Daily Chidush: Am I Allowed To Invite A MeChalel Shabbat To My House (AMAZING STORY)

0:08I wanted to give you a fantastic chiddush that's priceless for all of these precious Jewish neshamot that love HaKadosh Baruch Hu, love to honor the Shabbat and even more so love Am Yisrael so much so that they sacrifice themselves and their time and their money and host guests. They host guests for Shabbat. You know, Am Yisrael is a kind nation. We like to host people. It's a wonderful thing to do. And it's a mitzvah from the Torah if that guest has no other place to go and you host them, it's a mitzvah from the Torah. ...and even more so love Am Yisrael so much so that they sacrifice themselves, their time, and their money to host guests. They host guests for Shabbat. You know, Am Yisrael is a kind nation. We like to host people. It's a wonderful thing to do. And it's a mitzvah from the Torah if that guest has no other place to go. When you host them, it's a mitzvah from the Torah. Now, as we all know, everything has instructions from the Book. Which book? The Torah. HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave us instructions from the minute we wake up all the way until the time we go to sleep. And even hosting guests has instructions. So the chiddush is, you can find it in the Gemara, Masechet Shabbat, page 54b. It says a story about one of the greatest Tannaim that ever lived, Rabbi Elazar ben Azaria. I mean, anytime somebody is mentioned by name in the Gemara,

1:24says that person was able to revive the dead; that's how holy such a person was. But even holy people make mistakes. Needless to say, we see this across the entire Torah, from the time of Noach, who did not rebuke the people of his time, all the way to Moshe Rabbeinu. that made mistakes and that shows the integrity of the Torah. So Chachamim and Tzaddikim also make mistakes. They're not like us, obviously. I wish we were even a grain of sand they walked on, but the point being is that the Torah is authentic in showing the mistakes, even of the great ones. And this Gemara not only shows but actually highlights the mistake that Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah made one time in his life, and it says that parato shel Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah the cow of Rabbi Elazar ben Azaryah would go out on Shabbat with a strap between its horns. So they say, what is this? What kind of strap is this? Oh, this is like a decorative strap. It's decoration. And Barah says, yeah, but this is forbidden. And now the cow is in the Chachamim said,

2:37that you're not allowed, a cow is not allowed to carry anything on Shabbat, just like you're not allowed to carry anything on Shabbat unless you're in an Eruv. But the point is that the Chachamim said no, and this was a debate between Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah and the sages, but he was proven wrong. So then the Gemara goes and elaborates, saying, wait a minute, hold on a second, why is the Mishnah in the Gemara mentioning the cow of Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah? I mean, Everyone knows that Rabbi Elazar was a multi-billionaire, very, very rich. So rich that just his ma'aser, his tithe every year, the ten percent that he would give, would be twelve thousand cows per year. Twelve thousand cows! I did the math—simple math. If, let's say, each cow is only ten thousand dollars, I mean, you're talking about 1.2 billion dollars a year. In Ma'aser, I mean, you're talking, I mean, this is more money than hedge fund managers make. So, I mean, Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah had many, many cows. He's given Ma'aser of 12,000 cows. What are you pinpointing one cow for? See, here's the beauty. They said, the Gemara says here, did he really have only one cow? No, we know he had a lot more. So the Chachamim said, no, actually, you know what? It wasn't even his cow.

4:04It wasn't even his cow, this one cow that carried the bells on Shabbat, it wasn't even his cow. So why is it called his cow? Because this was the cow of a neighbor that lived next to Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, who was a widow. He saw that she had this cow and noticed that she was not following the halacha, which is to remove these bells off the cow on Shabbat and not have her carry them. And the Gemara says, since he saw that she was committing a sin, and he did not rebuke her, he didn't tell her, "Listen, ma'am, you cannot have this; it's a Chilul Shabbat." Since he didn't say it, in Shamayim they decreed this cow is Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah's cow, meaning the sin is also attributed to Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, along with the woman. Why? Because the Gemara says, anyone who has the ability to protest against members of his household on sins that they're making—he sees somebody violating Shabbat, violating the Torah—but he doesn't protest, he is punished for the transgressions of the members of his household. Similarly, just like if somebody could protest against the people of his town...

5:19but he doesn't protest, he is punished for the transgressions of the members of his household. Similarly, just like if somebody could protest against the people of his town, Somebody is a rabbi of the town. He has a kehillah of 100 people, 200 people, and he doesn't tell them the truth. He doesn't tell them to stop driving on Shabbat. He doesn't tell them all these things. Then he gets punished for the transgressions of all of the people of the town. And if someone is so influential that he has influence and he has YouTube videos and he has all types of influence that reaches the four corners of the world and he doesn't tell people the truth and ...and people continue sinning, he gets punished for all of the transgressions of the entire world. Why am I telling you this? Why is this a chidush of chidushim, rabotai? The reason is, sometimes we're so nice that we become stupid. Meaning that sometimes we want to be nice to somebody, that we want to invite them for Shabbat...

6:25But what ends up happening is that we forget that this person violates Shabbat by driving to our house and he's not going to stay over. He's going to go home. Now, if it's the first time he ever came over and you didn't know he's going to drive and you try to tell him, listen, why don't you stay at the house? That's one thing. It's not a big deal. You didn't know. He decided on his own to leave. That's a different story. But if you already know that this person comes with the car on Shabbat and is going to leave with the car on Shabbat because he's done it before and he plans on doing it again. and he plans on doing it again. and you continue to invite him, thinking that you're doing a mitzvah, the Gemara here in Masechet Shabbat says, you yourself are considered a Mechallel Shabbat. You think you're keeping Shabbat? You think that you're actually inviting people and doing a mitzvah by inviting them on Shabbat to drive on Shabbat? The Gemara says the opposite. The Torah says the opposite. Why? Not only did you not fulfill the mitzvah of actually having a guest,

7:27Not only that, but on top of it, you actually desecrated Shabbat. You desecrated Shabbat. My dear brother, my dear sister, you worked so hard the whole week just to honor Shabbat. Why are you desecrating Shabbat? Of course, you didn't do it on purpose because you didn't know this Gemara. So that's why this chidush is priceless. For all of the wonderful people that didn't know that inviting their friends who are secular and don't want to keep Shabbat and have no interest, they didn't know that they're not allowed to invite them. They didn't know. It's not that we don't want to invite them. It's that we don't want to be partners to their crime. If you want to invite them, you have to tell them. I love you so much that I reserved an entire room just for you in my house. And the condition is you come to me for Shabbat and you stay with me for Shabbat. But if you're not willing to honor Shabbat, that means you're not willing to honor Hashem. And if you just want to come over for dinner, let's just do it on another day. Let's not do it on Shabbat. Why? I don't want to be punished for you. And I don't want to be partners in the punishment.

8:35that you're going to get either. I don't want to be partners in it. I love you too much. I don't want to be a cause of you being punished. And I don't want to be punished for you either. That's the point. So let's have dinner on a different day. I'll call you on Monday. We'll go out for dinner if you just want to have dinner. But if you want to have Shabbat dinner, Shabbat dinner means you have to keep Shabbat. And I have a whole room for you. And you have your own bathroom. You have your own dishes. You own that. You are more than welcome to stay over at my house the whole Shabbat. You, your wife, the kids, whoever you want. You have to stay for Shabbat. Why? Because Shabbat is a time that we connect as a nation to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Now, what if he says, "Listen, if I don't go to you, I'm not going to have any place else to go?" I said, "Perfect, so come over for Shabbat." He goes, "No, no, but I don't want to stay." No, my friend. I'm not going to... appease you and desecrate HaKadosh Baruch Hu, my Father in Heaven, who gives me the air to breathe, the eyes to see, the ears to hear, the food to eat on Shabbat, the children, Baruch Hashem, who are healthy and beautiful, the husband or the wife that I have who loves me, the parnassah, the refuah shleimah, and all of the yeshuot and brachot that you can possibly have. This is the segulah of Shabbat.

9:49Segulah of Shabbat, this Shabbat, is the source of all the blessings. I'm not going to violate that just because you want to come over for dinner and drive on Shabbat like you drive on a Tuesday. I'm sorry. I love you, but I'll make you cholent on Tuesday. You want to keep Shabbat with me? You want to honor HaKadosh Baruch Hu with me? Then you have to honor it like the Torah says. So this, Rabotai HaYekarim, is very, very important to remember. Please tell this story to your friends. Next time they say, no, no, no, I don't want to stay over, you send them this recording. You send this to yourself. You send this to your children. You send it to everybody. HaKadosh Baruch Hu loves us. But again, remember, HaKadosh Baruch Hu is not our friend. He's our King. He's our Father in Heaven. And He has rules. We're not allowed to break His rules for the sake of friendship between each other or even between us and our parents. We're not. If your parents don't want to keep Shabbat, you're not allowed to honor them and desecrate Hashem. If your wife or your husband or your kids or your best friend or your boss or whoever tells you, "Violate Shabbat for me," you cannot do it. Why? HaKadosh Baruch Hu is above everyone.

11:02This, Rabotai Yekarim, is something that we need to know, need to be reminded of, and B'ezrat Hashem, this will help our beautiful nation of Chesed do Chesed as HaKadosh Baruch Hu decreed, and not as the Yetzer Hara. B'ezrat Hashem, you'll have a Shabbat Shalom, a Shabbat Mevorach, a beautiful Shabbat, a holy Shabbat, and a Shabbat where everybody is a Shomer Shabbat. Ashreichem Yisrael. Kol Tov.