CURRENT EVENTS, Market Crises, Is The END OF THE WORLD Here?

0:17Good to see everyone. Starting a new week. Today's shiur is, you know, we usually say it's all siyata d'shmaya, but today is 100% as usual siyata d'shmaya, but even more so than usual because all of my plans to prepare a shiur apparently were not what Hashem wanted. He wanted me to give you guys a different shiur. A shiur that He's going to put the words in my mouth as I'm speaking them. So we're both going to be learning at the same time, b'ezrat Hashem. Not that it's very different from others, but nonetheless... Today's shiur is, you know, we usually say it's all siyata d'shmaya, but today is 100% as usual siyata d'shmaya, but even more so than usual because all of my plans to prepare a shiur apparently were not what Hashem wanted. He wanted me to give you guys a different shiur. A shiur that He's going to put the words in my mouth as I'm speaking them. So we're both going to be learning at the same time, b'ezrat Hashem. Not that it's very different from others, but nonetheless... Today is very interesting. I thought about starting a new series today about Bitachon, but it seems like we have to talk about a few other things also before that. Today's shiur, b'ezrat Hashem, is going to be for a refuah shlema for the Rabbanit Levana bat Sara.

1:29May HaKadosh Baruch Hu bless her. Give her refuah shlema, refuah hanefesh, refuah haguf. Also for David ben Esriah, Doris bat Jorah, Batya bat Sara, Serach bat Batya, Esther bat Sipora, Dvora bat Mercedes, And all of Am Yisrael, B'ezrat Hashem, will have refuah shlema, refuah hanefesh, refuah haguf. As a token of our appreciation to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, but also for a request from Am Yisrael to give us some strength because doing this is not so simple. Thank you. To do this is not so simple. We'll talk about it a little bit later, b'ezrat Hashem. But when you do kiruv, HaKadosh Baruch Hu gives you a lot of sechar.

2:34gives you a lot of sechar. But at the same time, He permits the Satan to give you a lot of different tests, a lot of resistance. And some of those tests come in the form of health issues. So for anyone who would want to be a partner in a mitzvah, for the sake of giving myself and the Rabbanit a lot of strength to do what we're doing, if you want to give out the Asher Yatzar cards, We have a share of Asher Yatzar cards that we sell on the website that no one really buys. We just give them for free, but we pretend like we sell them. And we want to give out 5,000 more. And if more people want, we'll give you even more. I'm just saying 5,000 just for the sake of throwing a number there. 5,000 Asher Yatzar cards, or if you want 10,000 Asher Yatzar cards, if you want a million Asher Yatzar cards, everything pretty much. Whatever is necessary for anyone that wants to give out, actually give them out.

3:37in their communities. The Asher Yatzar cards have both Sephardi and Ashkenazi nusach in both English and Hebrew. They're made from plastic, so they're well-made, they're beautiful, and lots of people like them. But because right now there is, we'll talk a little bit about it tonight, there's really not that much time left. I have no idea how much time is left, but as far as, from what I see, Kadosh Baruch Hu is starting to close the shop, and it's going to get a lot more difficult than the difficulty it's already been, so we're going to need a lot of extra strength to overcome a lot of different things. So, anyone that lives in a Jewish community with people that are actually going to use these cards, put them on the wall as I said in the lectures in New York. This, you know, to read the Asher Yatzar versus to do it from memory are worlds apart.

4:43So it's part of the reason why we made them and why we made them so nice. So for anyone who wants to give them out in their community, please contact us. You can send me an email. If you would like to donate for this cause, please do, because they obviously do cost money. If you don't have money or you don't want to donate, that's not a problem either. You're still doing me a very big favor, a very big chesed to give them out, because it's going to be in the merit of the Rabbanit. for how to have refuah Hashem. Don't start asking me what's wrong and all of that stuff. If I wanted to tell you, I would tell you. But the point is that for anyone that wants to give these Asher Yatzar cards in their community, uh... you know, each synagogue can give them twenty, twenty-five, thirty. If there are more members, you can give them more, but please don't waste them and just put the whole stock that I send you in one place and hope people take them. You know, uh... you have to put some care into it. Anyone who wants to give them out, please let me know and, uh...

5:46This, specifically in the U.S., since it'll maintain the cost, the shipping overseas is very expensive, and chaval, since there's already 6 million Jews in America, there's plenty of people here that need to do the shelichut. Now, the example that I can give you, so you understand, some of the tests that people who do real kiruv, that help neshamos, deal with—it's not a secret for anyone that's in the world of kiruv. If everything is going smoothly, you usually have to start being concerned because that means that the Satan doesn't care about you. In reality, what's happening every time a person sins is that he's creating more And that's what the Mishnah in Avot says, that a person that makes a mitzvah creates an angel that will help him do all types of good in the world. A person that commits a sin creates a demon that won't leave him alone; it will influence him to commit more sins. This is why we continuously talk about big sins like Chilul Shabbat or Zera Levatala. And that's what the Mishnah in Avot says, that a person that makes a mitzvah creates an angel that will help him do all types of good in the world. A person that commits a sin creates a demon that won't leave him alone; it will influence him to commit more sins. This is why we continuously talk about big sins like Chilul Shabbat or Zera Levatala.

7:14uh, because these are the types of sins that are very big in the eyes of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, especially one like Gilui Arayot. Because when a person sins, for example, if he eats non-kosher, he makes one sin and he makes one angel that's going to, uh in essence, influence him to do other bad things. But when a person wastes seed, or when a woman walks around immodestly, and other people look at her, she's making many, many sins. Every guy that looks at her and ends up sinning because of her, that goes into her account and continues to create more demons. Now, the Satan doesn't care whether the woman is attractive or not. So don't think that just because your friend looks like she just came out of one of these scary movies that she's allowed to walk around immodestly. doesn't care. Satan will make a 95-year-old woman attractive in the eyes of a person who's 20 years old and good-looking. Why? Because that's how he works. This means that immodesty is forbidden whether you are young, old, Jewish, non-Jewish, religious, or not religious. It doesn't make a difference. You're making a lot of problems for yourself and for other people. So when a person makes these sins...

8:32they're not only making problems for other people, but they're making problems for themselves. Now comes a person that gives them a CD, or someone that sponsors a CD, or sponsors a lecture, or gives a lecture himself, and takes this person out of the Gehinnom that they're building for themselves, and puts them on a path to go to Gan Eden. Now, The outcome is fantastic. Why? Because you just took somebody that was going one way to Gehinnom and now you changed their route and they're going one way to Gan Eden. So it's fantastic, the outcome. But the journey there is not so fantastic. It's a little difficult, to say the least. For anyone that's done teshuva or is doing teshuva, you realize that it's not easy. Anyone that's in the process of converting, the closer you get to the actual conversion date, the more mayhem you have going on in your life. I always tell this as a disclosure to anyone that asks me to help them convert. I tell them, listen, whatever you're going through right now, just so you know, it's going to get much more difficult before you convert.

9:38Why, Rabbi, I'm not that has nothing to do with me. It's just you have to understand, until now you were creating demons and employees for the Satan. Now you're gonna try to make angels for HaKadosh Baruch Hu? Satan is not gonna let that go so easily. Until now, you were sinning, you were violating Shabbat, you were wasting seed, you were walking around immodestly, you were eating non-kosher, you were cursing like a storm. You were doing all types of things that HaKadosh Baruch Hu hates, but the Satan loves. So until now, Satan was saying, "Oh, you're my best employee. You were creating employees for me. Now you want to quit. Why? You want to go to the other side? Traitor." I'm not going to let you go. This is like the mafia. Once you're in, you're in. They won't let you out. But Baruch Hashem, HaKadosh Baruch Hu lets us out if we overcome the obstacle. So the Satan is going to give a person all types of resistance. Now if you are actually doing it yourself, you have some resistance. But if you're helping other people, you're helping other people do teshuva, the Satan is going to take revenge against you in order to see whether you're worthy of all the merit that you're earning yourself.

10:43Now, some people are going to say, wait a minute, so maybe it's not worth it to do kiruv. When you understand the reward, you realize not only is it worth it, but you realize that you have to do it for yourself. But some people think that this is all a fairy tale. So, there's a story that I heard from Rabbi Ephraim, that is a famous story about Rabbi Yitzhak Rabinovitch, the rabbi from Pshischa. Rabbi Yitzhak Rabinovitch was an extraordinary Talmid Chacham, someone that understood what was going on in Shamayim, to say the least. And he helped all types of people get closer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu in different ways. There's no one that would get rejected by this tzaddik. But there was one guy that was a special type of Rasha. Now, most Reshaim, they're not usually Reshaim on purpose.

11:48Most Reshaim are just clueless. They're ignorant people. They have never read the entire Chumash with commentary. Maybe they read a few things on the internet here and there. Maybe they got a few snippets of some Parashah, especially the stuff that's vague and hard to understand. Maybe they heard some lectures from some Christians. Maybe they heard some lectures from some people who don't know what they're talking about. So they get a lot of mishmash in their head, and they're confused. So, in essence, the Satan is steering their way. The Satan is their rabbi. So, most people are ignorant, and that's why they go against Hashem. Because anyone that believes in Hashem and understands how much they need Hashem is not going to go against Hashem. But needless to say, many people do because they're ignorant about it. But once in a while, a special type of Rasha comes along. What is this special type of Rasha? This special type of Rasha is like Menashe. Menashe, before he did Teshuva, was a special type of Rasha unlike any other. Thank you. Unlike any other. Why? Menashe believed in HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Menashe knew about HaKadosh Baruch Hu. He wasn't confused.

13:08one of the greatest in the history of mankind. The entire generation knew the Torah so much so that six-year-olds—there was no six-year-old that didn't know the entire Oral Torah by heart. Find me one guy that knows the Oral Torah by heart. They knew the most difficult things that most people today don't even study. Needless to say, no. Purity and impurity, very complicated, sophisticated, high-level stuff. I have a friend in Yerushalayim, a tzaddik. He studies the Yerushalmi, and his focus is on Tumah and Taharah, very, very high-level learning. Once in a while, he sends me an email with his chiddushim, very high-level stuff. Now... Chizkiyahu HaMelech was Kodesh Kodashim, so much so that the Gemara says that HaKadosh Baruch Hu was considering making him Mashiach. You can't just make anybody Mashiach. Nowadays, every day, someone else thinks they're Mashiach. Today, there are all types of people who think they're Mashiach, and they always send me messages. For some reason, they find me, like I'm the FBI for Mashiach.

14:26You know, I'm the security guard. Every day there's somebody new claiming to be Mashiach. Sometimes it's women, sometimes it's men, sometimes they're Jews, sometimes they're not Jews. Everybody thinks every day there's a new Mashiach. There's one Hindu guy, Hindu, he's not even Jewish, doesn't know anything, but he claims he's Mashiach. He calls himself Mashiach. It's the funniest thing in the world if you have time to waste in the bathroom. It's just ludicrous what people say about themselves. It all comes from arrogance. That's really where it comes from. People think that they're Mashiach because they're arrogant, which is the exact opposite of what Mashiach would be. Or some idiot that lives in Israel, a woman. I honestly don't even think she's Jewish, but nonetheless, she thinks she's Mashiach. But not only does she think she's Mashiach; she thinks she's Yoshke too. She's Yoshke and she's Mashiach. She wants to be everything for everyone. All types of crazy people. I have one guy sending me 40 to 45 emails per day, telling me he's Mashiach. He calls himself Allah. Allah is the name for God, by the way, in Arabic. But that's a different story. All types of crazy people in the world. All types of crazy people. Lots and lots of them. If craziness was a stock, I'd invest in it. Goes up every day, even when the market crashes. So, Chizkiyahu was really mamash, somebody that was ra'uy to be Mashiach.

15:47was the descendant of David HaMelech, was Kodesh Kodashim, something amazing. But his son, Menashe, before he did Teshuva, Rasha Merusha. There's no sin he didn't commit. Even if you, right now, think of yourself as the worst, I'm a sinner, I'm the worst, I'm this, you're not as bad as Menashe. No matter what you do, you're not as bad as Menashe. There's no way that you can be as bad as Menashe. No way. That's the worst person on earth at one point. I don't care what you're doing. And I understand you guys—people send me emails at five o'clock in the morning. No consideration for time, especially when they call me at four o'clock in the morning, 15 times in a row, expecting me to answer. "Oh, I see you're online. I have a problem. I'm addicted to that." Oh, it's my problem now, at four o'clock in the morning. Don't call me. Please, do me a favor. Don't call me. If you want something, send a text message. If I have the time, I'll respond. But anyway, if you're Mashiach, don't call. If you're Mashiach, call. Anyway, that was a joke. If anyone doesn't know this.

16:55Anyway, Rabotai Yekarim, people have all types of addictions, all types of crazy things in their head, and they think they're Mashiach, but HaKadosh Baruch Hu says He's the one who's going to pick Mashiach. He almost picked Chizkiyahu to be Mashiach, but Chizkiyahu's son, opposite of Mashiach, Rasha. How come he was such a Rasha? He knew everything, he knew everything, and he dafka went against it just to make God angry. That's a special type of Rasha. There's a rasha that's ignorant, and Baruch Hashem, there are unfortunately many of them. Many ignorant people today. Many people live their whole lives not even realizing what Shabbat is, not even realizing what this and what that is. I have some people that come to me, they don't even know what kashrut is, and they've been Jewish their whole lives. So, people don't know. People are ignorant. They invested a lot of time into learning how to be lawyers, doctors, and CEOs of companies, but not so much about the neshamah. It's not necessarily a sin to be ignorant; it's a sin to stay ignorant. Being ignorant, you live a certain life, and there's nothing you can do about it up till now. But now that you know, you have to start investing in your neshamah. You have to start learning. What are you going to do with the rest of your life? And I'm not talking about the rest of your life here; I'm talking about the rest of your life after this life.

18:13So now, Rabotai HaYekarim, it's very, very critical that a person understands that life does not end here. Life does not end here. Life here is simply a stop. It's like a bus stop. You stop, the bus drops you off, and the bus continues. After a little while, that same bus is going to come pick you up again. Why? It continues, it continues, it never ends. Life never ends. It never ends. This is just a stop. A person that invests only into this life is like a person who gets off the bus and invests all of his assets to beautify the bus stop. By the time he finishes, the bus comes and takes him away to somewhere else. It's a complete waste of time. What should you invest in? You should invest in the bus. Invest in something that will be with you forever. That neshama is going to be with you forever. You have to invest in that. Because after a person finishes his life, his neshamah continues living an eternal life. And there are two options. There's a good option, there's a bad option. There's Gan Eden, there's Gehinom. And I promise you, not everybody goes to Gan Eden. In fact, a very small minority go to Gan Eden.

19:31A very small minority. It says, it says, there's a size. How big is Gan Eden? It says Gan Eden is 60 times the size of Earth. But then there's another Eden that's 60 times the size of Gan Eden. This is how big Gehinom is. So Gehinom has no size, has no size. So big, there's no size. Why do a lot more people go over there? Why? They invested into the bus stop. To invest it into the bus stop instead of in the neshama. A person needs to know, HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave you rules, and you have to follow them. But sometimes people don't do it because they're ignorant. Once in a while, there's a special type of wicked person that knows and does dafka against it, goes against it just to make Hashem angry. Baruch Hashem, throughout history, there haven't been that many people like that. But there was one such person at the time of Rabbi Yitzchak Rabinovitch. And this person would make every single sin, not because he wanted to make the sin, but just because he wanted to make God angry. He would eat pork, not because he wanted to eat pork, but because he knew it's not allowed. He would commit immoral acts, go to all types of clubs, gamble, steal, violate Shabbat—everything—not because he really wanted to commit the sins, but because he knew it says in the Torah not to do it, so he had to go against it.

20:59It's like these people in a gay pride parade. But some of them call themselves Orthodox Jews. You know, there's a whole Kehilla here in Israel. They call themselves Orthodox Jews, but they're proudly gay. It's one of the dumbest things in the world. Or the Women of the Wall. The Women of the Wall. These Reform women go to the Kotel to put on tefillin with tank tops. Because they know it's not a mitzvah for women, number one. Number two, you know they're not supposed to be martyrs. Number three, what are you doing at the Kotel? You want to do whatever you do, go do it somewhere else. But they want to dafka. They steal Sifrei Torah from the religious people just so they can make a mitzvah. But anyway, sometimes people do things dafka. Not many, but they exist. So this person, this wicked person, came to Rabbi Yitzchak Rabinovich one time. Apparently, he had some type of spark of kedusha in him for that moment. And he came with a grin to Rabbi Yitzchak and he says, "Hey Rabbi, what about me? You think someone like me can do teshuva?" So Rabbi Yitzchak says to him, "Surely you can do teshuva, but I can't help you right now. Please leave. I can't look at you."

22:27can't look at you. Please leave. The tumah that's coming from you, I can't handle it. Please leave now. This is someone's ba'al kodesh. This is a person that's a holy person. He doesn't tell anybody to leave. This is the one person he tells, "You have to leave." He says, "But Rabbi, can I do teshuva?" He responds, "Yes, you can do teshuva, but you have to leave." "So how am I going to do teshuva?" "I cannot guide you. All I can tell you is one thing..." One thing you can do, what? Go do teshuva in whatever way you know how to. Whatever you know, do it. Live like that for a year. Don't make a single sin. If you can do that, then come back to me a year later. So this Rasha turns around. And goes on his way, takes what the rabbi says to his heart, and lives a full year without sinning. A full year. Everything he knew, he did. Everything he knew not to do, he didn't do. Meaning, he knew he was not allowed to light fire on Shabbat, so he didn't light fire on Shabbat. He knew he was not allowed to go to these clubs, go to mixed dancing parties, gamble, steal, all that. He knew he couldn't do it, so he didn't do it. And whatever he knew to do, light candles on Shabbat, eat kosher, that minimal stuff, he did it.

23:47for a year straight. After a year, he comes back to the rabbi. As soon as he comes in, the rabbi stands up, impressed by this person So the rabbi stands up, makes music for him too, and he says to the guy, "Who is the holy rabbi in front of me?" Who are you? Who are you, holy rabbi? Did you come to visit me? The guy looks at the rabbi and goes, "No, Rabbi, it's me." He goes, "Who are you, holy rabbi? Who are you? I see the Shekhinah. I see the Shekhinah all over you. Who are you, holy rabbi?"

25:01The guy starts crying hysterically. "You see the Shekhinah in me." He starts crying, crying like a little baby. He goes, "Rebbe, it's me, it's me. I'm the guy from a year ago that made every sin under the sun. I told you that I ate pork just to go against Hashem. And I violated Shabbat just to go against Hashem. And I stole from everyone who gave me money just to go against Hashem. Not because I needed the money, just because I wanted to go against Hashem. I'm the guy that you told to run away, to go away from you." But the Rebbe starts crying. He starts crying. You see the Ruach HaKodesh, you see the Shekhinah on me. He says, yes, Shekhinah is on you. And now I understand. why I had to tell you to leave and what's been happening to me over the last year, he tells him. He says, since I told you to leave, I didn't know why I had to have you leave. I couldn't handle you being next to me. And there was only one thing I could tell you, which is what I told you: to do teshuva your way, just go.

26:01But the second you left, the second you left my house, all types of klalot, all types of machalot, all types of curses and diseases came on my house. The kids are sick, the wife is sick, everybody's sick, all types of crises, all types of things have been happening straight for a year. Now I understand why. Because that was the only solution to fix your neshama and subdue the Satan. But now that Satan has been subdued, now that we beat him, all of these diseases, all of these curses will go away because we won the battle. When you're fighting the battle, Satan is going to give you resistance. That's his job. Don't be mad at the Satan. That's his job. You're doing your job. He's doing his job. Once you win the battle, don't worry. The Satan goes somewhere else. So anyone that's in the business of doing kiruv, whether it's independently or doing it publicly, whatever it is, expect some type of resistance if you're actually being effective. If you don't see any type of resistance, that most likely means that you're not doing anything for the Satan to care about.

27:14Man has freedom and doesn't have any resistance at all. In fact, he gets help from the Satan. Why? Because he recruits more talmidim for him. And people like him. I'm serious. People that help the Satan create more sinners, they get help from the Satan. So that means that sometimes you're going to see certain things that are unusual. But the Satan works in ways that he likes to confuse people. He wants to make people regret that they're doing Kiruv. He wants people to think, "Oh, maybe I shouldn't do it." Because you're thinking now, "Wait a minute, if I'm going to start helping people do Teshuva, the Satan's going to come attack me even more than what he's already doing right now. Who needs this? Let me just take care of myself. Let somebody else do the job." Right? That's the mentality of the Satan though. That's what the Satan wants you to think. He wants you to think, "Don't do Kiruv. Why? You're going to have all types of problems." But he doesn't want you to realize that the amount of reward that you get, the amount of benefits that you get in this life and the next, is something out of this world. With the children, with everything that you do. Despite all the difficulties. But that doesn't mean that it's not difficult. Doesn't mean that it's not difficult. So,

28:25Now we have a situation where it seems like HaKadosh Baruch Hu is closing the store. And by that, I mean we've already known that we're in the end of days for some time. But as you get closer and closer to the end, A lot of things that we took for granted, or perhaps things that were going well, start going in the opposite direction. You know, as I mentioned to you guys a few times over the last couple of months, especially in the last month, a year ago, the world was in relatively good shape. People were doing great financially. The market was at all-time highs. The economy was doing fantastic worldwide. The Jewish people have been at a state where they're the richest they've ever been since the time of Shlomo HaMelech. ...uh, the average Jew is complaining not because he doesn't have money. The average Jew is complaining because he feels like he should have even more. You know, "I only made $150,000 last year, only, only, only $150,000 last year." He doesn't realize that five years ago, he was barely breaking $40,000. Now he's making $150,000, and he's complaining, "Rabbi, it's barely $10,000 a month, you know, $12,000 a month. Rabbis, who could live on such a thing? I don't know, 90% of the world...

29:55But the point is, rabotai, that people got comfortable. A lot of people made money in the stock market, in the real estate market, in all types of shtuyot, like Bitcoins, and all types of cryptocurrency, making money off of Amazon, selling stuff on eBay. People have made money from all types of things over the last several years. There's good news and bad news. Good news is, all that is about to end. Bad news is, all that's about to end. Why is that good news and bad news? The bad news is, obviously, people are going to have to readjust their lives. The good news is, this means that we're a little bit closer to Mashiach. Now, being a little closer to Mashiach is also bad news for some people if you're not ready, if you're not getting ready, if you haven't even started getting ready, and if you don't even think about getting ready. Because you want to be like Menashe. Wait until the last minute. It's not a good idea. Now, last week we had Parashat Terumah. Parashat Terumah told us that a person who has a desire should donate money for the sake of Torah, for the sake of HaKadosh Baruch Hu. As it says,

31:18if this person has a heart that motivates him, you shall take my portion from him. Instead of saying "get my portion," it says, "take from him." What does it mean to take? It teaches that anyone who gives tzedakah for the sake of Torah, for the sake of Am Yisrael, in essence, he is taking, he's not giving. Why? Because he's taking merits. You gave money; in return, you're getting merits instead. It's giving your money bracha, it's giving your marriage bracha; you're getting a lot more than what you're giving. Because the money, Hashem is going to give it to the person anyway. But a lot of people have a hard time giving, especially when it requires them to sell at the top. to sell when things are going well. So what is HaKadosh Baruch Hu? In a matter of a few days, everything changed. First, you had the coronavirus. It was announced a year and a half ago by a team of scientists. Everyone ignored them. Everything we know about coronavirus today was already discovered a year and a half ago.

32:29A team of scientists from Wuhan, the same place where the original virus is believed to have come from, had already said it's going to come. There's bats-related and so on and so forth. Everything we know about it was ignored. Ignored to the point where it was too late. By the time it was realized, people started dying in the streets. And... No one understood what kind of impact it was going to have for a little while longer. Last week, people started realizing what kind of impact it was going to have. Now, the market, I haven't followed in many years, Baruch Hashem, even though I spent almost 20 years in the business, I made a rule for myself not to look at it unless I absolutely have to for reasons like this. So I haven't looked at it. Sometimes people tell me what's going on because they, you know, want to tell me what's happening in the world. But generally speaking, I don't look at the market stocks or anything like that. I don't have any money anyway, so there's no reason for me to look at it. But also, I just don't want to get that Yetzer Hara in my head. But last week, after a bunch of people started blowing up my phone about "the market's down, the market's down, the market's down," I realized that Hashem wants me to see what's going on. So after the week was over...

33:52I looked at a few things that I look at. I don't look at what most people look at. I look at things that actually mean something. You know, most people look at their own personal stock portfolio, like it matters. I look at things that actually matter for other people, but they don't realize that it exists. So I noticed that the market dropped over 11% in a matter of one week. This is the worst thing that's happened in the last decade. But, needless to say, it's one of the worst things that's happened in history. The last time something like this happened was in the 1980s when the market corrected itself and crashed by over 20% in one day. This is not normal. The market has gone down. Every seven to ten years, the market has had a downshift, but not something so quickly. When it goes down so quickly, that shows that the whole foundation is unstable. There's something wrong. It's not supposed to do this. It's supposed to go down, no problem. Go up, go down, that's what markets do. When the market collapses,

34:54In a matter of one week, that means there's more to come. What happened last week is just the beginning. Even if it shows a slight rebound, the show is over. The show is over. You don't have to believe me. I'm not in the business, and I'm not getting paid for this either. But I'm telling you from my experience of almost 20 years, the show is over for the market. Now, Most people don't realize it's over. Why? Because their broker, their advisor, their friends, and their cab drivers, and everybody else is telling them, "No, no, it's going to rebound next week. No, no, it's going to rebound once they find a cure. No, no, they're going to find, no, it's going to rebound, you're going to miss out. You're going to miss out when it rebounds." And then let's say it starts rebounding, like it shows you a little rebound next week. It goes up 5%, 4%. You think, "Ah, see, I knew it." You're going to start putting some more money into it, and then it's going to collapse completely. Now, I don't know when the collapse is going to happen. I'm not giving you a timing. I'm just telling you the show is over. But it's going to be over in such a way that people are going to curse the day they were born. And I'll tell you exactly why. The Gemara says in Masechet Sanhedrin, before Mashiach comes, everyone's going to lose money. Everyone's going to be put in the same place. You're not going to have money as your excuse anymore. The Gemara in Masechet Sanhedrin says there are going to be certain things that are going to happen before Mashiach comes.

36:13The entire kingdom will convert to heresy. You're gonna have a government full of heretics. Right now, there is an election all over, especially in Israel right now, but there's also an election all over the Jewish world. The World Zionist Organization has an election also. In the last election they had five years ago, the vast majority of electees that got control of $1.1 billion of Jewish money were Reform heretics. There's a new election being held right now, and if the Orthodox world doesn't do some type of electing, or really, if HaKadosh Baruch Hu, pretty much, if HaKadosh Baruch Hu decides to give the heretics full control, it's going to get much worse than what happened in the last five years. Because in the last five years, you see that the Reform... started leaving their attention and focus that was in America and focusing on Israel. A lot more Reformers showed up in Israel over the last five years. When I was a kid in Israel, there was no Reform in Israel.

37:18We were only introduced to Reform in America. We didn't even know what it was. The first time we went to a synagogue in America, my mom told me this, she went to a synagogue, she saw there was a woman rabbi, and they were playing the piano on Shabbat. She goes, we weren't exactly religious, but we knew this was wrong. She just took me, and we left. A woman rabbi playing piano on Shabbat. It was very weird. We didn't know what it was. Then we found out, oh, Reform. What's Reform? New religion? He goes, kind of. Now, over the last five years, this has become common ground in Israel. In the government, outside of the government, unfortunately, the Women of the Wall and the like have been doing a lot of damage in Israel. Even some parts of so-called Orthodoxy have reformed themselves. Many of them have partnered with the Christians. If you notice, there are many major Jewish organizations, AIPAC, Jewish Federation, and the like that have a lot of business dealings. ...with the Christian world. In fact, they protect them more than they protect their own Jews. For example, if you see somebody speaking against Christianity, they don't get any funding or any invitation from those organizations. "Why? You're hurting our friends, the Christians." Yeah, but your Christians are hurting your brothers by converting them. "No, no, they're not. They're not doing it. It's somebody else." What do you mean? It's Christians!

38:38So, you're seeing that there are a lot more Christians in Jewish schools as teachers, as all types of things. Very, very strange behavior for Jewish people that have been tortured by Christians for 2,000 years. Now, we've become lethargic and completely unaware of the danger from the Christian world. But that's partly because of the influence of the Reform. Because the Reform have no religion whatsoever. They just want to do davka, anything against Hashem. The election right now is pretty much going to decide if they're going to continue or even do worse than what they've done in the last five years. But further than that, you have an election going on in Eretz Yisrael right now. One side is Bibi Netanyahu, who is not exactly a tzaddik, to say the least. He's like a faker. He's a politician. He's a politician. I'll tell you whatever you like. That's what he says. What do you like? I'll say it. Why? As soon as he gets the vote, he'll say whatever somebody else likes. He has the Talmud behind him, but he never read it in his life. He has a shiur Torah every week, but he doesn't even keep Shabbat. Why? Because, you know, a shiur Torah – the religious people are going to like it. So he's like a faker. Now, I would tell you, don't vote for him. The problem is, the other side is much worse.

39:53The other side is much, much worse. What are they? I saw a video a few days ago. I don't know whether to cry, laugh, or lose my mind. The guy that's running on the other side, this guy Avigdor, he is repeating; he has two campaigns, one in Hebrew and one in Russian. Now, most Israelis don't speak Russian. There are about a million Russians in Israel, but that's out of 8 million. So most don't speak Russian and don't care to speak Russian. But he's catering to his people. Why? The campaign he has in Russian is worlds apart from the campaign he has in Hebrew. In Hebrew, he's against Bibi for this and that, typical politician nonsense. But in Russian, Rabotai, he is repeating lines as if he's reading from the book Mein Kampf.

40:57Mein Kampf from Hitler. He's saying we should have had pogroms to destroy the religious Jews years ago. The minute that we get elected, we're gonna kill all of these people, destroy all of them, and kick them out of the country. He's repeating lines from Mein Kampf, and so are all of his followers. Anti-Semitism by Jews, if they're Jews, even these people. the amount of anti-Semitism in Israel right now is challenging what was happening in Germany 70 plus years ago, all spearheaded by this clown, and this guy may be the next Prime Minister now, so you have that election. You have coronavirus. There's no cure, by the way. And there's not going to be a cure. There may be a vaccine, but there's not going to be a cure. Now, what can be is a miracle, which is what I believe is going to eventually happen. But that doesn't mean there's not going to be damage. The damage will be done. There's no doubt in my mind. How big it's going to be, I have no idea. But now we're going to get to the next idea. Now, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says to the sages, the son of David, the Mashiach,

42:18will not come until the entire kingdom converts to heresy. All of the leaders are going to be heretics, meaning people like Avigdor over here, and the Women of the Wall, and the New York Times, and CNN, and all of these reshaim, they're going to be in control before Mashiach comes. Meaning, what's happening right now, if it doesn't work out so well, meaning if the good side doesn't win, or the lesser bad doesn't win, don't be surprised. This means we're closer to Mashiach. Then he continues, and he says, the son of David will not come until the students of Torah have become few. The number of people learning Torah in the Beit Midrash is going to go down drastically. There are new laws all over the world that the world hasn't seen in almost a century. New York, California, biggest places where there are Jews, are trying to pass laws to pretty much shut down yeshivot, in so many words.

43:31Because they're trying to force them to increase secular education, especially in New York, to a higher level than what they have in secular schools, in public schools. They want you to learn seven to eight hours a day of secular studies, which pretty much means you have no time to learn Torah. And any school that is relying on government funding, which is pretty much everyone except the Satmars, because they're the smartest out of all of us, they're the actual ones that actually realize government money is not money that you want. And they're self-funded, but everybody else is relying on government funding. Their whole institution is relying on government funding, which means that they either have to shut down the school or comply with the government and pretty much destroy the yeshiva, start teaching kids all types of secular studies all day if this law passes. In California, they're trying to add curriculum to schools, public schools, which is anti-Semitic. Different parts of the country are starting to have programs for little kids, including for Jewish schools, to be taught about sexual education from transvestites. There's a video that came online just a few days ago. I was contemplating publicizing it, but then people would think it's a woman first, so they'd start screaming at me that I'm showing things that are immodest, but it's really a guy. which is anti-Semitic. Different parts of the country are starting to have programs for little kids, including for Jewish schools, to be taught about sexual education from transvestites. There's a video that came online just a few days ago. I was contemplating publicizing it, but then people would think it's a woman first, so they'd start screaming at me that I'm showing things that are immodest, but it's really a guy.

44:58There's a new way of teaching, a new wave of teaching in schools today. Five-year-olds, three-year-olds, two-year-olds are being taught by a drag queen, with his uniform on. You know, the whole thing is pretty much immodest. And then the kids dress up like drag queens. And then they ask the kids, "Who wants to be a drag queen?" And the kids start raising their hands. Little three-year-olds, four-year-olds want to be drag queens. They don't know what it is. England in the UK, this law has already been passed. The rabbis are trying to fight it over there, but they're passing a rule that they have to start teaching kids about homosexuality being a good thing. Why? Because the head rabbi, Mirvis, wrote a book about how homosexuality should be tolerated by Jews. If the head rabbi says it’s okay, why wouldn’t the goyim say it’s okay? So you see, rabotai, that already the future generation doesn’t look so good and... Worse yet, this guy Avigdor and his partner Benny Gantz are Satan and Satan's wife. They are saying outright that if they get elected, their first target is to destroy all of the kollelim, all of the batei midrash. They're outright saying it. It's not like, "Oh, if they come in, we're going to lower funding." No, they're saying enemy number one is Judaism.

46:29Now, if you think you're safe in America, you're dreaming. There's no safety anywhere, other than HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Now, the next nevuah says in the Gemara Masechet Sanhedrin 97a, the Messiah is not going to come until everyone is broke. You're gonna say, "How could everyone be broke?" I'm gonna give you a little bit of an illustration of how it could happen. I have no idea how it will happen; I could tell you how it could happen. The reason why I do this is because we learn from our sages. People sometimes need to see things in order to believe them. That's why at Mount Sinai, HaKadosh Baruch Hu made sure everyone knew it was Him talking, and... It wasn't like they didn't know. When there's a voice coming out of the sky and you die from it, that's a good sign it's God talking, right? If a voice came out, you died from it, and then you came back to life, it's a good sign it's God, right? But it still says in the Torah that everyone saw the voice, meaning they saw His words. Why did they have to see it if they already knew it was Him?

47:49because sometimes we need to see in order to believe. So I'm going to give you an illustration of how it could all happen from 20 years of experience in the market. Now, over the last 11 years, 12 years, the market has gone up straight up. Very little resistance. That's already not exactly a good sign. But you could say, why? It was a good economy too. Even good economies don't go up for that long. But needless to say, one of the things that you saw in the last week is that the foundation under this incline is very unstable. How do we see it? When it drops by over 10% in such a short period of time, it shows that it's all dependent on the future. Meaning nothing is dependent on the present. The incline in the market is not dependent on what happened, but rather dependent on the future anticipation of good things. now that the future has changed and the rug has been pulled out from under us because of this coronavirus and everything that comes with it, now you see, okay, so the future is not so bright. Now, what this means is that even if the coronavirus, let's say they find a vaccine, there's a team of Israelis that say they found a vaccine, let's say it works.

49:07That's still not going to fix things. And the reason why is because it's already been too long where the market in China has been shut down. That means that a quarter of their economy is simply gone. Now, China is the biggest economy in the world. They surpassed America a few years ago. When a quarter of your economy, which affects the entire world, especially America, is simply just gone, it has a massive wave, a tsunami. that affects and impacts everyone. We have a quarter million CDs waiting in China right now for something to happen. They can't be shipped right now. Why? Because of Corona. Nothing comes in, nothing comes out. And even the stuff that comes out, it's on a long, long waiting list. You need a miracle. The borders are closed everywhere. You can't travel in, you can't travel out. El Al, the Israeli airline, announced last week that if they don't get $200 million from the Israeli government in the next two weeks, they're going bankrupt. Now, if an airline in America said, "I want to go bankrupt," America would say, "Go bankrupt. What do we care? We have a bunch of other ones that will replace you." You don't have that in Israel.

50:21Now, that probably means they're gonna get the money from the government. There's a problem, though. There's no government. Bibi Netanyahu can't write them a check for $200 million. No one can write them a check for $200 million right now. Why? There's no government. So, you have a lot of problems right now. Similar things are happening all over the world. There is a potential revolution happening between the Muslims and Hindus in India. There's a potential revolution happening in Africa. There's lots of things happening in Europe. There's lots of things happening in America, as you realize from the elections coming up. But right now, this economic issue is the worst thing that could hit at this time. And the reason why is because a quarter of the economy is simply gone. So that means that even if they find a cure tomorrow, you still have this tsunami already started, which means it's gonna impact the rest of the year whether you like it or not. There's gonna be three, four months missing. that everyone depended on based on all of their projections for this year. They're now gone. You can't get them back. It's like spilled water. You can't gather it back, put it back in the cup. It's gone. So whatever projections companies had for earnings, for hiring, firing, growth, and so on that they had projected for this year, everyone has to recalculate their numbers.

51:42That's what the market was trying to price last week. That's why it went down so much. The problem is, they're not going to find a cure tomorrow. And even if they found a cure, it's going to take months to produce it on a massive scale, which means that you're talking about months of time, even if they found a cure. But the market hasn't priced all of this in yet. And when it does, anyone that has a penny in the market will be affected. The reason is this. the market is very different today than it was in 1998, before the crash of the dot-coms. The market is even different than it was when I left it, even though it's only six or seven years ago. What changed? The amount of leverage has increased an extraordinary amount, meaning the amount of money that people borrow against their own money has increased to historic highs. That's the first thing that I checked last week. There's something called margin, which means you have money invested in an account, but you want to buy more than the money that you have. You have, let's say, a million dollars worth of money in there, but you want to buy $2 million worth of stock. So that means you have 1 million of your money and you have $2 million worth of stocks. You have a million dollars worth of borrowed money. Now, margin is a normal thing to do, but the problem is if people overuse it.

53:07If the market goes up, everything looks good. Your portfolio increases more than it would normally. If you increase 10% with $1 million, you increase your account by $100,000. If you increase 10% with $2 million worth of stock, that means your account increased by $200,000, which is really 20% because you don't really have $2 million. The problem is that if it goes down that way, it goes down much faster. So when you went down with a million dollars, 10%, and it was only a million dollars, you lost $100,000. But if you lost 10% on $2 million, that's $200,000 off the million. Now you lost 20% of your account. Now here's the problem, Rabotai. Right now, The margin rates that we have in the market are at all-time highs. Historic highs are almost at $4 trillion, which is double what it was before the dot-com crisis and almost double what it was before the 2008 crisis. Meaning the 2008 crisis, where the markets dropped 70%, is a puppy next to the market we have right now.

54:14Now, what does that mean? That means that if things start going down fast, people are going to get margin calls faster because the accounts will go down faster. And what happens when you get a margin call? If you don't come up with money, you have to sell right away. No, like, "Oh, sell in two weeks, we'll see what happens." You have to sell instantly. You have 24 hours. In some cases, they don't even give you that much, depending on how fast the market goes down and how much risk the bank is taking, and how much risk the bank is willing to take on your account. That means that once you get margin calls because the market dropped 15-20%, you have to sell. What does selling do? It makes the market drop even more. Now, worse yet, there's something called ETFs. ETFs are exchange-traded funds. These are vehicles that people have invested their money into in order to not watch individual stocks. Well, you could just buy an index of people, a list of stocks without caring what each and every one of them is doing. So that's what most people have put their money into, trillions and trillions of dollars over the last 10 years or so, 15 years or so, replacing mutual funds that were very popular in the 1990s. Why? Because these ETFs are much more liquid. You can buy and sell them intraday. What's the problem? The problem is the ETFs don't care who you are.

55:34If the market goes down, their algorithm forces them to sell immediately, which means the whole market capitulates, making it sell even faster, go down even faster. ETFs have never been bigger than they are right now. Worse yet, many people are going to find out something I wrote about 12 years ago to be true, but it's going to be too late for them. What is it? It's a regulatory loophole, a regulatory loophole that allows people to run Ponzi schemes with the ease of a button. And they're going to find out that probably no less than 25 to 30% of the money being managed today is already stolen before the market crashes. You just don't realize it because the market's going up and people keep sending money. So the Ponzi scheme keeps getting fed. One of these Ponzi schemes is usually exposed either because the guy is stupid and made a mistake, so someone caught onto it, and there are new ones being exposed every day, or on a massive scale when people want their money back. When do they want their money back? When the market drops.

56:39What is this loophole? This loophole is something that, in essence, the industry designed for itself, which is called fee-based advisors. which allows people, a certain section of the industry, to manage your money by having access to the money by themselves writing the check. Meaning, when you have an account with, let's say, a JP Morgan or one of those Bank of America type of firms, big firms, when you write a check for your brokerage account, you're writing it to Bank of America, you're writing it to JP Morgan, you're writing it to this big firm, Wells Fargo, or whichever is still around these days. don't follow exactly who's still alive. But nonetheless, these big firms, okay, you're writing it to the firm. That means the guy, your broker, doesn't have access to the money. He can't put this, unless he's really, really creative. He can't take this money and put it in his bank account. Why? Because it says Chase on it. So yes, deposit in your account, but with these fee-based advisors, hedge funds...

57:44Hedge funds, fee-based advisors, you're not writing it to Wachovia. Who are you writing it to? To the fund. The fund deposited, the fee-based advisor deposited into the fund account, and that fund account deposited into a JPMorgan Chase or a Wells Fargo and so on. So far, so good, right? What's the problem with my calculation here? Why is one exposed to Ponzi schemes and one not? Because the fund is a bank account that's controlled by him. It's like you have a company account. Our dear friend will be, you have a company account? If I want you to write me a check for $100 from your company account, can you do it right now? Do you need to get permission from anybody? You don't, right? What if it's $1,000? Can you still write it? No permission from anybody, right? Because it's a company account. Company account, it's really you though. You're the boss. Double tie. The hedge fund has a guy that's a boss. The money manager that you thought is secure because he's fiduciary, they call it in the industry—nonsense. It's his account. He can write a check to himself. He could spend the money on himself. And guess what? You know where the statements come from? From him too. He writes the statements. He can change the statements. He can have the statements say whatever they want. Oh, we bought this, we sold this, we bought this, we sold this. It's all fake. That's how Ponzi schemes are exposed. I wrote about this 12 years ago when the whole thing with Bernie Madoff came out.

59:08and told people, this is what he did, this is how he stole $60 billion, and this is how the next guy's gonna steal $60 billion, because the hole's still there. Twelve years later, no one's done anything about it. In my estimate, and again, I'm sometimes pessimistic, sometimes optimistic, I think easily 30% of the money invested in the world right now by these people is already stolen before the market went down. Meaning you don't have access to it anyway. It's gone. Bye-bye. You said Kaddish. On the check, you said payable to so-and-so advisor. Kaddish. The whole thing. On the money. It's gone already. Once tomorrow, you're going to say, "Wait a minute, I want to call the guy, get the money tomorrow." Yes, if you call before everybody else, maybe you'll get the money back. The problem is, if everybody else starts calling, what does the fund do? Nobody's allowed to get the money out. Why? Because he knows that the whole world is going to go over. He's going to bury himself if he gives everybody the money back. He's going to bury himself. He's going to use a disclosure in the fund that you never read that once there's 25% withdrawals, or 15%, or 10%, or market decreases, all types of different loopholes that you have in the business, I don't have to give anybody their money back until I think it's the right time.

1:00:20So now you have a combination of an economic crisis that is going to affect the market one way or the other. There's nothing you can do about it. You can't take this wave back. Once the tsunami started, something has to get hit. It may not be as bad as it could have been, but it's definitely going to be a hit for sure. That means that all of the estimates of all of the companies in the world have to change, especially the big ones, which are the ones that the market relies on. On top of that, you have a situation where these ETFs are going to magnify the effect. Two, three, you have margin rates. People have borrowed an enormous amount of money that they don't have. And to get the money is going to take them time, even if they want to pay for it. They have to sell stuff. They have to sell real estate. Go ask a real estate broker, "Can I sell something?" Yeah, yeah, you can sell. Good luck with that. Good luck with that. Why? Once the market starts going down, no one wants to buy. And even if you want to buy, you have to sell it. You have to wait for the bank, and the bank is not going to issue money, and so on and so forth. All of this happened in 2008. I believe it's going to be worse this time. I just don't know when it's going to happen. So, don't quote me or sell tomorrow because Yaron Uvin said it. Don't sell anything because of me. I'm just telling you what's going to happen eventually.

1:01:32Now, they're gonna say, okay, so maybe we should put everything in gold, or maybe we should put everything in Bitcoin. But that says everything is gonna go to nothing. How? There are many different ways. One day, someone's gonna wake up and say, listen, this whole story about gold becoming the new standard—there's an article written by Yaron Uvin, also 12 years ago, that says it's not possible. Why? There's not enough gold in the world. Even if you want to be, let's say, the US government, China, and everybody all said, okay, let's make a new gold standard. Back up all currency by gold. There's not enough gold. Oh, increase the price? You can't just increase the price to 50,000. It just doesn't work that way. It doesn't work that way. Gold is useless. It cannot be used as a currency. It's just good for trading because you assume someone else is going to pay more money for it. They said Bitcoin. Bitcoin, rabotai, and all of these cryptocurrencies are all going to go to zero. Mark my words. I said this already a while ago. I'm going to say this again: they're all going to go to zero. And the reason why is because the U.S. government’s number one asset is the U.S. dollar.

1:02:37It's more powerful than their weapons. It's more powerful than their policies. It's more powerful than their people. It's more powerful than anything they have. The U.S. dollar is the number one asset for the U.S. government. That's their number one asset. The fact that the whole world uses the U.S. dollar, that is the biggest thing that they have. That makes them the most powerful country in the world. There is no way in the world that the U.S. government is gonna let a bunch of rinky-dink computer programmers take over. It's not happening. So what are they going to do? Same thing they did in Venezuela. You know what they did in Venezuela? I'm going to tell you. A bunch of guys wanted to make money in Venezuela because the currency over there was going down 99% faster than you can think. So they did Bitcoin mining, which is sophisticated programming, and they need to find Bitcoins, whatever that means. Now... Venezuelan government, they said, "Listen, if we're going down, you're going down with us." So what did they do? They wanted to find all of the miners, all the guys dealing with Bitcoins. How could you find them? You wanted a certificate on their head saying "Bitcoin" or a T-shirt saying "Bitcoin"? What is it? No, no. We're going to check their electricity use. Whoever uses more than the standard amount of electricity, that means that they're using more power in order to mine Bitcoins. Shut off the electricity, Bitcoin goes to zero.

1:03:58Without electricity, once they find out, they took the people out, shut off their computers, put them in jail, no one says goodbye even, gone. No trial, no prayer, nothing, zero. They're all in jail still, finished. Maybe a few ran away, I have no idea, but the point is, there's no Bitcoin mining over there. Why? Government doesn't want it. These fairy tales that people tell you on YouTube and all types of TV shows, oh no, Bitcoin's the next big thing, yeah, in your dreams. he'll create another world war before that happens. So, you have the financial world in a situation where there's nothing stable. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Everyone's going to be put in the same place. What is everybody going to have left? The Torah and the Gemilut Chasadim. The only thing you're going to have left at the time of Mashiach is whatever Torah you know and practice, And whatever chesed you did, whatever money you donated for the sake of helping Am Yisrael get closer to Hashem, that's the only thing that you're going to have left. Why? Because that portfolio is not going to be there. The portfolio is not going to be there. Now you have, everyone is affected by this. Anyone that works for a company that has a 401(k) plan, where do you think the money is going to?

1:05:19You work for UPS, you work for Amazon, you work for Pepsi-Cola, you work for all these companies, you have a 401(k). They're all investing in these things that I just mentioned, ETFs and the like. And it's not necessarily going to be safe. Oh no, what if I put it in bonds? Well, you think bonds are not related? Oh, what if I just put it in cash? Well, you think cash is not going to be related? In 2008, something that no one ever thought was going to happen, happened. Banks started shutting down by the dozens. They didn't have the cash that they... They are relied on because they use a certain type of formula to allow them to lend more money than they have. Now they assume that they're going to get a certain amount of money from the Fed each day. They assume they're going to get a certain amount of money from deposits each day. But once the Fed shuts down, once the people shut down, once people run on the bank and they want all their money back in the same amount of time, guess what? The bank shuts down in 24 hours. You go to the ATM machine, it doesn't work. No money. Yeah, what do you mean? This was the biggest bank in the world. Yeah, it was the biggest bank in the world. It was. Now it's RIP. RIP services. Finished. That's how it works. That's how it works. Now, I promise you, I'm going to give you some good news. I promise you. I'm depressing you a little bit right now, scaring the hell out of you, but I promise you I'm going to give you some good news. Masechet Avodah Zarah continues in 98a.

1:06:50...that the prices of everything will be equal. Well, I just said depression. Everything—gold, bitcoin, dollars, bonds, stocks, tomatoes, potatoes—everything is going to be the same price. That's what's going to happen before Mashiach comes, whenever that is. If it's tomorrow, if it's six months from now, if it's six years from now, I have no idea, but everything will be the same price... Now, there's also going to be some other interesting things. All the fakers, all the fake rabbis that have been lying to the people by telling them that there's no judgment, everyone's righteous, it says, until all of these people cease, meaning gone from the world. All of those people that are these gay pride types of people, people that have the gay pride parades in Jerusalem, in Tel Aviv, and so on, in New York, also says those people will also be wiped out from the world. But there's going to be a lot of them beforehand. Meaning, it's going to go up very, very high, like Haman. Haman got to the highest he ever got to before HaKadosh Baruch Hu put him to nothing. Same thing with Pharaoh. Pharaoh got to the highest before Hashem

1:08:19took everything from him. So, Hashem builds, builds, builds like the market before HaKadosh Baruch Hu breaks everything. The exact opposite is how it works for Am Yisrael. So, who is going to be okay? Who is going to be okay? There is a Gemara that says, Rav says, Who is going to be protected from all of this nightmare that I'm portraying for you guys that could literally happen in a week? Who? This is written concerning those who will enjoy peace because they have an abundant love of your Torah. And they will have peace from the adversary, from all of this. Now, what does it mean to love Torah? It means you love Torah by using your time to learn it, using your effort to fulfill it, and using your money to invest in it.

1:09:31Now, a lot of people donate money, but they don't realize that they're donating money to the other side. They don't realize it. Just today, I got an email from a woman that showed me an email exchange with some wicked person that was defending Friedman, and she was donating to him. She said, "I can't believe you're debating Friedman. It's obvious the guy's going against the Torah. I'm not going to donate to you anymore." She realized that she was making a mistake donating to this guy because he's, in essence, helping the sheker (falsehood) get bigger. So, a lot of people are making these mistakes because they don't double-check where their money is going. They just donate because they think, "Oh, it says Torah; that means it's good." You know, certain organizations have Torah in their name, but they're Christians, completely idol worshippers, all types of things. So, a person needs to know: you cannot just claim ignorance. Hashem does not reward anybody for ignorance. Now, all of this, why is all of this happening? The Midrash Me'am Loez, in Parashat Bechukotai, says that HaKadosh Baruch Hu will do certain things to punish the people for committing certain sins.

1:10:58Everything I just mentioned, everything I just mentioned is just part of it. So, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says in chapter 26, verses 14 through 17, that all of this will happen if you don't listen to Me, and you don't keep all My commandments, and you denigrate My decrees, and you grow tired of My laws and don't keep all My commandments. My anger against you will be directed. So the Midrash says, what does this mean? What are these sins and what's going to happen? It says, one, if you don't listen to Me, if you don't keep My commandments, if you denigrate My decrees, if you grow tired of My laws and you don't keep them, all of My commandments, and you break My covenant. So the Midrash says, okay, what's the breakdown of each one? says, growing, if you don't listen to Me, means you don't study Torah every day. You don't study Torah every day, all bets are off. Every Jew has to study Torah every day, even if you're a woman. Men, obviously much more. Men, obviously much more. Men have to learn Mussar, and at some point, they have to start learning Gemara and Halachot.

1:12:26Women, on the other hand, have to learn halachot that are relevant to them as far as modesty, as far as Shabbat and Taharat HaMishpacha, and so on. But they also have to learn Mussar. Why? Because she is responsible for building the Jewish home. How are you going to build a Jewish home if you don't know how to behave? Mussar is the ethical teachings of Judaism. How to teach your kids, what to teach, how to have Shalom Bayit, all of this depends on the woman. Now, sometimes you have a conflict where the husband wants to be Moshe Rabbeinu, but the wife wants to be Zeresh, Haman's wife. Or vice versa, she wants to be Sarah Imenu, but he wants to be Haman. There's a difference, there's a difference in ideology. She wants to live in this world, he wants to live in the next world, or vice versa. Now, this means that you have a miscommunication in the relationship; you have to work on this. You have to start learning together, not just continue learning by yourself and growing by yourself. Why? Because if you continue growing apart, eventually it's going to be an explosion in the house, a divorce, or worse. So you have to sometimes slow down in order to pick somebody else up. But every person must learn Torah. That's the first thing that Hashem says when He says, "Don't keep My commandments." That's meant literally.

1:13:47If you denigrate my decrees, that's a person, that's a wicked person that makes other people not want to keep the Torah. Ah, why are you keeping Shabbat? No, come on, come out with the guys. No, come on, why are you so modest? No, put something sexy on. No, come on, why are you wearing that? You know, take the kippah off. You know, look like everybody else. You look like Mustafa. They stop making fun of you. Hashem says they get a special punishment. Well, a person that grows tired of my laws... Midrash says, a person who grows tired of my laws is someone who dislikes the sages, makes fun of the sages. Makes fun of Chazal, makes fun, oh no, I don't agree with, I don't think that the Rambam was really relevant. I don't think Rabbi Akiva knew what he was talking about. I don't think that Rabbi Ovadia, I think he makes mistakes. Treating the sages like they're you. You're on the same level. And do not keep also some people that don't let others keep the Torah. Unfortunately, I have some students who live in houses where either their wives or their parents don't let them keep Shabbat. Few people. Few people tell me, listen, I can't keep Shabbat. I say, why not? What's wrong with you? He says, if I keep Shabbat, my father's going to beat me up. I think it would be better off to have Hitler as a father.

1:15:10Then a father like this doesn't let you keep Shabbat. Oh no, I can't keep Shabbat. Why? My wife, my wife insists that that's our time off and she wants me to go to the mall with her. She wants me to go to the movies with her. Or she's going to divorce me. A wife like that, who needs her? A woman comes to me and says, listen, I want to put on Kisui Rosh, but my husband says if I put on Kisui Rosh, he's going to divorce me. What should I do? Put on Kisui Rosh. Let him divorce you. Why? It's better to get divorced than to go to Gehenom. Much better. But the point is, Rabotai, there are some people that cause other people not to keep mitzvot. So parashat Bechukotai, which is one of the parashot that talks about curses and punishment, says this is, those people get it. Or some people that are denying the commandments. Meaning, some people say, no, this is not from the Torah. No, come on, you're exaggerating. Like some of the things that we said about cash advance. Cash advance, they say, "Oh, where is this in the Torah? Where is this in the Torah? Cash advance in the Torah?" I told you, when you charge people rates of interest, if you're charging a Jew interest,

1:16:32have no share of the World to Come. If you're a Jew charging another Jew interest, you have no share of the World to Come, no resurrection of the dead. Even if you keep Shabbat, you're finished. The only "get out of jail free card" you have is if this Jew is a heretic, if he doesn't keep Shabbat. If he doesn't keep Shabbat, you're allowed to charge him interest. But generally speaking, we don't do that because, in case he does, what do you do then? You have to return the money. So you have a very serious problem. If you're in the lending business, don't deal with Jews at all. But when you start adding to your application, "Are you Jewish?" the government will shut you down in 24 hours. You can't do that. You can't say "Are you Jewish?" on the applications. You don't know who your customers are. Many people have non-Jewish names but are Jewish. I have quite a few people who are 100% Jewish, but they have the opposite. I have this one guy called Chris. His name is Chris, another guy named Matthew. A few guys named Paul. And quite a few named John. I'm just waiting for Jesus to show up being Jewish. I'm sure it exists. But that's the reality. There's plenty of Jews that don't have Jewish names. So you're assuming that you're in a lending business. You're going to lend people only to non-Jews. You're in trouble. No, no. We check. What do you check?

1:17:58do you check? He has to be Jewish? No way. Now, even worse, okay, let's see. You're relying on everybody being non-Jewish. But now we go back to the same issue that I've told you guys: you're not allowed to charge above market rates, above the fair rates. If the fair rates are six, ten, fifteen percent, that's what you can get in a normal lending company, and you're charging people 40, 50, 60, 100, 200%. On top of that, you're making them sign agreements that are completely unethical. You are 100% a thief. Gezel. Gezel means you're stealing in open daylight. Now, the Rambam writes about gezel. Gezel is a horrible thing, meaning stealing from people is a horrible thing, much worse than other sins. Much worse than other sins because it is much more difficult to do teshuva for it. if you violated Shabbat, you say, "I'm sorry," start keeping Shabbat, and you're good, right? If you ate non-kosher, say, "I'm sorry," stop eating non-kosher, eat kosher only, it's finished. Other things you can fix, even g'mar brit, even which is a very expensive crime to do teshuva for.

1:19:17Because first, you have to stop. On top of it, you have to make sure that you know about the subject; you don't go back to it. On top of it, you have to make sure that you fix whatever you did by doing tikkunim, either by fasting or by giving money, most likely giving money, and also doing kiruv. So it's expensive, but it's not impossible. With gezel, though, with stealing, the Rambam says it's very hard to do teshuvah for. Why? You have to give the money back. On top of the fact that you have to change yourself, you have to give the money back. Most people, as soon as they get money, especially when it's high-flying money, when you're making a lot of money, you don't keep the money. You spend it as fast as it's coming. You make $20,000 a month, you're spending $30,000 because you're relying on the next month you're going to make $30,000. So now, the Rambam writes in his commentary on the Mishnah, Masechet Kelim 12, Mishnah number 7, Stealing from goyim is three different problems. Number one, it's a transgression against Hashem's will. Obviously, Hashem does not want you to steal from goyim or Jews, obviously. Number one, you're already going against Hashem.

1:20:37It reinforces undesirable character traits. The fact that you got yourself used to stealing, thinking that it's okay, thinking it's allowed, thinking, ah, it's not a big deal, they're just goyim. You got yourself used to it. You got yourself to making that kind of non-kosher money. that reinforces bad character traits of arrogance, of lack of ethics, and all types of bad things. You'll see the guys that are in the business, even if they're wearing a shtreimel and they have a beard longer than mine, their traits, their character traits usually are in line with the business. Why? Because you see, if you're in that business, if you're in it for six months or more, you're gonna start seeing the damage it causes people. Your borrower, your customer, your client defaulted on a loan six months later, and you can't even help him. He's losing his house, he's losing his business, he's losing his marriage. Sometimes he's losing his life; he commits suicide, which happens.

1:21:40which is one of the other things that's gonna be exposed in this economic downturn. All of these cash advance businesses, lending businesses, they're all gonna explode, a massive explosion, and that's gonna be one of the ways that the goyim are gonna peg it against the Jews, because there's an exorbitant amount of Jews in that business, unfortunately. There's a lot of non-Jews also, but of course we're gonna get blamed. For sure we're gonna get blamed. When all of these small businesses start defaulting on loans on a massive scale, much more than what they already are because of the unreasonable rates, you're gonna see all of a sudden, this business is controlled by Jewish people. Why are so many Jewish people in lending? All of a sudden, the media takes interest in the Jewish culture and how it has impacted the 99%. The 1% impacted the 99%, just like they tried to do in 2008. But now, unfortunately, they'll have something in their hands. They'll have something in their hands. so it reinforces undesirable character traits and unfortunately leads to number three, which is the worst sin in the entire Torah. This is the day the media exposes that you are the lender that's been the one in charge of

1:23:00These people, the market decline, the economic decline, the small business decline, you Mr. Jew with the shtreimel, you Mr. Jew with the little kippah, you Mr. Jew with the Magen David even. You don't have to be religious, you have Magen David, you know, your name is Jacob, your name is Yaakov, your name is Moshe, finished. Media, Moshe Stern. has bankrupted the town of whatever Pikachu in Virginia. That's it. From now on, every time people hear Moshe, they're gonna start thinking, "Oh, who could I beat up? Who could I hit?" Now people say, "Yeah, okay, but you're saying it, you're connecting it. Where is this in the Torah?" Okay, here it is in the Torah. The Rambam writes Hilkhot, not from his head. He writes from the Torah. In his Yad HaChazakah, in the Mishneh Torah, otherwise known as the Rambam, in Hilkhot Geneivah, the laws of stealing, chapter 7, halacha number 8, says the following: whether a person deals with a Jew or a Gentile, if he measures or weighs with a measure that is lacking,

1:24:21He transgresses a negative commandment and is obligated to return the difference. He says, whether you are stealing from a Jew or a Gentile, you have to return the money. Good luck convincing all of these thieves that have been making millions on the backs of people for the last couple of decades, especially the last five or ten years. Then he continues, similarly, it's forbidden to deceive a Gentile with regards to an account. Instead, one must reckon carefully with him, as it says in Leviticus 25:50, "You should reckon with your purchaser." He says you're not even allowed to mislead a non-Jew. In fact, you should be even more careful with him, even if he's an oved kochavim, even if he's an idol worshiper. You can't say, "No, but he's a bad non-Jew." No, even if he's the worst non-Jew. An oved kochavim, an idol worshiper, you actually have to be even more medakdek, more precise with the accounting that you're doing with him, with the forms that you're doing with him. No, no, if he signed the agreement, that means he agrees. No, no, my friend, you cannot do that. You know you wouldn't sign this agreement if you knew what it entails. You would not sign to 40, 50% a month if you understood what it actually means. This guy is so desperate, he's not even calculating it.

1:25:48taking advantage of his desperation, you're a predator. Now, what does it say in the Torah? So, the Rambam continues; he says this applies with regards to a gentile who's under your control. Surely that applies to one who's not under your control, meaning this law is valid even if this gentile is your employee or your slave or anything. You can't take advantage of him. Needless to say, if he's not—if he's just a customer. A person who performs such deceit is included among those about whom it says in Deuteronomy 25:16, "They are an abomination unto God, all who do these things, all who act crookedly." This, rabotai, puts this particular sin in a different class. What class? A person that sins here is now sinning the Ten Commandments. How so? Al-Khan number 12 explains it, same place, chapter 7. The punishment for a person who uses false measures is greater than the punishment of licentious sexual behavior. For this is a sin between a person and his colleague, and this is a sin between a person and God, meaning if a person is immoral.

1:27:12he's sinning between him and God. But you steal from another person, Jew or Gentile, he says you're sinning between you and another person. This you don't even need the Torah to tell you. It's much worse. The crime is much worse, Hashem says. And the Rambam continues, he says, whoever denies this mitzvah of just measures, meaning of honest business, is considered as if he denied the Exodus from Egypt, which is the first of God's commandments in the Ten Commandments. dishonest in your business, you're violating not just the Torah; you're violating the first commandment of the Ten Commandments: "I am Hashem, your God, who took you out of Egypt." It's like you denied the entire Torah. Oh, where is the Torah? Oh, Rambam. You know Rambam. Everybody knows Rambam. Even the goyim know Rambam. They have a statue in Washington that's... Conversely, one who accepts this mitzvah of just measures is considered as if he acknowledges the Exodus from Egypt, which brought about all of God's commandments. A person who's honest in business is someone that's as if he's fulfilling the Torah, the whole Torah. Why? This person is admitting that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is watching the business.

1:28:32So, a person that does teshuva for such a thing is a very, very big deal. Very hard though. Very, very hard. Now, when a person is addicted to money and materialism, it is very hard for him to do teshuva for such things. And he'll continue crying ignorance, he'll continue, you know, saying it's not fair, I'm going to make a living, I'm going to pay for the yeshiva, I'm going to pay for this, I'm going to pay for that. saying it's not fair, I'm going to make a living, I'm going to pay for the yeshivah, I'm going to pay for this, I'm going to pay for that. The reality is, rabotai, you're going to have to pay for it one way or the other. Either in this world or the next world. And that's one of the things that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is doing people a favor. He's doing people a favor by bringing some of these things. So you'll notice that anyone that's in an unkosher business is going to already start getting parts of the suffering that this parashat Bechukotai says that they're going to get. These sins, these seven sins, have a certain common sequence, and there are certain things that a person is going to suffer because of them. One, depression. Two, over-excitement. Something happens, "Whoa, what happened? Oh, well, he said the market's gonna go down. Sell everything!" "Relax, relax, just think about it for a second." No, don't, you know, everything. They get overexcited. They have no nerves whatsoever; they can't handle anything, good news or bad news.

1:29:59Daughter tells him, "Abba, I'm getting married." "Oh, who is it? Why? Are you sure? Do you want me to get married or not? I'm going to stay in your house for the next 40 years. What do you want me to do?" "Oh, I'm getting divorced." "No, what happened?" "The guy's hating me." "Yeah, but me." They can't make any decisions. They're all excited about too much of everything. No nerves, nothing. That's lots of suffering for people like that. They suffer from depression. It doesn't matter—good news or bad news. They're always in a state of destroyed outlook and hopelessness. You'll plant your crops in vain because your enemies will eat them. You'll have the idea. Hashem, Ishmael—not you. All the wicked people—they're going to have the idea. But guess what? The money will be made by somebody else. Somebody else is going to make it. You'll come out with the cure for Corona, but some goy is going to make the money from it. You'll come out with the iPhone, the next iPhone, but somebody else is going to make the money.

1:31:00form of a curse from a punishment. I'll direct my anger against you, and you will be defeated. Your enemies will dominate you. You will flee with no one chasing you. So we see some of these, these last three are scary. Why? Because they all happened in the Holocaust. People ask, how come the Jews didn't fight back in the Holocaust? How come they didn't fight back in Egypt? There were more Jews than there were Gentiles there. How come they didn't fight back? Because only HaKadosh Baruch Hu decides if you're going to win or if you're going to lose. Only HaKadosh Baruch Hu decides if you're going to have the strength or you're not going to have the strength. Only HaKadosh Baruch Hu is going to decide if the goy will submit or not. Now for the good news. The good news is If you are a Shomer Torah and Mitzvot who has real Bitachon in HaKadosh Baruch Hu, none of what I just said for the last hour matters. Why? If you notice Am Yisrael's history, the only time we got big salvation, we got Yeshuat Hashem, is when it didn't make sense. Let's start from the beginning. Avraham Avinu, the father of Judaism. When did he get his salvation? When it made no sense, not physically, not rationally, not in anything, not spirit, nothing. Why? He's the only Jew in the world. He's the only guy in the world who believes in Hashem. And he said, listen, for that, I'm going to throw you in a fire. There was no promise from God for him to be saved. God didn't speak to him yet.

1:32:27is when it didn't make sense. Let's start from the beginning. Avraham Avinu, the father of Judaism. When did he get his salvation? When it made no sense—not physically, not rationally, not in anything, not spiritually, nothing. Why? He's the only Jew in the world. He's the only guy in the world who believes in Hashem. And they said, listen, for that, we're going to throw you in a fire. There was no promise from Hashem for him to be saved. Hashem didn't speak to him yet. When did he get salvation? When the whole world says you're wrong, and he says, I'm going with Hashem anyway. Fast forward, I'm in Egypt. We're there for 210 years. For 210 years we're suffering. For much of that time as slaves, we're being slaughtered, we're being murdered. They're taking our kids and putting them instead of cinder blocks in the pyramids.

1:33:32Women are carrying the baby for nine months just to kill it a second later. Now you would think, if you're in Egypt right now, someone says, no, no, the Mashiach is going to come. The Mashiach is going to come. If the Mashiach was going to come, if we're in Egypt, that's what we're going to say. If the Mashiach was going to come, he would have come when? He would have come when Yaakov Avinu was here 200 years ago. Yaakov Avinu and all 12 tribes, Tzadikim Kedoshim Elyon. These are the most righteous people that ever lived. Mashiach would have come when Yaakov Avinu was here and the 12 tribes were here. That's when Mashiach should have come. Now he's going to come? We're already at the 49th level of Tumah. Idol worshippers, all types of sins, Hashem Yishmor. How is he going to come now? Mashiach is going to come now after we're already slaves for 200 years? We've become idol worshippers. If he would have come, he would have come at the time of Yaakov. Not now. When did Mashiach come?

1:34:32After 210 years. Well, it didn't make any sense. It did not make any sense for Mashiach to come, for Moshe Rabbeinu to come and take them out of Egypt when they're in the 49th level of Tumah. The worst level Am Yisrael ever was. Until today. It didn't make any sense. He said, you should have come before. All the tzaddikim were there. Fast forward. It doesn't make any sense that we got salvation. When did we get salvation? We all made a sin. We all went and hung out with Achashverosh. The rabbis were doing business there. The people were doing business. No one cared that the Beit Hamikdash was being desecrated and made fun of. They were celebrating for six months. What? That the Beit Hamikdash wasn't built. And we're going to the party. It didn't make any sense to get salvation at that time. But not only did we get salvation, in one day, in a matter of seconds, we were supposed to get murdered in one day all over the world. That's why Haman's decree was worse than Hitler's. Hitler was killing us one day at a time. Haman was going to kill everyone in one day. Everyone, they had control over the entire world, 127 countries, and everyone got the commandment, on such and such day, at such and such time, kill every single Jew in front of you.

1:35:57no mercy law, meaning you cannot do it because you feel bad and just to motivate them. By the way, whoever you kill, take his money. They started looking at Jews like their lunch money. There used to be a cartoon I remember from when I was a kid in Israel. I saw it a thousand times. It was Bugs Bunny. And it was one cartoon where these two guys were stuck on an island. They were looking at each other. One was a hot dog, and the other guy was a hamburger. And then they looked at Bugs Bunny and saw him as the next lunch. Everybody looked at each other as food because that's all they had. That's how the goyim were looking at us. Why? They said, listen, not only is it a law that if we don't do it, we're going to get killed, but on top of it, we get paid for it. We take all their money. You kill this local banker, you get all of his money. You kill this lawyer, you get all of his money. You kill this construction worker; he worked his whole life, but you get it. Meaning it's not only a mitzvah for them, but it's also a mitzvah where you get a reward in this world. Meaning, who would have thought...

1:36:59salvation was going to come at that time. It doesn't make any sense. Not only did the salvation come, but at the same time that we were supposed to get killed, all of a sudden Israel starts killing all of their enemies without rockets, without tanks, without jeeps, without bazooka guns. With what? With kitchen knives and standards. They took the standard, the guy dies. That's it, finished. Okay, Gemara, we'll finish with the Gemara now. Okay, we'll take a break. Okay, guys, da keta, okay, we'll finish learning. Everyone, bring your standard with you. We're going on a class trip. What are we doing? We're going to kill Amalek. Bring your standard. Amalek dies, finished. Okay, you have a minyan, have you finished 10 yet? Okay, you go back to learning. If you kill 10, you go back to learning. In one day, we start killing all of our enemies with standards, not even with rockets. No Iron Dome, kitchen knives, dull knives, you know those butter knives that no one knows why they're still there? Why do they still make those butter knives? Who uses them? Every set has this butter knife, who uses it? I get so upset when I see them. Such a waste. It doesn't cut, it doesn't do anything. And who eats that much butter anyway? Why do they need so many butter knives?

1:38:21But that's how we kill the goyim. I guess maybe that's what Hashem is preparing us for. Carry your butter knife. That's going to be your mitzvah. Your butter knife is going to be. Not the Iron Dome. Not the bazookas. Not coronavirus. Nothing. It's going to be the butter knife. This is a prophecy. Prophecy. The butter knife is going to be the weapon of the future. Somewhere. It has to be used for something. It was used at the time of Haman. It's going to be used again. It says, it’s whatever happened in Egypt, really. Butter knives come with every set. Every house has 5,000 of them. No one knows what to do with them. Now, salvation came at a time when it did not make any sense whatsoever. Didn't make any sense. HaKadosh Baruch Hu works that way. There are certain things that HaKadosh Baruch Hu instilled into nature that are dafka unnatural. Certain things that He did, that He put into nature, that are dafka against nature. Just to show you, He is nature. He is above nature. For many, many years, for as long as any book has any records other than the Torah,

1:39:44people always thought that water is a relatively simple thing. If it goes down a certain degree, it freezes and becomes ice. Everyone knows this; you don't even have to go to school. You put water in the freezer, and it freezes after a certain amount of time, right? Scientists recently discovered they do not know anything about water. Until now, we thought if we freeze it, it goes down a certain number of degrees, it freezes and becomes ice. If we boil it, it becomes, you know, smoke, nothing goes into the air because it becomes steam, right? Scientists discovered that water, when raised to a very high temperature very quickly, freezes and becomes ice. This completely defies the laws of nature. Meaning, everything we thought we knew, we don't know anything.

1:41:00HaKadosh Baruch Hu does things like this. Little tricks like this that He does in His little game that He has called this world. Show you. There's no nature. It's Me. It's HaKadosh Baruch Hu. The Baal Shem Tov, alav hashalom, tried to instill such understanding in his students. He would go. His avodat Hashem was very unusual. He would take journeys to different places. Without preparation, he would say, "Okay, we're going." Everybody has to pack up in two seconds, and we’ll leave. Without preparation, without food, without sandwiches, without drinks, without anything. "We’re going out. How long? Where are we going? We don’t know. Just go." one time he's with a talmid. He says, "Okay, we gotta go on a journey." Next journey, they pick up and leave. They start walking; they're in the woods, they're in a desert, they're in all types of places. There's no little huts over there where you could buy a bottle of water or mineral water, cold because you have some ice—nothing. So the talmid that's with him starts getting really thirsty. He says, "Rebbe, I'm thirsty." "Keep walking, keep walking." "Rebbe, I'm thirsty."

1:42:08Keep walking, let's keep going. It got to the point where the guy couldn't talk. "Rebbe, I'm really, really thirsty. I can't, I can't even have a conversation. I'm so thirsty, I need to drink something." The Baal Shem Tov looks at him. "Let me ask you something. Do you believe that when God created the world in six days and stopped on the seventh, this creation, you believe in it?" "Yes." "Now, do you believe that HaKadosh Baruch Hu, that Hashem..." When He created the world, He took everything into account? Yes, 100%, Rebbe. Do you think that He also took into account that 5,400 years later, there's going to be a Jew in the woods trying to serve Hashem by reaching other Jews in lost places, and that Jew is going to be thirsty but there won't be water anywhere? Do you think that HaKadosh Baruch Hu took that into account? He said, yes. Do you think that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is going to let him stay thirsty? He says, no. Okay.

1:43:09Keep walking. Not five minutes past, they see some goy with a whole caravan full of water. "Hey, stop, stop. What are you doing here?" The goy is frustrated as can be. He's like, "What's wrong? Listen, my boss went crazy. I have no idea. My job, I live, you know, I build stuff. My boss today decided, listen, today you're going to take all this water and just go around the park all day. Go in the woods. Maybe somebody needs water." Maybe somebody needs water. Go. Got the water. Got the water. Why? Baal Shem Tov says, look, if you didn't believe it, You stay thirsty. But the minute you said that you believe that HaKadosh Baruch Hu took everything into account, including the fact that you're thirsty 5,000 years after He created the whole world, meaning He took everything, that means you believed in the Achdut of Hashem, you believed in everything of Hashem, and there's nothing else but Him.

1:44:17Someone who has confidence in Hashem, has bitachon in Hashem, only kindness will surround them. HaKadosh Baruch Hu changed the world just for you. He made some goy go crazy and decide to take his construction worker and make him a water boy. In the middle of nowhere. Just for you. He changed it just because of that. The Gaon MiVilna says, that verse that David HaMelech says that someone has confidence in Hashem, only kindness will surround them, he says, pay attention to the fact that it says someone that trusts in Hashem, it doesn't say a righteous person that trusts in Hashem. It says anyone that has real bitachon in Hashem, anyone, even if you're not 100% righteous, that's already enough of a reason for Hashem to give you kindness. Now,

1:45:18The Baal Shem Tov, on one of his journeys, ran out of money, ran out of food, and ran out of everything. And his talmid who was with him, a different one, was getting concerned, but then a miracle, as usual, happened. Some rich guy sees them, identifies the Baal Shem Tov, and says, "Please stay with me. I'll host you. Everything you need, we'll take care of." So they get hosted, and this host was very generous and gave him a gold coin. Now, in those days, a gold coin was very, very valuable. It was enough money for a year or two. It was a ton of money. The talmid of the Baal Shem Tov was so excited that he got this gold coin, he almost said Hallel on it. Almost said a special blessing on this. Oh, we're not going to have to worry about money anywhere we go. We can buy stuff. Ma'aseh Hashem, our journey is paid for. The Baal Shem Tov noticed how much this talmid was happy over this coin. He told him, "Listen, get the gabbai of the local kehillah here to come." He gets the gabbai.

1:46:31gives the gabbai the gold coin. He says, "Listen, this gold coin, divide it into twelve. The first half, give it to poor people, orphans, and people that are in need. The other half, give it to people that learn Torah." He takes the money and walks away. There's money for the poor people, and there's money for the talmidei chachamim. He's happy. The Baal Shem Tov is happy. Who's not happy? The Baal Shem Tov's talmid. He says, "Rebbe, why? Why? Finally, we got some money. We can pay for stuff. We don't have to worry. Why are you putting yourself again in this situation? We have to depend on another miracle. Why?" The Baal Shem Tov starts laughing. He's having a good time. He goes, "Rebbe, are you making fun of me?" He goes, "No, I'm not making fun of you. I'm just laughing at how you forgot something." He goes, "What did I forget, Rebbe? What did I forget?" He says, "You forgot that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is the one that runs the world. And as long as He's alive, you have nothing to worry about."

1:47:43If HaKadosh Baruch Hu is not alive, then you have everything to worry about. But as long as HaKadosh Baruch Hu is alive, you have nothing to worry about. That's what you're forgetting. That's why I'm laughing. You're thinking that we needed this coin. You forgot HaKadosh Baruch Hu is the one that runs the show. It's something as simple as that, that is going to help a person make it throughout this next chapter of the journey. Why? Because that type of understanding that HaKadosh Baruch Hu runs the world, that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is the only one that runs the world, and no one else, is going to help a person make all of the right decisions at the right time. What should I do with my money now? What should I do with my house now? What should I do with my teshuva now? What should I do with my learning now? What should I do with my marriage now? What should I do with everything? You're going to know what to do. Why? Because you know Hashem runs the world. A person that has a doubt in who runs the world,

1:48:50he's going to try to beat the system. He's going to try to do things with his own power, with his own strength, with his own mind. No, no, no, this rabbi doesn't know what he's talking about. I'm going to buy some call options. I'm going to buy some stock options. I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. I'm going to do all types of things to beat the system. You're not getting the point. HaKadosh Baruch Hu is trying to tell us clearly right now: the show is over. It's time for everyone to make their decisions about what they want to bring to the next world. You're allowed to work. You're allowed to make money. You're even allowed to make investments. No problem. But if that's your priority in life and HaKadosh Baruch Hu is secondary, you have a very serious problem. Why? You're not going to have another chance. So that's why HaKadosh Baruch Hu is shaking up the world in such a way where everyone is put up to question. Everyone's going to realize that everything they knew, everything they thought they knew is incorrect. That reality check is very painful. Now, if a person humbles themselves, realizes, okay, you know what?

1:50:01I focused on making money my whole life. I made some money, I'm okay. All right, maybe I should focus on some more mitzvot too. Take some of this money and help some Jews do teshuva with it. Maybe I should take some of this money and actually help the rabbis that are helping people do teshuva. Maybe I should actually, instead of having three, four, five, six houses, maybe I should condense a little bit. I don't really need all these houses. or you don't have any money, no problem, you have time. You have 24 hours in a day. Also, you don't have a different schedule; you also have 24 hours like everybody else. Maybe I should spend some more time learning Torah. Instead of learning about who's winning in sports, and who's going to be the next president, maybe I should spend some more time learning Torah. Maybe I should help do things in the community that help people. The point is that a person is going to be put to the test right now, because HaKadosh Baruch Hu is going to bring everyone down to the same level. What you do on the way down is going to determine how you're going to look once the dust settles. Whether you're going to rebound and be at a much better level than everybody else or not. In the investment world,

1:51:14At times like this, cash is king. And the reason why is because eventually the dust is going to settle. It may take six months, it may take two years, it may take whatever, but eventually it's going to get to the point where everyone is going to vomit from the amount of losses that they have. People are going to commit suicide, people are going to get fired, all types of mayhem are going to happen eventually. Now, at that moment, When everyone is vomiting, at that moment when people are pretty much jumping off of roofs because they lost their life savings, at that moment when people are so hysterical that they think the world is over, that's when it's time to invest. That's when you wish you had all the cash in the world because everything is so low. Even more so when it comes to mitzvot. Right now, the world is too low when it comes to mitzvot. There aren't that many people who are focused on Torah.

1:52:15People are focused on money. People are focused on business. People are focused on all types of physical desires. Right now is the time to invest in the mitzvot. Right now is the time to learn more Torah. Right now is the time to do more kiruv. Right now is the time to improve your middot. Right now. Why? Because right now it's at a low. It's never been this low. Even at the time of Mount Sinai, we were at the 49th level of tumah. The Ohr HaChaim HaKadosh says that before Mashiach comes, we're going to be at level 50. Gay parades every other day, open stealing, open abortions, open season against Hashem. Everything is against Hashem; all day, people make fun of Hashem. Right now it's at a low, rabotai, right now is the opportunity to do mitzvot. Right now is the opportunity to invest in olam haba. Mark my words, the people that invest now, are the ones that are going to be the winners in the end. Just like the ones that bought at the low of 2008, just like the ones that bought at the low of 2001, and so on and so forth. When you invest in mitzvot when no one else is doing it, it counts a whole lot more because you're buying it at a low. You're buying it when nobody else wants to buy it.

1:53:23This is my advice to everyone. I don't know whether you should buy or sell stocks. That's not my business. My business is to tell you what I have from the Torah and a little bit of experience that I have in the markets. You do whatever you want. At least now you have information to make an educated decision. That decision, you have to make. I can't make it for you. But the key is to at least go into it with your head screwed on right and understand that the show is over. You want to play the game of chicken and continue thinking the thing is going to rebound and everything is going to be okay? No problem. You'll see what happens at the end. You'll see what happens at the end. It's not cursing. It's not wishing you bad. I wish I'm wrong. It's just a reality. It's a reality that the situation is horrible. Hashem cannot let this world continue deteriorating that much more. You have anti-Semites running for office in Israel. Nazis running for office in Israel. It doesn't get much worse than that. You've got Jewish organizations funding Christian organizations. Religious schools have missionaries working there.

1:54:40I mean, it doesn't get much worse than this. Rabbis writing papers for the acceptance of something Hashem calls an abomination, homosexuality. Or Rabbis saying that there's no punishment anymore. All types of things that are the opposite of Hashem. You realize right now we're at a low. Right now is the opportunity to collect neshamot. Do kiruv every way you can. You have money, use your money. You have time, use your time. You have skill, use your skill. Use and take this opportunity to invest while it's still low. Whoever does it is going to be the biggest winner in the world. Whoever doesn't is simply going to regret it. Be'ezrat Hashem, more and more people choose the right thing to do, because that's what the Gemara says to us. Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus says to us, what is it going to be that's going to save us from the chevlei Mashiach, from the birth pangs of Mashiach? Be'ezrat Hashem, more and more people choose the right thing to do, because that's what the Gemara says to us. Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus says to us, what is it going to be that's going to save us from the chevlei Mashiach, from the birth pangs of Mashiach? It says Torah and Gemilut Chasadim. Torah and overwhelming kindness. What is the highest level of kindness? Bringing someone back to Hashem. That's the highest level of kindness that a person can do for anyone else. Because even if you give him money, you can only give him kindness in this world. But if you give him Hashem, you give her Hashem, you're giving him the next world too. Baruch Adonai Le'olam. Amen ve'amen.