Daily Chidush: How Do I Do Teshuva For Stealing Gambling?

0:01Hello, how are you? Hope you're having an amazing week. We're having an amazing lecture tour here in New York. Just finished another amazing lecture. Much more chidushim in regards to the personal story, details I've never told before. Also did something amazing with Rav Mizrachi yesterday. Told about the personal story, the personal teshuva of my dear wife. and her part of the story. So, a lot of amazing new things are coming out. Some of them have been published, but Be'ezrat Hashem, more will be published tomorrow. It's truly, truly amazing to be here with people who are looking for the truth, connecting to Hashem, and seeking even more. But I wanted to add this chidush, aside from explaining to you how psyched I am, to be here and to be part of this whole movement, this Kiruv movement, this Kiruv revolution that, b'ezrat Hashem, we're doing and will continue to do, b'ezrat Hashem. I also wanted to add one major chidush today because of a great question that was asked earlier today by one of the fans, an old friend who, baruch Hashem, is becoming slowly but surely a tzaddeket.

1:24And doing teshuva, keeping Shabbat, watching shiurim, giving tzedakah. But there's an issue out there: what happens when someone steals? How do they do teshuva? Because it came up in a shiur that Chazal says, that the sages say that if someone does teshuva, doing the mitzvot, but arrives at the gate of Gan Eden with dirty hands—dirty hands that have stolen in their life—they do not let that person into Gan Eden. No person has ever entered Gan Eden or will enter Gan Eden if they have stolen money on their hands. This is a very, very scary chiddush from Chazal that many of us never knew. As we've learned before, when we talked about gambling, this is something that's very scary because sometimes somebody gambles without knowing it's still considered stealing. So what do we do? What do we do when we have stolen, but now that we found out the truth, we want to go to Gan Eden. We want to do teshuva. How do we do teshuva?

2:40So Chazal actually implemented something ahead of time. Hashem obviously gave us the Torah. He gave us the cure before the ailment. Before we knew we were sick, He already provided us the cure. He commanded each and every single one of us to give tzedakah. Tzedakah is not just something you do on the side for fun or just because you want to make your conscience feel good. Tzedakah is a way that we could also repent for many of our sins that we don't know we committed. We're not sure we committed. We don't know the person that we committed it with. Perhaps we can't connect to them even if we stole from them or perhaps cheated them or even borrowed money and are not able to pay them back. And then finally, when we have it, they disappeared off the face of the earth and we can't find them. How do you do teshuvah? Because that money now that you owe, and you never paid back turns into gezel, turns into theft. If he gave up on it or she gave up on it, it officially becomes stealing. How do you do teshuva for something like that? So Chazal say, this is where tzedakah comes in. There's two parts of tzedakah. There's the tzedakah that every single person needs to do, even a perutah, even something that's minimal, even a homeless person must give that level of tzedakah. Obviously, every person on his level.

3:53If you're making millions, then obviously you know that your level is not giving a few thousand. Your level has to be proportionate to what you have. In the same context, if you're making a few dollars and you're barely surviving, you also need to give tzedakah, but proportionate to what you have, proportionate to what you make. Not what you want to have, but what you have. But then there's a second part, which is ma'aser. Hakadosh Baruch Hu tells us in a couple of places in the Torah. One major source, aside from the Five Books of Moses, is in the book of Iyov. He tells us, if you give the ma'aser, you give 10% of your net income, I guarantee you that you will become rich in your own lifetime. He doesn't say time, he doesn't say place; He just says that this is the only thing in the entire Torah that you're allowed to test Me. You're allowed to test me for the Maaser, for me to make you rich, but you have to withstand the test. Meaning, if you give Maaser for a year, two years, three years, and nothing happens, that's still not the test. Hashem knows that you can withstand a longer test. So the reality of it is that we have to give Maaser, number one, because Hashem said so, and number two, because Hashem also guaranteed us a very large reward. Now,

5:16The main thing is that people sometimes don't understand that Ma'aser is something we have to do. It's not something that's optional. But how does Ma'aser work? How does the tithe work? It works very simply. It's out of the net income, not the gross income. So let's say, for example, somebody makes $1,000, but they have expenses, basic expenses, basic living expenses. It doesn't necessarily need to be, you know, the, you know... just your rent. It also includes food, includes the basic shelter, and so on. But it doesn't include your vacation to the Bahamas. Obviously, it's not a basic expense. Basic living expenses, what you need to live. So let's say you have $1,000 in income, $900 in expenses, and you have $100 left. Hashem told you if you give the $10, that's the ma'aser. $10 is 10%. of the $100 that you have left. The real tzaddikim give 20%. That's the highest you can give unless you have millions and millions of dollars and you really don't need the money. But nonetheless, the real tzaddikim give much higher. But if you give 10%, you're already doing something that 99% of people are not doing. But how do we know that the ma'aser and tzedakah have to be proportionate? And if not, there's a big, big problem.

6:44We have a story from the Gemara, the Oral Torah, the foundation of our Torah, about a tzaddik by the name of Nakdimon ben Gurion. Nakdimon ben Gurion is one of three people, according to the Gemara, the Gemara Masechet Ta'anit, the tractate of Ta'anit, tells a story about Nakdimon ben Gurion. He was such a righteous person that one day aside from being very generous and financing the army sale for all of Am Yisrael for three years, along with two other very wealthy Jews, he also was a big ba'al chesed. Each year, many Jews would come to Eretz Yisrael, to Yerushalayim, for the holidays. So one year, there was a drought. knew that there's going to be thousands and thousands of people coming but there's not going to be enough water so he went to this Arab and he told him, "Listen, give me your 12 wells. Give me your 12 wells, and I will return you those 12 wells just as full as you gave them to me. And if not, if they're not full, then I will give you all 12 wells back, full of money."

8:11Full of coins. That's how much money he had. So the time passed. He got to the day. First thing in the morning, the Arab sends him, "You know, no rain has dropped. Give me my money." He says, "No, no, no. I told you I'm going to give it to you that day, which meant the complete day. The day, according to Judaism, according to the Torah, ends at, you know, at sundown." The Arabs started laughing at him because, even if it rains all day, it still won’t reach it. You need rain like the flood to fill it. He goes, "Listen, I trust my God. You don’t worry about me. I still have a few hours left." They said, "Okay, fine." Every few hours, they kept making fun of him, sending people in, saying, "Just give me the money already. What are you wasting your time with? There's very little time left." Nakdimon Ben-Gurion went into the Beit HaMikdash and prayed to Hashem and he said, Hashem, You know that I didn't do this mitzvah for my own honor. I did it for Your honor and for Your children. And You promised us that when we honor You and Your children, we're never going to lose. Immediately after his prayer was completed,

9:20A huge amount of rain began to fall, to such an extent that no one had ever seen before. It filled up all 12 wells to a higher extent than what they had when he got them. So then Nicodemus ben Gurion sends the Arab, his servant, and he says, "Listen, give me the change because I gave you a lot more water than what you gave me." So the Arab says, "Yeah, listen, only the Jewish God could do such a thing. But I still have a problem with your God because technically by the time it filled up with water, the sun went down, which means that I didn't get my money on time. So technically you owe me money. You still owe me 12 wells full of coins." So like Dama ben Netina said, "Don't worry." He went back into the Beit HaMikdash and he says, I didn't ask for this, HaKadosh Baruch Hu. I didn't ask for this Chilul Hashem, Chas V'Shalom, to happen where someone says that You don't deliver. This is for Your honor, HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Immediately, Hashem made a miracle that He only made for two other people before him, which are Moshe Rabbeinu and Yehoshua Bin Nun.

10:40He moved the clouds and brought back the sun exactly to where it was and literally moved the sun from its place. That's how righteous Nakdimon ben Gurion was to get such a miracle. We hope that Hashem just gives us some help to wake up on time. He gets the sun back. So just to give you an understanding of who Nakdimon was. But why do I mention Nakdimon? Because as much as Nakdimon ben Gurion was wealthy, as much as Nakdimon Ben-Gurion was a Baal Chesed. The Gemara, the same Gemara, says later on, one day, one of the tzaddikim sees a woman picking through the waste of a horse belonging to the Arabs. And he asks her, "What are you doing, dear?" She says, "I'm looking for chita, I'm looking for some food, some wheat to eat. We're starving." sees our faces in shock. He says, "What ways? What food? What are you talking about? Your father is the richest man in the land." He says, "No, not anymore. He lost everything, everything to the point where his own daughter had to look through the waste of a horse." The Gemara asks, "Why did this happen? Didn't he give so much chesed? Didn't he give so much?" And the Gemara answers,

12:09Yes, he gave a lot, but according to what he had, it was not enough. This is where, my friends, we have to understand that Hashem, when He said it, it wasn't just like, "Hey, this is a patent to make a lot of money." He told us something different. He told us it’s not just a nice thing to do. I'm giving you a lot... Not because I just want you to have a lot, but also because I need you to give 10% of the 100% that I gave you. 10% to one of my children, tzaddikim, people that are learning Torah all day, people that are doing kiruv, people that are doing the will of Hashem, poor people. I need you to help my children. I gave you 100%, so you give my children 10%. But if you're not going to give them... the 10, then I don't want to do business with you. So I'm just going to take the 90 back. And He only leaves you with the 10. And sometimes, Hashem leaves you with nothing. So, this is not a "maybe I should do it." This is a wake-up call, especially when we realize that each one of us could possibly have unintentional theft. Unintentional theft, and chas v'shalom, if we have intentional theft on our hands, and we want to get to Gan Eden because we're already doing teshuva, it also helps us to give tzedakah, to give ma'aser, and to be as generous as possible. Because just in case we stole some money, intentionally or unintentionally, and we don't know where, and we don't know what, and we don't know who.

13:35could possibly have unintentional theft. Unintentional theft, and chas v'shalom, if we have intentional theft on our hands, and we want to get to Gan Eden because we're already doing teshuva, it also helps us to give tzedakah, to give ma'aser, and to be as generous as possible. Because just in case we stole some money, intentionally or unintentionally, and we don't know where, and we don't know what, and we don't know who, this is what's going to save us. So yes, there is a teshuvah for stealing, but it means that you have to be more generous than what you typically are. If it's easy for you to give 100, that means it's not enough. You have to give a little bit more than what you think is easy; it has to hurt a little bit. Why? Because that's what's showing... that you have emunah in Hashem and you're saying, "Hashem, it doesn't matter how much I give. Why? Because even if I give 100%, what am I giving? A small percentage." You're not allowed in Judaism to give to the point where you drive yourself into poverty, into the poorhouse. You have to be responsible. There are certain percentage guidelines and limits of what you're allowed to give. But nonetheless,

14:57You cannot be one of these people that makes $300,000, $400,000 a year and you're giving $3,000 to the Beit Knesset and you think you're okay. Because your lifestyle is very expensive and you want to go on six vacations a year. Everything in proportion. Make sure that you invest your money wisely in Tzedakah, in Kiruv, in Talmidei Chachamim. Don't just give it to the Red Cross or one of these nonsensical, false organizations that take 99% of every dollar you have to their own pockets. Make sure that your money is going to Torah, to mitzvot, to things that Hashem cares about, not the ones that Satan cares about. And B'ezrat Hashem, not only will this make us all rich materially and spiritually, but will also allow us to complete our teshuva in our days before the Mashiach comes. So when he comes, our hands are clean and we're ready. Baruch Hashem. I enjoyed learning with you today. Look out for these shiurim. They're a blockbuster. And it's not that I give compliments to myself because I deserve absolutely nothing. It's 100% Hashem. It's only Hashem. Only was Hashem. Only will be Hashem. And it's the only thing that matters in this world.

16:18Thank you and have a good night.