Cleaning Out Our Inner Chametz In Brooklyn (Rabbi Yaron Reuven New York LECTURE TOUR)

0:14Good to be back. A little fewer people than last time because of this snowstorm. It's convincing people that if there's snow, they're not allowed out of the house. But hopefully, some more people will come along the way. We have Pesach coming up very, very soon. We just spoke a little bit about it, as far as working on our middot, working on our character traits, trying to fix ourselves, really working on our inner chametz instead of just focusing on the bread. The bread's important. Don't eat bread. Don't eat cakes that are not kosher. Don't eat cookies that are not kosher. But the reality today, between you and me, it's actually extremely easy to keep Pesach these days. Very, very soon, we just spoke a little bit about it, as far as working on our middot, working on our character traits, trying to fix ourselves, really work on our inner chametz, instead of just focusing on the bread. The bread's important. Don't eat bread. Don't eat cakes that are not kosher for Pesach. Don't eat cookies that are not kosher for Pesach. But the reality today, between you and me, it's actually extremely easy to keep Pesach these days. It's so easy that if Hashem made a new mitzvah today and He said, it's Pesach the entire year, especially if you're Sephardic, nothing really would change. Because technology has advanced so much that they make perfectly delicious cakes and cookies and pizzas and pretty much all the food that you can eat the whole year in a kosher for Pesach way. Okay, it's not as great. It's 90% of the way there. It's 80% of the way there.

1:42It's not like when they first started. It was much, like I think, 20 years ago, it was disgusting. Today, Baruch Hashem, it's delicious. So the food doesn't really change. Unless you're Ashkenazi, you can't eat rice if you still keep, you know, what your avot told you as far as the kitniyot and things like that. In reality, nothing really changes. But what really changed today is that we have forgotten why we keep it. That's the bigger problem. We keep a lot of things, but we don't really know why. Whether you go to religious people or non-religious people, you ask them, "Why do you keep Pesach?" They'll tell you, "Oh, because my forefathers came out of Egypt. They were slaves. They came out of Egypt. Hashem saved them, and so on and so forth." When you start talking a little more seriously to people, you spend some more time with them, and you ask them a basic bottom-line question: "Let me ask you something." Do you really believe every word in the Torah? Every word. Like everything that it says happened. It says Moshe Rabbeinu, according to the Gemara, Masechet Shabbat, Moshe Rabbeinu was 20 feet tall. You believe that? 20 feet tall. A tall guy today is considered 6 feet 5. He's three times bigger. Moshe Rabbeinu. And not only him, all the major Levi'im were 20 feet tall. You believe that?

3:09Hashem spoke, and all the words were in the sky. You were able to see the sound. You believe it? Hashem split the ocean into twelve. You believe it? These are serious questions. And you find out, before I take your question, you find out that a lot of people believe the overall story is real, but there are different details that may be yes and may be not. Maybe there's like a safek, a doubt about small points here and there. And our sages explained to us that if you believe that one letter, a single letter in the Torah is wrong, is not true, not a whole sentence, not a whole commentary, one letter, one letter in the Torah, You're considered a kofer b'Torah. You have a serious problem. You're considered a heretic. If you don't believe, not just what the Five Books of Moses mean, but one word in the Gemara. The Gemara says, Moshe Rabbeinu was 20 feet tall. You don't believe one word out of that sentence, you have a serious problem. The Gemara says, someone who looks at the hand of a woman, looks at the hand of a woman...

4:19Not when he's giving her change. He's giving her change. She's doing business with him. She's buying something, and he's giving her change. But he decided to take his time. Take his time, give her change, so he could look at her hands. He's enjoying how pretty her hands are. The Gemara says nothing will save that guy from Gehenom. Meaning, he must go to Gehenom for that. You have a problem believing that? You have a problem. Just by saying that you don't believe it. Obviously, we all do teshuva. We can always fix ourselves and work on ourselves. The point being is that a person needs to understand that Torah is Torah kulo. It's either you believe everything or you believe nothing. Because according to our Torah, if you think one word is wrong, the whole Torah is wrong. And that's what a lot of people simply don't understand, don't know. And that's why we have to have these shiurim. Where you explain to people, and you give people an opportunity to ask questions. You have a question? Where do we get such and such mitzvah? Where do we get such and such story? What's the source for such and such? Shoot him like this, and that's the point. The point is to take all these empty spots that you're not sure about, these doubts that you have, and try to address them. So, there's plenty to talk about, but I'm sure you guys have some questions. So, who wants to start? You have a question. I know you have a question.

5:49How did Hashem split it into 12? What do you mean? No, so what happened is that when we left Egypt, we had 12 tribes. We have 12 tribes, each representing one of the sons of Yaakov Avinu. Now, when we left Egypt, each one of these tribes had their own people. The tribe of Yehuda, the tribe of Reuven, the tribe of Shimon—each one had their own group. So let's say this person was with Yehuda's group, this person was with Reuven's group, and this person was with Binyamin's group. Now, each one of them stayed with each other; they didn't all combine together. They had their minhagim, they had their minhagim, and so on. Like us today—Sephardic, Ashkenazi, Litvish, Hasidic, and so on—similar to that to some extent. Now Hashem... wanted all of them to feel comfortable, that they're not going to change so much, not such a drastic change overnight, so you can still stay with your own people, so He literally made such a miracle. The Ramban explains it, and it talks about it also in Midrash Me'am Loez,

6:56that He split the sea into 12 different tunnels. So let's say, for example, we're trying to get from this point to this point. Okay, now, the Torah actually says we didn't cross the ocean. Like, we didn't go from, let's say, from this side to this side. We didn't go from here to, let's say, the end of the room. That's not what we did. Actually, what it was, it was a half circle. Which means that we went from here, we went all the way around, and we came back here, to the same side. That's actually what the splitting of the ocean entailed. And Hashem actually, the Ramban draws it in his book. He says that He literally split the ocean and made 12 different tunnels of water. So each tribe was able to go with their own people. But at the same time, He made the water clear, like a clear wall, so that each one was able to see each other. So they didn't think that the other guy died. His friends from the Benjamin tribe, or the guys from the Shimon tribe, didn't die. So Hashem made it miraculous, obviously, and He split the ocean into 12 different tunnels. Next question. Until we finish the entire Torah? Okay, so now, the Arizal, alav hashalom, says that the month of Nisan...

8:17It's such a miraculous month. It's called Nisan. Nisan stands for nisim, for miracles. It's a month of miracles. And this is a month where if there are special blessings, if there are special things that you want to attain, this is the month. This is the month to ask for them. And this is also the month to get them. He said it's so big. Nisan is such a big month with so many miracles. that each day is considered the equivalent of one month. Usually, the most significantly important day of the month, other than Shabbat, is Rosh Chodesh. Rosh Chodesh is considered almost like a Yom Tov. It's a very special day. We take out the Sefer Torah; there are special things that we do on Rosh Chodesh. Now, on Nisan, We change the whole month. The whole month, for example, the people that do Tachanun in Tefillah, which is mostly Sephardi people in America, and Sephardi and Ashkenazi that have Nusach Arizal in Israel as well, they do Tachanun every day, the Viduy. The entire month of Nisan, we don't do it. Why? This is a month full of miracles. And the Arizal says that literally every single day is like magic. It's a month of its own.

9:41Now the question is, why is it such a big month? Okay, so we had some miracles. Big deal. What's a big month? So we see that most of the miracles, the big miracles that happened to Am Yisrael, happened around here. Happened at this time. So for example, the Yetziat Mitzrayim, the Exodus, happened around now. But before Hashem decided that He's going to take us out of Egypt, there were the ten plagues. The ten plagues took a year. After that year, dam, tzfardea, kinim, and so on and so forth, all of the plagues, still He didn't take us out of Egypt. Even after the 10th plague, He didn't take us out of Egypt. Still, He told Am Yisrael, you have a mitzvah to do. You have no zechuyot. Okay, so I made some miracles for you. I'm destroying the Egyptians, but the merit to take you out of Egypt, you need to do something for it. I have to give you something. What do I have to give you? I have to give you two mitzvot. There's going to be 613 mitzvot later on that I'm going to give you. But there are two mitzvot you have to do now. What's the mitzvah? The first one is Brit Milah. Every Jewish male has to have a Brit Milah. Imagine, he's not 8 days old. He's 20, he's 30, he's 50, he's 60 years old, he has to do Brit Milah. He has to cut a piece of himself. No anesthesia. Everybody has to do Brit Milah.

11:07Second mitzvah, everyone has to take a korban, take one of the sheep, take one of the goats, and tie them to your bed for a few days. Make sure that the Egyptians hear it, leave the doors open. Make sure the Egyptians hear it, and when the Egyptians come, they're going to ask you, "What are you doing with my god?" Because the goat was their god, one of their idols. "What are you doing with my god?" And you tell them, "I'm going to cook your god in a couple of days. That's what you're going to tell them." They were your boss a week ago. Now you tell them, "I'm going to cook your god. I'm going to eat them." And the Chachamim say that the biggest miracle The entire time we were in Egypt was this why the fact that the Egyptians were to the point where they were too scared of Am Yisrael to kill them. A week before, they were willing to kill someone in a minute. We were slaves. They were killing kids, everything. Now they got to such a point, they were scared to kill us even though we told them, "By the way, your god, I'm about to cook and put him in a soup." But not only that...

12:32Make sure that after you tie him to your bed for four days, and he's screaming and yelling, and he's getting all the neighbors to know that it's happening, when you cook him, make sure you cook him whole. So anyone that passes by and maybe didn't see it, sees not only did you cook it, but it's whole. You can't break the legs off. You have to make sure that it looks like it's a goat. No one's going to mistake it. Make it in a way where you fill it up completely. You cook the whole thing completely. Don't cut it into pieces. If you cut it into pieces, you're not doing it correctly. So now these two mitzvot literally put the life of Am Yisrael on the line. Why? If you do it wrong, the guy can continue bleeding. The korban, you're telling somebody, listen, by the way, your god, I'm about to kill him. He's going to be willing to kill you. If you go into one of these Catholic churches, you go into the church, you start telling them, by the way, you know, you guys are all idol worshippers, and you're praying to some idiot that died 2,000 years ago. They're not going to take it so well. Maybe they may not kill you, depends on where you are in the United States or in the world, but they're not going to keep you in. They're not going to keep you in. At the very least, you're probably going to get a beating. You go to the Muslims, and you tell them, by the way, your Muhammad, he was illiterate. He was illiterate. He actually didn't know how to read, he didn't know how to write. That's true, though. He didn't know how to read, he didn't know how to write, which, how did he write the Quran then?

13:33idol worshippers, and you're praying to some idiot that died 2,000 years ago. They're not going to take it so well. Maybe they may not kill you, depending on where you are in the United States or in the world, but they're not going to keep you in. They're not going to keep you in. At the very least, you're probably going to get a beating. You go to the Muslims, and you tell them, by the way, your Muhammad, he was illiterate. He was illiterate. He actually didn't know how to read, he didn't know how to write. That's true, though. He didn't know how to read, he didn't know how to write, so how did he write the Quran then? How did he write the Quran? If he doesn't know how to read, he doesn't know how to write. Who was the witness to what he said he saw in the desert? No one was there. You have problems in your Quran. You said that Jesus was the nephew of Moshe Rabbeinu. They lived 1500 years apart. You have historical problems in your Quran. You know what they're going to do to you? They're going to make you into a bomb. They're going to make you into a bomb. You tell them such a thing. So now Am Yisrael goes to the Egyptians.

14:33He tells them, "Hey, you, I'm going to eat your god. You have yourself a problem." Am Yisrael put their lives on the line. The second thing is, after they did this, Hashem says, "Good job. You did Brit Milah. You did Korban Pesach because you can't eat the Korban Pesach unless you have Brit Milah. That's what the Torah says. If you don't have a Brit Milah, you're not allowed to eat the sacrifice. You're not allowed to eat the sheep." On Pesach, now I have to be part of a seder. Now, fast forward. We leave Egypt. We get the merit to leave Egypt, Baruch Hashem. We get to Yam Suf. We get to Yam Suf. We get to the Sea of Reeds. We get there. Nothing to do. There's an ocean in front of us. There are scorpions and snakes on both the right side and the left side. And behind us, the Egyptians just showed up and they want to kill us again, just like they wanted to kill us a week before. They changed their minds.

15:34Before, they were telling us, "Leave, leave, leave." Now they're telling us, "No, no, we want to kill you again." So we're confused. What do we do? If we go back to Egypt, we're going to be slaves again. If we fight them, we're going to die. They have weapons, we don't have weapons. What do we have? We have rocks. If we go right or left, there are scorpions; we're not going to survive. All we have is the ocean. So Moshe Rabbeinu starts screaming to Hashem because all of Am Yisrael starts crying hysterically. What do we do? So Moshe Rabbeinu starts crying to Hashem, and Hashem says, the pasuk says, "Why are you screaming to Me, Moshe? Why are you screaming to Me? What do you want from Me? Where else is he going to scream then? He says, "Moshe, listen, you..." your people had just enough merit to get here. You had just enough merit, an account of merits of Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, and so on. That was enough to get you out of Egypt, okay? But to destroy Egypt and to get you out of Egypt, you have to do the Brit Milah and the Korban Pesach. That's to get you out of Egypt. That's it, you're out. There's no more, there's no more. He finished, finished, no more merits. What do you want me to do?

16:57The Satan came to me with the Malach Mitzrayim, which is the angel for Egypt. And they said, "Listen, why are you going to let Am Yisrael cross the ocean and the Egyptians, you're going to drown them? They worship idols and they worship idols." Meaning Am Yisrael was still idol worshippers at this point. Why are you going to free them? So Hashem says to Moshe, "Moshe, the angel is right." Am Yisrael does not have any merit to cross the ocean. What are you screaming to me for? Move forward. Tell them to move forward. What does it mean to move forward? Do something to turn things around. Do something to earn a merit for Me to do something for you. This is a business. There's nothing free. There's no free lunch with Hashem. There's no free lunch, rabotai. a business: you do, I do; you don't do, I do anyway. But if I do something that you don't like... The leader of the Yehuda tribe realized that the one thing we need to do that worked for us before is sacrificing our lives. It worked for us in Egypt.

18:13It's gonna work for us here. He jumped into the ocean. He said, "Listen, going back to be in Egypt? Obviously, Hashem didn't bring us all the way over here to go back. To go right or left is not really an option because of the scorpions and snakes. There's nothing here. The reality is we have to move forward." So he jumped into the ocean, and as soon as his people from the Yehuda tribe saw him, they followed him too. But up to the point where the water started covering their faces, they started drowning, and Benjamin tribe, the Benjamin tribe, they saw our brothers going into the water. That must be the right place to go. When the other tribe went in, it created unity. Even though technically they were watching them die, they were watching them drown. Hashem says, "You want to sacrifice your life for Me? I'll split the ocean for you, and I'll split it into 12." So we see that the biggest miracles we received happened during this month of miracles, the month of Nisan. History has shown that these miracles happened during this month of miracles, the month of Nisan. But we also notice that there's a requirement for these miracles. Hashem asks us for something in order to give us the biggest miracles in our life. He has a treasure chest full of miracles that He wants to give us, but He says there is a password. And

19:31What's the password? Mesirat nefesh. Self-sacrifice. Sacrifice something for Me. Make yourself uncomfortable in My honor. So, if you're comfortable only giving $20, give $100. If you're comfortable going to one shiur, go to two shiurim. If you're comfortable wearing a skirt that barely covers the knee, get a skirt that covers the whole leg. you're comfortable going to shul at eight this month, go at six. Try harder, try harder. Why? There's a big reward for you for doing it. Now, in the Gemara, page 20, the sages themselves ask, "How come the previous generation before us got so many miracles?" They're asking. They also see miracles. These are sages. They see and hear Hashem's voice—all types of wonderful things. But they said that if you compare them to the previous generation before them, you can't compare them to each other. It's like two different worlds. So they ask, how come they got so many miracles? The Gemara says they got so many miracles because even though they actually studied less than you did, they sacrificed more than you did.

20:59They sacrificed their convenience. They sacrificed their comfort much more for Hashem than you did. And for that, they merited much bigger miracles. And this is what I tell people, for example, when people want to convert to Judaism, and they start telling me about how hard it is. It's hard to learn this. It's hard to remember this. It's hard to go to shul. It's hard to deal with Jewish people all of a sudden. It's hard to afford it. It's hard to move. It's hard to do this. As soon as a person starts telling me about all the things that are just hard, I already know they're not ready to convert. Why? They didn't get the point of being a Jew. It's supposed to be hard. That's the point. That's the point, rabotai. It's supposed to be hard. You want proof? I'll give you proof. Yaakov Avinu. Everybody heard of Yaakov Avinu? Yaakov Avinu prayed to Hashem Yitbarach. He said, Hashem, Please, just don't put me in a situation where I'm starving or in poverty. Just make sure I have clothes and food. He didn't ask for a million-dollar house like us. He didn't ask for three cars and a parking lot just in case two break. He didn't ask for all these wonderful things. He didn't ask for a retirement account. All he said was, just make sure I have food and clothes. That's it. That's all I want. Hashem says, you're trying to be too comfortable.

22:26You're missing the whole point. What happened? Yosef HaTzaddik. Yosef HaTzaddik happened. You fast forward a few years. What happened? Yosef HaTzaddik happened. His son, he lost him for 22 years. Why? He said you're looking for comfort. If you're looking for comfort, you're missing the whole point. You're missing the whole point. You're not supposed to be comfortable in this world. In the book of Job, Hashem tells us, the prophet himself, a person was brought to this world to work. What work? Work for Hashem. To work for Hashem. He didn't come for vacation. There's no vacation in Judaism. There's no off time. You never stop being a Jew. Once a Jew, always a Jew. You just have to decide, do you want to be a righteous Jew or a wicked Jew? So now, the idea is that on one hand, if you're a righteous Jew, Hashem gives you reward. How much reward? Endless. It doesn't end. He's waiting to give you so much, and it's literally above and beyond what you can imagine. But at the same token,

23:41If a person does bad, then the sages explain that the person is forcing Hashem's hand. He's forcing Hashem not to give him the good. He's forcing Hashem not to give him good because He knows that if He gives him good for bad, it's going to ruin him. If every time the kid does something bad, you give him a present, what is he going to do? More bad things. If every time you steal, you say, "Ah, don't worry about it," what is he going to do? He's going to become a professional thief. That's what happens. I heard a story just the other day. Amazing story. There was this one guy, a young guy, a little kid. Got caught stealing. Got caught stealing once, twice, caught stealing from family. But the uncle... didn't say anything. If I tell him, the community is going to frown upon him and throw him out of school. Maybe he's never going to have a shidduch. They're going to look down on his family and so on and so forth. It was a very closed community, a Hasidic community. Maybe he'll grow out of it. Maybe he'll stop stealing. You know what happened? Because he didn't say anything.

25:10And not only did he not say anything, no one else said anything. The kid continued stealing. And later on, he grew up. You fast forward about 15 years. He started an investment business. And just a few years ago, it was found that it was a Ponzi scheme. He destroyed many yeshivot, kollelim, batei knesset, and Jewish organizations all over the East Coast. Why? He was a thief from the beginning and no one said anything. I think his name was Weinberg, Weinberg, something like that. And the uncle, after everyone lost all of their money, all these yeshivot lost their savings, all of these kollelim lost their savings, everybody lost their money, lost a ton of money, we're talking about millions and millions of dollars, not everybody lost 50 bucks. Millions of dollars were destroyed, lives were destroyed, places had to be shut down. What did the uncle say? He says, you know what, I'm sorry.

26:12should have told you guys 20 years ago he's a thief. I saw him stealing. I never said anything. I saw him stealing and didn't say anything. That's the problem. There's no such thing as doing something bad and there's no price for it. If you see somebody doing something bad and you don't say something, you're now a partner in crime. And that's what the Gemara in Masechet Shabbat says. When somebody sees another person do something bad and doesn't do anything about it, he's now officially a partner in crime. That's why Hashem punished the rabbis before He punished the Mechalelei Shabbat. And the Beit HaMikdash, the Churban Beit HaMikdash, Abaye says, the Beit HaMikdash was not destroyed for any other reason other than the desecration of Shabbat. Yeah, but it says, what about Lashon Hara, no? It's Chilul Shabbat. It's Chilul Shabbat. That's what the Gemara says. It's Chilul Shabbat. The Beit HaMikdash was destroyed for Chilul Shabbat. He says, so how come the people—okay, so just kill all the people that desecrate Shabbat then. Why are you killing all the rabbis? The Gemara says, kill the rabbis. Not only kill the rabbis, kill them first. Why? They didn't tell the people to go do teshuva. They didn't tell them to go do teshuva. How are they going to do teshuva if no one tells them?

27:36They became bigger criminals than those people by staying quiet. So, Rabotai, Hashem Yitbarach wants to give you good. But once you are put in a situation where you start stealing, you start looking in a place you're not allowed to, you waste seed, you violate Shabbat, you're dishonest, you're doing things that are against Hashem, now you're forcing Hashem to not give you good. And to Him, that's the only purpose in this world. The only purpose of this world is to give you good. But He can't give you good if you don't do good. Which means you're stopping Him from doing what He wants. And that is the reason why we get punished. It's not that He's so offended that you drove your car on Shabbat. He's still going to be perfect with or without your Shabbat. it's not that He's so offended that you stole money from Steve and gave it to Joe. It's all His money anyway. It's the fact that now, because you did bad for yourself, He can't give you good. And because He can't give you good, there's no point to the world. There's no point to the world now. So He has to punish you for it. That's the reason for punishment. So now, on the good side,

28:56The amount of good that Hashem wants to give you is endless. Endless, Rabotai. But you see that there's a lot of asonot, there are a lot of disasters in Am Yisrael every day. Just today, just today, Hashem, just today I found out about two people who have cancer. Brand new. Two people, just today, I'm talking about three hours ago. Every day there's somebody else that's sick. Two days ago, I heard about this little baby, Hashem yirachem, who drowned in a bathtub. She's in the ICU right now, trying to save her life. Every day there's a disaster. Am Yisrael is suffering. There are car accidents. There are diseases. There are all types. You feel like there's a Holocaust, but no one's talking about it. It's like a silent Holocaust. We're dying everywhere. This tzaddeket from Israel, an older woman, 73 years old, sends me a long email, but right off the first sentence, I knew I had to read the whole thing. Everybody knows I don't like long emails because I get a lot of emails. So I can't read long emails. But this one got my attention. First sentence, I already knew something was happening here. I read this story, honestly, I started crying at the end. She tells me, you have to come to Israel.

30:12teach these people. Some fake rabbis came from the United States, she says to the community, not too long ago, and they started telling people that all you got to do is donate a little bit of money, read some Tehillim, do some weird prayers they said, and everything else will be fine. You could wear wigs, you could drive on Shabbat, you do anything you want, whatever you want, whatever you do is good enough for Hashem. just make sure you donate, do some weird things that they're recommending because they're kabbalists, they're mekubalim, they're this, they're that, they're gonna fix everything for you. You have nothing to worry about, she says. You don't understand. Since these people came, someone dies every week in the community. Every week somebody's dying in the community. a kid, an adult, married, somebody's dying, somebody's getting a disease. Tragedy every week in the community. It's not that big of a community. And no one is willing to listen to me, she says. She says, no one is willing to listen. I tell them, listen, these people are leading you astray. They're not telling you the truth. We have to do teshuva. They're like, nah, it's not that. It's just an accident. It's not that. It's just a bad thing. They're blaming nature. They're blaming bad luck.

31:29they're actually thinking that these Kabbalists, these fake people, fake mekubalim, are going to be the ones that save them. But in reality, they're the ones that are killing them. They're the ones that are killing them. He says you have to come to Israel and actually tell these people, show them the pesukim. Nobody knows anything and people are dying. But it's not just this community; same thing in New York, same thing in Florida, same thing everywhere. If you guys haven't noticed, there's almost a shooting every week this year in America. Just today, another shooting happened. Another shooting today. Another school had a shooting. I think it was in Michigan. Somebody told me. In Michigan or some state. Michigan? Maryland. Another shooting today. Boyfriend, girlfriend got mad, and the guy just decided to shoot up the school. So everyone's like, "Oh yeah, but only he died." It doesn't matter that only he died. The fact that he decided to go start shooting people already shows there's something going on here. There's something going on here. There's something bad in the water.

32:34There's something bad in the water. Something is going on. It's not normal. Do you hear about shootings in Russia? No shootings in Russia. You just say you want to shoot, and they shoot you. Do you hear about any shootings in Israel? No, there are no shootings in Israel. There's terrorism, but there are no shootings. Israelis are not shooting each other. Do you hear about shootings in France? No. The Arabs are killing people, but the French are not killing each other. Something bad in the water every other day. There's a fire in Brooklyn or in Queens every other day. It seems like this year you guys are not paying attention. Am I the only one that reads the news and sees this stuff? I don't read the news, but I find out from people. Fire in one house, two weeks later, three weeks later, a fire three doors down. A month later, a fire three doors down. Every week, somebody dies from a drug overdose. In the Jewish community, I'm talking about. I'm talking about the world. The world of Shem HaShem. I'm talking about the Jewish community. Overdoses, literally on a weekly basis. Weekly basis, kids overdose on drugs and are dying like flies. Like flies. Fires, people's entire houses, businesses, lives, disappear into fire.

33:50Every other day, you find out somebody closer to you has cancer, chas v'shalom, chas v'shalom. Hashem, every other day, somebody new has cancer. Just today, two people I know have cancer. I don't know them that well, but I know them. Two people in one day. Nobody's paying attention. There's something wrong with the water; something's happening. Hashem is talking to us. It never happened like this before. There's always been problems, but not like this. There's literally a Holocaust happening, and everyone's pretending like everything's okay. Why? Because the rich guy in the neighborhood is buying another house. Because the guy that's trying to be the rich guy in the neighborhood is extending his house. Because this guy has a brand new car in the lot. Because that guy has a new venture. Because this one invested in Bitcoin early. Because this one invented the next Bitcoin. And everyone is so busy,

34:51that they forget about all the tragedies that are happening in the world. Now I'm going to show you that in the Torah, all of what I just said is written. How? When Moshe Rabbeinu comes to Am Yisrael, he tells them, "I'm the one that Hashem sent." i'm here to save you. I'm here to save you. So now he goes to Pharaoh, and Pharaoh doesn't want to listen. In fact, Pharaoh makes things worse. He says, "Oh, you guys have a lot of time to think? I'm going to give you more work," and So you don't have any time to think. And now, Am Yisrael is not happy with Moshe. And he tells them, "Listen, I'm trying to help you," and so on. They said, "Listen, we're too busy with work. We're too busy. It's too difficult, this extra work that Pharaoh is giving us. We don't have time to listen to you." So Moshe Rabbeinu says to Hashem,

36:16Why did You bring me? Why did You make me be the one that's bringing all this bad to Am Yisrael? They're not even willing to listen to me because they're too busy with work. They're too busy with work. Hashem says that's the way of the Satan. The Satan is going to get you to be too busy with work, too busy with business, too busy with Bitcoin, too busy with the stock market, too busy with reading the news, too busy with trying to be like the Goyim. And get you to forget to be a Jew. Forget who runs the show. Forget we're supposed to do teshuva. Forget all the real reasons why you're here. Why? You're too busy. You're too busy doing other things. You're too busy doing other things. If you're too busy doing other things, you're not going to have enough time to think. To think is to meditate to yourself, to think to yourself. Why am I here? Was the last time anybody here actually asked that question: why am I here? Why am I in the world? And not only why am I in the world, but why am I in the world and I am one out of eight billion people? Out of the eight billion people, I'm one out of the 20 million who is a Jew, and not only one out of 20 million out of the 8 billion...

37:37But I'm one out of the 20 million who is actually interested in doing what Hashem said: to keep Shabbat, to keep kosher, to do all these things. Why? Why? Why? I mean, who put me here to want all these things? It's so unusual. If I said, listen, you're really special. Why? Because you eat Chinese food. Thank you, buddy, for the compliment. But the reality is, 8 billion people eat Chinese food. It's like, oh, no, you're really, really special. You have a beard. Thank you very much for the compliment, but even the goat has a beard, so it's not such a compliment. Everybody has a beard. It doesn't make you special. It's like, oh, you know, you're really, really special. You have eyes. Oh, thank you very much. Even the octopus has eyes. It's not helping me. Your compliments are not working. I say, thank you. You are very special. You are a religious Jew. Now you're talking about why there are not that many of us. There's not that many of us. There are some people who pretend to be, some people who try to be, and some people who even look like it, but there are very few who actually do it. But those are the ones that Hashem took out of Egypt and

39:01Those are the ones that Hashem took out of Egypt. Those are the ones that Hashem gave the Torah to. And those are the ones that Hashem is keeping the world going for. But those are also the same ones that the Satan focuses the most on. The Satan focuses the most on them. He says, listen, you're doing too good of a job for Hashem. You learn Torah. You keep Shabbat. You're not wasting seed. You're going to do... You're doing all these mitzvot. You're killing me. Enough. Enough's enough. I'll get you busy. I'm going to give you a better job, make more money. I'm going to give you a wife that needs a lot of attention. I'm going to give you a husband that can't stop talking. I'm going to give you kids that are really annoying. I'm going to give you this. I'm going to give you... I'm going to get you busy. Why? You're busy, you forget about Hashem. You're busy, you forget about Hashem. This is why, Rabotai, in the month of Nissan, Mesirut Nefesh. Mesirut Nefesh means getting out of your comfort zone. It's not comfortable to leave your wife at home and go learn Torah. It's not comfortable. Why? You want to be with her? She wants to be with you. Who do you want to be with? This smelly chavruta that you have? With the beard? You want to be with your wife. What can I do? My Father in Heaven told me to go learn Torah every day.

40:22I want to be with my wife, but I have to go learn Torah. I want to be with my kids. You think I want to be in New York right now? With all due respect, guys, I love you. You really think I want to be in New York right now when it's freezing cold? This Gehinom, I think he's jealous already. He's like, look, it's cold here. Come over here. It's warm. It's so cold in here. There's traffic all day. You think I want to be here? I've got my two little angels at home, the two little babies and my wife, love of my life. You think I want to be here? But why am I here? Ami's son needs help. Mesirut nefesh, rabotai, is the only way people do teshuva. Mesirut nefesh, the only way people do teshuva. Tana Devei Eliyahu, the book of Eliyahu HaNavi. Eliyahu HaNavi says there was a tribe of Binyamin. The tribe of Binyamin made a very big mistake. They saw a woman, they mistreated her. She went back to her husband, her husband found out, he cut her into pieces, killed her. This created a war, a big war, and another war, and another war. Eventually, 70,000 of the tribe of Binyamin were all killed.

41:25Eliyahu HaNavi says, you know who's at fault in Shamayim? You know who's at fault? You know who's responsible for 70,000 Jews dying? You know? The Rabbis. Which Rabbis? The heads of the Sanhedrin. The heads, the top Rabbis in the world. Why? Eliyahu HaNavi says, when they came to Eretz Yisrael, each one of them found a corner. This one's going to live in Haifa, this one in Tel Aviv, this one in Yerushalayim, this one in Netanya. And they said, listen, if you need to learn something, come to us. You want to learn Musar? Come to us. You want to learn Halakha? Come to us. We're here. We have an office. He says, and because the Sanhedrin, the head rabbis in the world, did not go around the country teaching people Musar, The tribe of Binyamin never learned how to behave, and they made that sin. They made that sin, created war. War happened, they all died. Who was responsible? The rabbis that wanted to stay home. Mesirut nefesh, Rabotai, is a prerequisite of being a Jew. If you're looking for easy, you're looking for a different religion.

42:37There's no easy in this world. You're looking for a different world, a different life. There's no easy in this world. Now, the good news is, the Gemara says in Rosh Hashanah, and also Masechet Beitzah, page 16a and 16b in both respectively, says the following: Hashem Yitbarach, on Rosh Hashanah, He decides what you're going to have. How much parnasah are you going to make? You're going to make 100,000, you're going to make 10,000. you're going to make 100 million, you're going to lose 200 million. Whatever you're going to make, He decides on Rosh Hashanah. Everything is decided on Rosh Hashanah. So the Baal Shem Tov gave a chidush. He says, the Gemara says that Hashem already decides on Rosh Hashanah how much money I'm going to make. But why does the Mishnah, which comes before the Gemara, say that Hashem decides every day how much I'm going to make? If He already decided on Rosh Hashanah how much I'm going to make,

43:37did He decide again every day? Why, does He change His mind? What is He, a human being? No. What's the chidush? The Baal Shem Tov, alav hashalom, said that on Rosh Hashanah, Hashem decides how much you're going to get. Every day, He decides how you're going to get it. You're going to get it from your job, you'll get it from a car accident, you'll get it from a deal, you'll get it from a lotto. How are you going to get it? Somebody can be decreed, hey, this year you're going to get a million dollars. Wow, amazing. The next day he got fired. The guy starts crying, hitting himself in the head. I just lost a million dollars. The Rabbi said I'm going to make a million dollars. What happened? How am I going to make a million dollars if I don't go to work? The next day he gets into a car accident. It's not his fault. The judge favors him. He gets a million dollars. Did he get the million dollars or not? Judge to get a million dollars. The problem is he got it in a very painful way. He got it in a very painful way. The good news is that you can get it in a good way. You don't have to get it in a bad way. But that all depends on our actions. It all depends on our actions. It all depends on who you think is making the money, you or Hashem. and

44:59If you keep busy and you don't have time to learn Torah every day, morning and night, that means you think you're making money. I don't have time to learn Torah every day. I'm going to learn, you know, once a week I go to a shiur Torah. I'll listen for an hour, two hours. The Rabbi speaks nicely. I'll talk to him. I'll listen for an hour, two hours. Rav Meir Eliyahu is one of the chachamim of the generation. He says a person needs to understand. Torah is not an elective. Someone who doesn't learn Torah at least two hours a day, at least two hours a day, has no business thinking that they're going to have Olam HaBa. If he doesn't learn Torah two hours a day, at least two hours a day, he has no business thinking he has Olam HaBa. Why? It's very rare somebody can make it to Olam HaBa without learning Torah at least two hours a day. Why? He needs to know what to do to get there. He needs to learn Halachot. How am I going to keep Shabbat?

45:59How am I going to keep kosher? How am I going to keep taharat mishpacha? How am I going to work on my middot? How am I going to work on any... How are you going to know what to do to get to Olam HaBa? Olam HaBa is not just sleeping on Shabbat and eating cholent. Olam HaBa is not just coming to shiur, parashat shavua, for a half hour, an hour, two hours a week, and that's it, you're finished. That's Olam HaBa, finished. I'm going to work the whole week for the Satan, two hours for Hashem, I get Olam HaBa. What do you think Hashem is, a flyer? He's a fool. What do you think Hashem is? What do you think Hashem is? Where he's just going, oh yeah, you want eternal good? Yeah, yeah, just work for me for a half hour, that's it. Satan, work for him the rest of the week, we're good, we're good. What do you think Hashem is? Who do you think you're dealing with? This, rabotai, is one of the biggest realizations that changed my life. Why? I realized I'm not working for a man. A man, I could convince him. A man, I could fool him. I could lie to him. I could do something. Hashem, there's no fooling. There's no changing. There's no nothing. He has a rule, finished. Beginning, middle, end. A person needs to learn Torah.

47:13You need to learn Torah to get to Olam HaBa. How do you learn Torah in this generation when every girl walks around naked even though it's nine degrees outside? It's nine degrees, and everyone walks around naked anyway. I don't understand the mentality. I don't understand the mentality. It's cold. It's freezing. At the very least, put on clothes. It's freezing. Forget the modesty. Just put on clothes. It's freezing. No clothes. How do you learn Torah in a generation like this? How do you learn Torah when every button, every button on your phone could be Malach HaMavet himself? You go to a porn site. You go to a gambling site. You go to some sports or some other thing that wastes your life. Instead of learning Torah, you spend three hours learning about the salary cap of an NFL team. One button can ruin your next life. One button on your phone. One button on your computer. One button on your WhatsApp, all this stuff. One button can ruin somebody's life. One phone call, it's the wrong girl. One phone call, it's the wrong guy. Somebody showed me a video, Hashem, they did an experiment. Experiment. This girl, she was nothing more than maybe 11 years old. 11 years old, 10 years old, nothing. Baby. Baby.

48:27And the parents pretended to leave the house. And the guy pretended to become her friend on Facebook. He became her friend on Facebook, this little girl, 10, 11-year-old girl, a baby. He pretended to become her friend on Facebook. And he's like, "Hey, you want to get together?" She says, "Yeah, yeah, come when my parents are not here." She never saw the guy. She doesn't know who he is. And she's willing to meet him. And they literally videotaped the whole thing of how this girl leaves her house when her parents leave and she goes to the park to some unknown place to meet this strange guy who says he's somebody else, who could have easily been a rapist. Could have even been a murderer. But that's our world today, Rabotai. One button can kill somebody. One button. It doesn't have to be an atomic bomb. Meaning that if we're not holding on to Hashem 24 hours a day, like it's dear life, we have no chance. We have no chance. I tell you, my wife and I tell each other this all the time. All the time, I tell you the truth, I tell you a family secret.

49:36You know what the secret is? We're both trying to work non-stop for Hashem to a point, hopefully we can get into, somehow sneak into Gan Eden with like no wheels. Hopefully, we can get to Gan Eden. That's what we tell each other. Hopefully, He's going to let us in. We're probably not going to have any wheels on the car, but hopefully, we can get in. We can like get in, somehow fool the system like we did enough mitzvot. Hopefully. That's the reality. You know what my day is like? My day is like, I have to start with Torah and finish with Torah. It's either my Torah or somebody else's Torah. And I'm still hoping maybe we'll get to Gan Eden. Because that's the reality, Rabotai. You think you're going to get to Gan Eden with 15 minutes of WhatsApp? You watch the shiur Torah for 15 minutes, you get to Gan Eden? You have the wrong G-d. The G-d of Israel wants more from you. He wants to give you more too. He wants to give you more. But there's a price. Surprise. If it was a man, you could fool him, you could convince him, you could bribe him, you could do a lot of things. But it's not. That's what changed my life. What changed my life is I realized I'm no longer dealing with a man. Because with men, I convince them I'm a good speaker. I could convince any of you to do whatever I want.

50:58If it's business, anything I want. It's business, I convince you, you're a man. Something I could say could convince you to do it. Him, I can't convince Him to do anything. Why? He's God. I'm nothing. Less than nothing. Understand the difference? Once you deal with Him, you realize, oh, whatever He says, I just gotta do it. There's no accounting, no questions, whatever He says, let's do it. But I don't like it, it doesn't make a difference. It doesn't make a difference. Now, I said this in the previous shiur, but it's worth another chidush on top of it. The sages say that the Mashiach is not just some ordinary person. He's a special soul that's a combination of the soul of Moshe Rabbeinu and David HaMelech. Now, this soul is so special that it's alive in every generation. And every generation has an opportunity to have Mashiach arrive that minute, at any minute. He's always around. Now, the soul itself is around at all times.

52:23Which body Hashem decides to put the soul in is a different story. The generation has to have the merit. So the Gemara says, if it was in the generation of the prophet Daniel, the prophet Daniel who has the book of Daniel in the Tanakh, if the Mashiach would have arrived in the generation of Moshe Rabbeinu, it would have been Moshe Rabbeinu. And Moshe Rabbeinu almost became the Mashiach too. He was the first Mashiach who took us out of Egypt. He almost became the official Mashiach forever if Am Yisrael didn't commit the sin of the golden calf. But because they did, he couldn't be the Mashiach anymore. We were six hours away from Mashiach. Six hours away. Six hours from him being Mashiach forever, from never having any Holocaust, never having any pogroms, never having any inquisitions, never having anything. Having 5,000 years of Olam HaBa here, and then eternal Olam HaBa. Six hours away. Six hours away, Rabotai. Six hours away. Almost Moshe Rabbeinu became the eternal Mashiach. But we messed up,

53:33Fast-forward, if it was in the generation the Gemara says, in a generation of the prophet Daniel, Daniel would have been the Mashiach. The prophet Daniel would have been the Mashiach if it wasn't the generation of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, Rabbi HaKadosh. that wrote the Mishnayot before the Gemara, they said it would have been Yehuda. It would have been Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi. Why? He was the perfect human being. Aside from being rich, aside from being a Baal Chesed, aside from being a giant Talmid Chacham, he also had the physical description of being very, very tall and handsome and so on. There's actually a physical description for the Mashiach, which, by the way, removes me from it. But anyway, at least I know what he's going to look like. Very, very tall, very, very handsome. What about the Lubavitcher Rebbe? Lubavitcher Rebbe, Chabad would like to think that he is Mashiach. And in the best-case scenario, according to our sages, maybe he could have been while he was alive. But once he died, he could no longer be Mashiach. Is it possible for Mashiach to pass on and come back?

54:56There's an Abarbanel. The Gemara in Masechet Sanhedrin has a perush. What are the names of the Mashiach? One of them is Menachem. But what they don't tell you is that Menachem also had a last name, and it's not the Lubavitcher Rebbe's last name. But anyway, it says one of the different possibilities of Mashiach. What they tell you, oh, it's because it's Menachem in the Gemara, that means Menachem is the Lubavitcher Rebbe. What they don't tell you is the Gemara mentions the last name too. It's not his last name. But anyway, let's skip that. Let's pretend it didn't happen. It didn't happen. Now it says that Mashiach could potentially be the Prophet Daniel. It could have been the Prophet; it could have been Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi. It says that And Abarbanel says that it could also be, it could also be if somebody reincarnates, comes back. But what they don't tell you about that ḥiddush is that if there was a reincarnation, meaning somebody comes back from the dead, it wouldn't be anybody from here. It would be David HaMelech. It would be Moshe Rabbeinu. It would be Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi. It would be the Prophet Daniel. It would be Ḥizkiyahu.

56:15It's not going to be anybody from now. Why? You have to go to the greatest. And kevodo bimkomo, he's not as great as Moshe Rabbeinu. He's not as great as David HaMelech. He's not as great as Ḥizkiyahu. How do I know? Because Hashem Yitbarach in the Torah decided at one point, Ḥizkiyahu, he's going to be the Mashiach. Ḥizkiyahu, the Melech. He said, he's going to be the Mashiach. He's going to be the Mashiach. He decided, I'm going to bring the Mashiach. He's going to be the Mashiach. But then Ḥizkiyahu decided, didn't celebrate Hashem's name one time. One time he messed up. A miracle happened, Hashem stopped the sun in the sky for him, and he didn't sing to Him. That's it. That's it. He just didn't sing to Hashem. The Satan came to Hashem. He says, look, David HaMelech, David HaMelech, you made miracles for him, and he sang to you. He wrote Tehillim, he did this, he did this, and you still didn't make him Mashiach. You still don't allow him to build the Beit HaMikdash. How are you going to let Chizkiyahu, how are you going to let him be the Mashiach if he didn't do at least as much as his ancestor David? He says, you're right, he's not the Mashiach anymore. He's not the Mashiach anymore. But, Rabotai, the point here, the chidush here, the point here, for any Chabadniks watching online or here, you made miracles for him, and he sang to you. He wrote Tehillim, he did this, he did that, and you still didn't make him Mashiach. You still don't allow him to build the Beit HaMikdash. How are you going to let Chizkiyahu, how are you going to let him be the Mashiach if he didn't do at least as much as his ancestor David? He says, you're right, he's not the Mashiach anymore. He's not the Mashiach anymore. But, Rabotai, the point here, the chidush here, the point here, for any Chabadniks watching online or here,

57:37To understand, if it was what the commentary from Abarbanel says, that it would be somebody coming back from the dead, it wouldn't be from now. It would be from the greatest, from before us. It would be the Rambam. It would be David HaMelech. It would be somebody from before. It would be the Prophet Daniel. It would be people that Hashem specifically named. Not somebody that we just like and is nice, tzaddik. I'm not saying he's not a tzaddik. Elijah was even a shoestring for him. But the reality is we can't create something. And that's what happens sometimes. We love our rabbis so much that we make them God. We love our rabbis sometimes so much we turn them into idols. And that is not allowed. That is not allowed in the Torah. That's called idolatry. You're not allowed to pray to a rabbi. Even if he's Moshe Rabbeinu. Even if he's Moshe Rabbeinu. You're not allowed to pray to a rabbi. That's why Hashem did not tell us where He buried Moshe Rabbeinu. He didn't tell us where He buried Moshe Rabbeinu. Why? Moshe Rabbeinu's whole life was for Hashem. His whole life was mesirut nefesh. So what, I'm going to have a bunch of people come to his grave and ruin it? You don't know where he's buried. You don't know where he's buried. Why? We're not going to turn him into an idol.

58:58We can't pray to rabbis, Rabotai. But the reality is that the Mashiach, the soul of the Mashiach, is alive and well and is always available. The Gemara in Masechet Sanhedrin says that Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi, his best friend was Eliyahu Hanavi. And he said to him, when is the Mashiach coming? He said, tomorrow. really? Where is he? Can I meet him? He says, "Yeah, he's at the gate of Rome." So he went to the gate of Rome and saw that the Mashiach is full of wounds all over his body, just like everybody else, but even more. But everyone else, the way they took off the covers and the bandages that they had around their body, they would take off all at once and then replace all at once. But the Mashiach would take them off one at a time. One at a time he would take them off. So Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi says to him, "Why are you only taking them off one at a time?" He says to him, "Because at any moment they can call me to be Mashiach, so I have to be ready. If I took them off all at once, there would be a delay. It would take me a while to put all of them back on."

1:00:16So the Chachamim ask, why does he have so many wounds? Why does he have so many wounds? Why does he fall? He's Mashiach, isn't he? Like, giant, Chacham, Kadosh, and so on? They say, this soul is so extraordinary, that when Hashem decided, "I'm going to break up the suffering that's going to come to the world into three," a third goes to the Avot: Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, Moshe, Aharon, David, Shlomo, and so on, the greatest. A third goes to the Dorei Hashemad, The generations of the Holocaust, the pogroms, the inquisitions, the Beit HaMikdash destroyed. Those horrible generations where there were major destructions and hundreds of millions of people dying, Jews dying. Not just millions, hundreds of millions dying. If you look at the Midrashim of what happened at the Churban Beit HaMikdash, you'd start crying from the numbers. It was much, much worse than the Holocaust. Hundreds of millions of Jews died. Hundreds of millions. Not a few million. Either one is bad, but it was much worse.

1:01:19A third of the suffering goes to those generations, and a third of the suffering goes to Mashiach. Why? because in order for him to be Mashiach, he has to sacrifice. He has to sacrifice himself. The Christians use this teaching from the sages and turn it into Yoshke. They turn it into their stupidity, their idolatry. "Oh, the suffering servant, the suffering servant." It's all shtuyot, nonsense. They took one word from the Torah and created a whole religion out of it. Just because you suffer doesn't mean you're Mashiach. Trust me, I suffered a lot. I'm an expert in suffering. I'm not Mashiach. So now the Chachamim say, what happens to this suffering? How does it, what happens with it? They say every month on Rosh Chodesh, Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov go to the soul of Mashiach. They say, Mashiach, please continue suffering. Why? If you don't suffer, Am Yisrael is going to suffer.

1:02:22So the Mashiach says to Hashem, "Hashem, I'm not only willing to suffer, I'm willing to die for even a single Jew not to break a nail. Not just to not die—for one Jew in Your nation to not break a nail, I'm willing to die for him, not just suffer." So the biggest busha, the biggest embarrassment for us, Rabotai, if we have the merit to see Mashiach, if we have the merit to see him, if we do teshuva, and he's not killing us with his words, he actually is going to save us, is that the first thing we're going to see—hey, that wound, that scar over here, yeah, you did it. Remember when you went with that girl? Yeah, yeah, it's you. This is you. Or remember when you wasted seed that time? Yeah, yeah, it's you. It's over here, right here. Every single one of us is going to see what we did to the Mashiach. And we're going to die from embarrassment. But that's why we have to do teshuva. That's why we have to do teshuva. Because the Mashiach is not going to save 50-50s. not gonna save the guy that's gonna, you know, his entire Torah for the week is three short five-minute WhatsApp videos. It's nice, but you gotta do a little bit more to be saved by Mashiach. You gotta do a little more to get to Gan Eden. We all know that. How many people believe that you can get rich off of five minutes of work a day?

1:03:44Anybody here really honestly believe, not through lotto, logically, normally, without luck and all that stuff, that you can get, become successful out of five minutes of work a day? No one's raising hands. Okay, how about 15 minutes? Fifteen minutes a day you could be successful? Fifteen minutes a day you could pay for a mortgage, especially in New York? A mortgage, I know there's a million dollars here. A mortgage, just to get a hole in the wall, is a million dollars. How many people think you could actually afford a mortgage? Yeshiva for the kids, b'ezrat Hashem. Kosher food, a wife, a husband, everything? Fifteen minutes of work a day. How many people believe that, honestly? Fifteen minutes of work a day. Nobody, right? Two hours, we start becoming more realistic. Two hours, it's possible. If you're really good at what you do, you make sure that every second of the two hours you're actually working, you make the right calls, you make the right moves, it's possible. Possible, not so likely, but possible. Possible. I know if I go back to Wall Street, two hours a day is more than enough. I'm still not going to go because it's a waste of time. But the reality is, two hours, it's possible for you to make it. Two hours of Torah, it's possible for us to make it to Heaven.

1:04:58It's possible to make it to the next world. It's possible. It's not a guarantee, but it's possible. Now you start talking. This, Rabotai, is what Pesach is all about. It's not about matzah. Yes, eat matzah. Enjoy the matzah. I don't know, to me it gives me stomach aches. But you guys like matzah? Eat matzah. Enjoy matzah. But it's not about matzah. You're supposed to eat matzah. If you eat bread, it's a sin. So, you have to eat matzah. But it's not the point of Pesach. It's not the point of Pesach. Cleaning the house—God bless all the women that are cleaning the houses and the men, everybody is cleaning. Good. That's not the point of Pesach. It's good. You have to do it. You can't have chametz in your house. But that's not the point of Pesach. The point of Pesach, Rabotai, is to get rid of the chametz. Not just the physical chametz that you could just get a cleaning lady to help you do it. A hundred bucks, you got all the chametz out. What do you think? The whole Judaism is based on whether you could afford a hundred bucks for a cleaning lady?

1:05:59Your entire Olam HaBa is based on whether you can afford a hundred bucks? Does anybody honestly really think this? Pesach is about self-sacrifice. Pesach is about what are you willing to do to sacrifice for Hashem in order to clean out the inner chametz. The bad middot, the stinginess, the arrogance, the selfishness. All of the bad character traits that we have, we have to work on. You get angry like every two seconds, you have to work on it. You're stingy, you have to work on it. You're over-generous, you have to work on it. All these bad characteristics, what are you willing to fix? What are you willing to do to fix it? You don't have much knowledge, what are you willing to do to fix it? You know a lot about sports, but nothing about Moshe Rabbeinu. What are you willing to do to fix it? You have some type of addiction. You're addicted to drugs. You're addicted to alcohol. You're addicted to girls. You're addicted to wasting seed. You're addicted to sports, to video games. You're addicted to something other than God. What are you willing to do to sacrifice for Hashem? What addiction are you willing to get rid of in order to sacrifice something for Hashem? What korban are you going to bring Him?

1:07:17That's what Pesach is all about. That's the Chametz. The Chametz is not just a physical Chametz you can get a cleaning lady to clean for you. The Chametz is inside. Every one of us has to do something. Something. Whatever you did now, Chazak U'Baruch, Chazak U'Beruchah. I'm not saying we're not doing anything. Who am I to tell you you're doing anything? You may be the biggest tzaddik in the world. You may be the Mashiach. I don't know. But the reality is, if you're still here, you have to do something. If you're still here, you have to do something. If it's Shabbat, keep Shabbat. If it's wasting seed, stop wasting seed. If it's gambling, stop gambling. Whatever it is, compare where you are to what Hashem says. What does Hashem say in comparison to what you are? And start matching. Pick one. You can't do everything at once. Pick something. But don't pick, oh, you know what? I eat a little bit too much candy. I'm going to stop eating candy. No one goes to Gehinnom for eating candy. But Chilul Shabbat people go to Gehinnom for. Wasting seed people go to Gehinnom for. You have to pick something big. Why? It's Pesach. It's not a regular day. But you'll see something magical. The Arizal says you'll see something magical. What? Once you sacrifice something big, you are now living like Am Yisrael 3,300 years ago.

1:08:38They sacrificed their lives multiple times in a very short period of time. For what? They got miracles in return. You want a miracle? You want an amazing job? You want an amazing wife? You want an amazing husband? You want an amazing kid? You want all these big things you ask from Hashem? You start. You start by doing something big. You start by doing something big and, by the grace of Hashem, you'll have something big. Any questions? Yeah. I think I heard... Yes, until he has the soul of Mashiach, he doesn't know he's Mashiach. But he's definitely a Tzadik, but he's a Tzadik Nistar. He's not one of the public people. And actually, there's more than one source that says that the world is going to be surprised when they find out who the Mashiach is. It's going to be someone that's a Baal Teshuva. It's not going to be someone that's been religious and righteous from day one. He's going to have very, very extraordinary traits. But in general, he's not going to know he's the Mashiach until he becomes the Mashiach, which means that anybody that tells you he's the Mashiach is by default definitely not the Mashiach. Anyone that says "I'm the Mashiach," which I get at least one person a week telling me he's the Mashiach...

1:10:01At least once a week, somebody sends me an email telling me, "I'm the Mashiach. I need your help." What do they need? "I need you to invest in me so I can take over the government. I need you to do this and do that." These Mashiachs are all broke. They're all broke. They have no powers, and 90% of them don't know anything about Torah. Some of them are not even Jewish. That's the best part. So the reality is, rabotai, that the Mashiach has certain qualities, but he's only going to know he's the Mashiach after it's officially made public to the whole world. It's not just like he's going to know by himself for a while and then everyone else is going to know. He's going to know when Hashem puts Ruach Elohim in him. the power of God within him, he's going to be able to smell our Yirat Shamayim. Meaning he's going to be able to see every single sin you've ever made since you were born. And based on that, just by smelling you, smelling your sins, he's going to judge you dead or alive. Just by that. Just by that. It's not like, oh, let's go to a Beit Din, prove this, prove that. There's no case, there's no talking, there's no handshake, there's no excuses, nothing. It's like the Beit Din of Shamayim.

1:11:11Two seconds, finished. So now, it's a big thing. So it's not just about Mashiach arriving, it's about us surviving that day of judgment. So, the people that say they're Mashiach, all they're doing is they're fulfilling the prophecy that Hashem says is going to happen at the end of days, that there's going to be a lot of false messiahs. A lot of people that say they're Mashiach, or people that say that somebody's a Mashiach. A lot of false messiahs. That's unfortunately part of the prophecies of what's going to happen right before the real Mashiach arrives. So it's unfortunately happening. And you'll see a lot more of it. There's a lot of Jews and non-Jews that are pretending to be Mashiach. And some of them are on the way. There's one particular guy, in my opinion—I mean, I don't really care about mentioning his name because the guy is a rasha—but in my opinion, he's only, I don't know, I give or take, it's an over-under. A year, he's going to start a new religion. But if you look at him, he looks more religious than Moshe Rabbeinu. Peyot reach the floor, the beard reaches the floor, but if you actually listen, if you know even one ounce of Torah, one ounce of Torah, you listen to his shiurim, you know the guy is a kofer.

1:12:23And once he says, your wife, if she doesn't want to go to a mikveh, you could still be with her. If she doesn't want to be with you at all, she doesn't want to be with you intimately, you could go to a prostitute. If you have a yetzer hara, just put on black clothes and you're allowed to sin. If you want to smoke marijuana, do it. If it's going to help you learn Torah, smoke marijuana. Even though it's against the Torah, all these things. Starts creating things and then one time he'd give a chidush. He said God spoke to him and told him, "Thank you." His name is Yisroel Casuto. This guy's a rasha merusha. But the reality is you see his followers; they only increased in the last year and He has a lot of followers, a lot of people like him. He has charisma, people like him, whatever it is. But according to the Torah, he's a kofer gamur. He's a kofer gamur. He's a heretic. In my opinion, I've already been following this for almost two years. In my opinion, he's maybe a year away from starting his own religion. Maybe a year away, maybe less. It's already his own religion, just nobody knows it. I think he's officially going to be like a false messiah. It's my prediction. Let's see if I'm right.

1:13:42But the reality is, he already has a different religion. He hasn't called it anything else yet. I think within a year he's going to call it something else. That's my opinion. But either way, the reality is there's going to be a lot of people like him. A lot of false messiahs. He's not the only one. There are plenty of people like him that are quieter and are louder. There's this one guy, Shmuley Boteach, who's one of the head guys in Open Orthodoxy. Open Orthodoxy. They pretend to be Orthodox, but in reality, they're Reform. But they call themselves Orthodox to fool people. He tells people that halakha is something you can change, mix, and match. You could renew the Torah. This by itself, by definition, is kefirah. And there are plenty of people like him. And then there are the Reform, and then there are the Conservative, and then there are the Christians that pretend to be Jews. Today, by the way, you can't go to any shul and assume that everybody's a Jew. You cannot do that. It doesn't matter if it's Chabad, Orthodox, Modern Orthodox, or Shmix, whatever it is. It could be Cheerios. It doesn't make a difference. Whatever sect you are, you cannot assume that everybody in the shul is Jewish. Why? Because there are many people who are not Jewish that go to shul because they like Judaism but haven't converted yet. But if you look at them, just by the exterior, they look more religious than you and me.

1:15:03At least a handful of people that I'm friends with online, who are my students—you can call them that, but they already stopped being my students because they don't want to listen to me anymore. But I still follow them on Facebook, and I see once in a while they put pictures of themselves online. All the time, you see these guys; it's like Chassidim from 400 years ago—all the way to the floor, the beard reaches this, the hat reaches this. It's like it's pulling him every day. The guy's not Jewish. He's not even Jewish—not him, not his friend, not his friend's friend, and his friend's whole group of people. But they're all over the world. One guy looks like the Rambam—like the whole thing. The beard, he looks like he's replicating the Rambam. The way you know he's not the Rambam is he's kushy—he's black. It's the only way. If he wasn't black, it wouldn't be the Rambam maybe. But I'm telling you, there's a lot of confusion. But the guy's not Jewish. I don't have anything against anyone, but if you're going to pretend to be Jewish, just be Jewish. You want to be a Jew? Be a Jew. You don't want to be a Jew? Don't be a Jew. The problem is that we actual Jews don't want to be Jews. That's the problem. That's why Hashem is letting it happen.

1:16:13That's why Hashem is letting it happen, because the Jews themselves don't want to be Jews. So He says, you don't want to be a Jew? I'll bring people from other nations, and they're going to become the converts. They'll be the Jews. Somebody has to be My nation. You want to go worship idols? He tells the prophet Yechezkel, you want to worship idols? Go worship idols. I'll find somebody. Somebody will serve Me. I will have a nation of Israel. This is what's happening right now in front of our eyes. Avodah Zarah, page 4. It says before Mashiach comes, there's going to be an enormous amount of converts. Throughout all of history, this prophecy was a complete joke. Throughout all of history, to say there's going to be a lot of converts was a complete joke, Rabotai. Why? To be a Jew was a life danger. Why would you want to become one? Just to be a Jew. Forget about learning, religious, not religious. Forget about all that. Just to be a Jew, your life's in danger. The Nazis, Haman, the Romans, the Greeks, the Turks, the Spaniards—everybody wanted to kill us every week. For good reason, bad reason, it didn't make a difference. They created reasons. So, you want to convert to one of the people they're going to kill? Probably last week? Something wrong with you? This prophecy was like a joke. Who's going to convert to Judaism? And not only convert, it says there's going to be a lot of them.

1:17:32We're seeing it right now. Every single day, the Batei Din are converting people. Every day. First time in history. I went to the Beit Din yesterday in New York. I spoke to them. Every single day somebody's converting. Every day. Some places more, some people less. But I'm talking about real conversions, not the fake conversions. Real conversions. Real people that are sacrificing their lives, their marriages, their children, everything for Hashem. I have one student, tzadika kedosha. You know what she sacrificed? I bet you none of you are willing to sacrifice it. Why? I know. I don't think there are two people in the world willing to sacrifice it. She sacrificed a marriage and five kids. A marriage of 17 years and five kids. For who? For Hashem. Who's willing to do it? Raise your hand. Tachlis, we're not willing to do it. The reality is, rabotai, if we were born not Jewish, we probably wouldn't even want to convert. That's the reality. That's the reality. Why? It's much easier to be a goy.

1:18:41I can eat whatever I want. I can party however I want, as long as I don't worship an idol, don't eat the animal while it's still alive, don't steal, and have a court system. It's pretty easy to be a goy. Why should I go and add 613 laws to my life? Why? That's because we don't know what it means to be a Jew. We look at it as something that's like a burden on us to be a Jew. It's a burden on us to be a Jew. The 613 mitzvot mean what? It's a burden. That's because we don't know anything. We don't know what it means to be a Jew. We don't know that you won the lotto every single second you're alive as a Jew. The entire world exists because of you. Like it or not. The entire world exists because of the Jew. There could be a tower, the Torah says, a tower in the middle of the desert. A huge tower. The tower could reach the sky. One huge billionaire could build this huge tower. Why would Hashem allow this guy to build a tower? Because maybe a tzaddik will pass by the tower one time and use it for shade against the sun. To use it as cover against the sun.

1:19:53To be a little less hot. One time in his life, the tower exists for a million years. One time a tzaddik is going to pass by the desert and he's going to be a little less hot because he's going to use the tower as a cover. That's it. That's the only reason Hashem gives the guy from Saudi Arabia the ability to build a tower to reach the sky because maybe a Jew will benefit from it. He's going to be less hot for five minutes. The entire world was built for a Jew, like it or not. You don't know it, you don't like it, you still haven't become a Jew yet. Even if your mom's a Jew. But that's, rabotai, the difference. The real Jew knows this. Many of them, unfortunately, are coming from other nations. They want to become real Jews. So when you told the woman, listen, you realize if your husband's not converting, you can't stay with him. She goes, no problem. What do you mean, no problem? You're in a 17-year marriage. What can I do? do you mean, what can you do? You stay married, you could be a non-Jew, stay married for another... get a get, a lot about just keep saying, no, God comes first. Yeah, but your kids, your kids can't convert. I love them, they'll come visit once in a while. What do you mean, but they can't? You want to do it, you won't. I'm not willing to do it.

1:21:09... I'm barely willing to come to New York because I have three kids at home. I have my wife and two babies. Do you want me to give up five kids? Do you understand the logic here? That someone knows what it means to be a Jew. We're still learning. We're still learning. And that's why, Rabotai, Hashem says there's going to be a lot of converts before the end of times. Because He says, if you don't want to do it, I'll find somebody that does. I'll find somebody that does... there's plenty of them, millions of them. They're dying to be Jews. The question is whether we'll be Jews. That's the only question. The question is whether we will be. To be a Jew, get used to self-sacrifice. Get used to getting yourself uncomfortable. Uncomfortable is the normal state of a Jew. You're constantly chasing more. Hashem gave you ambition, not so you chase millions. Hashem gave you ambition so you chase more Torah. It's never enough. I have one chiddush, now I want two chiddushim. I have one parasha, now I want two parashot. I have one gemara, I want another gemara. More, more, more. That's why the Torah is endless. And Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus says to Rabbi Akiva,

1:22:30if the entire ocean was ink and all of the land was paper and all of the trees were pens, it wouldn't be enough to write the Torah that Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus knew. And he says, in that amount of Torah It's not even a single drop in comparison to the Torah that my rabbis knew, he says. Rabban Yochanan, it's not even a drop next to his Torah. And his Torah is not even a drop in comparison to the Torah of the previous generation. And that Torah is not even a drop of the Torah of what we got on Har Sinai. And that Torah, by the way, is not even the real Torah yet. What we got on Har Sinai is the essence of Torah, not the entire Torah. The entire Torah we can't handle. And that's why the Gemara Masechet Shabbat says, when Moshe Rabbeinu went up to Shamayim on Har Sinai, the angels said to Hashem, what is the son of a woman doing up here with us heavenly creatures? What is he doing here? He's the son of a woman. He's flesh and blood. He says, tell him, Moshe, I'm here to collect the Torah.

1:23:48So the sages say, why are they surprised? I mean, they're angels, why are they surprised that Moshe is here? So the angels say, Hashem, that Torah that You wrote and kept and maintained for 974 generations before the world was created, You're just going to give it away to the son of man? That's probably not even going to keep it? Hashem says, don't worry, I'm just giving him the essence. Him, I'm going to show him the whole thing. But his people, it's just the essence of it. It's a drop of water of it. And the drop of water of it, Rabbi Tai, the drop of water of it that we have, if you studied for a million years, 24 hours a day without sleeping, without drinking, without anything, you wouldn't finish 1% of it. And that's why the Sages say, what do they do in the next life? They learn Torah. How much Torah is there? Endless. Endless Torah. And this, what we have right now, this beauty that we have right now, is just the essence. A tiny bit. A tiny bit.

1:24:54Torah is endless, Rabotai. If you don't love it, if you're not infatuated with it, if you're not obsessed with it, that means you haven't learned anything yet. You haven't learned Torah yet. Because once you learn it, it's very easy to be addicted. It's very easy to leave your wife, your husband, the kids, everything. Leave different religions. Once you have Torah, all you have is Hashem. Of course, the Torah is in order for you to fulfill it. So Hashem is not advocating getting divorced. He's not advocating killing people. He's not advocating leaving. He's advocating for you to fulfill the Torah. If keeping everything as is, is fulfilling the Torah—staying married, having kids, and so on—then that's what you do. But if you want to be a Jew and the current status does not allow it, you have to make an exception. The point is, rabotai, that there are certain people who are willing to make exceptions that we're not. And that is a kitrug against us. That's a decree against us. That's a judgment against us in shamayim. Because in shamayim, they're going to ask us, why didn't you keep everything? Why? It's like, oh, it was hard for me. It was hard for me. Why was it hard for you? Oh, I had a lot of money. So they're going to bring you Abba Elazar. They'll bring you Abba Elazar.

1:26:10who had ships and cities, zillions and zillions of dollars. The Gemara says that his ma'aser was 120,000 cows. His ma'aser was 120,000 cows. Every year his ma'aser was 120,000 cows. I did the math; he made over a billion dollars a year. So now, he showed you him, he said, you have more money than him? He was a tzaddik, he was a tanna, he was able to revive the dead, he knew a lot of Torah. He had more money than him? No. Okay, what else was reasoned? Oh, you know, I was really good looking, the girls were chasing me, you know. Every girl, you know, the good ones, they were after me, I couldn't keep it. What are they going to bring you? They're going to bring you Yosef HaTzaddik. Yosef HaTzaddik was so beautiful, women threw their underwear at him. threw their underwear at him. There were a few women who looked at him while they were cutting salad. They ended up cutting their own hands and they didn't notice. He was so beautiful, they started staring at him. They forgot they were cutting their own flesh. Not little nicks. They cut their whole hands off. That's how beautiful Yosef HaTzaddik was. So you were more beautiful than Yosef HaTzaddik? He was a Tzaddik. He was Kodesh. He's one of the 12 tribes. Was it more difficult for you than for him?

1:27:23What other reason do you have? Every reason they're going to give you somebody. And one of the biggest reasons is, oh, but you know what? It was really difficult in general. You know, I had to leave my life. I had a Yetzer Hara. I lived in New York. I lived in Miami. I lived in Gehinnom. I lived in Las Vegas. I lived in all these places. The girls are naked. The guys are naked. Everybody's this. Everybody's that. There's the gambling. There's this. There's the Bitcoin. I couldn't do it, Hashem. What are they going to bring you? They're going to bring you my student. They're going to bring you my students. Why? The tzadikim. And you know why? They're converts. They're converts, many of my students. They're going to come to you and say, "Oh, you had it tougher than him? Why? He's the one that left his entire family in Haiti. Why?" Left his entire family in Haiti. He has nothing here. No money, no job, nothing. What did he leave it for? To convert. Here's another guy. He left everything in India. He came to be with Hashem. He does more kiruv than anybody else in the world. Vimesh, God bless him. You have Emmanuel. Emmanuel gave himself a Brit Milah. A Brit Milah! Who is going to do it here today?

1:28:44Brit Milah, the same day he had Brit Milah, he went back on a computer and did kiruv. Who's doing that today? Without the Brit Milah. Without the Brit Milah. He had a woman leave her family, a 17-year marriage. 17-year marriage, finished. Why? Hashem. Every single one of them had one reason: Hashem. Leave India, leave Bulgaria, leave anywhere. For what? For Hashem. You're going to say it's hard for you because of your bitcoins and your smartphones and everything else. They're going to show you my students. Say, was it harder than them? What are you going to say then? I don't know. You know, I didn't know it was like that. Now you know. Now you know. Now you know. that's why, Rabotai, it is a very, very important time to do teshuva, a very important time to get rid of all the chametz. The number one chametz is excuses. The number one chametz is excuses. Excuses for why we're not better than we were a year ago.

1:29:52Excuses for why we're not better than we were a year ago. How come we don't know a lot more? How come we only know a little bit more? How come we don't remember what happened in the shiur Torah? We only remember a little bit of the Torah. How come we're still not doing what we're supposed to? If Hashem hasn't given you a zivug yet, there's something wrong. If Hashem hasn't given you parnassah yet, there's something wrong. If Hashem is giving you health problems, there's something wrong. If there's a shooting in your country every week, there's something wrong. Somebody came to the Chafetz Chaim and said, "Eiton Kvoda Rav, I just came back from Africa, collecting money for the yeshivot." The Chafetz Chaim asks him, "How are the Africans doing over there, the black people?" The Rabbi asked him, "What?" Why does the Rav care about the non-Jewish Kvod HaRav? Because I know, how are they doing over there? I hear that they're being persecuted. In Africa, they're being persecuted. How are they doing? Are they still being persecuted? He says to me, I'm not sure, but maybe a little, maybe yes, maybe no. He wasn't really sure. Where's this question? Which Gemara talks about this?

1:31:12Why? You don't know. Anytime there's anything bad that happens around the entire world, whether it's persecution of a black guy you never heard of in Africa, or an earthquake in India, or a tsunami in Haiti, or a shooting in America, or too many leaves or too many bees dying in some place in the world. Bees dying. There's going to be less honey in the market. There's going to be less sugar in the market. There's going to be inflation. Anything bad happens to the world. That's Hashem talking to Am Yisrael. He says it's time to do teshuva. Yeah, but the black guy died, but the Indian guy died, but the school over there died. No, no, no. It's all connected to Am Yisrael. All connected to Am Yisrael. The tsunami happened over there because of Am Yisrael. If Am Yisrael was doing good, the tsunami wouldn't happen. If Am Yisrael would be doing good, the shooting wouldn't happen.

1:32:12And that's what we have to understand. You sit here for an hour, two hours, you learn Torah, the world exists because of you. The world, the entire world, continues to spin because of you, even if you're half asleep. The world exists because of you. Why? You're fulfilling the purpose of the world. So this, Rabotai, is the number one mission we have. Learn Torah. Take it seriously. Stop acting or wanting to be like the goyim. Because they want to be us. They should want to be us. We just need to want to be us. We need to want to be us. We need to be Jews. Not them. If they want to be, welcome. But we still need to do it anyway. And that's the most important thing that we need to learn in Pesach. Pesach is all those excuses. It's hard for me. It's this for me. It's that for me. That's chametz. That's chametz. That's chametz all year round. That's chametz all year round. Enough with the excuses. Because if I told you, if you make this call, or you go to the shiur, or you do whatever you say that's going to take you two hours a day, you're going to get a million dollars, you tell me how many can I get of those?

1:33:29I'll do anything for a million dollars. I'll do anything for a million dollars. I'm telling you, get infinite dollars. Just learn Torah two hours a day. Now, if you haven't started yet, learn 15 minutes a day. And know that the matara, the goal, is two hours, three hours, or more. If you have zero now, you can't go from zero to two hours a day. So start somewhere. Start like I did, 15 minutes a day, but every day. After you've done that for a while, you can handle more, increase it to a half-hour every day. You see you're handling that for a little while, another week, another month, another two months, your half-hour a day is good, increase it to 45 minutes, to an hour. But get to a point where you're on your direction, on your journey to two hours a day. you can't go from zero to two hours; you can't go from zero to 100 either. But the reality is, you have to start somewhere. You have to start somewhere. If we don't start somewhere, we're never going to get anywhere. Any more questions in the back? Anyone finished the entire Torah? You guys ready for Pesach?

1:34:43You guys know all the halachot for Pesach? You want the halachot for Pesach? In five minutes? Okay. Okay, so this is what you have to do. So tomorrow, b'ezrat Hashem, we're going to put this shiur online so you can watch it again. But I'll give you all of the halachot for Pesach in, I think, anywhere between five to ten minutes. This is the minimum of minimum. Meaning, there's obviously a lot more details, but if you do all of what I say, you're good. Okay? These are the halachot of Pesach. Now, first and foremost, the month of Nisan. The month of Nisan, from Rosh Chodesh Nisan until the end of Nisan, there's something called Birkat Ha'Ilanot. fruit trees that grow. So, if someone sees a fruit tree with the beginning of the fruit starting to grow, you have to do a blessing. If you're seeing two fruits grow, the source of that is in Berakhot 43b. I'll give you sources so you know where all this is coming from and you don't think it's my idea or some stringency or something.

1:35:49So, that's one thing; that's the easy part. If you have it, good. If you don't have it, then you're... The second thing is that if you're going to use the same utensils as you did for the rest of the year, let's say, for example, you use the same pots and pans as you did for the rest of the year, it has to go to hagalah. If you cooked warm things in them, stew and things of that nature that are meat, then you have to go to something called libun. Libun is usually done in Jewish communities. All Jewish communities have at least one or two or ten people that do this libun, which is when they burn and they burn the actual pot all over again with a blowtorch to make sure that they reopen all of the holes within that metal to remove all of the chametz from it. If you're going to use the same thing. Today, on one hand, it's very easy to get brand new. And number two, Baruch Hashem, most of Am Yisrael is in decent financial shape, so you can get, you know, a brand new or at least enough for the Chag set of pots and pans from Walmart or from Amazon for 30 bucks. So most people don't do this Libun, but in case you want to use the same pots and pans, you have to do this Libun, where you use this blowtorch to make the things that you cooked hot things in with Libun. If you cooked, if you made things that were cold, then it has to go to Hagalah. Hagalah means...

1:37:16You have to put it in boiling water. You have to put this, whatever tool that you're using, in boiling water. And this is Hagalat Keilim. Hagalat Keilim, Hagalah, comes from the source of removing something foreign. We get this from Parashat Bechukotai, Sefer Vayikra, chapter 26, verse 11. Hashem says to the people of Israel, ולא תגעל נפשי אתכם. Don't bring something foreign into yourself to the point where I'm disgusted by you. Because of this foreign object, there's something foreign that you're doing. So on Pesach, we're not allowed to bring the rest of the year with us. On Pesach, we start new. Don't make Hashem disgusted. So the Hagalat Keilim is if you use the same things. Now, for Sephardim, anyone who is Sephardic, which I'm assuming is almost everybody here,

1:38:16There's a very big leniency when you're using glass. So, glass cups and glass plates do not need to be kashered. You can actually use them all year round. For Pesach and for out of Pesach, you don't have to do anything if you're Sephardic. If you're Ashkenazi, you have to follow your tradition. Now, you can't be just Ashkenazi on Pesach or just Sephardi on Pesach and the rest of the year different. This is, by the way, one of the arguments that I forgot, but Baruch Hashem, I learned it again today. It is one of the arguments when it comes to this wigs craziness, that people say, "Yeah, but such and such rabbi says it's allowed." Yes, the reality is, even if what he says is right, you're still not allowed to do it. Why? Even if it's wrong what he says, but even if what he says is right, you're still not allowed to use it. Why? He's not your rabbi. You're not allowed to use multiple rabbis. You can't say, I'm Rav Ovadia all the way, except this. There's a Gemara in Masechet Rosh Hashanah, page 14. It says, if somebody takes all of the leniencies of Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel, he's a rasha.

1:39:27You can't use the leniencies of both houses. What if he does the chumras? He takes all of the stringencies of Beit Shammai and all of the stringencies of Beit Hillel. It says, on him it's written, "The fool will walk blind." The fool will walk blind. You can't use two poskim. You can't use two houses. If you're Rabbi Ovadia, Rabbi Ovadia all the way. If you're Rabbi Elyashiv, Rabbi Elyashiv all the way. Lubavitcher, Lubavitcher, whatever it is, one rabbi. You can't pick and choose rabbis. It's not a trick-or-treat bag. You have one rabbi. So this is also another thing. Next thing is cleaning out chametz. Cleaning out chametz... Also, as mentioned in the Torah, it's removing all of the leavened bread from the house, all of the things that are chametz. Whether it's pasta or other things like that, remove it. Now, disposing of the chametz comes from the Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim Siman 433.

1:40:29it says that to get rid of the chametz, there are a couple of ways of doing it. Number one, if it's opened—if it's an open type of chametz, like an open box of pasta, an open candy, open potato chips, or some other chips or something that's chametz that's not a sellable item—you have to throw it out unless it's very, very expensive whiskey or wine or something like that, which people traditionally preserve over an extended period of time. If it's like a bag of some snack, that's not something that people usually keep. That stuff you go and you burn. You burn it during the time when they actually burn the chametz, which is the day of Pesach eve during the day. Now, the stuff that is... brand new. You know, people buy more than they need. They go to Costco, Walmart, all these places. They buy more than they actually need, so they don't have to go to the store all the time. That stuff you sell. What do you mean? So, you have to remove it out of the house? No, you make one place in your house...

1:41:33closet, you put all of the chametz there. If it's still brand new, you seal it or put something on it so nobody opens it. You go to your local rabbi, tell him you want to sell your chametz. He's gonna ask you where it is located in the house. You're gonna define where it's located—in the closet here, in the kitchen—and the deedah. All the chametz stays there throughout the entire chag; you're not allowed to open this closet, and... whatever you put it into and you sign an agreement with the rabbi that you sold the chametz. He's gonna sell that chametz to some goy for the duration of the chag. After the chag is over, the chametz now goes back to you as your own, your chametz. But this chametz is brand new stuff. It's not like Bissli bags that you ate half of them. It's stuff that really if you really had to sell it, somebody would buy it. No one's gonna buy a half-eaten bag of Bissli and half a Snickers bar and... So be realistic with yourself. You know, if it's something real that's really brand new, it's technically resellable, that the store would take back, then that's something that you keep and you sell the chametz. After you sold the chametz, you have to check for chametz. After you sold it and burned it and everything, you also, the night before Pesach, have to check for chametz. Now, Rav Ovadia says that in this day and age, even though in the original Shulchan Aruch, Siman 433,

1:42:53and also the Gemara Masechet Pesachim, page 2a, it says that you should do it with a... feather, and you should do it with a candle. He says, in today's age, it's okay to do it even with a flashlight. You can even do it with a flashlight instead of a candle because sometimes the candle fire could be very dangerous with the carpets and so on that we have today. So you can use a flashlight to check for chametz. Now, the minhag—there is a machloket, a debate, whether this minhag is a good one or a bad one. But the minhag is to, if you know you cleaned the house, then you know there's probably not chametz. But the minhag is that one member of the family, usually the wife, is going to hide ten pieces of chametz somewhere in the house. The husband, and if he has kids, brings the kids along with him to show them how to find the chametz on their own without her telling them. Now, she has to know where she put it. She has to write it down because in case he didn't find it, she has to find it and she has to get rid of it. But the point is to show that at least he exerted all effort to find the chametz; that's the minhag, that's the custom. The reason why some people say it's not a good custom is because some people forget where they hid stuff, and it stays in their house. So they have chametz in their house. So whoever's hiding it has to write down where they hid it.

1:44:10And usually, they do ten things. You put it in a Ziploc bag, you put a little piece of pita or some type of bread in a Ziploc bag, and somebody hides it in different spots in the house. And that's the minhag. It's very, very fun for little kids to do it also with parents, for whoever has kids. Now, the Shulchan Aruch in chapter 445a says you have to burn the chametz. Like I said, usually most Jewish congregations have one or two different congregations that have a big barrel where they have a fire, and people throw their chametz in there. That's to burn the chametz that's not sellable after. About 10 a.m., you have to check your local time because it's based on when the sun comes up and goes down. It depends on your location. In New York, it's different than Florida, and so on. It's usually around 10 a.m. Before the Chag begins, you're no longer allowed to eat chametz. Even though the Chag doesn't officially start till later on, the Seder is not till the night. You're no longer allowed to eat chametz around 10 a.m. You have to check the exact time locally. Also, if you're a firstborn Jew, you have to fast. You have to fast all the way until the Seder. But there is a little trick to get out of it.

1:45:34The trick to get out of that fast. How? You go to a Beit Knesset that has somebody finishing a Masechet. Finishing a tractate of Gemara. If you listen to him finish the tractate of Gemara, you don't have to fast because you can be part of the Seudat Mitzvah. No, if you're firstborn, you have to fast. Firstborn, you both have to fast, but it's easier to go find somebody finishing a masechet because there are plenty of synagogues that have people finishing a masechet on Pesach. It's a well-known tradition. Also, at around noon again, you have to check the exact time. At around noon, you're no longer allowed to work. So, if you have a business or you work for somebody or something like that, you have to finish before that. You're not allowed to work anymore. Even though the Chag officially starts later on, the seder is later on, and so on, as of noon, regardless of what day of the week the Chag falls on, you cannot work anymore. So... Can't work in the stock market. Can't work in the phone place. You can't work anymore. Pretty much your Chag, as far as the no-work part, is no longer allowed. Yeah. What if? Then you quit. Not allowed to work. Call in sick. Call in sick. If you were sick, he would tell you to still work. Okay, so call in sick. Call in sick. I'm sick today. I have a stomachache.

1:46:57Or you can just tell them, "My doctor told me not to work." Which doctor? The Rambam. The Rambam was a doctor. Okay? "My doctor told me not to work. The Rambam was a doctor." So it's true. You're not lying. Good. He reminded me. You're not lying. You're telling the truth. The Rambam told you not to work. But you don't have to tell them, "The Rambam told me not to work." So that's it. Why? I don't know. Huh? You have to find a new job if that's going to risk your job. If not working for a few hours is going to risk your job, you have to find a new job because it's not a normal job. No normal person would fire somebody for not being able to show up. It's freedom of religion, by the way. By the way, if anybody fired you, you could sue them. It's called freedom of religion. There's actually a right in America for that. If that person was a Muslim, and they told him, "Listen, I'm not working because it's our Ramadan," and the guy even peeps the wrong way, looks at her the wrong way, or him the wrong way, she could sue for millions, close down the business. It's called freedom of religion. So you don't have any excuses, Baruch Hashem, and trust me, if you do what Hashem wants, He'll make it so.

1:48:06So no more working afternoon. Again, check the exact time. You're also not allowed to eat matzah—not matzah shemurah, not matzah ashira, and not matzah regilah. So what do you eat throughout the whole day until the seder? You could eat chicken, you could eat meat, you could eat fruits, you could eat eggs, you could eat everything else except bread and matzah. You cannot eat. This is, again, Shulchan Aruch, 471b. ...of these have sources. Now, to prepare for the seder is not just showing up. Rabotai, don't just show up to the seder because the responsibility of the seder has a few different things. First off, eating matzah is not like we thought most of our lives. As long as you take a bite, you're finished. Take a bite; you're supposed to eat matzah four times during the seder and drink wine four times during the seder... take a little sip, take a little bite, you're finished. That's not right. The actual halacha is you have to eat each time, each time that they say you have to eat matzah, you have to eat 30 grams, 30 grams of matzah. Now, if you're going to use the square matzah,

1:49:1530 grams of matzah is, unfortunately, almost like more than one; it's like one and a half of them. It's a lot. You have to eat this four times. So what a lot of people do is they eat fterah. Fterah is something that the Yemenites and a few other Sephardim have, which is like a soft matzah. It's a soft matzah. And the reason why they eat it, aside from it tasting a little bit better for some people, it's also more worth it because fterah, since it's thick, is almost like pita, but it's kosher for Pesach; it's thicker. So 30 grams of this fterah is literally just one tiny little slice. So you don't have to eat so much of this matzah and not be able to eat the rest of the delicious food that's going to be available. on the seder. But in general, you're supposed to prepare yourself four servings, four servings of 30 grams of matzah, whichever matzah you pick. Yeah? I heard you need the regular matzah now. The fterah? Why not? Different custom. Different custom? Oh. You're Sephardi, aren't you? Yeah, but I heard from one guy that you can't just use matzah.

1:50:23It's not a custom. It's that you're Sephardi. It's not the Av Beit Din of Yerushalayim. Rav Gidon ben Moshe has a whole place where every year he makes Fdera. It's not everybody's tradition. He's the Av Beit Din. He's the Head Dayan in all of Yerushalayim. He makes it for people of all types. So obviously... It's not just for people that come from Yemen or Morocco or something like that. No, if you want to eat it, you can eat it. There's no problem with it. The second thing is that you have to make sure that you have four servings of three ounces of wine or three ounces of grape juice. It's better to have wine, but if you have grape juice, that's fine too. But it's four servings of it. And also two servings of maror. Maror is lettuce, Romaine lettuce. Now, the servings of the lettuce, the maror, is a kezayit. So it's a relatively small piece. Make sure that it's not only a good size, but it also has no bugs. Because if you eat maror, if you eat the lettuce, and it has even a single bug on it, it's better off you didn't do the whole Seder.

1:51:35Because each time you eat a bug, it's six different sins from the Torah. So it doesn't matter how many guests you have. You have five guests or you have 5,000 guests. You have to make sure that you know for sure that whoever is monitoring, it's not some catering company. You're monitoring it, you know for sure somebody knows what they're doing when they're washing the lettuce one by one against the light with salt and so on to make sure there's no bugs in the lettuce. And they... Unfold it because if there's one bug in your lettuce, your entire seder has become one big sin. It's not impossible. It's not impossible. This is actually not even difficult. It's just that people are lazy. People are lazy, so wash the lettuce. It's not impossible. Now, during the afternoon, one of the reasons why you can't work is because you have to rest. You have to rest during the afternoon. Take a nap for a couple of hours. And the reason why is because the biggest mitzvah of the seder, the biggest mitzvah of the seder is not the matzah. It's not the wine. It's not the afikoman. It's not even sitting down with your family. The biggest mitzvah of the seder is the Maggid. The Maggid is going over the entire story of the Exodus.

1:52:52Now what, the exegesis to say that Am Yisrael was in Egypt, Hashem took us out of Egypt, He split the sea, finished, takes five seconds. No, no, no. We're talking about all of the Midrashim, all the things you know, all the things you're going to start studying now about what happened there, the behind the scenes. If you don't have the books, get them. If you don't have the ability to get them, watch my shiurim, I have it online. just type in your own event Exodus or you could just tell me a text and I'll send it to you. It shows you different details of what happened with each of the plagues, what happened in Egypt, what happened at Yam Suf. There's a lot of Midrashim, a lot of details of behind the scenes of what happened, and we need to know these things. We need to know where we came from. That's the biggest mitzvah in all of Pesach. Why? Because the Magid, you have to do it during dinner. after you finish dinner and until you fall asleep, until you have no power at all and you fall asleep, there's no talking about baseball, there's no talking about basketball, or Bitcoin, or Shmitcoin, or Pokémon. None of that. It's only about the story of Yetziat Mitzrayim, that's all you talk about. And if you have to bring a book, bring a book. Now, what if you're with a bunch of people and they start falling asleep?

1:54:07She went to sleep, he went to sleep, he went to sleep, but you're still up. What do you have to do? You keep going. Who are you teaching? Yourself. You keep going. That's the biggest mitzvah of Pesach: the Maggid. Why? Know where you came from. Know where you came from. It's very entertaining, and usually the family loves it. So the Haggadah, make sure you have enough Haggadot for all your company, whoever is coming over. If they need English reading, make sure they have English. Be polite. Make sure if they speak a certain language, you have a Haggadah for them in their language. Don't be one of these people who expect everybody to speak Hebrew. Everybody's going to speak your language. Okay? And also, if you have a guest, if you have a guest that doesn't speak your language, you cannot speak your language next to him. It's not polite. It's not polite to do that. If you have 10 people, they all speak Hebrew, and one guy comes in, you invited him to the house, and he doesn't speak Hebrew, you can't speak Hebrew amongst each other. It's not nice. It's not nice to speak Hebrew amongst each other. Why? He thinks you're talking about him. And by the way, realistically, you probably are. Because if you didn't, you would talk in English. So, in reality, you have to learn that having a seder, having people over, is also about having manners.

1:55:18Having manners, we can't make people uncomfortable because they don't know or they're new or they don't speak the same language. You have to speak in a common language to people. Make sure that if you're not comfortable speaking in a common language, don't invite them. Invite somebody else. So the seder has, you have to say the Haggadah, go over the Haggadah. Also, there's the obligation to say the Hallel. The Hallel is the same thing like you say during Rosh Chodesh. You have to say the Hallel. When you eat the matzah and when you drink the wine, you have to do a haseva. Haseva means you have to lean. Each one of us has to bring a pillow and lean on the pillow like you're lounging like a king or a queen. Now, if a man forgot to do it, he just ate the matzah or drank the wine and forgot to do this, then he has to do it again. If a woman forgot it, she could skip it. It doesn't matter. She doesn't have to do it. Why? Because it's not too modest for her to do it to begin with. So, if she did it once, good. If she didn’t do it, she doesn't have to. Now, you have to pace yourself. I know there's going to be a big dinner, a lot of food, especially us Jews, we like food. So, you have to understand, during dinner, don't eat to the point where you're about to explode. Eat just a little bit before. Why? You still have to have room for the afikoman.

1:56:38have to eat the afikoman that has to be the last thing your mouth tastes for the night. You cannot eat anything else, so don't do Birkat Hamazon until you're ready to pretty much call it a night because you're not going to eat anymore. There's no more eating after that—no candy, no fruit, no nothing. After dinner and afikoman, you're finished. So that's why you need to make sure that you're ready to finish eating for the day, even though you're probably going to be up for a while longer talking about Pesach, because you're going to watch my shiurim, and you're going to know a lot about Pesach, and about Yetziat Mitzrayim. So after the seder, like I said, continue the stories about the Exodus, and then, Rabotai Yekarim, you have completed the seder. The good news is, you have to do it all exactly the same, again, the very next night. Very next night, brand new. Now, if you live in the exile, you have to do it again the next night. Now, what happens if you go to Israel? What happens if you go to Israel? You went to Israel, and they keep only one day over there. What do you do? The halacha is, if you're moving to Israel, officially, you're moving to Israel at that moment, you can be treated like an Israeli, meaning you keep only one day.

1:57:52But if you're just going to visit, you're still in the exile. You're just going to visit, you still have to keep two days, even though everybody else around you is keeping one day. That's your problem. And I know it's uncomfortable, and I know people don't like to keep this law, and so on and so forth. That's halacha. You want to change halacha? Talk to God, not me. I don't change halacha. The difference is that in the new month, and the calendar was based on time. that was determined in Israel. Now, because we did not always have atomic clocks and clocks that were very exact like we have today, the way we determined time was based on Rosh Chodesh and when the moon would show up in the sky. So, by the time it arrived in Israel, they would determine this is a new month. Now, by the time the news traveled to the exile, whether the exile was in Spain, Egypt, or somewhere else, it could be even a day later. Even though it was relatively a fast system because they would have a lighting system on top of mountains, where the people would see it and say it's officially a new month, they would light a light and...

1:59:03...a guy that's on top of another mountain 10 miles away would see the light and he would light a light, and then a guy another 10 miles away would see the light. It would travel pretty fast to the destination. It wasn't like some horse had to travel half the country. It's not like people think. Obviously, we were always geniuses; we weren't stupid ever. We were always smart... was a very relatively smart system, but still, there's always a chance that there's a flaw in the system. There's a delay in the system; somebody got injured, somebody got this. This could always be a delay of a day, up to a day. They say maybe they started the month a day late. So because of that, their holidays in the exile—all over the exile: America, Egypt, anywhere out of the exile—must be two days. Why? So they celebrate the main Yom Tov on the same day regardless. So it's better that they have two Pesachs rather than starting on the wrong day of Pesach. Why? Because if you eat chametz on Pesach, it's karet. It's the worst sin in Judaism. So it's better you keep extra than make a mistake and start it late.

2:00:08But in Israel, since the time is the time. So now, today, we have clocks that tell us exactly the time everywhere around the world, but we still keep two days. And the reason why we keep two days is because once there is a custom that's already generation after generation for hundreds and hundreds of years, we're not allowed to change it. Yeah? Yeah. and I move on by now, but I know what to do. I heard once that a Rabbi said to a student that everything that a person does now is so much greater than what you think and why you did it.

2:01:10doesn't contradict it. The mitzvah gives you a big reward, but it doesn't cancel out the sin. So, let's say, for example, just for argument's sake—it's not a real thing; it's just a hypothetical example—let's say, for example, if you, I don't know, you gave somebody a ride, you get chesed. Let's say if you gave somebody a ride on your horse 500 years ago, it was worth from one to ten, it was worth two. But today It's such a big thing to give somebody a ride in the car, which really it's the opposite, but let's say it is. Such a big inconvenience to give somebody a ride down the block with your car, that now it's worth eight. Okay, it's that much more. It's great. It's amazing. Wow, wow, wow. You're a tzadik. Great. That still doesn't cancel out any sin you made. Meaning, if you violated Shabbat, you're still going to have to pay for the sins. The fact that you gave the guy a ride and it's worth a lot more is great. You'll get a reward; that's great. But the fact that you violated Shabbat is also significant.

2:02:13So without Limud Torah, without learning Torah, there's no way for you to know how to keep Shabbat, how to keep Kosher, how to keep Taharat Mishpacha, how to work on your Middot, how to fix ourselves. You're not going to know without learning Torah. Which means that yes, you may make a few mitzvot that make you great, but you're also going to make a lot of sins because you're not going to learn Torah, you're not going to know it's even a sin at all. I'll give you guys an example. said this in the last year, but it's also worth it. Does anybody think that if you told somebody something, and he listened to you, you told him, “Listen, you shouldn't go down that street,” and he said, "I'm going anyway," I'm going anyway. And he went the wrong way. He made a wrong decision. He went against you. And you were right. He was wrong. He went the wrong way. And you said, ah, I told you so. Does anybody here think that's a sin? Any normal person think that's a sin? Normal person. If you're a tzaddik, then teshuvah is not for you. But if you're a normal person, like most of us, usually most people don't think it's... It's maybe annoying.

2:03:35It's not a sin. It's annoying. "I told you so," it's annoying. A sin? Ah, no, come on. Chilul Shabbat's a sin. Eating non-kosher's a sin. But saying, "I told you so"? What if I told you there's a Mishnah, there's a Mishlei, there's a Gemara, and there's a Chumash, all that say that it's not only a sin, you could actually lose Olam Haba for it. someone that gets an honor because of somebody else's failure loses. We do it for fun because we don't even know it's a sin. We like to say we're right. We like to say, "I told you so." It's fun for us. "I told you so" because we don't even know it's a sin. Now, without learning Torah, without coming to the shiur tonight, if you didn't know it, you're probably not going to know it. That's why we have to learn Torah. So that's the thing. Now, if you told somebody something and they didn't listen to you,

2:04:52And you were right. They know you're right. You don't need to remind them you're right. They already know. Trust me, the first thing somebody knows when they make a mistake after somebody told them, is that somebody told them. You don't need to remind them. So reminding them is like putting it in their face, putting salt on a wound. So you don't ever want to be the guy who says, "I told you so," and you don't want anyone else to be the one who says, "I told you so." And actually, if you have a Gemara, at the beginning of every Gemara... beginning of every Gemara, it says this blessing. You are supposed to do this blessing before you learn Gemara. In general, you're supposed to do it all the time. You're supposed to say, "May it be Your will, Hashem, my God, that a mishap not come about through me," meaning that I don't learn the wrong thing, that I don't miscalculate where I say this and it's really that, and may I not stumble. Meaning, hopefully I don't stumble in a matter of law and cause my colleagues to rejoice over me. Meaning, I don't make a mistake and people make fun of me. Also, may it never be that they make a mistake and I make fun of them. Why? The Gemara says, if you make a mistake and your friends make fun of you, all of them lost Olam Haba.

2:06:18If they made a mistake, and you made fun of them, you lost Olam Haba. So, what you're saying at the beginning of your limud, at the beginning of your teaching, is, "Hashem, may we never make mistakes, or at the very least, not make fun of each other." Why? Because then, we lose everything anyway. So that's the point. We're not allowed to make fun of each other. You have to be very careful. Each one of you, you have to understand, each one of you is a son or a daughter of Hashem. That means you're very, very precious. You're much more precious to Him than you are to each other, even if you're twin brothers. Even if you're mother and daughter or father and son, Hashem loves you more than you even love yourself. So when one of you makes fun of the other, He says, no, no, no, no. You can't make fun of My son. Yeah, but I'm Your son also. Exactly. Don't make fun of My other son. I love him, and I love you. You don't have to make fun of each other. Hashem treats us like priceless diamonds because that's what we are if we do His will.

2:07:21So making fun of each other, first of all, is bad middot. It's a bad character trait. It's not a good thing to do, regardless of whether you're secular or religious. And the second thing is, it goes against the Torah. Because we make mistakes every two seconds. But you never see God make fun of us. You never see God make fun of us. Ah, you loser, look, you did it again. He never says that. He never says that. Why? He says, you want to do teshuva? Come, my son, come, come. He keeps telling you, come. Okay, but I just went against you yesterday. Okay, fine, I'll take you back anyway. I love you. No, come back. Come back, come back. He's always willing to welcome us back, even though we were His enemies for 20, 30 years of our life. He never makes fun of us once. We're not allowed to make fun of each other either. And that's the thing. So again, if you made that mistake, like I did, like pretty much everybody in the world has made that mistake, I'm sorry. I didn't even know it was a sin. Forget about that—I didn't mean bad by it. And I didn't really mean to hurt my brother or my sister or my friend or my colleague. Forget about the fact that I actually didn't mean bad and it was even a joke. But aside from that, I didn't even know it was a sin. I'm sorry. Finished.

2:08:30I'm sorry, and that's why we're about teshuvah. It is the biggest secret in Sefer Bereishit, the first parashah in the entire Torah. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai says if Adam would have simply said, "I'm sorry..." Hashem says, "What did you do? You ate, you did something?" And Adam HaRishon, instead of saying, "Oh, it's the wife you gave me," if he would have said, "You know what, Hashem? Yeah, yeah, I ate from the Tree of Knowledge, I'm sorry," he would have never been punished. He would have been in Gan Eden forever. For what? One "I'm sorry." One "I'm sorry." How much does it cost to say "I'm sorry"? How much does it cost? It's free. One "I'm sorry." One "I'm sorry." Shaul HaMelech, the first king, the first official king of Am Yisrael, the first official king. Shaul HaMelech, the Gemara says in Masechet Megillah, was Kodesh Kodashim. He was so holy and so modest that his descendant was Esther. Esther was his descendant because he was so holy. He made a sin; he didn't kill the entire nation of Amalek.

2:09:46When the prophet came to him and said, "How come you didn't do the will of Hashem? You went against Him." He said, "No, I don't think I did. I don't think I went against Him. I did something for Him." After the prophet said, "No, you went against Him," he goes, "Okay, okay, okay, fine, so I'll do teshuva." He says, "Ah, it's too late. You already didn't apologize right away. You're no longer going to be king. Hashem says you're not going to be king anymore. You're not king anymore." It goes to David. If he would have said, "I'm sorry," he would have forgiven him. One "I'm sorry," how much does "I'm sorry" cost? Why did David HaMelech make even more mistakes than Shaul? He made more mistakes than Shaul, but Hashem kept him. the Mashiach. Why? Because every time when the prophet came to him and said, "Listen David, I think you made a mistake here," he would respond, "I'm sorry. What do I have to do? I'm sorry." He didn't say, "I didn't," no excuses. No, "It was hard for me," no excuses. As soon as he saw there's a sin, he would say, "I'm sorry." Your "I'm sorry" is priceless.

2:10:48It's bigger than tzedakah. It's bigger than anything you could do. Just say, "I'm sorry" to Hashem. And that you could do anytime. You could do every day. You could do every morning. We do the vidui every day, tefillah. Before we go to sleep, kriyat shema al hamita. Say, "I'm sorry." How much does it cost you? "I'm sorry." One second? "I'm sorry." Obviously, if you put more meaning into it, it takes a little more time, but it's... Easy. Just say, "I'm sorry," and you'll see a lot of yeshuot in your life. You'll end up getting a lot of what you want because of the "I'm sorry" more than "please." More than "please Hashem give me," you'll get more because of the "I'm sorry." Why? Because once you say "I'm sorry," you show that you really care about the relationship between you and Hashem. That, by the way, is the secret of loving Hashem. Caring about the relationship. Saying "I'm sorry." Saying "give me, give me, give me" doesn't show any love. It just shows that you're treating Hashem like Santa Claus. Like He's a store, a piggy bank, welfare. People treat Hashem like it's a social security office. "Give me this, give me this, give me this, give me, give me, give me."

2:11:56Hashem is not a social security office. He's not welfare. He's not Footsteps. He's Hashem. Say "I'm sorry," you'll get whatever you want anyway. Any questions? This is the halachot of Pesach, by the way. Not Yom Kippur. But anyway, it's a good old time. Yeah? Who's that? Somebody has something? Hmm? Anybody? Anybody? If the guy has sins of karet, violates Shabbat, wastes seed, goes with a married woman, eats taref, chelev, these 36 different sins that are karet, if he does teshuva, if he does teshuva for those things, he's good. If he doesn't do teshuva, he has no olam haba. Huh?

2:13:20It's the Shulchan Aruch that calls it the number one sin in all of Judaism. The Shulchan Aruch calls it the number one sin in all of Judaism, to waste seed on purpose. No, number three is as far as there are three major sins. There are three major sins for which it's better that a person die rather than commit them. One of them is to worship an idol. Better you die than worship an idol. The second thing is to murder somebody. Better off to die than to murder somebody else because our blood is not more expensive and more valuable than his blood. And the third sin is giluy arayot. Giluy arayot is having... Illicit relations, illegal sex crimes, which include either wasting seed or being with a woman that you're not allowed to be with, even if it's your wife while she's niddah, or if it's not your wife, or if she's a non-Jew. It's better off that you die than commit that sin. These are the three cardinal sins, huh? The third one is illicit relations, which means sex crimes.

2:14:21Sex crimes, like anything that has to do with giluy arayot, anything that has to do with intimacy, pretty much. Having sex with a woman you're not allowed to have sex with. Wasting seed. You know, pretty much those two. Those, those two. Mm-hmm. Not one sin. It's the entire Torah. Somebody that wastes seed on purpose. You test your whole life. Right, so they have two questions. Number one question is Mashiach and all that. So the Gemara says there are three things that require the only way you're gonna get them is with Mesirut Nefesh, meaning a lot of sacrifice.

2:15:35First thing, first thing is Torah. You want to have a lot of Torah, you want to be a Talmid Chacham, it requires a lot of self-sacrifice. Two halachot a day does not count as sacrifice; it's just convenience. So, in order to become a Talmid Chacham, we have to learn a lot more than two halachot a day, and even more than two hours a day. To acquire it requires Mesirut Nefesh. The second thing is Eretz Yisrael. Someone who wants to live in Eretz Yisrael has to know that sacrifice is required to live in Eretz Yisrael. The third thing is Olam HaBa. Anyone that wants to get to Olam HaBa, which is an eternal good, eternal amazing, eternal amazing times infinity, has to sacrifice their entire Olam HaZeh. Meaning, they have to overcome their desires, overcome their bad middot, and so on and so forth. Now, Hashem created a world where you have a lot of desires, a lot of different things that you could potentially sin and lose your Olam HaBa.

2:16:37But He also created teshuva. This is why a person needs to do teshuva every single day, regardless of whether they are religious from birth, a ba'al teshuva, or whatever. A person needs to do teshuva every day. But teshuva must be serious teshuva, not just teshuva when you know for sure you're going to sin. Because there's a Mishnah in Masechet Yoma, and it's also in Pirkei Avot: Ha'omer echta ve'ashuv, echta ve'ashuv, ein maspikin beyado la'asot teshuva. Ve'Yom Kippur lo mechaper al avonotav. It says in the Mishnah, in Masechet Yoma, someone that says, "I'm going to sin, and then I'll do teshuva. I'll sin now, and I'll do teshuva tomorrow. I'll sin now, and then I'll do teshuva tomorrow." That person, Hashem says, his teshuva is not welcome. Why? Because his teshuva is not really because he cares about what he did. He's just trying to keep doing sins, and he thinks that this is like a loophole. He's treating my Torah like it's a Harry Potter book. This is not a teshuva that we accept. And not only that, if, let's say, for example, he doesn't keep Shabbat, and he goes to Yom Kippur. He goes to the Beit Knesset on Yom Kippur. He fasts, he prays the whole day and the whole night. He prays, everything is good. But he continues—and plans on continuing—to be a mechallel Shabbat. He's not planning on starting to keep Shabbat. It says that Yom Kippur doesn't help him at all. Even Yom Kippur doesn't help him. Why? Because he's planning on sinning. It's just a show.

2:18:01It's just a show. It's not a real thing. So that's why, Rabotai, the Torah is not a joke. It's not a game. Now, the fact that we're a weak generation and it's very tough and so on and so forth, that's what the Gemara already tells us. It's not a chiddush. Hashem, it's very hard to get to the next world. But it's not impossible. Because once you fulfill the Torah, once you start learning it, and you want to do what he says, you actually start liking it. How much do you like it? You fall in love with it. How much do you fall in love with it? If you really know Torah, it becomes literally number one in your life, that any minute in your life that you're not learning, or teaching, or having any type of involvement with Torah, is suffering for you. This world becomes suffering for you, because you become an Ish Kodesh. I'll give you an example of an Ish Kodesh. One time Rav Steinman, they wanted him to come to a certain event. And he was already old and frail, so somebody would help him get dressed. So one time they wanted to buy the rabbi new socks. He lived an ultra, ultra modest life. They wanted to buy him brand new socks. Brand new socks. So they put the first sock on.

2:19:22Fine. And the second sock on, they started putting it on. He goes, "Oh, oh, it hurts, it hurts." And he's old, so you're afraid to break a bone or something. So the guy immediately took the sock off. He immediately took the sock off. Everything looks fine. Okay, he puts the sock back on. "Oh, it hurts, it hurts." He's screaming, yelling, "It hurts, it hurts." Why is it? Looking, there's nothing. There's no plastic. No metal. Nothing. What hurts? She said we have to try it again. Oh, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts. And then, rabotai, they say we have to try a different pair of socks. They put a different pair of socks on. Everything was fine. They said, "What is this sock? Check it." They checked the socks and they saw there's a little string of shatnez. Shatnez in the socks. He didn't have to see it. Being wool and linen. Linen and wool. And the same being tied together, which is not allowed. He didn't have to see it, but his holy body felt it. His holy body felt it. Not allowed to wear shatnez. What do you mean, "wore shatnez"? No. That's why he took off the sock. But he wore it for that second.

2:20:41For that second, it's not, it's oness. He's not wearing it because he wants to wear it. It's unknowingly. As far as he wore it, yeah, he wore it, but it's not like he put it on himself. Listen. If somebody is putting on a sock on your foot and you're feeling pain, you're Ish Kodesh. You have nothing to worry about. Until we start feeling pain from shatnez, We're still trying to do teshuva just to learn Torah for a couple of hours a day. The reality is, rabotai, that the Torah is not supposed to be easy. It's not supposed to be a walk in the park, but it's also not meant to be impossible. It's not impossible. You can do it. And the reason why I know for sure you can do it is two reasons. Number one, I can do it. If I can do it, anyone in the world can do it. I have a million and a half more excuses than all of you together. If there was a person with excuses, I was the guy. He worked for me for 10 years. He knows me from my past.

2:21:50He worked for 10 years. I know him for a very long time. Ask him how many excuses I used to have. Every excuse in the book, times it by a thousand. Every excuse you could want, I had it. Money, fame, fortune, whatever you want, I had it. I had all the excuses in the world. Hating, loving, all that stuff. Every excuse in the book, I had. If I can do it, you can do it. That's proof number one. Number two, it was given to you by your Father in Heaven. What does that mean? All of you, Baruch Hashem, have parents. You have a father, you have a mother, maybe they're both alive, maybe one, but the point is you have a parent, Baruch Hashem. He didn't come from some foreign planet. Now, no normal parent, no normal parent is going to say to their kid when they're three, four, five, six, seven years old, hey, my son, my daughter, go do me a favor and pick up the car or pick up the truck on top of your head. Go pick it up on top of your head. Let me see what it looks like. He's not going to tell you that. She's not going to tell you that, your mom. Why? Because she knows you can't do it. And because she loves you, she's not going to give you something that she knows you're going to fail in. She's not going to give you something she knows you're going to fail in. Which means that anything she tells you to do, for sure she knows you can do it. You may not want to do it, but you could definitely do it. Are you saying that your mom and your dad love you more than Hashem? Because by saying that I can't do it, that means that Hashem gave us something that we can't do. Our Father in Heaven hates us. If He hated us, He wouldn't create us.

2:23:02Which means that anything she tells you to do, for sure she knows you can do it. You may not want to do it, but you could definitely do it. Are you saying that your mom and your dad love you more than Hashem? Because by saying that I can't do it, that means that Hashem gave us something that we can't do. Our Father in Heaven hates us. If He hated us, He wouldn't create us. You understand? Our Father in Heaven loves us. He wants us to do good, and that's why He gave us something good. You can do all of it. Each one of you, the Rambam poskins l'halacha. It's a halacha from the Rambam. Each one of you can be like Moshe Rabbeinu. one of you. It doesn't matter where you were; it doesn't matter where you are. Each one of you can be like Moshe Rabbeinu. It doesn't matter if you have tattoos or earrings here, here, here, and here, or if you are a tzaddik from birth. Everybody can be like Moshe Rabbeinu. All you have to do is try your best, just like Moshe Rabbeinu. Just like Moshe Rabbeinu.

2:24:09there's no excuses. There's no "the generation is weak," "the Rabbi is there." There's no excuses, Rabotai. That's chametz, that's chametz. Don't worry about the generation, and don't worry about what everybody else is doing. Worry about you, worry about what you're doing. Do your teshuva. Once you start doing your teshuva, start helping other people. But the reality is that if we're consumed with excuses, it's better off not even starting. Why? You'll never finish with excuses. The world will end and the excuses won't. The time for the world will end, but our excuses won't end. Why? There's no end to the excuses. Because the excuses come from the Satan himself. He has every excuse in the book. He's the master of excuses. He's going to give you a good excuse not to go to Beit Knesset. He's going to give you a good excuse not to learn Torah. He's going to give you a good excuse not to have kids. He's going to give you a good excuse not to do a lot of things. Anything. But that's the point. By listening to him...

2:25:12we're failing miserably. So no more excuses. This year will wake us up, teach us a little bit about Pesach, the real purpose of Pesach, but the most important part of Pesach is to know where we're coming from so we know where we're going. Baruch Adonai le'olam. Amen ve'amen.