have to throw it out. If he says Kaddish, you can't say Amen. You have to say Amen to somebody else's Kaddish. As a witness at a wedding, you can't use him. And so on and so forth. You have to treat him as if he's an idol worshiper until he does teshuva. His Judaism is on suspension. If he's a tinok shenishba, then you don't treat him with that level of aggression. You simply say, okay, Habibi, listen, I understand you were born into a secular house, just like Yaron Reuven. You drove on Shabbat, you went to the mall, you did this, you did that, I get it. Well, Torah says you're not allowed to.

3:01:13Okay, you're not allowed to do this. That's what the Torah says. Here you go, as Torah and science prove. God is a Musar. See, this is my own move and proves pretty much you have to become a decent human being, and so on and so forth. That's it. This is the information you have. That's it, finished. You're not a tinok shenishba anymore. You're not captured anymore. Why? Be free, free to go, for you to do whatever you want. Free to do whatever you want. That's it. There's no mitzvah, but even until that point, that's it. It didn't get anybody to heaven. So that's the mistake of these fakers that come from places like this Chabad in Russia or in Palm Springs here in Florida or even next to my house in Hollywood. And all of these fakers all over the place that tell people, no, no, everybody's a tinok shenishba and nobody knows anything. So they're all okay. Mashiach is going to save them. There's not a single pasuk in the entire Torah that says such stupidity. For anyone to think that they're gonna enter Gan Eden, Mechalel Shabbat, in the same place as Moshe Rabbeinu, they're dreaming. I mean, think about it. In Gan Eden, it's not like, oh, yeah, Gan Eden is like a, you know, there's a Resha'im section, Tzaddikim section. Gan Eden is for Tzaddikim, Tzaddikim only. It's not like a Resha'im section. Yeah, these are the losers. But we still give Gan Eden because we feel bad for them because they were born into Zionistic families.

3:02:38To think such things is also making Hashem into a fool, as if Hashem doesn't know His creation. He didn't give these people a million and a half chances during their life to find the truth. He put somebody in this world just to make them fail while He gets pleasure out of it? He puts a person in the world just to make sure that they live a secular life so they can guarantee gehenom. For what? If you want someone to put them in gehenom, just put them in gehenom directly. Why would you need their permission? Everybody gets their chance. And another chance. And another chance. And another chance. I have people that really came from the Christian world, came from idolatry, came from voodoo, came from Islam, came from all types of filth and garbage. And today they're really righteous. Really righteous. So if they live their whole life, 20, 30, 40 years in the tum'ah of the tum'ah, the filth of the world, and then they discover the truth, you're telling me that Hashem didn't, you know, do good with them, but He's not going to do good with a natural born Jew? He's going to let the natural born Jew only have a chance to fail? What kind of God do you think runs this world?

3:04:01Everybody gets their chance. The halakhic term of Tinok Shenishba is not a get-out-of-jail-free card. It's simply how you treat somebody who's ignorant. That's it. It's, in essence, describing the level of aggression. That's all. It's not a ticket to Gan Eden. Anyone that tells you that, number one. is either a liar or a rasha or is completely ignorant or a combination of the two. It's like ice cream with three flavors—whatever you want. Either way, they're wrong. Nobody in the world ever said that—not the Lubavitcher Rebbe, not the Chazon Ish, not Rav Moshe Feinstein. No one ever said that ignorant people go to heaven. That doesn't exist. It's simply a halachic term. And for anyone that wants to believe that they're going to go to heaven even though they're going to be an enemy of Hashem their whole life, I don't know. It's like stealing and laundering money your whole life but thinking that the government is going to give you a medal for honest ethics in business. It's like being a mass murderer but wanting to get a Nobel Prize.

3:05:15Peace Prize because you're a mass murderer? Like, uh, stupidity. This is what you think Hashem runs the world like? No, Hashem runs the world with a signature. It’s called the signature of Hashem, and that means truth. That’s it. Once this truth is violated, there’s no more Torah. So there's no such thing as a get out of jail free card. I have family members that keep Shabbat, and I have family members that don't keep Shabbat. I have family members that keep Torah, and I have family members that don't keep Torah. I'm just like you. The ones that keep Torah, they'll be rewarded for it for eternity. The ones that don't, if they don't do teshuvah, they'll be punished forever. It doesn't matter if it's my family or your family. It doesn't make a difference. There's no, "Oh yeah, that's the rabbi's family, so it's okay," right? No. No, okay, nothing. It could be Moshe Rabbeinu's brother. Doesn't make a difference. Esav, Esav, his father was Yitzchak Avinu. He's still in Gehinom.

3:06:24So, it's not, it's a misunderstanding of, but I personally think, it's my hunch, maybe it's because I see a lot of evil in my life, but, you know, I personally think that the people that say that Tinok Shenishba argument constantly are doing it on purpose, knowing that it's not true. It's just not possible for so many people to be that ignorant. The general public being ignorant, that's a given. They're enabled. But, The rabbis, it's not possible for them to actually believe the nonsense that they're saying. You don't think it's for our benefit to rather than be judgmental to everybody and not give them the benefit of the doubt? Because, for example, it says, I think in Shavuos, I want to say 5a or 6a, it says that... The Jew has to be not just aware; he has to know the law. So he has to know the law at two separate points in time. To know, it's like the same way we don't believe in God, we know God. So he might be aware, ah, there's Shabbat, these people do Shabbat. My family doesn't do it, I don't do it. Eh, these people do it. So he's aware of it, but he doesn't know the importance of it. And I stress the importance of this. Rather than me go home and say this person's a rasha, this person's wicked,

3:07:37To step beyond myself and to give that person the benefit of the doubt, understanding the context that we're in, to really, not to give them a get-out-of-jail-free card, give me one so that I'm not so judgmental and condemning. But calling somebody a rasha doesn't make you judgmental. It's simply stating what Torah terms mean. A Torah term, "rasha," means somebody that violates the Torah. That's all it means. It doesn't mean that the person is evil. That means "ra." "Ra" is evil. "Rasha" means somebody that violates the Torah. So we see it from Moshe Rabbeinu tells They were fighting. The two Jews were fighting. After the Egyptian hit one Jew, Moshe Rabbeinu killed the Egyptian. The next day, two Jews were fighting. These two people were Datan and Aviram. They were both Rashaim actually. They were both evil. But one of them had his hand in the air and was about to hit the other. And Moshe Rabbeinu says, why are you being a Rasha? You're about to hit your brother. Meaning he didn't hit him yet.

3:08:38But the fact that his hand was in the air already qualified him to be a sinner and therefore a רשע (Rasha). Therefore, a רשע (Rasha). So, a רשע (Rasha) means somebody that violates the Torah. It doesn't mean that they are a pedophile or a murderer or an evil person that kills people. It doesn't mean that. It just means that they're a רשע (Rasha) and they violate the Torah. To ignore the fact that sometimes we ourselves are רשעים (Reshaim). To ignore the fact that we have family members and friends that are רשעים (Reshaim) is simply ignoring the Torah. It's a reality. It doesn't make us judgmental. That's what the Torah is calling them. That's what HaKadosh Baruch Hu is calling them. It doesn't mean that HaKadosh Baruch Hu hates them. It just simply means that they're רשעים (Reshaim). But if somebody does something and we know it's wrong and we don't do anything about it, that's not us being nice. that's us being not nice. Why? If, let's say for example, you saw that your friend was stealing money from a company you were both working for. Now, if you're also a thief, you're not gonna say anything. You're gonna join him and want a piece of the pie. But if you're not a thief, you're gonna see the guy stealing. If you're a friend of his, you're gonna tell him not to steal. If you hate him,

3:09:57you're going to tell them, "Make sure you get away, nobody sees you." Why? Because, in essence, if you hate them, you're going to tell them to just continue doing it, continue putting your life at risk. Continue, you know, putting yourself in a situation where you can go to jail for 20, 30 years for just a few dollars. Continue doing it. Go ahead. But if you love him, you're going to tell him, don't do it. Why? It's not good for you. Why? Because you're going to get in trouble one day. You may not be caught today, but you'll get caught in the future. If you love the guy, you're going to keep him out of trouble. If you love a guy, you're going to tell him, get out of the train tracks. The train's eventually going to come. That's if you love somebody. If you hate him, or you're completely careless about him, all you're going to care about is how you feel. Oh no, if I tell him something, then he'll yell at me, then he won't like me, then this, then that. So telling somebody that they're doing something wrong does not make us judgmental. It simply makes us a person that cares about another person. Just like if you saw somebody that was about to drink a cup full of poison, you're going to tell them, don't do it. Why? Because it's poison. That's it. Why? Does that make you judgmental? No, it just makes you somebody that cares, and you're warning them only. They want to continue doing it? No problem. At least I warned you. You don't want to listen? That's your choice. You want to go dance in the middle of traffic? Be my guest. You want to go drink poison for fun? Go ahead. Maybe they'll pay you at some circus if you survive. Whatever you want to do, do. But at least I warned you. I warned you because I care. You don't want me to just watch you kill yourself? No. So, it doesn't make us judgmental.

3:11:20The distinguishing part is, are we calling them Rashaim because they are doing the opposite of us, or are we calling them Rashaim because they violate the Torah? That's the difference. If we're calling them Rashaim because they violated the Torah, then all we're doing is stating a Torah term and applying it to a situation that the Torah says that's what it is. All we're doing is like reading a passage from the Torah. Saying that doesn't make me judgmental; it's like God saying that He created the world in the beginning. It's just stating a fact. Saying someone's a Rasha because they violated the Torah is not judging them. It's simply stating a fact. But if I say, "Oh, he's a Rasha. Why? Ah, he does something that's the opposite of what I'm doing." Yeah, that makes me judgmental. Why? Because, in essence, it has nothing to do with Torah. That makes me judgmental. He's a Rasha because he's doing something opposite of me? No, that makes me judgmental. So the point is to understand. A person needs to be cognizant of his own actions even more so than other people.

3:12:31He has to do cheshbon hanefesh. He has to do self-accounting for himself. And he has to be very, very strict on himself, but lenient on others. What does it mean to be lenient on others? If you don't have a reason to call them a rasha, and they do something that looks like something that a rasha would do. then you find an excuse to find him innocent. Meaning, if you know this guy keeps Shabbat, but one day you see him driving on Shabbat, you have to find a creative reason for why he's driving. He's saving a life. He's doing something that's saving a life. That's why. Because you don't have a real reason to find him guilty. Because until now, you have all the reasons in the world to find him innocent. If you don't know him, it's the same thing. But if... if... You know this guy drives on Shabbat. Why? Because he drives to Beit Knesset every Shabbat and everybody knows. You are not allowed, you're not allowed to call him a rasha. Because he is a rasha. And he's a rasha in public. That's a person, there's no mercy on such a person. Why? Because he's doing his sins publicly with no care in the world. He's desecrating Hashem's name just simply with his existence. So that's not being judgmental. That's being,

3:13:52agreeing with the Torah itself. Does that mean that you start throwing stones at him? No. Does that mean that if he says, "I don't have a place to go to for Shabbat, can I stay by you?" and you really have room, but not invite him? No, you can invite him. As long as he complies with the rules. Does that mean that if he says, "How are you doing?" you don't answer him? No, you say, "How are you doing?" Say, "How are you doing?" But do I eat his food in his house? No. No. You're not allowed to eat the food of the house of somebody. Somebody asked me that question today. The holidays are coming up. Everybody has family members that don't keep Torah. Everybody has it. Every house has a dead body in it, meaning somebody is violating Torah. So, what do you do with those people? This is not only regarding the holidays. This is regarding the entire year. You're not allowed to eat food that was cooked by people who violate Shabbat, unless it's your mom and you saw her cook and you saw where she bought all the food.

3:15:00There's a leniency for that. But if it's your brother, your sister, your cousin, your neighbor's sons, daughters, cats, uncle, all of these other people, your best friend from high school that you know for 30 years, and for all 30 years is a violator of Shabbat, you're not allowed to eat at their house any time during the year. Needless to say, during the holidays. Why? If they violate Shabbat, Even if you see that they went to the supermarket and they buy this food from the same supermarket you do, and they buy kosher food, and you buy kosher food, you're still not allowed to eat their food. Why? If they don't keep Shabbat, that means they don't care about their own neshama. don't care about their own neshama, they definitely don't care about yours. This means that when it comes to cooking, it's not just about the food being kosher—meaning that the chicken or the turkey or the beef is kosher—it's also about how it is prepared. Are they going to put a little bit of cheese flavoring because it really, really tastes good and no one is looking?

3:16:06Are they going to use certain utensils you're not allowed to use? Certain flavorings you're not allowed to use? I have certain people that I know. They make sandwiches for their... We just prepared your sandwich. Nice bologna sandwich. The rabbi didn't eat. The rabbi didn't eat. I asked, how come you didn't eat? It's kosher food, no? He goes, yeah, the meat's kosher. I said, what's the problem? He goes, yeah, but the bread... It's full of bacon. She goes, how do you know? He goes, because I saw the bag of the bread and it's not kosher bread. And if it's not kosher bread and it came from that factory, I already know that they make certain flavoring from pig fat inside that bread. Why do you think it's not kosher bread? Well, you think it's just dough? It's not kosher for a reason, the bread. Because it has different flavoring that comes from all types of animals. So the bread's not kosher, so you eat the kosher salami with bacon on it. Good luck to you. the guy that doesn't keep Shabbat is not going to think, oh, I have to also buy kosher bread. I have to clean my vegetables with soap and salt water six times. You don't find a secular person that does that. You're not going to find it. That's why in Eretz Yisrael, even though it's much easier than any other country in the world to find kosher food and kosher slaughtering, kosher everything,

3:17:27the owner of the restaurant does not keep Shabbat, the Rabbanut does not give them a kosher stamp. Even if they know they buy the meat from a kosher place, it's still not kosher—still considered not kosher. Why? Because we cannot trust the rest of the process. The meat's good, but the rest of it we don't know. We don't know why he doesn't care about his neshama. We cannot rely on him. So that means that anyone that has relatives that do not keep Shabbat or are generally heretics. You should not eat their food. Not on the holidays, not on Shabbat, not on any day. Not on any day. The only leniency that I've ever heard of is, I believe it's from Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, is if it's your mom. If it's your mom and you went shopping with her for the food and you saw what she's cooking and how she's cooking. Why? Because your mom, she may not care about her neshama, but she cares about yours. She cares about yours. So she'll do it. If she knows you're religious, she'll do whatever you want her to do. Your neighbor, your best friend, your whatever, your colleague, your boss—everybody else—they don't care about your neshama. Your mom cares. Your mom you can trust. Everybody else you can't trust. Yes? So this past Shabbat,

3:18:41um, I was sitting with these two other guys, and I was telling them—we got into this conversation about it—and I said that he's an absolute rasha. Somebody said to me, "That's absolutely not a nice thing to say." Was he right? I kind of explained why, but the guy that told me it's not a nice thing to say was telling somebody else that... You can't believe that he can't believe what I'm saying until he actually sees it. Like I was explaining that Shmuley Boteach has made comments in the past saying he supports homosexuality and all this other stuff. But this guy was saying that until we see the video, you can't really believe what I'm saying. Okay, so what's the question? So my question is, is he right in saying that what I'm saying is not nice, or did I have a right to say that? What you're saying is absolutely not nice, and it's not supposed to be nice. It's supposed to simply state a fact. A rasha would be a compliment for him.

3:19:41He's a kofer. He's a min. He's an apikores. He's someone that we pray for him to die every single day. Even if you don't know it's him, we pray for people like him to die every single day, believe it or not. In fact, you've already prayed for him to die at least twice today. More actually, because in Mincha you actually even have more. You prayed for him to die even more. Look at this. In Mincha, you prayed for him to die during the Amidah: "Al haMinim ve'al haMalshinim lo tehi tikvah." "Lo tehi tikvah" means they should die. And so on. But then in Mincha, before Amidah, before Amidah, you said something very wonderful about Shmuley Boteach and anybody like him. He says... You see? What did you say? You said it, not me. I said it also. Secret. You said, so is that nice? It's not nice at all. But it's the truth.

3:20:52It's not about being nice. Who says? There's a rule in the Torah: Do not kill. Do not do this. Be nice. Is there a rule in the Torah to be nice? No. It's emet. Emet is the rule. It's not about being nice. Being nice is only for people that you are supposed to be nice to. HaKadosh Baruch Hu writes to the prophet. HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, I don't want peace with them. I don't want peace with them. That's what He says. Meaning, it's not about being nice. In fact, it's not allowed to be nice to people like this. Somebody that's a kofer. Somebody that's a heretic. Somebody that manipulates the Torah and distorts it. And makes constant, constant chilul Hashem. Either by writing a book called "Kosher Jesus" or writing a book with a porno star. having you know all types of comments to desecrate the Torah, like for example the ones you mentioned promoting or supporting homosexuality and making it as if it's not a big deal. There are at least two or three videos that I've seen of his where he says that homosexuality is just one mitzvah. What's the big deal if you don't keep it? You know, there's other mitzvot. I must completely destroy the Torah of a person like that.

3:22:07It's a mitzvah to hate them. It's a mitzvah to go against them publicly. It's a mitzvah to destroy their name. Just like it says in the Torah in last week's parasha, one of the mitzvot in the Torah is to destroy the Avodah Zarah. Avodah Zarah includes those people also. So it's not about being nice. In a war, there's no nice guy. If you're nice in a war, guess what happens? You die. So, in a war, there's no room for being nice. People that are against Hashem, people that are enemies of Hashem, you're not allowed to be nice to them. Why? Because you're in a war with them. But if you want to be nice to them, that means that you see yourself in them and you're just like them. You're just like them. That's your responsibility. Your responsibility is to tell the truth when the opportunity presents itself. As far as whether he believes you or not, that's a different scenario. He can say, "I don't believe what you're saying until I see it," and then he checks it out, and he checks it out, and he sees it's true, and then he has to do the same thing as you. He's not obligated to believe you in any way, shape, or form, especially if he only knows the good things about Boteach or anybody else that's a rasha. He only knows the good things about them. No problem. He's not obligated to believe you.

3:23:17But that doesn't make you wrong. Doesn't make you wrong at all. Reality is, everybody knows that he's a kofer. It's just that some people identify with his kefirah. They like it. Why? Because it justifies their own behavior. Because they want to do it also. They have a son that's homosexual, so they don't want to completely abandon him. So they say, Rabbi Boteach says that it's okay for you to be a homosexual, son. Come, come. Bring your boyfriend too. Why? Because Boteach, Rabbi Boteach, said it. And his son just opened a sex store. Maybe me and you are going to be partners in a sex store. You know why? Because Boteach, Rabbi Boteach, that's what he did, no? His daughter has a store in Tel Aviv. She had a TV interview. She's happy about it. They asked her, what about the rabbis? Are the rabbis going to get you? She goes, no. I already got rabbi approval. They said, what rabbi? She goes, my father. someone that's impure, only impurity comes out of him. So somebody like that violates and creates the tumah, it's a mitzvah to destroy them in any way, shape, or form. And that applies to anybody like him. Unfortunately, there are many, many people just like him, but he's one of the more popular ones, unfortunately.

3:24:39But listen, anyone that's looking for the truth can see that he's a filthy liar within two seconds. Anyone that's looking for an excuse to justify their behavior and things like that is going to listen to him and read all of his books, all 20 of them. And pay money for it too. Pay money to go to Gehinnom. Imagine, you're paying money to go to Gehinnom. Crazy. But that's what people do. So, I think that's a, you guys had some good questions, do you believe? Unless you have something that's relevant to it, or pressing, let's continue next week, B'ezrat Hashem, we'll be back here on Sunday. Sunday we're going to finish, B'ezrat Hashem, our series on B'tachon. We're going to try, B'ezrat Hashem, to finish the series on B'tachon, then decide what we're going to do after, whether we're going to continue something else. We'll see, B'ezrat Hashem, we'll see. But I like the smaller series because we cover a little bit more information. A few people made suggestions of some other things, but they're big. They're big. I think before we do another big thing, we have to do a few small ones. Thank you very much for learning with me. Amen.

3:25:59Thank you very much for learning with me. Amen.