Crying Ourselves Into Motivation (Tisha BeAv & Teshuva Special)

0:17If you actually can close the door, it makes too much noise. Please. And unfortunately, we do not have the merit to see Mashiach yet. The question is, why? The question is, why don't we have the merit to see Mashiach? Almost every Jew, religious or not religious, knows the song, "Mashiach, Mashiach, Mashiach." Every other new song mentions Mashiach. Our prayers mention Mashiach. The Kotel HaShachar mentions Mashiach. Every year we say, "Next year Mashiach, next year in Jerusalem." Even people that are completely disconnected from Torah Judaism want the Messiah to come. Even the goyim are saying He came and He's gonna come again. It's a mistake, but nonetheless, everybody's praying for the Messiah. Where's this Messiah? Okay, fine, listen: Jews don't necessarily work off of a good schedule, always late, but 2,000 years? A little late, a little later than late.

1:43Where's this Messiah? The truth is that Hashem is doing us a favor. He's doing us a favor. He's doing us a chesed by not bringing him yet. And the reason why is because we're not ready yet. We'd like for him to come, but we're not ready for what happens after. If you look at what happens at the time of Mashiach, according to the prophets, according to Zechariah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, several different places, Isaiah, several different places that I mentioned, the times of Mashiach, before the celebration begins, before Hashem Yitbarach reveals Himself and brings Resurrection of the dead and all the wonderful things that happen after. There's a lot of balagan, if you will. And we're not ready for that balagan, and one of the reasons is because we don't even know what caused it in the first place. Tisha B'Av is a reminder of this balagan.

3:11Tisha B'Av is a reminder of this disaster that happened to Am Yisrael 2,000 years ago, 2,500 years ago, 3,300 years ago, but also as recent as 70 years ago for those who don't know. Shabbat is a day that Hashem Yitbarach decided is going to be a day that we are going to cry until the times of Mashiach. When we were crying for no reason at Mount Sinai, Hashem said, "I'm gonna give you a reason to cry forever on this day." It's gonna be part of your avodah, crying yourself into motivation. The motivation to do what? The motivation to do teshuvah. Every year, I'm gonna give you an opportunity to use this day to cry hysterically to do teshuvah. And that's what we're supposed to do. Almost a hundred years ago, World War I began on Tisha B'Av. Some of the worst events of World War II also happened on Tisha B'Av: the pogroms, the inquisitions.

4:32Horrible, awful things happened to Am Yisrael on Tisha B'Av throughout all of history, but I find myself feeling alone with a few others that actually found a way to cry on Tisha B'Av. Most people do not know that it's not necessarily... Good thing to cry on Tisha B'Av. It's actually an obligation. As a matter of fact, Chazal says that a person who finds a way to cry on Tisha B'Av and mourn for Yerushalayim will be there at the time of its celebration. You mourn for Yerushalayim during the times when it is destroyed, during the times when there are all types of Types of secular beliefs controlling it during the times when there is all types of idolatry surrounding it. If you mourn for Yerushalayim during that time, when it's not so popular, when it's not winning, you mourn for Yerushalayim during that time, that by itself is going to give you the zechut to see Yerushalayim.

6:01the Mashiach. See, you shall be when we are celebrating because we have the Beit HaMikdash. Asher Shevach, not l'Shem. So what's this big deal of crying? Anybody could just take one of these vegetables, peel them a little bit, and start crying. Anybody can watch a sad movie and start crying. What's the big deal of crying? So, the question is, why do we cry now? We said before this year, for most people, it's really, really difficult to cry, especially on Tisha B'Av. If a woman doesn't get the refrigerator she wanted, she'll cry. If the kid got an F in his class, mommy's gonna cry. If the father got fired from his job and he doesn't have any money to buy the newest car, maybe he's gonna cry. Teenager broke up with his girlfriend. He's probably gonna cry. Beit HaMikdash was destroyed 2,000 years ago—not so much, not so much. As a matter of fact, it's such a strange thing for people that you see that most of the speeches given today are focusing on motivation. Am Yisrael said

7:28to be motivated. They want to be cheered up. They don't want to be sad. They don't want to cry. So you see that many speeches on Tisha B'Av, not in the past but now, are trying to motivate Am Yisrael to cheer up and stop crying. But we weren't crying, so stop crying anyway. Don't cry. But Chazal said if I don't cry, I'm not gonna see Yerushalayim when it's rebuilt. And So, on one end, we don't know why we're going to cry. On the other end, some of the leaders and the speakers are telling us we shouldn't cry. We should be motivated. We should cheer up. We should stop being so damp, so sad. The most difficult part is sitting on the floor. My whole body is killing me, by the way, from sitting on the floor and sleeping on the floor. For me, that's alone a reason to cry. But really, that's not why we cry. That's not why we cry. About 70 years ago, six million of our brothers and sisters were murdered in cold blood in the most awful ways recorded in recent history. Even though it was even worse 2,000 years ago,

8:54even worse 3,300 years ago. The only people that are alive to witness any of those events are the ones that happened 70 years ago during the Holocaust, and we see that awful, horrible things happened during this time. I mean, there are some books that have been written about what happened, Tommy said during this time, and you can't help yourself but cry. This is why many kehillot choose to watch Holocaust films during this time. This is the wisdom of the rabbis, who know that it's really an obligation for us to cry. And if I told you, you have to cry about Moshe Rabbeinu, you're not going to cry. He's in Gan Eden, he's okay now. If I told you, you have to cry about the sea of blood, literal sea, a river of blood that streamed from Jerusalem to the next city, that reached the stomachs of the horses, talking about three feet, four feet, a river of blood, of Jewish blood,

10:23It's hard to fathom. It's hard to understand. It's hard to grasp how such a thing could be possible. I mean, you need hundreds of millions of people. And that's exactly what happened. Most people think that there were always 14 million Jews or 20 million Jews or however many Jews we have. As a matter of fact, if you look at the Midrashim, there were many, many more Jews. In last year's lecture, I talked about it, and some people were dumbfounded by it. They were actually, at the time, according to some of the Midrashim, more Jews than there are Chinese people today. There were an extraordinary amount of Jews before the Churban Beit HaMikdash. And we got to a point where so many of them were murdered that it created a sea of blood. But most people can't remember this. Seventy years ago, though, we have some people that can remember it, we have some people that filmed it.

11:23We have some stories from holy rabbis that told us about what happened. Different horrific events of how the Nazis used to abuse the Jews in the most horrific ways possible. But not just torturing them with work, not just torturing them with starvation, but even torturing their children. Love you his kill wrote in his book that one of the many things that the evil Nazis did, which was similar to what happened 2,000 years ago and also what happened in Egypt, is that the Nazis would take the children, the Jewish children, the holy Jewish innocent children who didn't do anything, who couldn't defend themselves, and they would use them as sex toys and

12:24They were bored, and after that, they would kill them. If something like that doesn't make you cry, you have to check your pulse if you're alive. But this happened 70 years ago; we're not supposed to cry about 70 years ago. We're supposed to cry about what happened 2,000 years ago. 2,000 years ago is much worse. all of us read Megillat Eicha, the Book of Lamentations that Yirmiyahu HaNavi wrote last night. You're supposed to also read it. Sometimes people, some kehillot, read it also today. And if you understood the words, you should have cried. You're supposed to cry. If you didn't cry, you didn't understand. And if you understood and didn't cry,

13:24Again, no less than three places Megillah says that the murder of the goyim murdering the Jews by the sword was actually a chesed. They were doing them a favor. It says that the Jews that died by the sword, it was good for them. It was better for them. Because the more horrific death was the starvation. The starvation was much, much worse because it was self-inflicted. It was caused by Jews. Jews causing other Jews to starve because they thought they had a better way. They thought that they could defend themselves. They were called Biryoni. They could defend themselves with their muscles. defend themselves with their muscles. They could defend themselves with their spears. They could defend themselves with their power. Koḥi v'otzem yadi is what they called it—"my power, my hands, we can do it." And anyway, whoever doesn't want to listen will be punished and will starve. This led to starvation, but I'm not talking about starvation like you guys are hungry right now, probably—or thirsty at least. I'm not talking about that.

14:51You see some people in the Holocaust, pictures of what happened after they starved them for so long, you start getting a sense of what starvation looks like. But here in Megillat Eicha, it takes it to a new level, which we mentioned in last year's shiur. Here he says, Chapter 2, verse 14. Chapter 2, verse 12 first says that they say to their mothers, meaning the children. The babies are looking for their mothers and they say to their mothers, "Where is grain and wine? Where's food?" They swoon like a dying man in the streets of the town. The kids are walking around looking for food, little three- and four-year-old kids looking for food as their souls expire in their mothers' bosoms. Little babies, supposed to be breastfed, are dying while their mothers are holding them because there's no milk. There's nothing because the mom is starving herself and she can't produce anything and...

16:21And as much as she loves her children, she wants to hold them, she wants to feed them, but nothing is coming out. All the way to the extent that she has to watch them die. He says the prophets envisioned vanity and foolishness for you. He says, why? How did all this happen? How did we get to this? How did we become Hashem’s enemies? We were Hashem’s chosen, how did we become His enemies? Because the prophets were false prophets, the leaders were false leaders. Instead of telling Am Yisrael it's time to do Teshuva, they tell them, "Listen, go invest some extra money into your business. It's not the same. It's gonna be okay." "Yeah, but you know I'm working on Shabbat, though." "Don't worry. Hashem is going to bless you. He knows you're going to do a lot of mitzvot with that money. He knows you're going to donate to a Beit Knesset, a Sefer Torah. He knows it's okay. It's okay." They changed the rules and...

17:21More focused on vanity. I'm getting fancy cars and fancy houses much more than fancy souls, and they did not reveal your iniquity to motivate you to return in repentance. They didn't tell you the truth. "Hey, by the way, you may call it Shabbat, but just so you know, you're an enemy of Hashem." So, you know, Mechalel Shabbat, enemy of Hashem. Or you like to eat non-kosher outside, you're an enemy of Hashem. Just so you know. Let you know. Do what you want. But you keep saying, Hashem, Hashem, Hashem, Baruch Hashem, Yerushalayim Hashem, all those things. You mention Hashem, you're like your best friends. I'm just letting you know, at the end of this week's parasha, parashat Va'etchanan, Hashem says you're His enemy. Oh, me? I'm not even in the Torah. He goes, no, no, you. He's talking about you. How is He talking about you? He says, to my lovers who keep my mitzvot, I pay them a reward for thousands of generations. I pay them a reward for thousands of generations. Who are my lovers? The ones who keep mitzvot. But my haters, I pay them cash to their face to destroy them. He pays cash to the face of the person that's not doing mitzvot, that's not keeping mitzvot, that's not keeping the mitzvot.

18:46Basics of Judaism and Torah. He pays him a reward now. So here, these leaders didn't tell the people this. They don't know. "You're okay. Just give tzedakah. You're okay. Just come once a year for Yom Kippur. You're okay. Just say 'I'm sorry' and keep everything's okay." He says these prophets didn't tell you the truth. That's why we got to that point. didn't rebuke you. But if that wasn't enough, this was the first level of punishment. He says if that wasn't enough, it got worse. Yirmiyahu says in chapter 3, verse 1—I'm sorry, in chapter 2, verse 19—He says the infants are fainting from hunger and

19:49At the heads of every street, he says it's not just one or two stories here and there where you hear of starving kids. He says on every street you see a bunch of starving kids starving to death. But if that wasn't enough, because in the beginning it was one house. One house was starving. Homeless, misken, didn't have enough money to donate to get this guy some food. He died. That's one story, two stories, three stories. He says it got worse. Hashem started again to point out every street, every corner, all the kids were starving. And if that wasn't enough, we didn't do teshuva because these false prophets kept telling you to invest in the business. They kept telling you to invest in everything else but your neshama. Do everything but do teshuva. You're okay, you're okay. Everybody keeps telling you you're okay, you're okay, you're okay. He says that made it worse. Why? Hashem, in Parashat Bechukotai, says, "You treat Me with casualness. You're thinking that it just happened. It was just a bad season, so a few kids are gonna die. It's a bad season, so a few people lose some money in the stock market. It's a bad season. It happens. People lose, it goes up, it goes down." People always rationalize things. "It just happens."

21:00Hashem says that made Me angrier than even the original sin you sinned to get Me to this point. That was already bad. But when I started slapping you and smacking you and punching you, and you're still saying, "It just happens. It happens. It's okay. It's okay. Don't worry. Everything's gonna be okay." Nothing's gonna be okay if you don't do teshuva. He says that made Him angrier. What happened next? He says, "What's going to happen, Hashem? Shall the women devour their offspring, their own cherished babes? What's going to happen? You keep starving them. Eventually, the parents are starving also. Eventually, the parents are going to eat the kids. Is that what you want to happen, Hashem?" In the beginning of chapter 3, he says, "I am the man that has seen affliction by the rod of His wrath." He says, "It just got real. It just got worse." We thought a kid or two dying from starvation in one neighborhood or two neighborhoods was bad enough. But it got worse. We didn't do teshuva. The false leaders continued leading us falsely. So we didn't think we had to do teshuva. We thought we're just the chosen people, so everything's okay. So what if I drive on Shabbat? So what if I eat treif? So what if my girlfriend's not Jewish? So what? Hashem chose me. I'm okay. They led us falsely. They told us as long as we give some tzedakah, everything's going to be okay.

22:26as long as we say hi to the Rabbi and act like a human being, everything's going to be okay. Jeremiah says it got worse. It got worse to such an extent that Hashem did a favor to some people by allowing the goyim to kill them with swords because the starvation was much worse. It's so bad that by Chapter 4... He says, in Chapter 4, Verse 4, "The tongue of the suckling clings"—meaning the kids—their tongues cling to the palate from their thirst. Young children ask for bread, but no one offers it to them. Those who feasted on delicacies lie desolate in the streets. He says that starvation is not just for the kids now; the starvation is for their rich parents, too. The Abba and Ima who were driving Bentleys now would give a Bentley just for a piece of bread.

23:30Actually, a story from the times of the Beit HaMikdash of a woman that was so rich, her house was full of diamonds. But not just any diamonds, like little one-carat diamonds you put in a little earring for a little girl. That's how rich her parents were. No, we're talking about diamonds that were like cinder blocks. She sent her servant, "Go get me some bread, good bread, good quality bread." The servant comes back and says, "There's no more good quality bread." She says, "Okay, so go get me lesser quality bread, but something." He says, "Nah, there's not much lesser quality bread." She goes, "Go get me anything." Sends him a third time, "Go get me anything. I need to eat, I'm going to starve to death. Get me anything." He goes, so he comes back, "There's no more bread." She takes all of her diamonds, she throws them in the street. She says, "I can't eat my diamonds. I can't eat my diamonds. I can't eat my Bentley, I can't eat my house. I can't eat it." And she died from starvation. So now it's not just a few kids' stories that you see on TV or some chesed fund advertisement trying to raise some money for some poor family. Now, he says, Yirmiyahu, it got worse. Everyone is starving because the biryonim took the food and burned it. Why? They said either you're with us or you're against us, so to prove your loyalty to us...

24:55Everybody's starving, but not starving like we talk about today. Starving to the point where people are dying. But then it got much, much worse, and a few verses later, he tells us exactly the reason why we're supposed to cry. He says the victims of the sword were more fortunate than the victims of famine. For the latter are stricken, oozing from the lack of the produce of the field. Says the ones that were killed by the sword, Hashem did them a favor. It's a much easier death. Why? Because the very next verse, chapter 4, verse 10, says: "The hands of the merciful women boiled their own sons. They became their food when the daughter of my people was shattered." Hashem, the mothers ended up cooking their own kids. Now, anyone who has kids, all they need to do is look at their kid. Five minutes. Think about this, you're crying non-stop. Imagine. Today, you're supposed to imagine this. On a regular day, you're not necessarily supposed to imagine this. Today, you're supposed to imagine it. Look at your kid and imagine. I'm not talking about eating another human, which is insanity. There's a story of what happened about 40 years ago. A bunch of athletes, in an airplane crash, stuck in a mountain, and to survive, they had to eat the dead people that died. Instead of celebrating their survival, the political correctness of the day frowned upon them for eating dead people. We want to expect, expecting to die because you want me to keep a certain diet.

26:21in an airplane crash, stuck in a mountain, and to survive, they had to eat the dead people who had died. Instead of celebrating their survival, the political correctness of the day frowned upon them for eating dead people. We are expected to die because you want me to keep a certain diet. Stupidity, but nonetheless, just so you know, political correctness has always been around. We're not talking about that mother eating a stranger for survival; we're talking about getting to such desperation that a mother eats her own kids. For this, we cry, and the reason why we cry is because Hashem told us that this is going to happen and...

27:22In both Parashat Bechukotai and Parashat Ki Tavo, He says, "When you treat Me with casualness, I'm going to treat you with casualness." And He says this three times. In Megillat Eicha, He talks about the women eating their children three different times. As a matter of fact, even in the Kinnot that you read after it, it also talks about it. This is not something that just happened once and never again in one neighborhood. Crazy people. This is a massive nationwide thing. This is what we read after Megillat Eicha. We offered a sacrifice and it was not accepted. Meaning we gave Hashem a korban and He didn't want it. This is too late.

28:22Too late for korbanot. Why? Because it's mechallei Shabbat. Korban of mechallei Shabbat, not accepted in Shamayim. Korban of a goy accepted. Korban mechallei Shabbat, not accepted. It says you want to continue being mechallel Shabbat by bringing me a korban. Why? You think I need your goat? You think I need your cow? You think I need your chicken? I don't need anything. Everything is mine, Hashem says. You think I need your goat? For that, you're gonna get punished for the chutzpah that you think I need the goat. You're gonna get punished for that. For the korban, you're gonna get punished. What's the punishment? The next verse says it. Same thing in the tefillah it says. When our sins offerings of the goat ceased, compassionate women seeded their own children, and the constellation of the fish hid their eyes. This is the women, eat their children. This is a very known thing. By the way, last year, we did it in New York. There were many people. Everyone was shocked, maybe six or seven hundred people in attendance. I think if I was able to see everyone's faces, everyone's face had the same expression. Everyone's face was open, like many of yours now. But it was even worse when I showed them proof that this also happened during the Holocaust. The same horrific thing happened in the Holocaust. Why do I mention this horrific thing? Why? Do I have some type of a...

29:49Sick fixation over this. The truth is, this is a prophecy. Hashem says it in Parshat Bechukotai. He says it in Parshat Ki Tavo. In half a dozen places in the Torah, it mentions that such a punishment exists. We will be taken from such treasures and glamour and significant positions and politics and so on. And will get us so low that even the lowest we can imagine is not low enough. For what sin? For what? For what? This is getting home in this world. He says, for treating Me with casualness. I gave you an opportunity to do teshuva. I gave you a slap. I sent you a message. I sent you a text. I sent you an email. I gave you a little bit of pain on the side. I gave you signs.

30:51I gave you signs. Shalom Bayit wasn't so good. Parnassah wasn't so good. The kids weren't so happy. I gave you signs. Every day I gave you signs. I woke you up. I even woke you up in the middle of the night. You couldn't sleep. What did you think? I didn't want you to sleep. I wanted you to go learn Torah. I gave you signs. But you said, no, it's just, I have a headache. No, it's just the stock market. Now it's just the economy. Now it's just the mood. Now it's just the time of the month. Every sign they give you, you treat it with casualness. You treat it like it's just happenstance. It's nature. It happens. You know, you did it once, you're going to do it again. All this shtuyot, nonsense that people make you believe. No, no, it's going to be okay. Why is it going to be okay? Who's going to make it okay? Me? I can't do anything. I'm a human being.

31:53Came from a little seed and eventually the maggots are gonna eat my body. What can I possibly do without Hashem? What can I do? No, it's gonna be okay. You think it's gonna be okay with your own hands? He says that you get punished for the sins, and even more so, you get punished for that. For that, we cry because we still have this warped mentality of We don't need God; He needs us. Almost every day, I have somebody telling me about all the mitzvot that they're doing. "Oh, you know, today I prayed at this time, and today I did this, and today I did that." Well, sometimes they send me an email, saying, "Yo, you know, just before I sent you this email, I was reading parashat hashavua." "Oh, you know, today I studied for 15 minutes." It's good. It's good. What's bad is what follows. So, how come Hashem didn't give me the car I wanted yet? How come I'm not rich yet? How come I don't have as much money as I want? How come this and how come that? And how come, and how come, and how come? They come into complaints against Hashem. Why am I this, and why am I that?

33:17Interestingly enough, as Hashem would have it, the book of Lamentations is called Eicha in Hebrew. Eicha means "why"—oh, I'm sorry—"how." How did it happen? Eicha is not a name. For many years, I actually thought Eicha was a name, like one of the prophets maybe, I didn't know. You start reading, and just the first few words... First few words, everything changes. Why? Because he starts with a question. How did this happen? How did Churban Beit HaMikdash happen? The first one, the second one, the pogroms, the inquisitions, the holocaust, all. How did it happen? He gives you a question. Same question. This question is relevant forever. How did this happen? How do we go before this? He says all of the nations would look to the Jews and admire them. In fact, the Romans were not even mentioned in anything until Churban Beit HaMikdash was on its way. Until they started attacking the Jews, they were nothing. According to historians, we're not even talking about talking to the Jews. According to the historians, until the time they started going against Am Yisrael, Hashem used them as a tool to go against Am Yisrael, the Romans were nothing. The Greeks were nothing. The Germans were nothing.

34:49None of these countries were anything until they went against the Jews, meaning that Hashem only brought them to the world to hit His children. They only existed as a tool, as the stick that Hashem needs to use to hit us once in a while to cause us to cry and In order to motivate us into teshuva, because unfortunately, the prophets, the rabbis, the leaders of the time were not doing it. So, Hashem says, when they're not going to do it, I have to, but when I do it, it hurts a little bit. So, at the beginning of the book of Eicha, he says, "How did this all happen?"

35:53But again, we ask the same question. This happened 2,000 years ago. No one has that good of a memory to remember what he did in his neshamah 2,000 years ago, in your previous gilgulim. How does Hashem Yitbarach expect us to cry to such an extent that He makes it a chovah? Where He says, you want to see Beit HaMikdash, you want to see Yerushalayim after it's rebuilt, you must cry on Tisha B'Av. You must mourn, not cry like because you ate an onion. You must mourn. So the answer is, in the book of Eicha, he says how did it happen? And shortly after, he says it happened because we sinned against Hashem. The first Beit HaMikdash was destroyed due to three major sins.

36:54Idolatry was one of the worst things that you can do in the Torah. That was one of them we did. The second one was gilui arayot, which are sex crimes — things like promiscuity, men with women who are not their wives, incest, and things of that nature. And the third one was murder. Three major sins. The second Beit HaMikdash was Sinat Chinam. Hating each other for no reason. Hey, you know him? Yeah, I hate him. Why? I just hate him. He has that face. I hate him. Why? What did he do to you? You know him? You know his family? You know his history? No, I don't know him. He has one of those faces. I don't like it. Yeah, I hate that guy. That's what we think is that. I hate him. So, Chazal has explained to us that Sinat Chinam, in essence, has the same weight as the three other sins. Sinat Chinam, 2,000 years, we can't fix it. But the promiscuity, murder, idolatry, we fixed after seventy years.

38:24saying that this is the same weight. The ḥiddush is that we cry not because of that. We cry because we actually haven't had the Beit HaMikdash for 2,000 years. Because now we're worse than both of the times. If the Beit HaMikdash was built today, Hashem would have to destroy it again and Reason why is because today, unfortunately, the truth is the hard truth, and as painful as it sounds, it's a reality. We're committing all four of those sins today. But we're committing them in such a way that we don't even think we're doing anything wrong. We've become so used to sin that we're treating any punishments from Shamayim with casualness and and as Rabbi Yisrael Salanter says, "We have an extraordinary amount of physical diseases, but just as many doctors to fix those physical diseases. But when it comes to spiritual diseases, we have even more diseases, spiritually speaking, and no doctors."

39:53The reason why there's no doctors is because there's only one cure, and the cure is teaching Mussar. In order to learn, you have to train your mind. There's only one cure, that's it. There's no other cure. Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, for anyone who doesn't know, started the Mussar movement. He was such a holy man that he got to a point of having ruach hakodesh. He's one of the last few that actually had ruach hakodesh and... He left everything, all of his studies, all of his things. Why? To go to kiruv for 26 years. At the height of his career, he left everything. He said, "Listen, everybody's going off the derech." Okay, which tzaddik wouldn't have when everything is good in my yeshiva, my kollel? Everything is good. What about the rest of Am Yisrael? They're still not crying on Tisha B'Av. They still think everything's okay. He left everything and started traveling the world to go help people do teshuvah for 26 years. because he says there's only one cure and no one wants to give this cure. And the Mishnah in Avot says, "בְּמָקוֹם שֶׁאֵין אֲנָשִׁים, הִשְׁתַּדֵּל לִהְיוֹת אִישׁ" — in a place where there is no leader, be the leader yourself. So in today's world, almost 2,000 years after the Beit HaMikdash, unfortunately, we're not in a much better position.

41:18And one of the main reasons is because we're trying to motivate Am Yisrael to do teshuva in a different way. We're trying to motivate them to do teshuva as if it's a cool thing to do. Go keep Shabbat. You can hang out. You can eat food. It's fun. You can relax. We're trying to make it hip. Trying to make it hip to be Shomer Mitzvot. They make seminars, and they bring singers—secular singers—to these seminars. This drags in a crowd. The people are not coming for the rabbi; they don't care about the rabbi. They're coming for the singer. They fill up the place with 500 people, 1,000 people, 2,000 people to come listen to the singer. But since they're already there, they might listen to the rabbi. Trying to use different shiitot, different strategies to get Am Yisrael to do teshuva. Now, this would be wonderful if it actually worked. But it doesn't work. It doesn't work. 80% of Am Yisrael is still not keeping anything. Maybe once in a while they do a mitzvah by accident. But Shabbat, the basic core foundation of Judaism, they don't keep. Learning Torah every day, they don't keep. Why? We're using the wrong medicine.

42:42We're telling people that it's fun, and it's cool, and you should do it because it's good for you, because it's nice. We're not telling people the truth. We're not telling people, listen, you have to do it because, yes, aside from the fact that it is fun, ultimately, it is good, ultimately, it is healthy, ultimately, really, the only reason you should do it is because you have to. That's the real reason. You have to. Why? Because if you don't, you're going to get punished. That's the real reason. If you don't teach someone that if they don't do teshuva, they're going to get punished, whatever teshuva they do, it's not going to hold. It's not going to hold. They'll do half a teshuva. You know, there's a bunch of people that keep Shabbat, but they eat treif the whole week. Or they eat kosher, but they don't keep Shabbat. They do one mitzvah, but they do 150,000 aveirot. Why? Because they're, nah, it's, you know, I took this on. I'm here. I'm okay with just this. They pick one mitzvah, and that's enough. Just do Shabbat for 20 years, your Shabbat. Yeah, what about learning Torah? No, I don't learn Torah, but do you know if you don't learn Torah then the Shabbat, even the Shabbat that you're keeping, is probably not Shabbat. Why? Because you're probably violating Shabbat if you don't know how to hold Shabbat. You're definitely breaking Shabbat. So even what you think you're keeping, you're not keeping. Meaning, you come to Shabbat and say, "Oh, I kept Shabbat." No, I kept Shabbat. What Shabbat did you keep?

44:09Every Shabbat you're doing sins. They're right; every Shabbat, not one Shabbat you kept. Oh, except one Shabbat you were in the hospital, and you were sleeping the whole time. By accident, you kept Shabbat. If we don't teach Am Yisrael that we can't treat Hashem with casualness, the teshuva that we do is not going to be a real teshuva. This is the reason why most people don't understand that. At this stage, Am Yisrael, different people, different places, is making all of those sins, not just one of them. When it comes to Avodah Zarah, the Gemara says, the real reason why Hashem destroyed the Beit HaMikdash, Gemara Masechet Shabbat, page 119, Abaye says, the real reason Hashem destroyed Beit HaMikdash, Chilul Shabbat. Chilul Shabbat. Question is, but it says, speak with the Nevi'im. It says Avodah Zarah. It says Gilui Arayot. It says all these other things. It says, you know, idol worship. It says, you know, sex crimes. Where does it say anything about Shabbat? It says, no, no, somebody who violates Shabbat, idolatry, same thing. A Jew who drives on Shabbat is the same thing as an idol worshiper according to the Torah. Same thing. It's a hard thing to say, it's a hard thing to hear, but it's true.

45:38we tell people the truth: they're not going to know. So, Shabbat, we already know. Idol worship, we're not doing so good in. Aside from that, the new idol that we have for the last couple of thousand years is an idol in disguise. It's called money. People spend their entire lives chasing money and chasing away God. The more money they have, the less God they have. Many times, Chazal say, you give a person a hundred, he wants two hundred; give him two hundred, he wants four hundred; give him four hundred, he wants eight hundred. So, what happens is someone that gets more and more money, Hashem gives them a blessing, giving them more money. Eventually, he thinks that, "No, no, once I'm rich, I'm going to do teshuvah." What happens is, the more money he has, the more money he wants, and... Which means the last time he asked for God. So he used to be a religious little avrech, went into the business world, Hashem gave him success. Now he does Shema Yisrael once a day. That's it. He doesn't have time for God. People think they're doing God a favor by doing Shema Yisrael or by doing any of the mitzvot. They complain against God. "Oh, I did a few mitzvot. How come He doesn't do this? How come He doesn't do that?" In reality, we have to understand that all of these mitzvot, all of the Torah we learn, all of the things we do is for us. It's not for Him. He's perfect.

47:06So, when it comes to idolatry, in today's age, we have two forms. One, we have Chilul Shabbat. Two, we have worshipping money. And three, though not as significant, is people who actually go and worship idols. They leave Judaism to go to Christianity, Buddhism, or any of these other garbage religions in the world. There are many who go there. it comes to murder. Unfortunately, murder is still happening, and when it comes to immodesty, it's also happening. But in both of those cases, it's actually much worse. It's much worse than it was 2,000 years ago. And the reason why is because one of the things that we are obligated to do, even more so than the goyim—although the goyim are also obligated to do it—but Am Yisrael even more so, is we're not allowed to waste seed. A Jew is not allowed to waste his seed. So every time seed comes out of a Jewish person or even a non-Jewish person, it must be for the purpose of bringing a child into the world. Whether it ends up bringing a child into the world or not, it's not your business. That's Hashem's business. Hashem decides. But a Jew must have

48:24Procreation with one purpose in mind is: I'm trying to bring a kid into the world. What if I know it's physically impossible? She's too old or because she's already pregnant. You can't be pregnant twice at the same time. So it's not your business. It's not your business. You are doing it in the kosher way. There's a kosher way to procreate, a kosher way to be intimate with your wife. To do it any other way that would lead a male to ejaculate without having the purpose of bringing a child into the world... at least the chance is considered both immodesty and murder. But even more so than that, one of the things that we know saved us at the time of Egypt was that we still wore our clothes; we didn't fall into these few things that the Egyptians did. One of the things I actually found out recently, which I heard about a long time ago but actually got some verification of recently, is that one of the minhagim, one of the cultural practices that the Egyptians did, which we get credit for not doing, is that the Egyptians wore wigs.

49:50The movies I remember as a kid, watching movies, and you know, all the Egyptians always looked the same. And you know, I guess it was part of their culture to wear this certain type of wig that looked like Cleopatra and so on. And this was one of the maasei goyim. This is one of the things that they did back then. Now, despite the confusion in the Jewish world as far as halacha, what's allowed and what's not allowed, if a wig is allowed at all, if a wig is not allowed... There's a handful of Ashkenazi poskim that have said it's allowed in past generations, but over 90 different poskim said it's not allowed, both Ashkenazi and Sephardic. But any of the ones that said it's allowed were talking about a different type of wig. We're talking about a very, very short, modest wig that was identifiable as a wig. It's obvious that it was a wig. But I don't mean obvious to the woman wearing it, obvious to an every man who would look at it from far away. No, it's a wig. Why? Because it looked like a broom, it looked distinctly different from natural human hair. That's what they approved. The wigs of today, we see that they look better than natural hair, and even women can't tell. Forget men, men can't. I don't think there's one man outside of

51:17the hair business that can tell if a woman is wearing a wig. I have yet to meet one, which means that even if the average male can't tell if it's a wig, you're not allowed to wear it because it's not supposed to look like your hair. But if you look at some of these books that were written about wigs, written about hair from secular people, goyim even in some cases, there's a book think it's called "The Life of Hair" or something like that. She goes and does research on hair in different places, and she says that she went to different Jewish places. She would talk to the women there. She would talk to the woman that's putting the wig on them because it's a wig place slash hair salon. And she said, "What's the, you know, what's the ultimate wig?"

52:18What's the main purpose of your wig, both to the client and to the woman that's putting the wig on her? She said, "For it to look like real hair. For it to look like my hair." So the ultimate thing is for it to look like what you're not allowed to have. This is first base against logic. You're not allowed to show your hair, but your ultimate purpose here is to make the hair look like your hair. So already you're going against logic. You're trying to do everything in your power to look like something you're not allowed to look like. That's one. How do they do it? The main thing is that they use natural human hair, which leads to the next problem. In the very same book, they confirm the research. Rav Elyashiv, Zecher Tzadik Livracha, had done and said it confirmed that the overwhelming majority of real hair that's put in wigs is coming from India, and in India, it is part of their tradition. It is part of their culture to do idol worship, and part of the idol worship is to give the hair as a donation to the idols.

53:44donation to the idols. One of the idols made it a rule to give the hair, and the reason why is because the idol got hit in the head one time and he got a bald spot. So, some woman gave him hair, and they made it a tradition from that day on that you give hair to this idol. Yes, I know this sounds stupid, but this is a reality. Another idol wanted to get married but didn't have any money, so some woman sold her hair and This idol wanted to get married. What kind of idol is this? I don't know. What kind of god needs money? I don't know. These strange religions, but again, this is actually what's happening here. So they donate hair to this idol, and these things get stupider and stupider. But from a financial perspective, the place where they make the most amount of money... Wigs happen to be the second richest entity on the planet, if it gives you an idea of how many hairs, how many wigs are made from there, how much hair is donated there. It's only second to the Vatican, and they sell this hair to different markets in London, France, Italy, and different places all over the world. Many times it goes to China on the way.

55:13Eventually, it gets to America. Now, the Marah who does the Avodah Zarah says that anything that was ever connected to idol worship you are not allowed to enjoy it at all, ever. Prime example: when Yehoshua bin Nun... brought Am Yisrael to Eretz Yisrael for the first time. The first mission he had, Hashem said, "Burn all these trees, all these Asherah trees." Why? What did the trees do? Why are we burning them? Why not cut them and make some houses, cut them and make some closets, something different, cabinets for sifrei Torah? I don't know why we're burning them. Burning them just goes to waste. Because no, they were used for idol worship. What's the tree's fault they were used for idol worship? Did the tree say, "Hey, come here, come here"? The trees are sitting there, and if some idiot comes and worships them, it's not their fault. Hashem says idol worship disgusts me so much that even if it's not the fault of the idol, it's irrelevant. As soon as something was used to replace Me, to replace Hashem Yitbarach, it has no right to exist. It's your obligation to burn it. So now you have hair...

56:32donated by the millions every day to such an extent that a country with nearly a billion people has an average of each person donating their hair at least twice in their life. We're not talking about a small market here; we're talking about the overwhelming majority of the market, to such an extent that, according to my research—which is what I did for almost 20 years on Wall Street—it's virtually impossible to impossible to find a wig that's made from natural hair without it coming from idol worship. Impossible. One reason is because most of the hair is coming from India. That's one logical reason. The second reason is because even if all of the hair did not come from India, at least one hair did. And that's the reality that with wigs, it's not that they take the hair of one woman and put it on another woman and... No, they take the hair and then it goes to processing, and it's mixed with other hair. It's mixed with other hair that's the same length, longer, shorter, and so on to make a wig. Meaning, there's no one wig that has all one hair. So even if you got 99.9% of the hair from China, some poor woman from China donated her hair for, I don't know, for a cancer patient or something, and...

57:55some hippie from America decided to donate the hair, and it got there, got to the manufacturing. If one hair from India arrived and is mixed in that wig, it's a hundred percent not allowed. You're putting idol worship on top of your head. And then people are asking, "How come my prayers are not answered?" Because you're praying to a god that's not God. He's in the way. So now we have idol worship in these wigs. Third rational point... One of the things that's assur as far as giluy arayot is not allowed to look at places you're not allowed to. As a woman that's not your wife, you're not allowed to stare at her. You have to watch your eyes. It leads to wasting seed, leads to a lot of sins, and... Wigs also lead to that, and the reason why is a woman is not allowed to show her hair. So what does she do? She puts on some other woman's hair. So now, not only are you violating the first two things we already talked about, but even worse, now we're in a situation where you're causing your husband and other men to look at this hair, and even your own husband is looking at a different woman's hair. So now, instead of your husband looking at your hair, which he's allowed to look at...

59:11He's looking at a different woman's hair. Fourth point: even from the time of Avraham Avinu, we knew that Hashem chose us. He said you're not allowed to be with a people that's not part of yours. So when Nimrod HaRasha turned himself into an idol... I'm saying you're not an idol. You're not a god. You're nothing. You're old. You had diarrhea last week. Your back doesn't look so good. You're limping. What kind of god are you? You're not a god. He goes, "Either bow to me or I'm gonna kill you." No problem. I'll jump into the fire myself. Avraham jumped into the fire with no second thoughts, unlike us. "Oh, should we do tefillin on time? Should we wake up?" No, he jumped into the fire. Avraham... The malachim went to Hashem, "Hashem, Hashem, please let us save this holy man." Hashem says, "No, no, no. He is one down there just like I am one over here. I'm gonna go save him." It says that Nimrod saw two bodies, two images, walking inside the fire: Hashem and Avraham.

1:00:36If it wasn't written in Midrashim, it wouldn't be allowed to say because Hashem has no image, no likeness of an image. But two images in the fire. Nimrod the Rasha was so fascinated by this that he told his son, "It's better that you be a slave for Avraham than a king with me." And he sent his son with Avraham. Who's the son? Eliezer. Eliezer was the son. Eliezer, according to our Torah, got to such a level that he never died. Hashem took him. He was one of ten people that got to Gan Eden alive. He got to Gan Eden alive. Hopefully we get there dead. He got there alive. But still, when he offered his daughters to Avraham Avinu, Avraham Avinu says, no, you're in a nation of Arurim, I'm in a nation of Beruchim. Your nation, the Canaanites, are cursed by Hashem, my nation is blessed by Hashem. If I was Eliezer, I'd take it personally, hey, hey, I'm your number one guy, I'm a rabbi, I give Shiurei Torah, I this, I that, but you call me cursed? I did teshuva. Eliezer didn't take it that way.

1:02:03Eliezer got all of the merits that he got because he didn't take it personally. He knew it was true. He knew it was real. He said, no problem, Avraham, I'll go find your son a wife. And he went with full kavana and found his son a wife. So even from the time of Avraham Avinu, we knew that we're not allowed to be with the goyim. When a woman wears a wig made from natural hair, Aside from violating the first four points— the fourth point being that she's causing her husband and other men to look at a woman who is not hers, an eshet ish— she's also causing them, 99.9999999% of the time, to look at the beauty of a goya, the beauty of a non-Jewish woman. So now you have point number five, and

1:03:04Now you're going to a point where this giluy arayot, this immodesty, this avodah zarah, it's getting worse and worse. And last but not least is a point that I mentioned in last year's Tisha B'Av shiur, is that if you look at all of the holy women in the Torah, they're constantly admired by Hashem for their modesty. There's only one woman in the entire Torah where they mention her hair. Only one woman. And who is that woman? The sotah. woman that's accused of cheating on her husband. That's the only woman whose hair is mentioned. So, my question is, and this pertains to religious people because non-religious people don't wear wigs, at least not for religious reasons. My question, as Tommy said, is I...

1:04:07Even if you found an excuse for the halacha, even if you found an excuse for the gilui arayot, even if you found an excuse for the avodah zarah, even if you found an excuse for everything else, why do you want to look like a sotah? Why would you want to emulate the only woman in the Torah that's mentioned that's showing her hair? Why would you want to emulate her? Why wouldn't you want to be like Sarah Imeinu, Leah, Rachel, Rivka, Chana, all these tzadkaniyot, Ruth? They mentioned that they had curly hair up to their No, why wouldn't you want to emulate them? Why do you want to emulate the one that's accused of cheating on her husband? There is a whole Gemara tractate written about her, Masechet Sotah. There's a whole Gemara tractate talking about the Sotah. What they do to her, this and that, punishments, shem yirachem, why? My point here is that we cry today.

1:05:20Not because of what happened 2,000 years ago. Not crying about the Beit HaMikdash. As a matter of fact, we should celebrate that Hashem put His wrath on stones and not on us. He could have destroyed us completely, but He had mercy on us and we're still here, Baruch Hashem, 2,000 years later. We're not crying about the Beit HaMikdash from 2,000 years ago. We're crying about today. We're crying that the reason why Hashem destroyed the Beit HaMikdash Still valid. It's still valid. The sinat chinam that we had 2,000 years ago is still valid. If the first Beit HaMikdash's three reasons were not enough to prove to you that it's still valid, this last one will. Yesterday, the night of Tisha B'Av, I have these few people that I

1:06:24Guess they're a little bit obsessed with me. I don't know what's wrong with them, why they don't like me, but usually, when I don't like somebody, I just disassociate myself from them. They try to invest their life to get my attention. So, on the night of Tisha B'Av, one of these fools takes time out of his day and writes three pages or three paragraphs of insult public insult about me. I'm this and I'm that, and I'm this and I'm that, and I do this and I do that. Aside from the fact that it's all falsehood and nonsense, I asked myself the question: Did his rabbi tell him that even if everything he says in his three paragraphs is true and I'm a thief and I'm a liar and I teach people fear and all types of shtuyot that he said. Even if everything he said about me is real, let's say it's real. Does his rabbi tell him, does his rabbi have the courage to tell him that the punishment for malbin pnei chavero b'rabim, for embarrassing another person in public, is much, much worse than the sins he's accusing me of?

1:07:50Thief I’m not. Everyone that knows me knows I’m not. I work for free. I always have. Even on Wall Street, where I could steal money like it was on the floor, I chose not to. I had plenty of opportunities. I wrote articles for the regulators to review to teach them how the thieves are stealing money from them to help them. My whole life was against thieves. Korea was against thieves during a crisis when everybody was trying to find a way to survive. I had ways to make five to ten million dollars a month in an illegal way. People told me, "Why not just do it once? You don't have to do it a lot of times." I said, "I'd rather die than steal a dollar." Then steal $1 at the early part of my career. After I had just started making a little bit of money, you know, you're 23 years old, you just made a few bucks, you want more. Somebody offered me $3.6 million to come to their firm. I told them, "No problem, okay, I'll come to your firm under one condition. Tell me what kind of firm it is." And he tells me what kind of firm he has and this and that, and then within five minutes, I realized, "Oh, okay, so you guys are thieves." "No, no, we just do it." I'm like, "I'm sorry, I can't come."

1:08:593.6 million dollars cash, and once you come, it's another 5 million. You're talking about almost 10 million dollars for a 23-year-old kid on day one. I said, "No, I'd rather die than steal one dollar." But he wrote a whole thing about how I'm a thief and a liar and a cheat and all these things that he thinks he knows, even if it was true. I'm a thief, a liar, and all these things. If he wasn't Jewish, he wouldn't care; he would consider it in the world of baklava. He takes his time to write this to me and makes sure that I know it. So he tags me on Facebook. Now my question is this: Did his rabbi tell him? Did his rabbi have the courage to tell him that...? Even if it's all true, his sin is worse. I don't care about him or the stuff that he wrote. I only mention it to bring a point for people to understand that if someone is stupid enough to...

1:10:27stupid enough to make this sin on Tisha B'Av and he's supposed to be religious. He's not a secular person. This religious Jew thinks he's a Talmid Chacham. He's upset that he's not a famous Rabbi. Did anybody tell him? Did anybody tell him? Anybody have the courage to tell him? This is why we cry. We cry because all of those sins are much worse today, both from the first Beit HaMikdash and the second. They’re all very much alive and well. And even though he deleted it a few hours later, it was enough time for me to see it, record it, and of course, more than enough time for Hashem Yitbarach to see it. Even though some of these people try to do teshuva here and there, they try to fix something, they try to fix that. There are certain things you just can't fix unless you get to the real teshuva. So we cry today not because of the fast. The Gemara in Masechet Ta'anit, page 15, mentions a verse in the Torah in Sefer Yoel. Hashem says, "Don't rip your clothes."

1:11:54Rip your hearts. Do teshuva. I don't care about your fast. I don't care if you eat or you don't eat. I don't care if you rip your clothes, your clothes are dirty, your clothes are clean, your clothes are this, your clothes are that. I don't care if you brush your teeth. I don't care if you put some powder on your face, make you look like you just came out of some disaster. I don't care about that. I care about what's inside. What happened inside? Do you have a Churban Beit HaMikdash inside you? Do you realize As long as there's no Beit HaMikdash, you are contributing to it. You are part of it. A Jew must understand that as long as the Beit HaMikdash is not built, he's part of the reason. Yes, even if he's keeping mitzvot. Yes, even if he does tefillin and he goes to Beit Knesset. Yes, even if he's speaking to you right now. He's part of it. Why? Because you didn't do enough. There are still people writing stuff against Hashem on the internet. There are still people practicing idol worship. There are still people stealing. There are still people who are cheap. There are still people with bad middot. There are still people wearing idols on top of their heads. There are still people who are so far from Hashem they don't even know what kosher is. There are over one million children in Eretz Yisrael who do not know Kriyat Shema.

1:13:22In Eretz Yisrael, one million children do not know how to say Shema Yisrael. There are still one million children in Eretz Yisrael who don't have food. This is a land no different than America as far as prosperity. It is a very modernized place, a very rich country with a fantastic economy. Leading technology, in some cases, even better than America, but you have 1 million kids who don't know where they're going to eat today. And it's not because of the fest, but yet you have other people that sold companies to Google for half a billion dollars, 2 billion dollars, 3 billion dollars. What are they worried about? Putting cars inside their living rooms? You have a million kids who don't have food, but you're worried about putting a car inside your living room and... Million kids don't know where they'll get their next meal, but people donate chai. They think they've made a big mitzvah. They made ten, twenty, thirty thousand dollars last month, but they donate chai, they donate eighteen dollars. Rav Frand said it's better if they donate met, because chai is chet yud, gematria value 18. That's why 18 is a common number people donate. Met means dead.

1:14:40High means alive; met means dead. But met is 440. It's better you donate met than chai. People try to connect all these things, but the reality is we're far away from the truth. The reality is that the very same reason the Beit HaMikdash was destroyed is still alive and well, and the book of Eicha talks about these false prophets, these false leaders, and the Gemara says in Shabbat pages 54 and 55, especially 54, that Hashem punished the rabbis first. So, like the Meiri asks, Hashem, why did you punish the rabbis? They went to the Beit Knesset, they put on tefillin, Rashi, Rabbeinu Tam... Threw 200 bucks at least. You love no doubt everything great. What happened? Why, why that hot everything? They look like rabbis, they learn Torah. Why did You punish them first? Like the Meiri answers, because they weren't really tzaddikim. They weren't really tzaddikim because they didn't fulfill the mitzvah of rebuking their brothers and

1:16:05didn't fulfill the mitzvah of telling their brothers and sisters, "Hey, it's time to do teshuva. Don't worry about the fast. Don't worry about not eating. Don't worry about the clothes. Whether you're wearing black and white or just wearing regular clothes, at least it's modest. What's inside you?" What's inside you didn't do it. Ma says they're worse than all of them. They get punished first. Why do they get punished first? They knew the truth. They knew the truth; they had an option. The big brother is supposed to educate the little brother and... The big brother is the one that's supposed to cry not because of what happened 20, 30, 40 years ago, 7 years ago, 2,000 years ago. He's supposed to cry because of what's happening today. And what's happening today is we're missing the point. We think it's because of sinat chinam from 2,000 years ago. We think it's because of sinat chinam today because Sephardi doesn't like Ashkenazi, or the Ashkenazi doesn't like the Yemenite, or the Yemenite doesn't like this one. We think that's the sinat chinam we have. No, it's not.

1:17:17The biggest difficulty we have today is between the religious and the non-religious. That's the sinat chinam we have. It has nothing to do with Sephardi, Ashkenazi, Yemenite, Litvish, and all that other stuff. It has to do with the religious and the non-religious. The religious, they know the truth; they take care of themselves. The non-religious don't know the truth, but they take care of themselves. Both think that they're going in the right way. think that they're okay. Both think that they have emunah. Both think that Mashiach is gonna come and he's gonna help them. Little do they know that for the vast majority of them, it's not gonna be so okay. When Am Yisrael was taken out of Egypt, Hashem Yitbarach had to do some serious damage first. He killed 80% of Am Yisrael during the plague of darkness. And only 20% actually left Egypt. The Midrash says it was really only 1% that left Egypt. 99% were killed. And the reason why is because they didn't do teshuva. Hashem says if you don't do teshuva, you can't get to Me. Without teshuva, you can't get to Me. The religious people in the world need to understand that as long as the non-religious

1:18:40stay non-religious without knowledge, stay non-religious without even a chance. The onus is on them. The responsibility is on them. The responsibility is on us that we know the truth. We know that if you don't keep Shabbat, you have a problem. We know if you don't keep kosher, you have a problem. We know if you don't keep taharat hamishpacha, you have a problem. But we're not talking about a problem like a headache that goes away after a few hours. We're talking about an eternal problem. And if you know that information, but your cousin, your brother, your neighbor, someone in your kehillah does not know it, the responsibility falls on you. He's punished too, because he's responsible to also learn Torah. But the fact that you didn't tell him makes you no better. So when the religious say, "No, no, I don't want my son to marry a Baal Teshuva, I don't want my daughter to marry a Baal Teshuva," that just discourages the Baal Teshuva even more because once he finally did Teshuva, you don't want to accept him anyway.

1:19:53Once the guy finally converted, you don't want to get him anyway. Once the woman converted, you don't want to take her anyway. Why? Because we're different, we're separated, because we're already religious from birth. You should learn Rambam. Rambam says the same thing as the Gemara: a Baal Teshuva, a serious Baal Teshuva, is higher than someone that's frum from birth. But we'll ignore the facts. So not only are we getting in the way of Teshuva, we're not assisting it in any way. That's the problem with the religious world. The non-religious world, the onus is on them because they're responsible to ask the simple question: why am I in this world? Why did I come here? What's the difference between me and a horse? What's the difference between me and a cow? Why do I feel okay with murdering a cow and eating it? Kosher, non-kosher—what gives me the right to eat the cow? Because it doesn't talk? Maybe it does talk; I just don't understand. If anything, the cow looks happier than you. It doesn't fast, doesn't have a mortgage, all of its kids love it, no one mouths off. I don't think there's any such thing as shalom bayit problems for it. If anything, the cow is happier than you. What gives you the right to kill it?

1:21:21a person needs to ask themselves, what's the difference between me and the monkey? What's the difference between me and the cow? Once you start delving into these, you start understanding that obviously, someone put you here for a reason, and that someone put you here for a reason as a Jew and Whether you converted or you were natural born, it's all the same. The point is that right now you're a Jew. Right now you want to be a Jew. Right now you're doing teshuva. Right now you're something. You're connecting to Hashem. Why? He gives you a book of instructions. It tells you why. It's called Torah. You have to ask yourself the question of why. So for anyone that's asking, why do we fast? It's not because Hashem cares if you eat. He doesn't. It's not because Hashem cares what you wear. He doesn't. It's because it's supposed to eliminate all the material from your life and leave you with nothing to do but ask that question. You're not supposed to work today. You're not supposed to go party today. You're not supposed to; it's not a halacha not to work, but you're not supposed to. There's no bracha in the money.

1:22:41You're not supposed to do anything but ask this question, Eicha, how did this happen? How? How did He destroy the Beit HaMikdash, His own house? How? And I'm going to leave you with this. There's a very famous Midrash of once Yirmiyahu came back and saw the Churban Beit HaMikdash and started crying hysterically and uncontrollably. He says it was like rivers of tears coming out of his face, and he wasn't able to stop it. Hashem told him, "Go get Moshe Rabbeinu, Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, and tell them that I don't have a house anymore." So he goes to

1:23:45the river. And he says, "Son of Amram, son of Amram" – Amram was Moshe's father – "Hashem is calling you. He needs to speak to you." The commentary says, why didn't he say, "Listen, the Churban Beit HaMikdash, look what happened?" It says that Yirmiyahu was very scared to say such things. He didn't want to be the leader of the nation that lived... to see the whole Beit HaMikdash. So he says, "Son of Amram, Hashem is calling you." So Moshe came out, and he says with his neshama, "Of course, what’s different today than all the other days that Hashem is calling me?" And a malach says to Moshe, "Son of Amram..." Don't you know that Hashem destroyed His Beit HaMikdash? Haven't you seen? Moshe moves his neshama and he gets to see the Beit HaMikdash. He sees the river of blood. He sees the destruction. He sees the fire. He sees everything destroyed. He gets to see his people, and the people think, oh, that's Moshe Rabbeinu. He came here, the Mashiach.

1:25:10The Mashiach is here. They say, the Midrash says, that the original Mashiach is gonna be the next Mashiach. Moshe Rabbeinu is gonna be the Mashiach. And that's why Chazal say that part of the neshama of the Mashiach is gonna be from Moshe Rabbeinu and the other part from David HaMelech. So Am Yisrael is in handcuffs, dying, blood everywhere. Their kids are everywhere, dying. They're all skinny. They're all starving. They see Moshe Rabbeinu, and they all get happy. Because they think he came to save them. And Moshe Rabbeinu couldn't handle it and he left. And he goes and he calls Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov. And he tells them, "Look what Hashem did. Look what happened here." Avraham says to Hashem, "Hashem, when I jumped into the fire for Your honor..." Is this the shame I deserve for jumping into the fire? This shame, I jumped into the fire for Your honor, this is what I deserve. I put my child, whom I waited 100 years for, on the altar for You, even though it went against all logic. You told me that through my son everything would happen, but at the same time, I had to kill my son.

1:26:39I did it without asking a single question, Hashem. This is the shame that I deserve, to see my children murdered in cold blood? Prayer is not answered. Yitzchak cried to Hashem, I was willing to give myself for You. Let my father kill me. This is what I deserve to see. Prayer is not answered. Yaakov, my whole life was dedicated to You. I suffered my whole life, but made sure that all my children sanctified Your name. This is what I deserve to see? Prayer is not answered. Moshe Rabbeinu says, I served You, I didn't even want to do it.

1:27:41Served You. I led Your people out of Egypt. I went through fright. I went through fire. I went through everything. Prayer not answered. The holy matriarch comes and says to Hashem, "At the time that I found out that my father was going to cheat my future husband Yaakov by giving him my sister, I..." originally planned to fool my father and to make sure that Yaakov doesn't fall for it, so I told him that if I don't give you these signs, then it's not me, it's my sister. But then, a moment later, I realized that Hashem, I risked the opportunity of shaming my sister. For a moment, my sister is going to be ashamed that Yaakov didn't want to marry her. That's a damage that I can't fix. That's a post you can't delete. So I sat quietly and did not tell Yaakov, while at the same time, I told my sister the signs. I even spoke for her and made sure that Yaakov thought it was me.

1:29:10even when she came to me after we were both married to him and embarrassed me, I sat quietly. So if I can sit quietly as him while they go against me, why did you do this? And Hashem says, for your tears, for your prayer, and... Promise I'm gonna give them back to Beit HaMikdash. Your prayer was answered. So now the question that we ask is this: the very famous question of why was her prayer answered and not Moshe, Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov. We're gonna take it a step further. we're going to ask a simpler question, but that's deeper. If Hashem knew—obviously, Hashem knows the future, Hashem knows that Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, Moshe, and Rachel are going to come to Him. Are they going to plead? Are they going to cry? Why didn't He just send Yirmiyahu to them before He destroyed Beit HaMikdash? If He knew that He's going to answer their prayers,

1:30:42Eventually, why didn't He just send Yirmiyahu to them before destroying the Beit HaMikdash? The answer, my friends, is simple but deep. Before the whole Beit HaMikdash, before the fast you're doing today... Before the shiur, before even the question, before the thought, there was no teshuva. And therefore, they could have prayed from here until the end of the world, and it wouldn't have helped. It wouldn't help. Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov can pray. Moshe and Aharon can pray. David and Shlomo can pray. Rachel Imeinu, Leah, Rivka, Sarah—they can all pray. Everyone tells me that their grandfather was a tzaddik, was a rabbi. Their uncle was this, and their father was this, and everyone's past generation is this. All of that is wonderful for them, but without us taking action, it doesn't matter. Hashem couldn't bring this issue to Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, Moshe, and Rachel before He came to the Beit Hamikdash.

1:32:09Because it would have been fruitless. It would have served no purpose because before the Churban Beit HaMikdash, Am Yisrael did not know that they had to do teshuva and therefore, without teshuva, the prayers are meaningless. Without teshuva, nothing happens. By the time He came to them, He destroyed the Beit HaMikdash, which led them to do teshuva, which made the prayer a Fruitful prayer. This is the main thing we have to understand. Today we cry because Am Yisrael still has not done teshuva. We cry because Am Yisrael still doesn't know it needs to do teshuva. But we can't wait for the rabbis. Waiting for the rabbis 2,000 years ago did not serve us anymore. Chazal say they got punished first because they didn't do their job and they didn't rebuke the people. They didn't do their job. They didn't rebuke the people. They didn't tell them the truth. Today, if we want to avoid next year's Tisha B'Av, if we want to avoid horror, if we want to avoid disaster, today we have to take the job into our own hands. Each person needs to become a rabbi. You don't need to be a rabbi with speech. You don't need to be in the rabbinate with speech. You can do it in a lot of different ways. You can do it with words. You can do it with money. You can do it with clicks.

1:33:39You have to spread Torah. You have to get Am Yisrael to come back to Hashem. You have to let them know they are doing wrong. It's time to do teshuva. And if they start doing teshuva, you won't be here next year crying. B'ezrat Hashem, we will be here celebrating. Any questions? Baruch Adonai le'olam, amen ve'amen. We have another shiur, completely different, B'ezrat Hashem, in an hour and a half from now. 6 o'clock. We're now 15 minutes from Miami. I welcome everyone to join me. B'ezrat Hashem, we'll finish off this Tisha B'Av with some serious motivation to do teshuva to help. I'm excited to