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

0:14Thank you for having me. Does everybody have food? Same price. uh, so first of all, thank you for organizing all these wonderful people. Some new faces, some old faces, all the way from Connecticut and New York. A lot of good, a lot of good, a lot of people that I see their names and faces on WhatsApp and some people that are brand new. So, because there are some new people, I'll tell you a little brief... I'll tell you a brief bit about who I am and try to keep it concise. There's a very long version of my personal story. Anyone who wants to know the long version of it, there are CDs over there, and the price is zero. Anyone who wants to, it's also zero, so just take it and listen to it. Each package has two CDs. The first track in the black CD, CD number two, is called "From Wall Street to the Western Wall." It gives you my personal life story, why I'm here, and so on and so forth.

1:33But with that being said, I'll give you a short version of my story, so you decide along the way if I'm somebody you should listen to or ignore for the next two hours. You decide. Three hours maybe, or one hour, however much you want. So also, this shiur will be for Refuah Shlema for Felicia Bat Carolina, Michael Ben Sara, Dvorah Bat Suzanna, Benayahu Ben Elana, Geula Bat Batya, David Ben Esria, Doris Bat Jora, Levana Bat Sara, Sara Bat Levana, Ovadia Ben Levana, Menashe Ben Nekadam, Ala Bat Shura, David Yaakov Ben Miriam, Gideon Ben Kalila. Risha Gabriella Bat Michael. Yaakov Ben Yeshua. Yechiel Ben Nekadam. And all of Am Yisrael, b'ezrat Hashem, will have refuah shlema, refuat ha-nefesh, refuat ha-guf.

2:55Also for a zivug, b'ezrat Hashem, a tzadeket kedosha that's able to be modest, b'ezrat Hashem, in this day and age, the mesirut nefesh of the women is to be modest. That's the biggest mitzvah for all women, so b'ezrat Hashem, Igal ben Moshe will find a shidduch, b'ezrat Hashem, it should be a tzadeket, tzanua, yafa, and even ashirah is good too. Also a zivug for Rivka Esther bat Devorah. B'ezrat Hashem, she shall have a zivug. And Yaakovah? Yaakovah Ziva bat Sheva. B'ezrat Hashem, she shall also have a zivug, b'ezrat Hashem. They are tzaddikot, kedoshot, with Yirat Shamayim, which in this day and age is also the mesirut nefesh of the generation—to acquire these traits. To have enough Yirat Shamayim, enough fear of Hashem, where we actually want to listen to Him. So We'll start off with a couple of questions. And you have to answer those questions to yourself. You don't have to necessarily answer to me. You have to ask yourself these questions. First question is, if you weren't Jewish—I'm assuming everybody here is Jewish, Baruch Hashem—if you weren't Jewish, let's say you were born in Bangladesh. Or you were born in, I don't know, Saudi Arabia. Your best friend was, you know, one of these terrorists. You weren't a Jew.

4:20Okay? And you found out about Judaism. Found out, oh, there's this religion. Am Yisrael got the Torah on Har Sinai. There's this guy named Moshe. Sounds like a nice guy. He was seven amot tall, which is about 12 feet, by the way. Really big guy, according to us. All these wonderful things. And he got the Torah. And everybody agrees it's true. The Muslims agree. The Christians agree. The atheists agree. They just don't want to listen. Everybody agrees it's true. And you agree it's true, too. Would you convert to Judaism? The honest answer is no. The honest answer for most people in the world is no. And the reason why is because most of us don't actually know what it means to be a Jew. We don't actually view it like it's a zechut, like it's a merit to be a Jew. How do we know? Just look at the streets today. If you look at the Italians, the Italians are proud to be Italian. They have their flags, they have their pastas, they have their restaurants, they have their attitude, their language. Regardless of where they go in the world, they're proud to be Italian. You go to the Irish people, they convince the whole world that there's one day a year you're supposed to all drink, and everybody agrees. So we drink too. Mexicans play soccer with each other. You're not even allowed to play soccer with them. Why? Because that's the Mexican tradition. That's what they do.

5:49And so on and so forth, the Puerto Ricans and the blacks, and oh, go to the Muslims. The Muslims are so proud to be Muslims that they're praying in the middle of the street. In the middle of the street, they stop traffic, they stop praying. The "Allahu Akbar" and everything else, they're proud to do what they're doing, they sell their halal food, and they do something called dawah. What's dawah? Dawah is, in Hebrew, kiruv. It's to get people to become Muslim. And their job for the last two decades, the last 20 years, has been to convince the entire world that the only solution is to become a Muslim. And this is why, even when you go to one of these trucks, on the corner all over New York and all over the United States, you see these trucks selling halal food. On the halal food truck, you also see a sticker in Arabic. And most people, if you don't speak Arabic, you don't know what it means. What does that actually mean? It says, "God is the only God, and Muhammad is our messenger." And they give this to different customers that keep coming back. So you ask the patron, "What is this? Why do you give them stickers?" He says, "I'm trying to help them to be a Muslim."

6:57But he's a Christian, he's a Jew, he's something else. Yeah, I'm trying to help him out. The only way he's going to get to Gan Eden, according to this Muslim, is if he converts, becomes a Muslim. He says, oh, so you're doing dawah while you're doing business. He goes, no, no, no. Dawah is what I do. Business is just on the side. business on the side. The number one priority for the guy selling halal food, for the guy that's running the mosques, for any Arab all over the world—two billion of them—is to do dawah. Why do dawah? Why? Why to get the world to become Muslims. Number one reason: they actually believe their lie. Even though their whole concept, everything that they have, is a lie. We all know it. You just look at the Quran; within five minutes, you realize it's There's wrong dates. There's wrong numbers. There's wrong everything. They say that Jesus is a family member of Moshe Rabbeinu, Haman, Nu, and Paro. They lived a thousand years apart. You don't need to be a genius. You just look at the two. It's wrong. But they don't look at it. So they believe whatever their leaders say. But the reality is that even if you show them these mistakes, they're still going to stay Muslim.

8:15Why? Listen, I'm already in it. If I leave, they're going to kill me anyway. What's the word? They're going to kill my kids, they're going to kill me. There's no way. I'm not leaving. Once you're in, you're in. That's why, in general, even though there's a lot of people converting to Judaism today, Baruch Hashem, and we deal with a lot of them, very, very rarely do you ever see a Muslim convert out of Islam. And it's not because they don't believe. I have many of them that tell me they believe. They send me messages, they want to learn, but they can't convert out. Why? Because they know there's a sacrifice that includes their life. It's not just a marriage issue. So anyway, the problem, Rabotai, is that the Muslims live their lie and believe in their lie like it's true. The Christians worship an idol that died 2,000 years ago. they also believe their lie. They send people from house to house, whether it's Jehovah's Witnesses, Jews for Jesus, or this new thing over the last maybe 10 years called Messianic Judaism, which is also Christianity just called Judaism. For the first time in history, for the first time in 2,000 years, the Christians are pretending to be Jews. For 2,000 years, they were busy killing us.

9:32For 2,000 years they were busy killing us. In the last 20 years, they said, "You know what? We tried killing them for 2,000 years. These people don't die. So let's just get them to pretend like we're them so we'll get them to become Christians anyway." So you have organizations that spend over 300 million dollars a year just in Israel to recruit Jews to convert to Christianity, and every week, unfortunately, a thousand Jews convert to Christianity. Why? Because the Christians believe their lie and live accordingly. The Jews, on the other hand, unfortunately, us, we actually have the truth, and everyone knows it. But we live our life like it's a lie. We have the truth, but we live it like it's a lie. Why? When was the last time you told a Jew, come to my house, keep Shabbat? When was the last time you told a Jew, come to a shiur Torah? No, come on, you gotta do teshuva. When was the last time you told a guy, listen, the girl that you're dating is not Jewish, you should leave her?

10:32When was the last time you told a guy, "Listen, you know, you really got to start changing your diet. You have to eat kosher." Once in a while, you'll tell your friend, but as soon as he gives you an attitude, you stop. Even more so, when was the last time you told a guy, a non-Jew, "Hey, you have any interest in Judaism? Instead of believing in an idol." The numbers continue to shrink. And the reason why is because we don't know what it means to be a Jew. We don't know what our mission is. And simply put, we're not even proud of it. If we were, at the very least, we'd be just like them. We'd go door to door, begging people to come to Shiur Torah. Instead of having 100 people here, there'd be 10,000. And still 10,000 people waiting outside. Jews, non-Jews, people waiting. There's truth somewhere? I'm going. In France, Rabotai, there are 1,300 mosques. 1,300 mosques in France. And on Friday night, which is their Shabbat, lehavdil, people show up to the mosque one hour before time. One hour before the prayer starts, they show up already. Why? To catch a place. To find a spot.

11:50Because if you don't come an hour before, you have to stand outside. There's not enough room. In 1,300 mosques. If you look at us, we barely get a minyan sometimes. You barely get 10 guys to show up to shul in some places. Why? We still don't understand what it means. This is how I spent most of my life. Most of my life I was just like every other Jew in the world. Confused, not knowing really what the purpose of life is. Just like the statistic in America according to Pew Research, 90% of American Jews do not keep Shabbat—90%! Even worse, 66% don't believe that you have to believe in God in order to be Jewish. They don't think that believing in God and being Jewish have anything to do with each other. Meaning that we've confused what Judaism is. We think Judaism is something like a tradition. It's something nice. It's like where I grew up, a certain neighborhood. Like the guys from Brooklyn, or the guys from this way, or the guys from that thing. It's like, it's a nice thing. The kippot look good. It's like the guys from Africa that walk around in underwear. No different.

13:11If you go to Africa, you're going to look at them like they're strange. Why? They're walking around with underwear. They're going to look at you with the kippah and the suit and everything. You're strange. You're strange to them. They're strange to you. You're accustomed versus their customs. Now, I'm not talking to people that are not religious. I'm talking to you, to all of Am Yisrael, which includes the religious community. Because out of the 90% of people that don't keep Shabbat, 94% believe that it's okay to work on Shabbat. Which means that 40% of the religious ones, the ones that actually keep Shabbat, still think it's okay to work on Shabbat. Like working on Shabbat and Shabbat have nothing to do with each other. Which means we're really confused. This was me. This was me for most of my life. I came to the United States when I was 10 years old from Israel. And as soon as we landed in America, we became American. Even though I didn't know the language, I knew maybe a few letters of the alphabet. Have a seat. It's your place anyway. So we didn't really know much. I knew the first few letters of the alphabet because it was on a cereal box. Other than that, I didn't know much. But when you come to the United States when you're 10 years old, you learn pretty quickly.

14:25You fast forward a few years. I started working when I was young. I went to school. I was a good student, but I also knew that I didn't want to be in school for a million years. I didn't want to be a doctor. I didn't want to be a lawyer, and I didn't want to be in school for a hundred years. I already knew what money was when I was 17, so I decided to go into the stock market business. I became a stockbroker the first couple of years. were very interesting. My bosses made a ton of money. I made absolutely nothing. This is usually how it works. The first three years, what they call, I paid my dues. They made 50 to a hundred thousand dollars a month. I made a thousand dollars a month. Good deal, no? But that eventually ended. And eventually, I went on my own, meaning I became my own broker in July of 2001. July of 2001. Everyone knows what happened in September of 2001. September 11th of 2001 was just a couple of months after I became my own broker, which means that the little business I didn't even have collapsed. But it was also a very good time to start a business, and that's what I did. I continued getting more and more clients, all of the people that were losing money everywhere else. It was very easy to acquire them as clients because I gave them hope. People like to start something new, especially if they're losing. Fast forward...

15:48worked very hard, but I worked the type of hard where it's not like nine to five or nine to six or nine to seven. I started my day at five and I finished my day at about two. I went to the city. I figured that everyone else in the office had been in the business for 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, so I couldn't catch up to their experience overnight because experience is very valuable in the business. but I can't outwork everyone. They work nine to five. So that's fewer hours than the way I can work. They work eight hours, nine hours, ten hours. Okay, I'll work twenty hours. And that was my logic. If I work twenty hours, that means that I'll work double as them and I'll catch up faster. Now, the first six months didn't actually really work out. All it did was make me go broke. I didn't have any money to eat. I had to borrow a dollar from this guy Dimitri every day so I could have a donut and coffee. I had to sneak onto the bus every day so I could get home. The bus driver kicked me out a few times because I didn't have money on the MetroCard. But that was the first six months. After that, things started actually working. I made my first $1,000. Then the second month I made $5,000. Then a month after that, I made $7,000. Then after that, $10,000. Then a month after that, another $10,000. Then a month after that, about $15,000. Then a month after that, $117,000. That was my first big break. Made $117,000 in one month. Started getting people's attention. After that, everything changed.

17:15Over the next year, I made another million dollars. After that, everything changed even more. After that, we started printing money. And that's really what it got to. It got to a point where, on a bad month, I'd make $200,000. Meaning, if I just didn't show up. I just had to work once a month. Once, twice a month, show up to the office. I'd always be in the office, but I'd never actually, you know, let people do my job. I'd still make $200,000. If I really wanted to work... In May of 2006, I made $1.6 million. So imagine, a 20-something-year-old kid, just out of diapers a few years before, making millions of dollars and not knowing right, left, or anything else. I had some life experience, I had some nice things to say, and so on and so forth, but in reality, I was still in my 20s. Still knew nothing. But I was convinced I knew everything. Just like everyone else. Now, Rav Nissim Yagen, alav ha-shalom, was one of the most important mezakeh ha-rabim, kiruv rabbis in the history of Am Yisrael. Most people don't know who he is if you're in the American world, but if you're Israeli, you should know who he is. And he used to say in some of his lectures, "Who is like a hero? Who's man enough to do teshuvah?"

18:42Now, a lot of people always thought, this is just like his own language, his own thing, his own saying, his own idea. What does it mean? Who is man enough to do teshuvah? Why do you have to be such a man to do teshuvah? Why do you have to be such a hero to do teshuvah? But the reality is, it's actually a pasuk in the Torah. Not exactly in those words, but very similar. It says, it says, in so many words, the sages explain to us, who is man enough to save his own neshama? How? By doing teshuvah. Just like Rav Nissim Yagen used to say. Who is man enough to do teshuvah to save himself from Gehinnom and live forever? Now, most of us don't like to hear such things. We don't like to hear about Gehinnom. We don't like to hear about hard things. We don't like to hear about cancer. We don't like to hear about bad things. But bad things happen. Yesterday, I had a shiur in Far Rockaway. There was a nice young woman who, after the shiur, we had questions and answers and so on. And...

20:00told me, "Listen, you know, I heard enough times that you have to be modest, you have to be modest, but it's annoying already, it's annoying already, I don't want to hear it anymore." I said, "Uh, you're right, it is annoying, it is annoying. But I have to ask you a question. If, let's say, for example, you had a favorite candy, a favorite candy, and I showed you the candy. The candy was on the table." Delicious candy. You've been waiting for this candy for two years, and finally, you see the candy is on the table. You're about to go take it and eat it, but I know something you don't. The candy is full of poison. Now, I know if I tell you it's full of poison, you're going to be really upset. Why? Because you've been waiting for this candy for two years. You're going to be really upset. You may even start crying because it's your favorite candy. All you've been doing for two years is thinking about this candy. So, if I tell you, I'm going to ruin the whole thing for you. So would you prefer me not to tell you? Because if I tell you, I'm going to ruin the whole thing for you. You're not going to be able to eat the candy. But if I don't tell you, you eat the candy, and what's going to happen when you eat poison? You die. To which one? Same price. Which one do you pick? And that, Rabotai, is the difference between emet and sheker. The emet, the truth, hurts.

21:26Why? Because we've all been planning to live sheker. We've all been planning to live our lifestyle without anyone getting in our way. We've all been convinced that whatever we're doing is fine, we have nothing to change. You go to people that are religious, you go to people that are sheker, you ask them, what do you think, you need to change anything? He says, I'm perfect. You ask his wife, she says, you have to change everything. You ask him about his wife, he says she has to change everything. She has to change it. Everybody has to change everything, but you tell about yourself, no one has to change anything. We're all convinced that our sheker is emet. When someone comes and tells you the emet, it's painful. Not all of us want to hear it. Now the problem is that in today's age, the leaders we have, the rabbis, the speakers... Also know this story. They also know that you like the sheker, I like the sheker; I like lies, you like lies. Everyone wants to live a lie. No one wants to be told what to do. Who likes to be told what to do? No one. Not even the little kids like to be told. No one. Everyone wants to do whatever they want. No one wants to be told how to dress. No one wants to be told what to eat. No one likes to be told what to do. So the rabbis also know this.

22:46And they figured, listen, if I tell people the truth, they're probably going to fire me. Because if I tell them they have to keep Shabbat and stop driving, they're probably going to fire me. If I tell them that they can't eat at every restaurant that says it's kosher, they're probably going to fire me. So the rabbis and the speakers learn this, and they realize, listen, I have to be careful. they're probably going to fire me. If I start telling them that their wives are, technically, according to the Torah, not modest, and they have to take off the wig, and they have to start putting on clothes, and stop showing the world what they look like naked, they're probably going to fire me. So the rabbis and the speakers learn this, and they realize, listen, It's survival of the fittest. If I tell them the truth, they're going to fire me. Then my kids are not going to have anywhere to go to school. They're not going to have anything to eat. They're not going to have anywhere to sleep. So I have to protect myself. So what happens? They became part of the sheker, unfortunately. And they stopped telling people the truth. This, unfortunately, is one of the biggest churbanot, one of the biggest disasters in Jewish history. But it's not the first time that it happened.

23:47It's been happening since the Churban Beit HaMikdash. In the Gemara Masechet Shabbat, page 54a, it says that Hashem Yitbarach changed the Gezeira. There was a decree on Am Yisrael to punish the wicked and save the righteous. The people that were keeping Shabbat, keeping Torah, learning Torah, and so on, were saved. The people Mechalelei Shabbat, going out with non-Jews, eating non-kosher, all that destroyed them with the Beit HaMikdash. But then, for the first time in history, Hashem changed the decree from positive to negative. Why? The Yetzer Hara, the Satan, the Malach HaMavet came to Hashem and said, "Hashem, why are You saving these ones and not these ones? These are resha'im and these are resha'im." He says, "Why are you saving the resha'im?" They fulfilled the whole Torah. They learned Torah day and night. They kept Shabbat. They kept kosher. Their wives are kosher. He's kosher. Everything is kosher. They even have a kosher stamp on them. Everything is good. They have a beard that reaches the floor. Everything is good. What's wrong? He says, yes, but they knew the truth and they didn't tell anybody else. They knew that you have to keep Shabbat. They didn't tell the Chiloni. They knew that you can't go out with a non-Jew. They didn't tell the Chiloni. They knew the truth, but they never shared it with anybody else because they were scared to get fired.

25:09Hashem says, the Gemara says, Hashem says, you're right. Punish them first. Not only punish them, kill them first, before the Chiloni. Before him. Why? It's his fault. It's the religious guy's fault. Why? Because the Chiloni, the secular guy, is never going to do teshuva without the religious guy doing teshuva first. Because no one's going to tell the secular guy. The same thing is happening today, Rabotai. Our leaders today are scared to tell you the truth because they're scared that if they tell you the truth, you're going to stop donating. You're going to fire them. You're not going to welcome them into your Beit Knesset. The good news is, I don't really care. And the reason why is because I care more about your neshama than I care about your money. Not that I have any money. I lost all of it. But I still care less. And the reason is because I had a lot of it. And by now, I know it's worthless. And this is why. After I made over 20 million dollars, I thought that I was on top of the world. I thought that I would probably never have to work hard for the rest of my life. And I thought that Bill Gates should stop being worried because I'm about to take his place. If I already made $20 million by the time I'm in my mid-twenties, God only help Bill Gates by the time I'm 40. He's gonna work for me. That was my mindset. I was gonna conquer the world. When it came to Judaism, though, I was selective.

26:34Not like my job. My job, I did whatever I had to do to survive. I was honest. I was ambitious. I never cheated. I never lied. I never did anything wrong. And I was very generous with people. So when it came to work, I followed the system. But when it came to Judaism, when it came to Hashem, I picked and chose whatever I wanted. So someone said, you can't work on Shabbat. I said, okay, I won't work on Shabbat. I'll go to the casino instead. Instead of going to work, I'm not going to work. I'll go play poker. I like poker. I was good at math. I'm not working. Makes sense, no? To a secular person, it makes all the sense in the world. $50,000 on a table. Baruch haba. They start a table for me. They said, you have to eat kosher. I said, okay, so I'll eat kosher at home. When I'm not home, I'll eat non-meat. So I'll go to the non-kosher restaurant, but I won't eat the meat. And I won't eat... you know, any of the shrimp. I'll just eat pasta and salads and pizza. What's wrong with pasta and salad and pizza from the non-kosher guy? Why, is he racist? You're racist? What's wrong with you guys? Little do I know that the actual sauce inside your pizza, your non-kosher pizza, the sauce has meat in it. That's the distinguishing taste between different sauces, by the way.

28:01So the non-kosher pizza is not only non-kosher because the cheese is not kosher, but because the sauce is not kosher. And in fact, the cheese itself, the reason why when you go to the supermarket, you see in a regular supermarket, not a kosher supermarket, and you see there's, I don't know, three, four, five, six different cheeses that are kosher, and 300 that are not kosher. Why? Well, it's not that they have a corner on the market, they know how to make cheese better than us. As a matter of fact, no one makes better cheese than Jews. If you go to Eretz Yisrael, you go to the supermarket, they have an entire aisle of cheese. There's no better cheese in the world than Jewish cheese. But in America, in the Western world in general, you only have three, four, five companies that actually reach the market. But the goyim, 300 different ways. Why? Because they have the ability to use all ingredients that we're not allowed to use. And the way they distinguish the taste in their cheese is by a different type of meat. Different type of meat that they mix with the cheese. So, when you eat non-kosher cheese, not only are you eating non-kosher dairy, but you're also eating milk and meat at the same time. I didn't know this, so I picked and chose different laws because I thought that if I go to Beit Knesset a couple of times a year for Yom Kippur, everything is going to be fine. Hashem is going to forgive me as long as I give tzedakah. That's the number one mitzvah according to the rabbis that would come to my office three or four times a week and...

29:30They would say, listen, the number one thing in this generation is to give tzedakah. I said, no problem, I'm good at this. How much? How much? Oh, I need 2,500 for my mortgage. Check. How much more? I need another 2,500 for somebody else's mortgage. Check. And I would give the money. Why? For me, it was like paper. Not because I had a lot, but because I never had value for it. I never cared about it. It's not my tikkun. Some people love money like it's God. Me, I couldn't care less about it. I don't know. It's the way Hashem created me. So when I had a lot of it, it was easy for me to give it to people. So the guy said, I'm going to be a tzaddik if I give money. I give money. Sefer Torah, Sefer Torah. People need money, me money. Anyone need anything, they come to my office, they get a check. Usually, they start giving me their problems because you have to convince somebody to give you money. I just tell them, how much does your problem cost? Whatever your problem is, just save me the time. I know it's a story. It's a half hour. It's an hour. It's nice. Just tell me how much it costs. Why? Because every hour of mine costs $3,200. Every hour I work, I make $3,200 just to exist. So if you're going to take an hour and your problem is going to cost me only $2,000, I'd rather just give you the $2,000 instead of an hour. Get the math? So that was my mentality. You pick and choose what you want. Somebody tells you it's the guy's number one, that's what you do.

30:51Now Hashem had different plans. Hashem's plans were quite different. One day, after I made a ton of money in a relatively short period of time, in 2006, I decided that, you know what, I want to have a surgery; I want to fix my body a little bit. There was something that was annoying me called hemorrhoids, which two-thirds of all men, all people, have. It's not really a real problem. It's just that it was annoying me twice a year. So I said, let me have surgery. And the surgery, according to the best doctors that I was going to, said it's a surgery that's just going to disturb you for maybe two or three days. You'll be uncomfortable, which in our language means you'll be in pain. And you'll be back to work on Monday. I said, no problem. I went, I had the surgery. I woke up from the surgery different. How different? I started screaming and yelling, and screaming and yelling, and asking everybody to kill me because something happened during the surgery. They cut some type of nerve in my body that changed the makeup of my body to the point where everything hurt.

31:56Now, by "everything," I don't mean like when you have a headache or when you have a toothache. You have a toothache, and it seems like your leg hurts too, but it really doesn't. No, that's not what I mean. What I mean is like they took a dagger and started cutting my body up while connecting it to electricity, and it didn't stop. And that's how much it hurt. And this pain continued for 62 days. For 62 days, the longest consecutive sleep that I was able to get after taking about 30 to 40 painkillers was 15 minutes. Now, once you stop sleeping for so long, you start losing your mind, and your body starts failing. You start peeing blood, your eyes start bleeding, your ears start bleeding—a lot of fun things. You start seeing life a little differently. You start valuing money less. You start finding out that none of your friends actually exist. They're all imaginary friends. They all disappear. Everything changes. Your perspective on life changes. And that was my first big wake-up call. I had a surgery. Everything went wrong. And now all I wanted to do was live. With or without money, it didn't make a difference. After those two months, I thought that life was going to return to normal. I was still on painkillers. I was still in pain, but nowhere near the same. And I went back to work. I went back to making money. I went back to my life. But I started reflecting a little bit more.

33:24Now, at this point, I still have no idea that my life is wrong. I just think that I have to double-check certain things. So I buy a Sefer Torah. I get one made in Yerushalayim; it takes about a year, big mitzvah, ton of money. I figured this is gonna be good. It didn’t really work out so much. Because nine months later, I had a surgery. Because one day I wake up with a pain in my leg, so much that I can't walk. I go to the emergency room, and they tell me that I have an infection between the muscle of the rectal area and the leg. It's so big and internal that if I had waited another hour or two, it would have exploded, gone into my bloodstream, and I would have died on the spot. So I was very lucky to show up on time. And they said, "We have to have an emergency surgery, and this surgery is much, much worse than your first one, sir." So now, instead of being in pain for 62 days at home, I'm in the intensive care unit for almost a month. You know, next to the people who are dying? Next to those guys. One guy died, another guy died. Everybody's dying. I was the guy that actually survived, pressing the morphine button like it's the only reflex that's still working. So after that fun experience

34:49I figured, okay, strike two. Now we're going to go back. This time we're going to do it. Six months later, I'm back at the intensive care unit. Another surgery. Another infection in a completely different area, not connected to the first. Okay, fine. Another month in the hospital. We recover. We leave. Go back to life, right? Three months later, we're back there. Oh, Yaron, they know me by first name by now. Your room is right over here. back in the hospital, another surgery. I leave a month later. I'm back, and then it gets to a point where it's every month, and then eventually it's every week. That was my life. This continues for seven years. For seven years, my body continues to fail in every way imaginable. To a point where I'm in pain 24 hours a day. But I'm not talking about pain like your head hurts. I'm talking about pain where it's uncomfortable to be next to me. Not uncomfortable to be me. For me, it's kal vachomer (a fortiori). It's needless to say. It's uncomfortable for you to be next to me. Because I'm constantly screaming and yelling and "ow" and "ooh." After a while, it's annoying. Even though you feel bad for the guy, after a while, it's annoying to hear somebody screaming all day.

36:11I know, I was next to other intensive care unit guys. It was very annoying to hear them scream all day. So after a while, it's uncomfortable, especially with the faces and the blood. And it is, it's a nightmare. So this forced me to also become a little bit more secluded. I didn't really want to see people much. My business started going to nothing. And incidentally, the market crashed. The 2008 crash happened along the way. My net worth crashed, my friends crashed, my life crashed, everything crashed. As miraculous as it was to make all the money, it was a bigger miracle losing all of it. But then one day, I got to a point where I realized that it's really not worth living in pain 24 hours a day. For what? Just to be in pain again tomorrow? So I decided, you know what, maybe it's time for me to leave the world. Now Hashem loves you more than you love yourself. And the sages promise us that He's not going to give you a test that you can't handle. That's what He said. He's not going to give you a test that you can't handle. So as soon as I got to the point where I couldn't handle the test anymore, that's when Hashem got involved.

37:36but to a point where it was obvious, even to me. So one day, I decided to call my mom, which was the first time I called her in a while, and she's crying on the other side of the phone. She's telling me, "Talk to him, talk to him." And I said, "To who? And why are you crying, and why is this guy making you cry if you want me to talk to him?" She says, "Talk to Ephraim." I said, "Who's Ephraim? Who's Ephraim? Why is he crying? Why is he making you cry, this Ephraim?" Ephraim is your cousin. He's in Israel. He knows Torah. I said, okay, great. So as long as you stop crying, tell him to call me. I'll talk to anybody. The worst thing in the world is to hear your mom cry. So he calls me, and I didn't know who Ephraim was. When we left Israel, he was still a baby. He was much younger than I am. And I said, fine. You want to call me? Call me. So he called me. I've heard from a lot of religious people. At least two or three of them would show up to my office every week. And every single one of them never ever told me that I have to change. Never told me I have to keep Shabbat. Never told me that I have to marry a Jewish woman. Never told me that it's a real problem that my wife was not Jewish. Never told me that it's a problem that I just created my own religion. All they told me is that I have to give tzedakah.

38:53Why? Because we, as a people, have conditioned our rabbis to not tell us the truth. Because as soon as they tell us the truth, we kick them out. As soon as we tell them the truth, ah, no, no, you're making that up. That's your own thing. That's a chumra. You're a machmir. You're this. You start calling them names. You start doing all these different types of things. So the rabbis are playing scared. But in the poker world,... One of the things that makes people good at gambling is when they have no fear. And the way they capitalize on it is by capitalizing on people that are scared. They're scared to lose the money. This is what makes rich people really good gamblers. It's not because they're smart. It's because they're not scared of losing the money. It's also what makes the Palestinians very good terrorists. They're not scared of dying. So even if you shoot them, it's good for them. They're celebrating even more. That's why you can't beat them that way. So now, when you go to work every day, and a rabbi follows you every day, and every day he's telling you the same thing, the one mitzvah, give tzedakah, give tzedakah, give tzedakah, give tzedakah, nothing else, maybe once in a while do tefillin, you feel like you're doing fine. And then one day, this guy from Yerushalayim calls you, and he starts telling you you're not doing fine.

40:10But he doesn't start off right away. He starts giving me a few stories. We have a very interesting conversation for an hour and 40 minutes. I ask him a question. He tells me that the same question was asked by some sage 300 years ago, 500 years ago, or 1,000 years ago. And he tells me the page number and the book name and all these wonderful things. And we have this conversation. And the next week, at the same time, on Thursday at 4 o'clock. We have another conversation for three hours. And the next Thursday, five hours. And the next Thursday, seven hours. And every week this continues and my life starts to change. And the reason why is because, for the first time in my life, I started realizing that I'm in debt. But it's not to the IRS, it's not to the banks, it's not to any friends, it's not to any family. I'm in debt to Hashem. He brought me to the world and I've been treating Him as if He owes me something instead of I owe Him something. And that was the first big wake-up call for me. The second big wake-up call was when I started realizing that my life is upside down and all Hashem is trying to do is wake me up. So I started learning with him and then I started learning on my own, and I started realizing that the Torah is not just a Harry Potter book. It's not just an elective.

41:32As much as we would all like to treat the Torah as something that's nice, I started realizing that the Torah is not like that. In the book of Jeremiah, Hashem tells the prophet to tell Am Yisrael, "My people have committed two evils. They've forsaken Me, the source of living water, to dig for themselves cisterns." cisterns that cannot hold water. This is in the book of Jeremiah, chapter 2, verse 13. Hashem tells the prophet, "Go tell Am Yisrael that they are bogdim, traitors." Why? Not only Did they not worship Me? They didn't do tefillot. They didn't give tzedakot. They didn't give ma'asrot. They didn't keep Shabbat. They didn't keep... Not only did they not keep the mitzvot. It's not only that. That's already enough. But instead, they replaced Me with something else. They replaced Me, the source of all water, the source of all chayim, of all life, with what? With their avodah zara. With their nothing. What's the avodah zara? Baruch Hashem, very few Jews worship idols today. So, what's the avodah zara?

42:55Now, b'ezrat Hashem, in a couple of weeks, we're all going to celebrate Pesach. And the story of Pesach begins with the exodus, begins with Yetziat Mitzrayim, how Hashem brought the ten plagues, destroyed the biggest civilization in history. took the Egyptians, who were much bigger than the Americans, the Chinese, and the Russians all put together, and destroyed them. He made the slaves the masters and the masters the servants. It was the first and last time in history that such a thing happened. Then He took us out of Egypt, split the sea for us, and we arrived at Mount Sinai. Mount Sinai, which was the culmination of all of it, was Matan Torah. Now the parashah that we get the Torah is called what parasha? Parashat Yitro. So the question is, if Parashat Yitro, the number one event in Parashat Yitro is Matan Torah, why isn't it called Parashat Matan Torah? Why is it called Parashat Yitro? If we got the Torah, call it Matan Torah. Every other parasha

44:15is named basically after the main event of the parashah. Every parashah. Parashat Bereishit, Bereishit bara Elokim et hashamayim ve'et ha'aretz, Parashat Noach, Noach ish tzadik tamim hayah bedorotav, and so on and so forth. Who is the main character in the parashah? What's the main thing? If it's Matan Torah, call it Parashat Matan Torah. We receive the Torah. Why is it called Parashat Yitro? Because Yitro, Rabotai, is the one that connects the beginning, the middle, and the end of this point. At the beginning of the shiur, I asked you, if you were born not Jewish, would you convert? And most people answered the honest answer, which is no. That's the honest answer. Some say yes, because they like to think that they would be so righteous as a Gentile that they would want to be a Jew. But the reality is no. And the reason is because most of us don't even like being Jewish, even though we're already Jewish. We look at the Torah as an obligation. We look at the Torah as a responsibility. We look at the Torah as something that's restricting us. But you got us to a shiur, and you want us to listen?

45:37You got us to the Beit Knesset and you want us to give tzedakah? You should give us tzedakah for coming. You should give us money for coming. You got us to learn, and you want us to remember what we learned? We look at the Torah, it's like, come on, no? It's like, it's enough already that we're listening. You want us to do also? Na'aseh v'nishma? Na'aseh is enough. But parashat Yitro starts with the most important thing in the entire parasha. Vayishma. Vayishma Yitro. Yitro heard. What did he hear? He heard about the miracles that happened to Am Yisrael. He heard about what happened in Mitzrayim. He heard about what happened with Yam Suf. He heard about what happened with Amalek. He heard, and that was enough for him. It was enough for him. He heard what Hashem did for Am Yisrael and for him. That's it. That was enough. I'm leaving my Pope job, a hundred thousand dollars a month. I'm leaving it. I'm going to become a Jew with no money, with no family, with nothing. I'm going to become a Jew. That's it. I'm finished. He gave up everything. That's it. That was it. At the moment of truth, Yitro heard the truth, and he said it's time to change.

47:02I've tried every avodah zarah there is, whether it's the idols, or it's the oceans, or it's money, or it's fame, or it's fortune, or it's women, or it's men, whatever. He tried everything. He heard about the God of Israel. He says the God of Israel punishes measure for measure. Because just like He punished the Egyptians with the ocean, I realized that He could punish us with anything. Why? If He punished the Egyptians, if He just killed them, it could be seen as a natural event, like some hurricane coming and killing all the Egyptians. But the fact that He killed them with the water shows that He's punishing measure for measure. This means that He is also in control of the water. He's also in control of everything else. Because they killed Am Yisrael with water. They threw the babies into the water. He's killing them with water. They didn't let us go into the mikveh. He made their water into blood. They didn't let us take showers. He made all their things smell with the tzefardea. Every single thing, every way that He punished them was measure for measure.

48:06He says, if Hashem not only knows about all the things that the Egyptians did to the Jews, but He's actually punishing them with those same things, that means He's in control of everything. I've heard enough. I've heard He's the God of Israel, He's Emet, that's it, I'm leaving everything. So Yitro did something most of us are not willing to do. Yitro said, I'm leaving money, I'm leaving power, I'm leaving idolatry, and I'm going to become a Jew. I'm going to become one of the persecuted people. Now why did Yitro get such a merit? Why did Yitro get such a merit to be, not only have the zechut to do teshuva, the Rambam says at the end of days before Mashiach comes, you have to have zechut to do teshuva. Not everybody's going to do teshuva. The Gemara in Masechet Ta'anit says when Mashiach comes, not everybody's going to be happy. Why? Most people are going to die. Tachlis, bottom line. Why? Most people are not going to do teshuva. And the Rambam gives a commentary, he says, why? You have to have zechut. You have to have merit to do teshuva. Not just because you're a Jew, you're going to do teshuva. Not just because you came to shiur, you're going to do teshuva. You have to have mamash zechut to actually hear the truth and do it. Many of us hear the truth for 20 years, we still don't want to do it. B'ezrat Hashem, we hear it now. Yitro heard it one time.

49:36That was enough. Why did he have such a merit? Now, in the Gemara Masechet Megillah, we read it just a few months ago on Purim. Purim, you guys all celebrate Purim, the customs, the Oznei Haman, everybody pretends to be something else. The Jews pretend to be goyim, the goyim pretend to be Jews. It's all fun. Now, on Purim, we have a Gemara in Masechet Megillah. On Purim, we read Megillat Esther, and for the first time in the entire Tanakh, we have the word Yehudi, the word Jew. You're not going to find the word Yehudi in the entire five books of Moses. Not once is there the word Yehudi. Jew is not once in the Torah. But in the Tanakh, you'll find it in Megillat Esther. So the Gemara asks, why was Mordechai called the first Yehudi? Why? Because Mordechai was proud to be a Jew and he went against idolatry. He went against Avodah Zarah. This means that the definition of a Jew is not just someone who says Baruch Hashem and Be'ezrat Hashem and gives tzedakah once in a while. It's someone who fights against anything that is against Hashem, with Avodah Zarah being the foremost.

50:53Yitro, rabotai, if you all remember the midrash that we all heard, Yitro was one of the three servants of Paro. Paro had three servants. He had Iyov, he had Bilam, and he had Yitro. When he asked them in Sefer Shemot, he asked them, what should we do with these, with these Bnei Yisrael? What should we do with them? Let's fool them into working for us. What do we do with them? Bilam said, let's kill them. Let's kill them. His punishment was, Am Yisrael killed him back. Iyov said, no, leave them alone. Don't do anything. He didn't want to say much. His punishment was, Hashem gave him a lot of yesurim, a lot of pain. The Book of Iyov is full of yesurim. He didn't say much. He didn't defend Am Yisrael. He says, you don't speak when it's time to speak, I'll punish you. Yitro, on the other hand, stood up for the truth. Even though he didn't really know the God of Israel yet, he knew that Pharaoh was not God. Even though Pharaoh said he was God, Yitro knew Pharaoh is not God. And he told him, listen,

52:03At the very least, you should be grateful for Bnei Yisrael. Why? They're the ones that made you all the money. Yosef HaTzadik from the previous generation is the one who put you on the map. He built your stock market. He built your commodity market. He built you this. Why are you going against them? He went against Avodah Zarah. For that, he got the zechut. For that, he got the zechut because he was an Ish Emet. Even though he didn't know the entire truth, he knew that there's a truth in the world. When he heard the truth of Am Yisrael, when he heard the God of Israel, he realized, okay, that's enough for me. So this Yitro, this Yitro is someone that had a lot of merit, to such an extent that his parasha, which is named after him, is when we have the highlight, the number one highlight in the entire Torah, which is Matan Torah. So we should listen to him. Now this Yitro was so big that even Moshe Rabbeinu learned from him. After he came to Mount Sinai, he told Moshe, "Listen, Moshe, you're the judge, you're the jury, you're everything. Everybody's coming to you and asking you for advice. It's not a good plan. You have to build yourself a court system. A court system with judges, a court system with lawyers, a court system with different things."

53:33Okay. This is, by the way, how our civil court system began, even to this day. Supreme Court and regular court, and so on and so forth. So Moshe listened to him. He says, okay, so who's going to run this court? He says, you're going to have to have special people be the judges of this court. What are these people? He says, they have to be Anshei Chayil, Yerei Elohim, Anshei Emet, Sonei Batza. says these people have to be accomplished people, meaning people with a little bit of money so you can't buy them out. People who are not going to sell out just because of somebody's money. They're afraid of God. God's going to punish them, meaning that even... Even if the emet is against themselves. Even if their daughter is the one they have to accuse. Even if their son is the one that's going to go to jail, they're going to stand for it. Why? It's the emet. That's the emet. Emet is... There's one emet. There's no two emetim. There's only one truth. There's never two truths. There's no your truth and my truth and somewhere in between is the real truth. There's one emet. If we have two different truths, that means one of us is wrong. There's no two. She says, Anshei Emet.

54:56So they have to be successful, they have to have Yirat Shamayim, they have to be Anshei Emet, they'll stand up for the truth, and last but not least, they have to hate money. What does that have to do with anything? If it's people that are successful, you could say, listen, if they're successful, no one's going to buy them out and bribe the jury, and bribe the judge. Makes sense. If it's Yirat Shamayim, same concept. If he has Yirat Shamayim, you don't even bother bribing him. Why? Because he's afraid of God more than he's afraid of your checkbook. If it's somebody that's an Ish Emet, even if he doesn't have any money, he stands up for the truth even when it hurts. So you can't bribe him. So why does he also have to hate money? Why does he also have to hate money? Now the reality is, Rabotai, if you actually go on fast forward into this parasha, it says, Moshe heard the voice of his father-in-law, Yitro, and he did everything he said. And Moshe heard everything he said and he found, and he got who? Successful people.

56:13Wait a minute, what about the Ish Emet? What about the person that hates money? What about the person that has Yirat Shamayim? Chazal says there was nobody like that. All he had were successful people. All he had were people with money. No one was an Ish Emet yet. No one was somebody that hated money. Nobody had Yirat Shamayim yet. Even though we were on Mount Sinai, still we didn't have it yet. So now, Rabotai, the question is, why is it that hating money was the key ingredient to all of it. So the chiddush that I had some time ago, Baruch Hashem, is that if somebody is successful, it doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to have Yirat Shamayim. So that already disqualifies them. If somebody has Yirat Shamayim, it doesn't mean they're successful. There are plenty of people that have Yirat Shamayim, at least we hope so, but they don't have any money.

57:14If somebody is a yeshivish, again same thing, they probably may not have any money. They may have Yirat Shamayim, or they may be their own emet, but their emet is wrong. Their emet is wrong. Their emet is really false. But if somebody is sonei betza, if somebody hates money, he must be all of them. He must be all of them. Why? because you don't get to a level of hating materialism without being successful at least once in your life. And it doesn't necessarily mean materially successful. It also means spiritually successful. You've learned Torah. You don't get to hate materialism unless you have Yirat Shamayim. Because once you have Yirat Shamayim, you realize that Hashem is everything. If He's everything, everything else means nothing. As soon as you give power to anything in the world, whether it's money that you have or money that you don't have, the girl that you have or the girl that you want, the husband that you have or the husband that you wished for, the job that you want or the job that you wished for, all of these different things that we all stress over day and night, the sages explain to us, as soon as you stress about anything, you immediately make that thing your avodah zarah.

58:36Why? Because you have now given power to something different than God. As soon as you're worried about money, you're thinking money is more powerful than God. Money is separate from God. God built the world. He spent all of His money. Now He's broke. You have to work on your own. You're on your own, buddy. He spent all of His money on Noach because everybody ruined the world. He had to build it all over again. It was an unnecessary expense. But what are you going to do? Now you're stuck working. He spent all the money. Now you have to work overtime. 8 billion people in the world, 20 million of them approximately are Jews, but you can't find a zivug. Why? I don't know. Hashem made a mistake somewhere. So I have to go find her in clubs. I have to go find her in prostitution houses over there. That's where I have to find a girl. You want to find a nice Jewish girl in a club? Hashem. Her and the 87 boyfriends she had in her life. She wants to find a guy. I want to find a guy. Okay, what kind of car does he have? Why don't you just date the car instead of the guy?

59:38Take the car for a ride. See if you like the car. Marry the guy. This, Rabotai, is our mistake. Why? We gave something else power. We gave money power. We gave the girl power. We gave the guy power. We gave something outside of Hashem power. The reason why is because we were unashamed. We didn't stand up for the truth when we saw it. And the reason why we didn't stand up for the truth is either because we didn't know it, because no one told us, or simply because we didn't care enough. But either way, the outcome is you cannot be a person that hates materialism without these three different ingredients. Now, what does this have to do with us other than everything?

1:00:38is that at the end of the parasha, after we got the Ten Commandments, the same parasha we got Torah, we got the Ten Commandments. Now after we got the Ten Commandments, the Ten Commandments say, "I am the God that took you out of Egypt, don't have any other gods, don't use My name in vain," all these wonderful things, "observe Shabbat, honor your parents, don't steal, don't murder," and so on and so forth. Ten wonderful commandments. And Hashem repeats these commandments to us. And after He finishes telling us all the commandments, we have this whole parasha start. Yitro converts; he tells Moshe Rabbeinu to build a Beit Din with different judges who have these character traits. They’re tzaddikim because they have da-da-da-da-da. Moshe says, "I don't have anybody that has all these qualities. I only have successful people." Okay, let's just put them there. We get the Ten Commandments, we get the Torah, the Oral Torah, the Written Torah, all of this is repeated, and the world seems like it's complete. No. Hashem gives us a nevuah, a prophecy of today, the day of Mashiach, the end of days. And after all of this Torah that we got, it says, Vayomer Hashem el Moshe...

1:02:08Hashem says to Moshe, "Go, say to the children of Israel, you have seen that I have spoken to you from heaven." Meaning, there's nobody here that says, "Oh, no, no, I didn't hear anything." There are millions of people at Mount Sinai. No one is saying, "By the way, this book says that God spoke to us. I didn't hear anything." Meaning, this is a testimony that everyone was there and heard the voice of God—saw the voice of God. Because it says, "ra'item et ha'kolot," meaning you saw My voice. Every time God spoke, His words were actually imprinted in the sky. So everybody agrees, you heard. Okay, great. And then He reminds them of one of the commandments. What is it? ואלוהי זהב לא תעשו לכם. Now, you've just heard all Ten Commandments, but then Hashem says, "Just to remind you, I just gave you Ten Commandments. None of you are disagreeing, right? Just make sure you don't make for yourself a god of money or a god of gold. Don't make for yourself..."

1:03:23Why didn’t He pick any of the other Ten Commandments? Why didn’t He pick any of the other 613 mitzvot that we have in the entire Torah? Why didn’t He say, by the way, you heard everything I said? Good. Just don’t forget. Keep Shabbat. By the way, marry Jewish. By the way, keep kosher. By the way, be modest. By the way, any number of mitzvot that we have. Why did He remind us of one mitzvah in the entire Torah? You gave us the Ten Commandments, but now you're telling us, hey, by the way, don't make yourselves gods of money and gods of gold. Because this verse is not just for this people. This verse is for us. This verse is telling us before the Mashiach comes, you want to do teshuva? It has to start with money. It has to start with materialism. Why? Because that's the idolatry of all generations. The god of money and the god of gold is the avodah zarah we've had for the last 3,000 years. It's an avodah zarah. It's an idol worship that hasn't left us.

1:04:31It's an avodah zarah that hasn't left us. So the question is, the second question that we have to ask ourselves is, how much are you willing to sell God out for? How much is your God worth? Every single person has to ask themselves this question seriously. Now you have two avreichim, two people learning Torah. Come, come, come. It's fine. They'll put you in the camera too. It's fine. The question you have to ask yourself is, how much is God worth to you? How much is He worth to you? What would you sell Him for? Now, of course, you're all going to say, no, chas v'shalom, tfoo tfoo tfoo, and all that. Right, great. How much are you going to sell Him for? How much are you going to sell Him for? Everybody keeps Shabbat, I'm assuming, or at least most of us keep Shabbat. Hopefully. It's like that.

1:05:31Somebody, you keep Shabbat, right? Keep Shabbat. Okay. Nobody answers, so I'm going to go with the one that I know for sure. Okay. So if I gave you $1,000. $1,000 cash. $20 bills, $100 bills, whatever you want. Would you drive on Shabbat? No, right? Okay. So at the very least, you know God's worth $1,000 there. Now if I ask the question, I'm not going to ask. I'm not going to ask. But if I ask the question, if I give you a million dollars, I don't have, but if I had, and I put it with me in my bag over there that has everything except the camera. If I give you a million dollars cash, I put it on the table, instead of sefarim kodesh, I put a million dollars cash. Would you drive on Shabbat? Now you have to start thinking about it. Huh? Oh, I give 10% ma'aser. Yeah, I give 10% ma'aser. You start making mitzvot out of this million dollars. Now we have an answer to our question. The reality is sad. Because when God gives you every single penny you have in your pocket, in the bank account that you know of, and the one that you're hiding from the IRS. When God is giving you the bitcoins that you want and the ones that you already have. When God is giving you the car, the house, the wife, the kids.

1:06:59the vision, the molecules, the stakes, the synagogues, the community, and the freedom. You have to be a Jew. For the first time in history, you're allowed to be a Jew without people killing you. For the first time in history, the Christians are pretending to be Jews. They call it Messianic Judaism or Jews for Jesus. For the first time in history, if you want to learn a book, any book, Sefer Kodesh, all you have to do is press a button, and it arrives on your phone, or it arrives at your house, whichever one you want. If you just rewind a hundred years, we're not even talking about a thousand years ago, Moshe Rabbeinu and his brother. No, no, we're talking about a hundred years ago. If you wanted to learn a sefer kodesh, you had to leave the city to go to some rich guy's house that had the book and stay in his house as a guest for a month, two months, three months, however long it took you to finish the book. That's how you learned Torah.

1:08:05For 3,300 years, that's how we learned Torah. We went to different towns. We left the family. We left the kids. We left the work. We left everything. Why? There's a book this guy has three weeks away. There's a book this guy has six months away. I have to walk six months, go learn the book for two months, and come back in six months. How are we going to eat? That's your problem. I have to go learn Torah. I left you a cow. Milk it. I left you a cow and two kids. Use the kids to milk the cow. Finished. That's how we learn Torah, Rabotai. And the wife was 100% on board. She says, you're right. I have two kids, they're going to milk the cow. Baruch Hashem, we have the cow. You see, some of the letters that the Chachamim sent to their wives, they'd ask them, how are you? How are the kids? How's the cow? They ask them, how's the cow doing? It's like asking, how's the business? How's the cow doing? If I have the cow, if the cow's doing good, I know you're still eating. If the cow's not doing good, I got to come back home. How's the cow doing? Meaning he went somewhere for six months to go learn a sefer. And there was no problem. Why? He was chasing the emet. He was chasing the truth, even if the truth cost him six months of his life, or a year of his life, or seven years of his life. It didn't make a difference. Why? He heard the truth like Yitro. I'm going to chase the truth. We have Torah in our pockets. And still, you have to beg people to come.

1:09:34still, you have to beg people to keep Shabbat. Still, you have to ask the question twice: how much is God actually worth in your mind? Why? Because we don't know. We don't know the truth yet. Once you start learning the truth, you realize that the truth is very, very different from what we've learned our entire life. First and foremost, When I started learning Torah, I realized that the Torah is not optional. It's not optional. Whether you're a Jew or you're not a Jew, it's not optional. The Rambam says in Hilchot Melachim that a non-Jew who keeps the laws of Noach, the seven laws of Noach, plus all of the ethical laws of the Torah, like honoring your parents and so on, which is somewhere around 50 different mitzvot. If he fulfills those mitzvot because God said so, then he's considered Chasidei Umot HaOlam, one of the righteous among the nations, and he has Olam HaBa. But if the same guy, the same non-Jew... Ethical laws of the Torah, like honoring your parents and so on, which is somewhere around 50 different mitzvot. If he fulfills those mitzvot because God said so, then he's considered Chasidei Umot HaOlam, one of the righteous among the nations, and he has Olam HaBa. But if the same guy, the same non-Jew...

1:10:58keeps the same laws. He doesn't murder. He doesn't steal. He doesn't eat an animal while it's still alive. He has a court system. And all the things, all of the mitzvot, he keeps them. But not because God said so. Simply because it makes sense. It makes sense not to murder. It makes sense not to steal. It makes sense not to be a homosexual if you're normal. It makes sense to do all these things. Makes sense. Makes sense. Makes sense. So he keeps it because it makes sense. The Rambam says, not only does he not have Olam HaBa, but he's actually considered one of the stupidest people in the world. Why? You did all the work and you're not going to get paid for it. You kept all the mitzvot, but for the wrong reason. You kept them because you like it. You kept them because it makes sense to you. For that, there's no reward. Which means that the Torah is not optional for the goyim. They have to follow it. And whoever does it will be punished. Kal v'chomer, needless to say for Am Yisrael. Needless to say for Am Yisrael. The Rambam says in Hilchot Shabbat, 900 years ago, chapter 30, last halakha.

1:12:15A Jew that violates Shabbat, a Jew that drives on Shabbat, smokes a cigarette on Shabbat, watches television on Shabbat, plays with their phone on Shabbat, works on Shabbat, plays with money on Shabbat, talks about money on Shabbat, unless it has to do with a mitzvah, not allowed, meaning if he's talking about some real estate deal that he's going to invest in or invested in, or stock market, or bitcoin, or schmidt coin, or this coin, or that coin, or everything is going to go to zero anyway. If he talks about any of that stuff, he's a mechalel Shabbat. According to the Rambam, he's considered 100% an idol worshiper, meaning if he comes to your house for Kiddush and you have uncooked wine, one of the expensive wines—usually they're more than twenty dollars— you open the wine for Kiddush and he wants to see what kind of wine you have, so he takes the wine and picks it up. You know, people pick up the wine; they want to see what's behind it, what kind of wine it is, how much alcohol it has—is it good or bad, and so on. It's like everybody has become a wine connoisseur these days. They drank three cups of wine at the club, and they think they're wine connoisseurs. But anyway, he looks at the wine. If the wine is open, at that point, it is no longer allowed for you to drink. Why? Because an idol worshiper touched that wine.

1:13:36But he's a Jew. He's my brother. He's my cousin. He's my sister. He's my—whatever he is. It doesn't make a difference. If he's a Mechalel Shabbat, according to Hashem—not to me, according to Hashem—he's considered 100% an idol worshiper. What else does it mean? One of the worst things that you can possibly do in Judaism, to such an extent that the Gemara says if you do this, not only do you not have olam haba, but you have eternal suffering to go along with it too. What is it? Something simple. Charging another Jew interest on loans. One of your friends comes to you and says, "Listen, I have a business, I have this, I have that, whatever they have, I need a loan." How much? "I need $10,000." You happen to have the money. He's like, "Oh, no problem, $10,000, only 36% interest, only. Only 36% interest, monthly, only. Good deal." The guy is desperate, mesuken. You charge him interest, what is he going to do? He's going to say, "No?" You're the only guy that's willing to lend him any money. Even if you charge them 1% interest, it's the same thing. I'm just exaggerating a little bit to give you guys a little bit of pleasure from the joke. The point is, you charge them interest. The Gemara says that a person who charges interest officially loses their Olam HaBa. They have to return the interest in order to do teshuva. Why? Because they charged another Jew interest. Now, what if that Jew is a mechalel Shabbat? What if that Jew...

1:15:02Violate Shabbat, then Rav Ovadia gives the chiddush of a lifetime. It's not really a chiddush though. Why? The Rambam also said it. What did he say? The Mechalel Shabbat is also an idol worshiper. Which means an idol worshiper you could charge interest as much as you want. Meaning if the Jew is a Mechalel Shabbat, charge him interest as much as you want. He's not considered Jewish. But we still don't recommend it. Why don't we recommend it? Because what if he does teshuva? If he does Teshuva, it's Safek, meaning it's a possibility, you may have to give him back the interest because he did Teshuva now. Point B, Rabotai, it's a serious problem in Hashem's eyes to be an idol worshiper, which is, in His eyes, equal to Mechalel Shabbat. So we all understand that Yitro left idolatry. But we, on the other hand, are not willing to leave it. And the reason why is because the examples that we have today sometimes are very confusing. remember, one of the things that always bothered me when I would look at religious people is that I could never tell who's married and who's not married among the women. Because I always heard, at least when I grew up in Israel, it was Sephardi. So, I remember seeing my aunt, which was, you know, I have a few cousins and aunts who were religious, and you would know that they're religious because they cover their hair. They cover their hair with a mitpachat or something like that, or a hat.

1:16:29Now, for the first time in my life, I'm sure it happened in Israel when I was a kid, I just never noticed it, but for the first time I started noticing it in America, is that the religious people, for the most part, don't wear mitpachot. So you can never tell who's married and who's not. Why? Because either they don't cover anything at all, or they cover it with a sheitel, which... In my eyes, it was like a joke. As a secular person. Forget religious. As a secular person. What do you mean? So you cover hair with your hair? That's better than your original hair? And that makes you religious? And this would be one of the excuses I would use not to be religious. I'm like, they're idiots. There's something wrong with them. You're covering hair with hair? And that's what makes you religious? Like you look like the girl I just saw in the magazine. And that's going to make you... kedusha, you're holy because of this? This doesn't make any sense. Your religion doesn't make any sense. I'm staying secular, because at least I'm using my logic. In my eyes, this doesn't make any sense. At least I'm not lying to myself. But again, I didn't know the whole intricate parts of it and so on.

1:17:35But it still never made sense to me. So once I became religious, I actually started looking into this because I started noticing a lot more people. I moved to a Jewish community, and I started seeing that this is not one or two or three women. This is pretty much the majority of American Judaism. It's a majority of Judaism in general today, religious Jews. So I started looking into it, and I saw that this has been a machloket for over 400 years. It's been a debate between the Chachamim for 400 years about whether you are allowed to wear a wig or not because, according to the vast majority of the sages throughout history for the last 2,000 years, you're not allowed to wear a wig because it's not modest. Even though the wigs they were talking about looked like a broom, and you were able to tell that it was not real hair, nonetheless, they still say that showing hair for women is not allowed. It's not a modest thing. The whole point is to cover your hair and not hair with hair. And that was the debate that already started 2,000 years ago. Yonatan ben Uziel, the Gemara Masechet Shabbat, and several other places. Now, about 400 years ago, one posek came out and said, listen,

1:18:51actually think that this is not what the Gemara means and you can wear wigs. Some people followed him, but became one community and another community and another community, and everyone started taking what he said and exaggerated a little bit more and exaggerated a little bit more and exaggerated a little bit more. Fast forward 400 years: today women wear the same wigs that the movie stars wear, and you can't tell who's married, you can't tell who's single, you can't tell if it's her real hair, you can't tell if it's not her real hair. You actually ask the women that are getting wigs, what's the point of the wig? What's the ideal wig? What's the best wig? They say the one that looks the most real. Doesn't that defeat the purpose? But this has been a debate for 400 years. Who am I to get in the way of this debate? Bigger Chachamim than I could ever be have debated it and so on and so forth. So little old me, I said, listen, there's something wrong with this picture.

1:19:59Because I heard, when I was in the business world, I did research in a lot of different businesses. That's what I did. I was an expert in research. I would find industries and companies. That's what I did for almost 20 years. That's how I made all the money. It wasn't because I got lucky on something. It was because I did research on certain things, got in before other people realized it was good, and that's how we made money. So that was my expertise. At some point in my life, did research on different industries, and I came across the hair industry. I found out that most wigs come from India, and somehow this rang a bell. Obviously, it all comes from Hashem. Now, wait a minute, I remember from the business world that wigs come from India. In India, they don't do it like a business; it's a form of avodah zarah, meaning that the Hindus, they have different idols. They have over 80,000 religions there. A cow, a rat, a tree, a motorcycle. I'm serious. They worship a motorcycle. It's a Harley-Davidson. It's tied to a tree. There's a rat or a few rats. There are a few cows. A cow crosses the street, and everybody starts bowing. That's serious. It's not just a joke. It's really serious. They worship these things. I actually have pictures of this. I didn't believe it the first time either. But they worship everything that moves, and everything that doesn't move.

1:21:29So now, I started seeing, wait a minute, this whole wig thing, all of the hair is coming from there. According to halacha, you're not allowed to benefit from idol worship in any way, shape, or form. The only mitzvah that you can do with idol worship is to burn it, destroy it. According to halacha, you're not allowed to benefit from idol worship in any way, shape, or form. The only mitzvah that you can do with idol worship is to burn it, destroy it. The only thing you're allowed to do with it. You're not allowed to sell it, you're not allowed to eat it, you're not allowed to wear it, you're not allowed to do anything with it other than to destroy it. That's it. That's the only mitzvah you have. The first thing that Yehoshua bin Nun, the Gadol Hador after Moshe Rabbeinu, was commanded to do after they got to Eretz Yisrael, Hashem told them, "Go burn all of the Asherah trees." What did the trees do, miskinim? Did they call you a name? What did they do? Hashem says, "Oh, people worship them." Yeah, they worship them. It's not their fault that idiots worship the tree. It doesn't make a difference. Their fault, not their fault. It makes no difference. Once something was used for idolatry, it's always idolatry. There's never undoing it.

1:22:31Once it's used for idolatry, the only mitzvah is to destroy it. Destroy all of these fruit trees, all of these non-fruit trees, all of these trees, anything that was worshipped, destroy it. Why? Because idolatry is considered to'avat Hashem. In English, disgusting to Hashem. Why? Because you have replaced the source of all water, with broken cisterns. You see, you changed, exchanged everything with nothing. So now, Rabotai, I came out and I started doing research and I realized that it's not just a small market. It's a multi-billion dollar market. The fashion industry in general is $520 billion a year. Wigs are somewhere between $10 to $25 billion. No one really knows. Either way, it's a really big market. If you buy a wig, according to some serious research that we did, which again, like I told you, it was almost 20 years of my expertise. So it wasn't like a new guy at this. This is what I did. If I know something, it's that. It's not Torah. Torah, I'm trying to know. This, I definitely know. If you buy a wig, it's not 99%, it's 100%. 100% coming from Avodah Zarah. 100%.

1:23:57unless you bought it directly from three people's heads. Because every wig is from three women. Every wig is from three different heads. It's not one head replacing one head. Every wig is from three heads. So unless you saw three women, you shaved their heads yourself. Oh, thank you very much, Samantha. Thank you very much, Wilma. And thank you very much, whoever you are. Fine, thank you very much. Take the wig, you put it back on your head. Unless you did that, which is unrealistic. The wig that you're buying from any store, I could say kosher, non-kosher, taref, not taref, it's Avodah Zarah. Why? Because no other market in the world can supply the wigs for the market. What if it's synthetic wigs? Unfortunately, with synthetic wigs, research found that an average of 3-10% of the synthetic wigs are actually real hair. meaning that even the synthetic wig is not really synthetic. The reason why is because there are so many men that worship idols in India that over 20 million of them donate their hair a year. 20 million of them donate their hair a year. Now, wigs for the most part are long—that's the women. So what are you going to do with all these men that are donating their hair?

1:25:09You have to do something with them. No one's going to buy a wig with short hair, really, most of the time. You're not going to buy a wig with a crew cut. So what are you going to do with this hair? So they put it in synthetic wigs. They put it in food. It's called L-cysteine. It's in your bread sometimes. They put it in medicine. All of this short hair is put in different places. Now, to such an extent, there's such a surplus. There's so much actual real hair from India that it's actually cheaper than synthetic wigs for the manufacturer. Therefore, they fill in the synthetic wig with some real hair. So now, the problem of having over 127 poskim throughout all generations saying that it's not allowed to wear a wig, regardless of whether it's Avodah Zarah or not, is already a problem of its own. But now, because of modesty, it's not modest to wear a wig. But now you have a serious problem. Now you have a fact that if you're wearing a wig, it's statistically impossible for it to be a kosher wig. Now what about all these kosher wigs? Now you go to most religious neighborhoods, they have a kosher stamp.

1:26:17Kosher stamp on the wig. This is the joke of a lifetime. This is the biggest lie in Jewish history. And the reason why is because it's impossible to kosher a wig. Not just practically. It's literally impossible. And the reason why is because when you buy kosher meat, that means that someone who is a Jew, a Shomer Shabbat Jew, has watched the meat from beginning to end. the time he was a cow and he was slaughtered, no bones were broken, there was no machalot (disease), it wasn't diseased or something like that. It was slaughtered, then somebody else, or maybe the same person, cut the pieces, salted the meat, made sure all the blood came out, all the way until it got to your butcher. And, it looks like blood, but it's really not blood; it's just the coloring. And so on and so forth, until it got to your table, someone watched it. Someone watched that it stayed kosher along the way. At least that's the way kosher meat is. Same thing with the Sefer Torah. Somebody writes a Sefer Torah, and when they bring it to the United States, they send it with a few letters missing. Because a Sefer Torah, if it falls, everybody has to fast. So when they send a Sefer Torah in an airplane, it's an incomplete Sefer Torah. Because when it's incomplete, it's not considered a Sefer Torah.

1:27:35So they could travel with it. The point being is, somebody has to be with the Sefer Torah. Somebody has to watch it along the way. From the day they've put the first letter, to the day that you read it over here for Parashat HaShavua. Someone has to watch it. With kosher wigs, it's impossible. And the reason why is because the people that are donating their hair at the temple, and the people that are selling the wigs, are two completely different worlds. They're being donated in India, free because that's their mitzvah for their avodah zarah. Now, the people that are donating it, they don't know it's being sold and they don't care. It's being sold to them. It's like they're worshiping an idol. To them, that's what they do. That's their mitzvah. That's their whole life. They've been waiting ten years for this and It's like somebody, l'havdil, finishing the Shas after seven years. For them, as they grew their hair for seven years, now they're donating it. So now they donated it. That temple accumulates the hair every single day—800, 900, 1,000 kilos. every single day he sends it to a different factory to clean the hair. We walked through this whole process. They clean the hair in a different place with low labor costs; they clean the hair from lice, diseases, and so on and so forth. Then they send it either to China or to Brazil or some other country in Europe, either Italy or so on, to reprocess it. Every time it changes country, it changes the stamp, so it doesn't say made in India.

1:29:01It says made in China, made in Italy, made in Brazil, made in Gehinnom, made in all these different places. Made in all these different places. It never says made in India. Now, if you, I actually, during the research, I asked a few people from Brazil, because most of the wigs today, they say they're Brazilian. So I asked them, I mean, do so many people donate their hair in Brazil? The guy started laughing at me. I said, why are you laughing? It's not funny. It's a really serious question. He goes, the Brazilian people would rather die from starvation than sell their hair. It's just their nature. They like their beauty. They're not going to sell their hair. So this made me question things even more. So where is the hair coming from? The hair is coming from that originally when the Indians realized that their business could become as big as it is, they started making big deals. And they happened to make big deals with three major businessmen in Brazil. That's why most of the wigs come from Brazil. But either way, it's not Brazilian wigs. It's not Italian wigs. There's no Italians walking around with a bald head. There's no Italian women walking around with a bald head. There's no English women walking with a bald head. There's no French women walking around with a bald head, unless they have cancer. Other than that, they're not walking around with a bald head, Rabotai.

1:30:20It's all coming from India because even if somebody else wanted to donate their hair, like say in Cambodia or in China or any of these other places, it's still not enough to supply the market. Anyone else in any other country would sell the hair, and that would already mark up the price of the hair. That would already make it go from free to whatever it costs, meaning the price of an average wig would go from $1,000 to $10,000 because everybody has to make money along the way. the reason why wigs are still affordable, or people are able to afford them, is because the original cost is free and there's a lot of it. So now, when I started realizing this, I realized that there's no such thing as frum from birth anymore. There's no such thing as religious from birth anymore. The reality is that what Yitro, what Parashat Yitro is telling us here is that Avodah Zarah is existent everywhere. In the secular world, most of us have a justification to be secular. What is it? Money. We're chasing money. Once I have money, then I'll do teshuva.

1:31:34Once I have a big house, then I'll stop working on Shabbat. Once I do this, then this. We have conditions for Hashem. Once you give me money, then I'll do whatever you want, Hashem. We give Hashem a business proposition: You give me money, I'll do what you want. In the secular world, that's how we justify it. That's how Avodah Zarah is, kesef. In a religious world, it's the opposite. In a religious world, it's not just kesef. In a religious world, we justify it with competing with kesef. Competing with the Joneses, competing with the people that have kesef, competing with Hollywood, competing with everyone else. But even after you tell them, listen, it's avodah zarah what you have on your head. All of the tefillin, all of the Tehillim, all of the mitzvot that you're doing, it's not counting. Why? Because you have avodah zarah on your head. You have avodah zarah on your head. You can't go pray to God while you brought a competition too. You can't pray to God when you brought a competition also. You can't read Tehillim, "Hashem help me, Hashem help me, Hashem help me." He's like, "You know what, maybe I'll help you with the avodah zarah on your head first. I'll find you a new home." And this, Rabotai, is why I always say there's no such thing as 'from birth' anymore. So, when someone asks you, "What's the price that you're willing to pay for Hashem?" really the answer should be priceless.

1:33:03The answer should be priceless. It should be anything. It should be literally anything. Anything and everything. Now, to get to that point, there is only one way. Actually, there are two ways. One way is you learn a lot of Torah and you start understanding the significance of being a Jew. At the very least, be as proud of being a Jew as the Muslim is of being a Muslim. Just like he is willing to pray in the middle of the street, so should you. Don't be so shy when you're at the airport next time and pray all the way in the corner. Pray at your seat right next to everybody. If anyone asks you any questions, just say, this is what the Mashiach is going to look like. Don't worry. He's not going to be a Muslim, and he's not going to be a Christian. This is what he's going to look like with the tefillin and everything. Get used to it. Be proud. You have the truth, not them. Don't pray in the corner. Pray at your seat. Just like the Muslim prays in the middle of Broadway. Next time somebody asks you, what do you want to eat? Just say kosher. Why? Because that's what God said. Next time somebody asks you, when are you going on vacation? Say on Shabbat. God gave me a vacation every week. Next time somebody asks you, what do you want to do? Say, I want to learn. Why? Because that's the point of you being here in the world. The Gemara in Masechet Chagigah says,

1:34:22If you did not find a reason to sanctify Hashem's name every day, there was no point for you to exist. If you didn't look for a reason to do a Kiddush Hashem, look for it. It didn't necessarily succeed every day, but at least try to sanctify Hashem's name every day. There was no point for you to come to the world. The easiest way to sanctify His name is by simply saying it. Say Baruch Hashem before you start every sentence. Say Be'ezrat Hashem before you finish anything. Learn what Hashem really is every single day with your Rav, with your Kehillah, with your friends. Instead of watching baseball and football and shmutball and all the shtuyot that people waste their life on, at least find out what Torah really means. What's the point of being a Jew? Either be a Jew or go be a Goy. But at least pick a side. Don't call yourself a Jew if you don't want to be a Jew. And that's exactly what Hashem says to the prophet: You want to do teshuva? Do teshuva. If you don't, go worship the idols. He actually says this in the Torah: Go worship the idols then. Stop being a 50% Jew. I'm Israeli and I'm religious in my heart. I'm religious in my heart. I'm like religious twice a year, on Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah, and whenever my friends tell me to come.

1:35:43I'm religious, you know, bat mitzvah, bar mitzvah, this mitzvah, that mitzvah, I do those. I'm machmir in those. I go to all the parties. Stop being a 50% Jew. There's basic level mitzvot. We're not talking about chumrot. We're not talking about you having to start becoming a rabbi. You have to start speaking publicly. You have to start learning Torah day and night. Leave your job. Leave everything and go to the desert. Be like the Rambam. I'm not telling you that. There's basic level mitzvot we're all obligated to do. It all starts with attaining these basic level principles that He told us to get. The first one, be a Yisrael. Yisrael doesn't mean go be successful. No one cares about your money, especially God. Why? He says to the prophet, Hashem says, "Mine is the money, mine is the gold," says Hashem, God of legions. He says, "Everything is mine. You think it's your bank account? It's My bank account." Look at your own. I gave him 20 million, then I took it back. What makes you think I'm not going to take yours? A guy by the name of Eike Batista was the seventh richest man in the world just a few years ago. 37 billion dollars. Today, he has a negative net worth. He has zero. Nothing. He can't pay the rent. They took away his car. 37 billion. Just a few years ago. You're working for a lot of money. Maybe Hashem doesn't want you to have it.

1:37:08What does He want you to have? He wants you to be an Ish Chayil. What's an Ish Chayil? Know some Torah. Know the basic purpose of why you're in this world. The second thing is, be afraid of Hashem. Shlomo HaMelech, the smartest man of all time, says, "Praiseworthy is the man that's always scared." What is he scared of, this guy? What is he scared of? he's scared of being punished. He's scared of getting gehinnom. He's scared of Hashem not liking him. He's scared of Hashem calling him an enemy. Who's an enemy? According to the very same parashah. Same one, Rabotai, we still haven't gone to the rest of the Torah. Just this parashah, he tells us exactly who are these enemies. He says, o'havai v'shomrei mitzvotai, those lovers of mine, they keep my mitzvot. Who are the haters? Sonai. Sonai means haters. Who are they? The ones that don't keep mitzvot. Same parashah. Same parashat Yitro. Matan Torah, he already tells us everything.

1:38:09He already tells us everything. So, already over here, we already know where we're at. Whether you're in hot water or not, only you know. I don't know if you keep, you don't keep—that's your problem. The reality is that you can attain this very easily. This Yirat Shamayim is very easy to get. It's called learning Mussar. Learn Mussar. Mussar is character development. Now, you can learn Halachot, like the laws and so on, from here till next year. It's not going to help you with Yirat Shamayim. It's not going to help you to fear Hashem. Why? All you're going to learn to do is how to do stuff. But it's still not going to give you a reason to do it. It's still not going to give you a reason to change your character. It's still not going to give you a reason to be generous, to be less angry, to be a better person, to be a decent human being. There are people that know a lot of halachot. They know a lot of laws, but they're still menuvalim, still despicable people. The Ramban calls them naval birshut haTorah, despicable with permission from the Torah. They learn a lot of halachot, but they don't have any middot. They start making their own rules. We don't want people to make their own rules. We have rules from Hashem. That's all we need. So yirat Shamayim is learning mussar on a daily basis. If you want to learn it from books, send me a text. I can recommend you a handful of books. Each one of them can change your life. Every page can change your life. If you're not ready for books, watch my mussar series. Same price as this lecture: free. We made it easy for you.

1:39:35All you have to do is press a button. Press a button and just watch. That's it. Press a button and the book will arrive. Press a button and the lecture will arrive. To learn Torah, you don't have to travel six months like the guys from a hundred years ago. That's the kitrug. That's the case against us. It's easier than ever to be a Jew. No one's killing you because of it. No one's persecuting you because of it. No one's even making fun of you because of it. And the reality is, if they do, you can sue them. It's easier than ever to be a Jew, but that's why the punishment is endless, if we're not. That's why the punishment is so severe. Because Hashem says, I made it so easy for you to be a Jew before the Mashiach comes, and you still chose not to do it. What do you want Me to save you anyway? Are you taking it for a joke? What do you think, He's a freier? What do you think, Hashem is one of your boys from the bar? You treat Him like when you want to come, you come; when you want to invite Him, you invite Him. You don't want to invite Him, you don't invite Him. And that, Rabotai, allows us to get to the next point, which is "emet." "Emet" doesn't only mean stand up for the truth. "Emet" also means admit the truth. You heard it, you saw it, the end.

1:40:58Stop with the arguments, the debates for no reason. Oh, but what if this, but what if that? Enough. There's more than enough proof to know God exists. All you got to do is look in the mirror. All you got to do is look at every single person in here. You're all miracles. not just the fact that you're a human being and that the technology that's in your eye is more advanced than all of the cameras that ever existed in the entire world. Not just that. Not just the fact that your brain, whether it's the smartest guy or the stupidest guy, makes no difference. The brain of the smartest guy or the stupidest guy on earth has more wiring than all the telecom companies on the entire planet that ever existed. One brain. Not only is that a miracle, it's actually a miracle that you're a Jew. That's the biggest miracle. And the reason why, Rabotai, is because there are 8 billion people in the world. 8 billion people in the world. Out of the 8 billion, there's somewhere around 20 million that are Jews.

1:42:01And the secret is, there really aren't 8 billion people in the world. It's something like 7.96 billion or 7.92 billion, meaning that they're rounding off 40 to 80 million to make it a round number of 8 billion. This means that the Jews are a rounding error, and not even. But yet, every single day you hear about a Jew in the news. Every single day you hear about a Jew's story. Every single day one of us is somewhere and everyone knows. In reality, you should never hear about a Jew at all. There's so few of us in comparison to the 8 billion in the world of non-Jews, you should never hear about a Jew at all. The fact that you're a Jew is a miracle in itself. The fact that there's only 2 million to 3 million out of the 20 million that actually keep Shabbat is a bigger miracle, meaning that you, if you keep Shabbat, or you're going to start keeping Shabbat this Shabbat, you become a statistical anomaly, meaning something impossible.

1:43:03The 20 million is already impossible. The actual 2 or 3 million that keep Shabbat is even more impossible. And for those 2 or 3 million that keep Shabbat, that's what Hashem keeps the world for. The 8 billion exist for the 3 million. That's the reality. That's the reality. That's what He gave Matan Torah for. When you hear that truth, when you hear that Emet, and it doesn't shake you, you should double-check if you're Jewish. Ask your mom, am I really Jewish? Or did you adopt me from the neighbors? If it doesn't shake you, there's something wrong. There's something wrong. If it doesn't move you, at least, not necessarily complete you, but at least do something. I at least got to double-check. I got to follow up. I have more questions. Something. If you came and left the same way, nothing changed, there's something wrong. Now, if you do all of these things, you could arrive to be someone that's Sonei Betza. But Sonei Betza is not necessarily only someone that hates money. Sonei Betza is someone that hates the existence of this world. And the reason why is because he's doing everything possible to prepare for Olam HaBa. Because that world is eternal. This one's temporary. 20 years, 50 years, 70 years, whatever it is, however long we're going to be here.

1:44:25It's temporary, everyone knows. It's no big secret and has nothing to do with religion. Everyone dies at some point. My cousin died two years ago, or a year and a half ago. He was 23 years old. His father has a hundred million dollars. A hundred million dollars—how much is that worth right now with his younger son dead? Absolutely zero. Why? Because he has no life anymore. Why? Because his son died. He was on a scooter on the second day of Rosh Hashanah. He thought that this is what you're supposed to do on Rosh Hashanah—be on a scooter. Did he think he was going to die that day at 23? No. He didn't think he was going to die. He thought, like everybody else, "I'm going to live to a million. Or at least 120. At least 120, but maybe even longer. Because they're going to make more medicine, and people are going to live forever." He didn't think he was going to die. None of us think we're going to die. That's why Warren Buffett and Kirk Kerkorian and all these billionaires still go to work even though they're 90 years old. They're all convinced they're going to live forever. The reality is, Rabotai, you're not. We don't know how much time we have. And that's why the Rambam says in Hilchot Teshuva, there's only one way to do Kiruv. There's only one way to get people to do Teshuva. And this is actually a halacha. This is not some opinion. This is not some, oh, maybe yes, maybe no.

1:45:48It says the following in Hilchot Teshuva, chapter 10, halacha 5. It says, therefore, when one teaches children, women, and most common people, one should teach them to serve out of fear of God in order to receive a reward. And in the next halacha, it says, it's well known and clear that to love Hashem is not possible within a man's heart until he becomes obsessed with it at all times. And none of this is possible without fear first. Some of the things that I said may be funny. Some of the things that I said may be entertaining. Some of the things that I said may be scary. This is the way you do teshuva. All the people that came to my office for 15 years. For 15 years they came to my office, and not one single person helped me do teshuva. Now their math is the same as many other rabbis.

1:46:55It's your problem to do teshuva. I'll just help them do tzedakah and hopefully they'll do teshuva on their own. Hopefully, he'll do it on his own. Hopefully, he'll do it on his own. I'm not going to tell him what to do. I'm not going to tell him what to do. Maybe he's not going to listen. But the reality is, I know a little bit of math and I know that everything has a 50-50 chance in most cases. 50-50 chance. Meaning if they would have told me the truth, there's at least a 50% chance that I would have listened. And a 50% chance that I would have thrown them out. 50-50. But they decided to make the choice for me. Decided that I'm not gonna listen, so better off not telling me because if they tell me, maybe they're gonna lose money. They decided to take away my olam haba. Now, let's just look at their math. They assume that eventually, I'm gonna do teshuva on my own or something or this or that. So how is this supposed to work? Let's see. If instead of coming to my office three times a week, they only came once. They only came once a week. Instead of 15 years, it's only 10 years. So you do the math. Once a week, 52 weeks, times 10 years, is 520 times. That means you had 520 times, 520 opportunities to tell me one mitzvah that I'm supposed to do. Keep Shabbat. One mitzvah. Marry a Jew. One mitzvah. Keep kosher. One mitzvah. Learn Torah. One mitzvah. Say Shema Yisrael. Anything! They never did.

1:48:20And that choice, Rabotai, almost took away my olam haba. I don't want to repeat that mistake. So that's why I'm telling you what I'm telling you. And that's why some of my shiurim are similar to this. Some of them are much scarier. Some of them are much nicer. Either way, it's all over the place. But it's all full of verses. It's all full of sources. It's very little of my own opinion. Even my own opinion has some Torah in it. And the reason why is because I don't know what you know and I don't know what you don't know. What I do know for sure is everybody has to do teshuva. Religious, not religious, everyone has something to do. Everyone has something to do. For some people, it's with wigs; for some people, it's with money. For some people, it's with character traits; for some people, it's with Shabbat. Different people, different things. But the reality is, everyone has a lot of work to do. And the one last thing I'm going to tell you, Rabotai, is that the same Rambam that told us all of these halachot, that told us all of these major things, he also said that everything that you're going to read about on Pesach,

1:49:21about all the makot, all of the terrible things that Hashem did to the Egyptians, it's gonna happen again. Before Mashiach comes, the same thing is gonna happen again. Only this time it's gonna be magnified. So just like there were three days of darkness when Hashem Yitbarach killed the Egyptians and many Jews, unfortunately, at the end of times before the Mashiach comes, it's gonna be 15 days of darkness. And the reason why is because He has to kill a lot more people. If we do teshuva, we have nothing to worry about. If we don't do teshuva, we have everything to worry about. Any questions? A woman who has cancer. The question was, a woman who has cancer.

1:50:21What should they wear? A mitpachat or a kova? Either a scarf or a hat. A woman is supposed to cover her head with a hat or a scarf, not hair with hair. Because, like I said, there are two reasons. Number one, she's not allowed to cover because it's not modest to show hair, even if it's not really hair. And number two, because of the avodah zarah that we mentioned. Next question. On the women's section, I think somebody had a question. You had? How do you get Russian wigs? How do you get Russian wigs? The Russian wigs, the main source of Russian wigs is from jails, women's jails. No, the women's jails in Russia. There's a custom in Russia to go to the women's jails, beat them up senseless, and then shave their heads and sell the wigs. That's what they do in Russia. This is also part of our research. Now, the problem with the Russian wigs is because, number one, it's unethical. It's unethical to do such a thing, to take something against somebody's will. It's considered gezel. It's considered stealing. But even more so, the Russian wigs are not really the market.

1:51:3799.999% of all the hair in the market today is not coming from Russia, even if it's blonde, even if it's blue, even if it's green, even if it's anything. And the reason why is because in all of these places, whether it's Cambodia, Brazil, Russia, or anywhere else, someone is selling the hair. Someone is selling the hair, and it's in relatively small numbers. So let's say, for example, even if you go to all the Russian jails, and you shave everybody's head, okay? So let's say you shaved the heads of, I don't know, 100,000 women. you have now destroyed the market for the next 10 years. Why? It takes time for the hair to grow, so now you've taken all the hair you could possibly take from Russia for the next 10 years, but that only supplied those hundred thousand people with only thirty thousand wigs at best. Thirty thousand wigs is one small little market, one small little neighborhood. So, meaning that even if all the Russian wigs were great and kosher, and I was allowed to beat people up and take their hair and everything else, it still wouldn't be enough to supply the market because the market is a 20 billion dollar market. There are Jews and non-Jews buying these wigs, and the reality is that you can't verify where the hair has come from. According to business research that Bloomberg did, and many other research agencies did as well as us, is that

1:52:57The only place in the world that can supply the wigs is India, because over there, 20 to 30 million people a year donate their hair. No other market comes close. No place else can meet the market demand, even Cambodia. A lot of people sell their hair in Cambodia for cheap, but that's, I don't know, maybe 3,000 people a year, 10,000 people a year. It's small numbers. No one in the world, not Russia, not Cambodia, not anywhere else, can provide such numbers in magnitude like India. So, the reason why the wigs say they are made in different countries is because people know that if it says India, it already drops the price by 70%. It used to be different. At this point, India has a bad name. In essence, if you say India, it's like in the old days—if it was good quality, it was Sony; if it was bad quality, it was Sony guts. It's not really Sony. It's like Acer or something, but it's like, you know, inside it's Sony. In reality, it's a wig. If you say India, it already drops the price by 70%. So what do they say? No, it's not India. It's somewhere else. It's Brazil. It's somewhere in Europe. It's somewhere else. And how do they do it legally?

1:54:07Every single time in manufacturing, every time a wig goes to a different place, a different market, a different manufacturer, and they add one small little thing, it officially becomes made there. Even though originally the source is India, it doesn't make a difference. That's with anything. It's with anything. So the only time you see "Made in India," "Made in China," "Made in anything," is when it literally came from there. That's where it was sold from. But most of these wigs are not sold from India. Original byproduct is there, but the resellers are in Italy, France, Germany, America, and other places like that. So, it's the biggest lie in history, and unfortunately, religious people are behind it. That's the saddest part. The saddest part of the kosher wig industry is that it's impossible to kosher them for two reasons. Number one... Because, like I said, you have to follow the wig from step one, from the minute it was shaved, or it's called tonsured, until it actually becomes a wig. Now, it's impossible to follow it because they mix up all the hair in huge, giant jugs. All the hair. It’s not like one hair is done, okay, we’re finished, another one. One hair is done, oh, finished, another one. One hair is done, no. There are certain parts where they dye all of them, or they clean all of them, and they put all the hair together, and then they separate them by length.

1:55:30So the hair of Samantha, Wilma, Stacy, Dynasty, and this Tzipi, and that everybody else is mixed together. So no, nobody knows. They say no one knows where the hair came from, no one knows if this one is from idol worship and this one is from a tzadeket. No one knows anything, and then it's all mixed together as far as length. And now, so that's the first problem. The second problem is that there's only one place, there's only one institution in the entire world that kashers wigs. It's run by a person named Rabbi Gross. Now, unfortunately, either he's a liar or he's being lied to. I'm not really sure quite which one it is. Either way, there's a lot of lies. And the reason why is because he himself, when he was asked 14 years ago, "Do you believe that wigs out of India that come from avodah zarah need to be koshered?" He says, "No." Why? "It's just not necessary." Yeah, but it's according to all the poskim. He says, "Yeah, it's not necessary. I don't believe in that." Meaning that he decided to make his own law, and he doesn't believe that you need to kasher wigs. The problem is, if it was just his opinion, great. The problem is, he's the one that's kashering it. So the same guy that doesn't believe in kosher meat is your mashgiach.

1:56:50The same guy that believes that everyone should get divorced is the one that's doing your chuppah and kiddushin. The prosecutor's attorney is your best friend, and you're the defendant. Doesn't make any sense. He's on the other team. How is he being the kosher guy? That's the other reason. The whole thing, the semantics behind it, everything behind it doesn't make any sense. And that's why it's purely business. That I know a little bit about. What people are willing to do for money, rabotai, they're willing to kill, they're willing to cheat, they're willing to lie, they're willing to sell their mother, their father, and their neighbor, even if he didn't want to be for sale. So there are three different options. One is you cover it with a scarf. With a scarf, There's a website called Rapunzel, W-R-A-P-U-Z-E-L.com. It's a woman who found very nice, creative ways, pretty ways to cover your hair with a scarf, and you don't necessarily need to look like you're from the 1920s. There are nice, creative ways. If you want to make covering your hair beautiful, it's not only allowed, it's a mitzvah.

1:58:08It's a mitzvah to make yourself look good with a mitzvah. It's magnifying a mitzvah. No different than a bachur buying a $2,000 pair of tefillin instead of the bar mitzvah boy tefillin for $400. Okay? You're magnifying a mitzvah. It's mehader a mitzvah. You want to make your kisui rosh look pretty. There are pretty ways to make it. That's option number one. Option number two is to wear a hat. There are a million and a half different hats that are very good and very nice, and even many of the goyim and superstars wear them. Not just Jews wear hats. Go to the Queen of England; she wears a hat. For, I don't know, she's 300 years old. She's been wearing a hat for 300 years already. Say, all these people wear hats. There's nothing wrong with wearing a hat. Wear a hat. It's not so bad. All these superstars, classy superstars at least, not the ones that are naked in every movie, they wear hats. It's a classy thing to do. It's not like such a bad thing. It's not like everyone says, "Oh, she wears a hat. Oh, ouch. Where'd she come from?" So wear a hat. There's nothing wrong with wearing a hat. No one's going to ask you. That's two. So that's the second opinion. That's second.

1:59:12In the third opinion, Rav Yagen said, there are two types of women who don't need to wear kisui rosh. One is someone who is not married. If she is not married, if she is still single, she doesn't have to cover her hair. Even though the Rambam says she should, either way, she doesn't have to. The other one is if she simply just doesn't have a head. If she doesn't have a head, she doesn't have to cover her head. The fourth option, which is your real question, is what does she do if she's not ready for a mitpachat, she's not ready for a kova, she's not ready for a sheitel, and she's not ready to chop off her head. So what does she do? The answer is do teshuva. That's the answer. The answer is do teshuva. Now, if you're going to ask me, should I benefit from idol worship or not benefit from idol worship, obviously the answer is don't benefit from idol worship. Because there's already one sin of not covering your hair. It's a bigger sin to put idol worship on your head. Ken, with all due respect to Rav Belsky, kvodo bimkomo is wrong.

2:00:32Listen, I can't compete with any of the poskim as far as halacha. As far as poskim, the smallest of poskim, the smallest one you find anywhere in a little shuk, in a little market, is bigger than me. Why? That's their life. Business, that's my thing. Business, research, thank you. Let him travel to Gehinnom too and come back. I still know more business than him. He is a Gadol HaDor in Torah. I was a Gadol HaDor in business. know business. I know what to do when it comes to business. I know research. I research markets, economies, and products. This is one thing I know for sure. It's not something I'm not familiar with. I'm not telling you that he doesn't know; I'm telling you that I'm not blind. I went into a market, I saw what's in the market, I saw what my eyes saw. I saw what's there. I saw what the market is. I saw what the process is. I spoke to the vendors. I spoke to the producers. I spoke to the people that are selling it. It's not a guess. I'm not guessing this. It's not an opinion. This is a reality. Even if there were two places. That's the point. It's not so fake. If there's a 1% chance, a 1% chance of idol worship, you're still not allowed to do it.

2:01:47If there's a 1% chance of something being idol worship, you're not going to do it. What's the proof? The proof is not only from the Torah, but it's also based on logic. Let's say, for example, all of you didn't drink all day. You were waiting for me to finish talking so you could drink. You didn't drink all day. So all of you are as thirsty as can possibly be. And I said, okay, you know what? Guys, here's 100 cups of water. It's 100 cups of water. But before you jump, before you jump, I just got to give you a little, small, tiny disclosure. There are 100 cups of water. It's free. And if you want, I'll even give you $10 to drink the water. But there's one tiny little disclosure. For fun, I put a little poison in one of them. For fun. Who's first? Who's going to drink first? No one's going to drink. No one's going to drink. Why is no one going to drink? Because there's a 1% chance that there's poison. No one is going to risk their physical life that's temporary for 1% poison. Why would you risk your neshamah that's eternal for poison? Because again, the reality is if you read, if you want to listen to what really happens after life, I have a shiur, it's not for everyone. It's not for everyone. This is one of those shiurim I actually have to give a disclosure on. All of the other shiurim are for everyone. This one shiur is not for everyone. It should be, but it's really not. It's about Gehinnom. I did a shiur about Gehinnom, one thing that most people are not willing to do or even listen to.

2:03:13And there's actually a Masechet Gehinnom, there's a tractate that talks specifically about Gehinnom. So if you want to know the risk, if you're having a safek, should I put idol worship on my head, or I shouldn't, should I be mechallel Shabbat, or I shouldn't, should I continue going out with the non-Jew, or I shouldn't, should I continue stealing, or I shouldn't, if you're having that doubt, and you've watched a lot of shiurim, and nothing does it for you, go to that shiur. After that, you'll be here speaking to people. After you have all those doubts, you come, you listen to that shiur, you'll do teshuva. Why? If you don't do teshuva, you're crazy. So you're patur from mitzvot anyway. If you don't do teshuva, if you actually know what happens in Olam Ha-Emet, you're patur from mitzvot. You don't have to do any mitzvot. Why? Because you're meshugah. And meshugah is patur from mitzvot. But that's the reality. I'm only here telling you the stuff that's a little scary and a lot of ha-emet because I know the price. Baruch Hashem, I got Gehinom in this world. Seven years of it, rabotai. Seven years. Seven years. You forgot. It's the beginning of the shiur. Two hours ago. Seven years of Gehinom, screaming and yelling my lungs out every single day. A surgery every month. Imagine having a surgery every month. Imagine being in pain every single day. Imagine all your best friends becoming enemies. Imagine just one of them. What about all of them?

2:04:35What about the fact that at one point I had to walk around with a cane, I couldn't walk? Or at one point, my feet and legs doubled in size for absolutely no reason. I went to the ICU at Cornell University, a top hospital in New York City. I lived in Manhattan. Went to the top hospital, and they told me, maybe it's the heat. I told them, maybe it's your brain. Why would my legs double in size because of the heat? No one knew what was wrong, and to this day, there is no diagnosis. no diagnosis. So how am I here? How am I here talking to you for two hours plus, and I feel great? I'm standing, and you're all sitting. How? Also, it says, "I am Hashem, your healer." Same God, same God, the God that's responsible for everything. really the God of all money, the God of Israel, the One that took us out of Egypt, the One that did everything for us. He's also our God, our healer. So, just like I get sick for absolutely no reason, I get cured for absolutely no reason. So I know, again, it looks like in both places, the reality is teshuva is not really optional. We just think it is and

2:05:59It's nice to think that we have a choice, but we don't have much of a choice. Yeah? If you're lending money to a Jew, if you own a business, or you do it privately, and you lend money to a Jew, if that Jew is a Shomer Shabbat, you have a serious problem, which means that a lot of these new short-term lending businesses that are founded by Jews, and many of them are religious Jews, are very problematic businesses. very, very problematic businesses. I know this is the new thing that a lot of Jewish guys are going into. This business is similar to how electronics was 20 years ago, similar to how real estate was 15 years ago, and similar to how mortgages were about 10 years ago. Every decade, every five years, Jews find a new business. So now there's this new thing of short-term lending. They lend to people who are desperate. you know, money for high interest, 25% interest or above, sometimes less, sometimes more, and they don't care if the guy is Jewish or not Jewish. Now, the problem is if the money is coming from a Jew and it's going to a Jew, you have a very, very serious problem. If the money is coming from a bank, it's coming from a bank.

2:07:21And it's going to a Jew. It's less of a problem, but it's still a problem. Why? Because you, as the broker, still benefit from it. It's not as big of a problem, but it's still a problem. If you ask me, you should leave the business if you're in it. Whoever is in it should leave it. If you ask me a second question, why are religious people the ones that are actually running these businesses? Because they have the god of money, not the God of Am Yisrael. They believe in money more than they believe in God. On the dollar bill, it says what? "In God We Trust." Unfortunately for them, they believe the dollar is God. That's it. That's all it means. So it's a problematic business. What about the banks in Israel? Banks in Israel, banks in general, are owned by shareholders. so it's not a single person that owns the bank, and for the most part, shareholders are mostly non-Jews. So that's how most of the people use that heter (leniency), since most of the owners of the bank, most of the owners of the shareholders, are unknown.

2:08:21they're usually going because the vast majority of the world is going. Then you're allowed; it gives the net a leniency for people to take a mortgage or a bank loan and so on. But there are some people, like my Rav, Rav Ephraim, who refuse to take a loan at all from any bank because even if there's a 1% chance that it's majority-Jewish-owned or not, or something like that, he's not willing to take it. But that's his chumra; it's not halacha. You're allowed to take a loan from a bank. But again, the short-term lending business is not quite that. Usually, there's one guy funding it, in many cases a Jew, and so on. Yeah. There's a saying that Jews are supposed to bring families together, right? Well, in reality, it's actually separate. How? For example, Bahraini Jews are used to more like communism. They're used to not keeping Shabbat. Mm-hmm. You're going to the truth. But again, the short-term lending business is not quite that. Usually, there's one guy funding it, in many cases a Jew, and so on. Yeah. There's a saying that Jews are supposed to bring families together, right? Well, in reality, it's actually separate. How? For example, Bahraini Jews are used to more like communism. They're used to not keeping Shabbat. Mm-hmm. When you're in the process, you're just separating more and more people. Okay, so you ever traveled on a plane before? Yeah. Okay. When you're on a plane, on every single plane, there's a law that says that the stewardess has to tell you a few safety features before they take off.

2:09:45When you're in the process, you're just separating more and more people. Okay, so have you ever traveled on a plane before? Yeah. Okay. When you're on a plane, on every single plane, there's a law that says that the stewardess has to tell you a few safety features before they take off. And one of the safety features that the stewardess mentions is that if something happens, if there's a crash, or if the oxygen level goes down to a certain point, oxygen masks will drop from the ceiling. Every single stewardess says the exact same thing; it's the law, they all read it, it's not like some chidush. They all say the same thing: If you have a baby, and the baby is really, really cute, and it's your son, your daughter, whoever it is, it doesn't make a difference. you love it more than your own life, still, the law applies to you the same: save yourself first and then save the baby. Even though the baby can't save itself and it's waiting for you to save it, the reality is first you have to save yourself. So, this is how you have to look at things. First, we do...

2:10:58First, we do teshuva. First, we start learning Torah. First, we start keeping Shabbat. First, we start keeping kosher. After you start doing what Hashem wants and you start doing teshuva, people are going to watch you without your words. You don't need to talk. They're just going to see how your life changes, how it improves. If you're really doing teshuva, automatically you're becoming happier. So anyone that you see that does teshuva and he's not happy, that's because he's not doing teshuva. He's just learning stuff to tell people what to do. A lot of people learn things just to tell people what to do. That's not teshuva. Teshuva is you working on yourself. You're fixing yourself. You're fixing that neshama that's like half broken, that's like missing a wheel or two. We're angry too much. We're cheap too much. We're arrogant too much. We're a lot of different things. We have a lot of things we have to fix. Teshuva is fixing those middot. It's not just going to Beit Knesset. It's not just learning parashat hashavua. It's not just going for daf yomi. It's fixing ourselves. It's becoming better people. Better quality people. Once you become a better quality person, and you're connected to the Source of all sources, you're connected to Hashem, automatically you become happy.

2:12:11Once you become happy, you're contagious. Everyone wants what you have. They look at you like, "What are you taking? I want that." Your mom, your dad, your brother, whoever it is. It could be a non-Jew; he looks at you like, "What are you doing? Why? You're happy." Everybody wants to be happy. So how come people are not walking around to all the religious people and saying, "I want to be like you?" Because the reality is, they haven't done teshuva either. They're religious, but they haven't done teshuva. Because they're not happy yet. To be happy, you have to do real teshuva. Real teshuva means you have to fix yourself. You have to have full emunah. What's emunah, Rabotai? What's emunah? Is emunah saying, Be'ezrat Hashem? No, that's not emunah. Is emunah saying, Baruch Hashem? No, that's not emunah. It's a nice statement. What's emunah? Emunah is when everything is dark. As dark as the night. And you still know that Hashem is not only there, He's the night. When everything looks like it's the opposite of good. Everything looks horrible. Shidduch left. Money's gone. Parents hate you. Kids hate you. Wife hates you. Husband hates you. Even the dog is spitting on you. Everybody hates you. And you know this darkness? That's God. Why? He's talking to me. Hashem Yitbarach is talking to me. That's emunah.

2:13:27When we get there, that's when we're contagious. That's when everybody says, "Ah, what are you taking? I want that." Why? Because whatever I'm doing with my millions, with my billions, with whatever I have, it's not that. So that's the thing, that if we first worry about us, and we fix us, little by little, other people are going to start asking you. and we fix ourselves, little by little, other people are going to start asking you. And when they ask you, you're going to have answers. Now, of course, it's not easy all the time if you're still living with your parents, if you're still living with somebody that's not religious, if you're already married and you're ready to do teshuva, but she's not, or you're ready to do teshuva, but he's not. So that's obviously a problem. But it's not impossible. It's not impossible. So first and foremost, Baruch Hashem, most people are able to afford 10 bucks a day. Most people can afford $10 a day. We're not homeless. We're not... And if you can't, I'm sure somebody can give you $10 a day or $5 a day. With $5 to $10 a day, you can eat for the whole day. So even if everybody in the house wants to eat pork with cheese on it and some bacon on top just to make sure it's really chazir, you can eat a kosher meal at a kosher place for $10. Don't eat at home.

2:14:35Don't eat there. They want to eat treif, let them eat treif. You don't have to go on top of their head right now. Why? Because for them, if you start telling them, "Listen, stop eating pig because I'm doing teshuva," they don't even know what you're doing yet. Until they start seeing that your teshuva is serious and you haven't eaten with them for six months, and they start asking you questions, don't even say anything. Why? You're waiting for them to start seeing the effect of it. Until you become sure with what you're doing, Telling them anything, they're not going to listen to you anyway. Now, this applies only to the people that are really close to you, the people that are living with you. Now, if it's a stranger, if it's a stranger, right now, you go outside and you see one of your friends that's a mechalel Shabbat, you go tell him something now. Why? Because he's a stranger. People that are living with you are much more difficult to help do teshuva. And the reason why is because they're always going to remember you from before you did teshuva. They're never going to give you credit for doing teshuva. Your parents, your brothers, your sisters, they're always going to remember you from before. So, for them, they're the last option to help. For them, you pretty much have to pray for Hashem to help them.

2:15:39Because they're not going to listen to you right away. It's going to take time for them to listen to you. But the strangers in the world, somebody you don't know, someone from the kehillah, somebody from school, somebody from work, all these strangers, go to them first. Give them a CD, send them a shiur, send them a link. Do different things to get them to come to do teshuvah. But as far as if you're living with people that are going against the Torah 100%, if you can move, obviously move. But assuming you don't have a choice, and let's say, for example, you're in one of those circumstances where you don't have any money, you don't have a job, and you don't have any way to get out of this, and you live with your parents, then the reality is that all you have to do is ask your parents for 10 dollars a day, or get a job that's gonna make you 10 dollars a day, and go eat kosher elsewhere. For Shabbat, try to find a place to stay to keep Shabbat. Don't stay at the house for keeping Shabbat. There's an application called Shabbat.com. Shabbat.com is an application where different people host different people for Shabbat.

2:16:40This is actually very good for people who are looking for a zivug. A lot of people have actually gotten married as a result of going to different people's houses, their daughters, their sons, and so on. So this is a good idea for people who are single. You want to go to a Shomer Shabbat's house. It's definitely better than being alone or being with a bunch of people who don't keep Shabbat. So, on Shabbat, stay somewhere else. How do they stay somewhere else? Once the important people in your life start seeing that Hashem is important to you, if they love you, it'll start becoming important to them too. Maybe not to the extent that they're going to change their life automatically, but at least they'll start respecting you and respecting your desire. So, they're not going to eat the pig right in front of you. They'll eat it behind your back. They're not going to watch the TV in front of you on Shabbat. They'll watch it when you leave. So, even if they're against it, they're not going to do it in front of you. That's if they love you. If they hate you, you should move out anyway. But the point is, is that there are ways to go around it. It's not impossible. Just because the whole family is not doing teshuva, doesn't mean we can't do teshuva. It just means that your time came now; their time, b'ezrat Hashem, will come later. But there are always ways, creative ways to make it work. I mean, when I first started doing teshuva, I lived on the 35th floor in Manhattan. Now, the reality is, you can't be part of a community if you live on the 35th floor.

2:18:01Because to go up and down 35 stories on Shabbat or holidays is not happening. Number one, I was very sick. And number two, it's just not happening. Even if you're not sick, you're not going up and down 35 stories. So on Shabbat, it was one of two options. Either I was going to my parents' house in Staten Island and staying there for the whole Shabbat, staying there for the whole weekend, or I would just stay at home and not leave. That's my Shabbat. So I didn't go to the Knesset. But it was fine for me for almost two years, until I wanted to be part of a community. So we moved out. We moved to Florida and so on and so forth. But the point is that if you want to do Retzon Hashem, if you want to do the will of Hashem, you'll find a way. You'll find a way. Don't depend on other people. Next question. Yeah, go ahead. Question? I pointed at you. You said you had a question. Actually, I don't have a question. I just didn't want to be... I totally agree with the Rabbi about the halacha of a woman covering her hair. Excuse me, I'm bringing it back again. I know everybody wants to leave. But I just don't want to be like Iyov who kept quiet. I agree that a woman should fully cover her hair. I just want the Rabbi to know that the Bukharan community is making a tremendous movement in religion.

2:19:16Well, that's the thing. If we knew for sure that the wig that someone is getting is coming from a kosher source, if we knew it's coming from some Jew that's decided to donate her hair, and her two friends decided to join them, and the factory decided to make that into a wig, so we know for sure this wig has a problem as far as but it's not a problem as far as then you're right. the wig that someone is getting is coming from a kosher source. If we knew it's coming from some Jew that decided to donate her hair, and her two friends decided to join them, and the factory decided to make that into a wig, so we know for sure this wig has a problem as far as, but it's not a problem as far as, then you're right. The problem is we have no way to do that. We know, based on research that I did, based on research that Rabbi Elyashiv did, Gadol HaDor from 15 years ago, based on the Gedolei HaDor that actually looked into it, much bigger than I can ever be, if you're buying a wig, there's no way in the world for you to know it's not from idolatry. Meaning, the majority of wigs are idol worship. So, it's better...

2:20:27No one's seeing a divorced wife. Just don't wear a wig. No, but the woman wants to wear it. Or if she doesn't want it, he should not get married to her because she doesn't want to wear it. I just want to understand the logic behind it. Like, I get it. I get it. It's not allowed. It's not allowed. Okay, so now. So if, let's say, for example, somebody has a shidduch. Hold on, guys. If anyone wants to leave, you can leave quietly. Anyone who wants to stay, you can stay quietly. Okay. So this is a very serious question. There are two questions. Number one. First question is... First question is... First question is, two very serious questions. First question is, we have one guy that's on shidduch. He's in shidduch, and the woman comes from Chabad. Chabad is a very big promoter of wigs. There are three main things in Chabad: Tefillin, Mashiach is the Rebbe, and wigs. Oh, tefillin. Three different things. Three different things. So it's three different things that they're big on: tefillin, the Rebbe is Mashiach—sometimes he's considered almost divine—and the wigs. Those are the three big things. I'm not saying lashon hara. It's reality. No, majority. Majority. Anytime it's over 80%, it's considered...

2:21:45It's not a reality, it's not lashon hara. No, it's against God. They're doing something that's against God, saying things that are against God, whether it be wigs or it being that the Rebbe is Mashiach, it's against God. So that's not lashon hara. That's tochacha. The Rebbe was very supportive of peah. He was very supportive of peah according to what they say. Not the long one. Not necessarily. Not necessarily. Not necessarily. A month ago, I asked him, I said, if a woman in New York, in America, wears a wig, I asked him, I have it on video, should I bother her to take it off? He said, don't bother her. When he writes in the sefer, he said, this is a hora'ah, but he said that Rav Moshe Feinstein's wife didn't cover her hair. One second, one second. Then he got to the whole thing with India. There are places that say that if it's from India, meaning if it's not from India, you're not sure, then maybe you can wear it. I have a customer who has an elephant in front of his room. Every day he comes, he puts a dollar by the elephant. Does that mean I can't take money from this guy because 1% of that dollar is from this elephant?

2:22:49i mean, it... No, no. The dollar is not from the elephant. The elephant is a simple statue. The hair itself is something that was offered to the... The dollar wasn't offered to the elephant. The hair was offered to the elephant. The question is, is it... Is it called idol worship, what they're doing? It's 100% idol worship. There's a machloket over there. They say they rely on a safek sefeika. That's the argument. I know what Rav Belsky is saying. I know what Rav Belsky is saying. They say they have what to rely on. It's definitely not the idol. So I read the whole thing of what Rav Belsky said. Not just the conclusion. I read the whole thing. And Rav Belsky himself, in the beginning, the middle, and the end, says I'm not even in a position to go against Rav Yashiv and what he says. This is simply my opinion. He's not even telling you to follow what he says. He says it's my opinion. He's not being, he's not, he's not going against. It's just simply what he thought of it. He says

2:23:58This is just my opinion, but go listen to Rav Elyashiv. He's not saying listen to him. He's not saying go start wearing wigs. He's not saying everything is kosher, what everybody else is saying. It's the same thing with the Lubavitcher Rebbe. They're saying, oh no, he preferred wigs over kisui rosh. That's not true at all. And the reason why you think that is because that's what Chabad says, oh, he preferred wigs over that. But that's not true because I have letters from the Rebbe where he says he prefers the kisui rosh over the wig. No. Hold on. So now let's answer the question. Let's answer the question. You have two questions. Two questions. Okay. Two questions. First question is if you have a shidduch and the woman is from Chabad or some other sect of Judaism or she just in general she wants to wear a wig. And you have heard, have listened, and you believe. You believe everything I just said. second question is if you're married to her already. Now, if you're not married to her already, if you're not married to her already, and you know that it's impossible for you to have any, any night of sleep with certainty that you don't have Avodah Zarah in your house, you know that the wig, it's not maybe

2:25:17It's not maybe. It's Avodah Zarah. It's a reality. You can disagree with me as much as you want. Anyone can disagree with me. I saw it. I know it. You can do whatever you want. The point is, the market research is the market research. The customer is the customer. Now, the point is, Rabotai, even if it's not 99%, like I say, it's 1% chance, 1% chance, that it's Avodah Zarah. If you have 1% Yirat Shamayim, you're not going to want Avodah Zarah in your house. You're not going to want Avodah Zarah in your house. That's as simple as it gets. You're not going to want Avodah Zarah in your house. So now, if a woman that you haven't married is not only telling you, I'm going to bring what you believe is potentially Avodah Zarah into the house, but also against what you want, meaning you're telling her, no, I don't want you to wear a wig, and she says, no, I am going to wear a wig. And if you don't let me wear a wig, I'm going to leave you. Then it's not a problem of Avodah Zarah. Then it's a problem of why you're even with her in the first place. She doesn't want to listen to anything you say. You're not on the same page to begin with. Why are you going to get married? You're just going to get divorced in a few years. If she wants to wear a wig, it's only because she wants other boyfriends. It's only because she wants other husbands. He himself says that if a person is dating somebody and she wants to wear a wig, you should not marry her because of that reason. He said you should marry her, but slowly but surely, you should try to convince her and inspire her to wear a mitpachat. But he didn't say you should not marry her because you want to wear a wig. I'm not saying don't marry her because of the wig. You say no, she says yes. I'm not saying you say...

2:26:40she wants to wear a wig, you should not marry her because of that reason. He said you should marry her, but slowly but surely, you should try to convince her and inspire her to wear a mitpachat. But he didn't say you should not marry her because she wants to wear a wig. I'm not saying don't marry her because of the wig. You say no, she says yes. I'm not saying you say... You're telling her no, and she says yes. That means that you guys are disagreeing on the foundation of Judaism. You're on two different pages. You're on two different pages. That's one. So that's if you're not married. Answer the second question, which is if you're already married to her. If you're already married to her and she's wearing a wig, and you know for sure it came not only from India, it came from the idol worshipper himself, and she simply doesn't care. Doesn't care. She says, let it come from Buddha himself. I don't care. I want to put it on my head. I'm not listening. I want to wear the wig. Do you get a divorce? No, you don't get a divorce. Now, we're not suggesting you don't get a divorce. Well, I think when you're dating, not when you're married. I know what you're saying. If you're already married to her, you don't get a divorce, but you have to get her to do teshuva over time. Now, obviously, how to get her to do teshuva...

2:27:48Takes time. Different people, different ways. Some people, it's learning about Yirat Shamayim. Some people, it's learning about modesty. Some people, it's about learning different things. The reality is, Rabotai, any single woman, any woman that has listened to the shiurim that we have about wigs, about providing all the sources, all the facts, all the industry facts, all the halachic facts, all those things. I have a bunch of shiurim about this topic. The women that have taken off their wigs, it didn't happen overnight. Some of them it took a month, some of them it took a week, some of them it took two years. But the point is, the women that took it off, at the end after they finally took it off, they all admitted the truth. The real reason why they wore a wig in the first place is simply because they wanted attention from other men, which by default makes it not allowed. One person at a time. I can't listen to everyone at the same time.

2:28:58No, it doesn't. No, it doesn't. Rabbi, in general, women are more talkative about their beauty. Thank you. I was born yesterday. So even within the women, if they go to a women's party, they probably want to wear a sheitel because they want the women to look at them and say, "Oh, this girl is pretty." Okay, so hold on. Okay, so hold on. Okay, let's answer this next question. Rabotai, Rabotai. Okay, so now. He sells sheitels. Rabotai. So... You want to answer the question? Ready? Okay. So now, as far as the joke, as far as the joke of the year of women using the excuse of "I want to be attractive to my husband," the reason why it's the joke of the year is because no one said you shouldn't be attractive to your husband. Because when you're with your husband alone, you can show your hair. No one says you're not allowed to show your hair. In your house, show your hair. No one says don't show your hair. But the reality is that most of the day, most of the day your husband's at work and you're not at work with him. You're somewhere else. So in reality, most people that see you are not your husband. You go to the supermarket with the wig. You go to the mall with the wig. You go to the store with the wig.

2:30:20Wait, so your husband's not there. So how come all the women that are wearing wigs don't only wear wigs next to their husbands? How come they're wearing it next to Mustafa also and Steve from the supermarket and Wilbur and Patrick? How come they wear it for them also? How come they're not wearing a hat for all those other people and only the wig for the husband? Because it's all a joke. The reality is, any real woman, that's an isha emet, that's a real emet, that she's looking for the truth, and she'll stand up for the truth, even if she doesn't want to live it, will tell you, there's only one reason I want to wear a wig. Why? To attract other men. That's it. There's no other reason. Women like attraction. That's a reality. Hashem created them that way. It says in Parashat Bereshit, it's not my chidush, Rabotai. Hashem says, you will depend on the man. For what? Depend on what? For money? There are plenty of women that are successful. Any man. Huh? Your man. Yes. Men in general. Why? A man who gives his woman attention, she is not going to seek it anywhere else. That's why she's not going to want to wear a wig. That's the nature of the woman. I'm not saying, God, you're right. And all the rabbis are right. The rabbis are right. A woman should not wear a wig. She should not. It's assur. But the question is why. And if she does, how should a man react? I just don't want to cause problems in the houses of these people who are really trying hard. Very hard.

2:31:40like I said in the beginning of this shiur, I asked you a question. I asked you a question: how much does God, how much is God worth to you? How much is He worth to you? To some people, He's worth a thousand bucks. To some people, He's worth a million dollars. To some people, He's worth a simple wig. That's a reality. If you know ...that by wearing a wig, there's a 1% chance, 1%, not 99% like I'm saying, there's a 1% chance that you are now officially a member of idolatry. You're benefiting from idol worship. In reality, it's 99%, if not 100%. But let's say it's 1%. 1% chance that it's idolatry. So there's a 1% chance you are officially... benefiting from something that Hashem specifically says, 12 times in the Torah, is disgusting to Me, disgusting. You are now to your Father in Heaven, Who gives you everything, gives you your eyes, your ears, your tongue, your nose, your hair, your zivug, your kids, has kept them alive all these years, your wife, your husband, your business, everything you have.

2:32:49You are doing something that He says outright, "It's disgusting to Me." If you're willing to take that 1% chance, you have a serious problem. You have a serious crisis in your relationship, not between your husband and wife, but between Hashem and you. Because you're willing to do something that He says to you, "It's disgusting to Me." That means you don't know what it means to be disgusting to Him. That means we have to do teshuva. Like I said, there's no such thing as from birth. There's no such thing as religious anymore. There's people that do teshuva and people that don't do teshuva. Now, as far as people that are wearing wigs, they want to continue wearing wigs, enjoy your wigs. I don't care. What am I, selling hats? What am I, in the hat business? Am I making some major money from you taking off your wigs? Wear your wigs. Enjoy your wigs. What do I care? I'm just trying to help you. You want to violate Shabbat? Violate Shabbat. There's a consequence. That's all I'm telling you. There's a consequence for it. You don't want to believe it? Don't believe it. Do you think that Rabbi Belsky and the Lubavitcher Rebbe and any Rebbe and the local Rebbe and this Rebbe and that Rebbe are going to help you when Hashem says, Oh, by the way, you're the idol worshiper that I've been waiting for for 30 years.

2:34:04Come, come. I have a Gehinnom suite right for you over here. You think they're going to help you? Oh no, but this guy said it's allowed. He said it's allowed. He's also in Gehinnom right next to you. He's not getting on my next deal. It's the same suite. Rabbi, we're mixing up two things. One thing, we're mixing up the idol worship. The other thing is whether the woman is attracted to her husband or not. Now, as far as... That's for sure not allowed. That's allowed. That's not a problem. He's saying it's still halachically not allowed. Hold on a second. Hold on. Hold on a second. Okay, would you like me to answer or do you guys want to do it? Okay, hold on. Actually, you know what? I have something for you guys. Somebody asked me about wigs. I actually have something. Anybody know the Halacha? Okay. So... Okay, so here... Here, I have...

2:35:04Now, the machloket of wigs, no wigs, yes wigs, all this stuff, like I told you, for over 2,000 years, it was based on tzniut. It was based on modesty. Even though the wigs in previous generations looked like brooms, they were not allowed because of modesty issues. 400 years ago, it became a debate. Meaning for 2,000 years it was not allowed. 2,000 years it was not allowed. 400 years ago, somebody said it's allowed to wear a wig. So meaning the whole issue of wigs started 400 years ago. It didn't start 2,000 years ago. Bat Sheva didn't wear a wig. Sarah Imeinu didn't wear a wig. No one wore a wig until 400 years ago. Now, this by itself should give you the conclusion. Yes, there is. And they say, how did they wear sheitels back then? It was for people who didn't have hair, and they wore it under a hat. Under a hat, they wore it. They didn't just wear the sheitel by itself; they wore it under a hat. Why? Because they were missing hair, and it didn't look nice for them to have just a hat, or just a mitpachat covering their hair, because you could still tell they were bald.

2:36:22So they put on some wig, so it still filled up the mitpachat. That's how the original wig was. 400 years ago, he said, no, you don't need the mitpachat, you don't need the hat, just wear the wig by itself. That's when the big debate started, which already should tell you that in reality, the wig is not allowed because if it was allowed, Sarah Imeinu would wear a wig, Rivka would wear a wig, Rachel would wear a wig, Bat Sheva would wear a wig, Chana would wear a wig, all the tzaddikot would wear a wig. But let's say, move on, let's move on. Hold on a second, guys. Now, out of the last 2,000 years, there's been 127 poskim. 127 poskim. And recently, there were another 10 added. So there's 137 poskim. But in reality, there's 127 poskim all the way from the days of the Gemara, Yonatan ben Uziel. Yonatan ben Uziel, if you look at the beginning of Gemara, Masechet Megillah, first, I think it's the third or fourth page.

2:37:25It says Yonatan ben Uziel was the first one that started Torah She'be'al Peh. He started the Oral Torah before Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi. Before him, he started the pirush. The first commentary was Yonatan ben Uziel. Yonatan ben Uziel was the first one that said pe'ot are not allowed. No wigs are allowed. In regards to modesty, not avodah zarah. Since then, 126 more poskim, all the way to Rabbi Ovadia, said it's not allowed. Rabbi Yashiv, Rabbi Ovadia, and so on and so forth. Now, if you compare that list to the number of poskim that say it is allowed, the numbers can't compare. And the reason why is because you're looking at... the size of the poskim, from Yonatan Ben Uziel to Rav Ovadia, the people on the other side can't compare, not just necessarily in stature, but also in regards to number. We're talking about more than 10 to 1. More than 10 to 1 say it's not allowed.

2:38:26Which means, today is not a comparison to Yonatan ben Uziel or the AriZal or any of them. I'm telling you this. I'm telling you this. who quoted the result, the whole thing starts from whether it's going on ervah or tzniut, right? That's where the whole thing starts from. If you're going ervah, any covering is okay. If you're going tzniut, then there's a fourth part of the idea that says that It goes by Das Yehudis, right? That you go by what most of the people are doing, and then you go according to that. If you see, you go to Geula, you go to Eretz Yisrael, you see that most of the women there are wearing wigs. Then I spoke to Rabbanim, who spoke to poskim, and then it's okay. So either way you go. Now, you're coming on a separate, like a different topic, of Avodah Zarah; that's a different topic. But if you're going to go... As far as tzniut is concerned, there's 127 poskim that say it's not allowed.

2:39:30Huh? Yes, the Rambam paskens like that. But the point, the 127 poskim are not saying about it. They're saying as far as tzniut, you're not allowed to wear a wig. 127 poskim, exactly. I have the list. 127 poskim. It's not a made-up number. I didn't just make it up on the way here. 127 poskim. You compare it to historically, not this generation. This generation you can't compare to... 400 years ago, 500 years ago, 1,000 years ago. You can't compare people from our generation now, which is a generation of Yetomim. There's barely any Gedolei HaDor left. There's barely any people that actually speak out about some big issues. And the reality is 90% of Am Yisrael don't keep Shabbat at all. So you can't compare this generation to the generation of even 100 years ago, 200 years ago, 300 years ago. You can't. So the Gedolei HaDor, the Posekim of today, are not like the ones from a hundred years ago, five hundred years ago, a thousand years ago. They'll tell you themselves they're not. No posek. If you compare the list, number-wise, number-wise, of allowed versus not allowed, we're talking about a ratio of ten to one. Not allowed versus allowed. Ten to one. Now, or more than ten to one. Now, the ones that say it's not allowed.

2:40:48They're not saying it's not allowed, and you know what, but if you do it, no big deal. Not saying, oh, it's not allowed, but if you do it, ah, it's okay. You can rely on something. There's a list of different things, different ma'amarim, of all of these chachamim: the Admor of Satmar, the Baba Sali, Rabbi Shmuel HaLevi Wosner, and so on. There's, I don't know, maybe... 70 or 80 over here, each one of them of what they actually wrote. You can read this; you can take this if you'd like. These are Gedolei Olam. These are Malachim. Malachim. Malachim, learn with them. This is what they said. The stuff they say is much worse than my shiur about Gehinnom. The stuff they said about wigs. You want to take that risk? Enjoy. Go have fun with it. It doesn't affect me. At least, I'm patur. I told you. I'm not going to Gehinom for somebody else. I didn't tell them about it. I told you. You want to rely on somebody that says it's allowed? Enjoy yourself. You're taking a risk. I'm not willing to take that risk. So that's in regards to tzniut.

2:41:58regards to avodah zarah, it's not even a debate. The reason why is because, as great as they are in Torah, they didn't spend 16 years on Wall Street. I did. I know how to do research. You can't challenge that. I was on TV. I was on Bloomberg, on CNBC, on CNN. That's what I did for 20 years. You can't tell me any rabbi in the world knows more about market research than I do. I don't even need to know who they are. They just don't. That's what I did for a living. It's like me telling you, I would be better at being sick than you because I've been learning for five years. It's a joke. So it's not that they're not smarter than me. They just never spent that much time doing it. did the research. I'm telling you, the market of wigs only comes from India. That's it. There are, of course, small markets everywhere—in Cambodia and this one and that one—but as far as the market, the market is from India. You want to take that chance that there's a safek, maybe yes, maybe no. You're either a part of avodah zarah or part of not. That means there's a different shiur for you. The shiur is not about wigs. The shiur is about yirat shamayim.

2:43:05That shiur should be about yirat shamayim, not wigs. Why? Because if anyone has 1% of yirat shamayim, 1% of fear of Hashem, 1% they're scared that Hashem may punish them, 1% they're afraid that Hashem may make them sick, 1% they're afraid Hashem may make their kid die, 1% they're afraid that Hashem may take all their money, 1% they're afraid that Hashem is going to make them die alone and never have anybody in their life, 1% they're afraid the IRS is going to audit them and torture them for 10 years, 1% they're afraid... They're going to go to Gehenom and never leave. 1%. They're not going to take a chance. They're not going to take a chance. Why? For a 1% chance. Forget 99%. I gave you 99% reasons to be scared. You're still not scared? This shiur should have been completely different. Should have been in the city of Heaven. We need to understand who Hashem is in general. And that's the reality. So that's what we're missing today. We have no idea what we're dealing with. We think that God is our friend. He's our buddy. He's our roommate. We can play with Him. We can rely on this local rabbi that translated things in his own different way, and like he's going to help you in Gan Eden.

2:44:13He's going to help you in Shamayim. Yeah, he's going to, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I told him, yeah, it's okay, it's okay. He's going to help you when you're up there. He doesn't even know you. And that's the reality. You want to rely on him? Rely on him. That's your chance. Me? I went through Gehinnom. I went through Gehinnom. I know what it looks like here and there, both. The part I'm telling you and the part I'm not telling you. I know what it looks like. Me? I'm not taking a chance not telling you. I'm not taking a chance doing it myself. Why? I know what it looks like. Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, the Baal Mussar, wanted to start a Mussar movement. He had a kollel, he had a yeshiva. Every one of his students was a bigger angel than the other. One day he brings a giant fish. A giant fish to the yeshiva. A giant fish with a big giant knife. He puts it on his table. Everybody stops. You see, what is he doing? What's the Rav doing? Why does he have such a big fish? He puts it on the table and chops it in half. Everybody's looking. They have no idea. What is he, going to make sushi? Why is the Kavod HaRav cutting a fish in half? What's the pshat? He sees everybody, chops it again. People again are like, maybe he's making us two sushis.

2:45:25Chops it again. Now everybody's like, okay, something's happening here. He's not making salad. And after the quiet stops, he says to them, "Rabbotai, you see this? This is what's going to happen to you if you don't learn Torah and do teshuva." He's telling this not to people that are ba'alei batim, that are like half teshuva, half yes, half no, maybe yes, maybe no, maybe they keep Shabbat, maybe not, maybe they learn once a week, maybe six times a week. He's not talking to them. He's talking to anashim that are considered angels. And he's telling them, if you don't do teshuva, this is going to be your end. That's what Hashem is going to do with you. Do you think he was joking? If you think he's exaggerating, you don't know what it means to be a Jew. I'm not taking the risk. You want to take the risk with your life, enjoy. At the very least, I told you. At the very least, you can't go up to Shamayim and you can't say, "Oh, I didn't hear." Why? Because this parasha says, "Va'ishma Yitro," it all heard. You heard also. Why? Because this ishu vital. Yeah. Oh yes, that's also true. That's also true. Oh.

2:46:39Well, that's the one thing that also is the big kept secret in Chabad. God bless them. Chabad does a lot of good things. They're everywhere like Starbucks. They help a lot of people do Tefillin. But one thing that they're escaping from in regards to the wig... is that they're telling you that the only opinion that the Lubavitcher Rebbe had is predominantly about wigs, and it's not true. And the best proof that I provided so far is the fact that I showed pictures. It's not Lashon Hara, it's not a dimyon, it's not my imagination. I actually showed pictures, more than a dozen pictures that I have, of both his mom, the Lubavitcher Rebbe's mom, and his wife. Both of them, in every single picture, are wearing a hat. In every single picture, wearing a hat or kisui rosh, meaning his own wife, his biggest talmida, his own mom, his biggest teacher. As far as the women in his life, both of them are not holding by him. They're not holding by the wig thing. Why? Because they held by what the Torah says. What does the Torah say? Wear a mitpachat, wear a hat. It doesn't say wear a wig. It doesn't say it. And even his own family knew it. What he tells his talmidim or whatever, he wrote in a few letters, different story. In reality, the people closer to you know the truth. Your wife knows exactly what you really are. Your husband knows exactly what you really are. Why? He knows what's happening behind closed doors.

2:48:07You could look like a tzaddik in Beit Knesset with tallit and everything else, but she knows you're a thief. She knows you're a liar. Why? She knows where everything comes from. You could pretend all you want, but she knows. His wife knew exactly what he believed. That's why she followed it. She put a mitpachat on. She put a hat on. You want to hold by the Lubavitcher Rebbe? At least hold by what she did. Look at what his wife did. And that's it. So the point is, if she's not willing to take a risk, If the Lubavitcher Rebbe's wife and mother are not willing to take a risk, why are you? Why is your wife? I'm not saying go start filing gittin every day and start divorcing your wives, but at the very least, the conclusion of this teshuva should mean every single one of us needs to do teshuva for something. Some people for wigs, some people for Yirat Shamayim, some people for Limud Torah, but don't start relying on local rabbis. I don't care who they are, even me. Go double-check everything. Go double-check everything. And until you know for sure, this is the emet that I'm willing to testify for, that it doesn't matter what they're going to tell me in Shamayim. I'm going to hold to it. Even if they tell me, you're going to get on for it, right? I'm going. Until you can testify, this is the emet, don't do it. That's why, Rabotai, Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel, they're both right.

2:49:24they're both right. Even though we hold by Beit Hillel, it says when Mashiach comes, we hold by Beit Shammai. Why? They're both right. Why? Because both of them believe that what they're doing is 100% emet. Not because it was their belief in their heart, but really because they fought for the emet and they reached the emet. Us, we're just relying on some local guy. We watched a few YouTube videos of me or somebody else, and we can't do that. You have to look for it. Fight for the emet. Fight for being emet. Don't just say, oh, this guy said it's okay, so it's okay. I'm willing to risk going against the 127-plus Poskim that say it's not allowed. I'm willing to risk it. I'm going to go fight them in Shamayim, because that's who's going to show up to the Beit Din. 127-plus Poskim, I'm going to say, hey, listen, how come you went against me? What are you going to say? Oh, the rabbi told me. Who? Rabbi Smith. Who is he? Oh, yeah, you know, he graduated from Yeshiva University with a 3.8 GPA. Who are you talking to? That's who you decided to bet your olam on? Some guy with a 3.8 GPA? That's against the Arizal? Against Rabbi Ovadia? Okay. Chazak U'Baruch. B'Seder Rabotai. I think you got the point. B'Siyata Dishmaya. We'll have more shiurim tomorrow. We have two shiurim, one in Staten Island at 7:30 and one in Brooklyn right after, maybe around 10. Completely different. B'Siyata Dishmaya. Tizku L'mitzvot. Baruch Adonai le'olam. Amen ve'amen.