Deja Vu, Reincarnation, SUICIDE, Marijuana vs WINE, Mystical Words - STUMP THE RABBI (11)

0:12We have our Wednesday Stump the Rabbi program. Glad to see all of you. Some more people are going to show up soon. But we are starting something interesting to get you guys a little bit more involved in the zikkui ha'rabim, as we call it, which is benefiting the public. We are adding some new cameras, so when you ask questions, you can be on camera and become famous. But also, you know, to make it more interactive for people who are watching it at home, because of the shem, because I know that a lot of the people who watch this shiur, they're from all over the world. We have people from Saudi Arabia, from Abu Dhabi, Australia, the Netherlands, all over Europe, and all over the United States. People from all over the world, Baruch Hashem, would love to be in your seat. They can't be. But they always ask me the same question, which is, who's asking the question? They want to know who's asking the questions. So now they're going to get to see. But this will also give you a little bit more zechuyot. You know, once you ask a question, as I told you guys last week,

1:26When you ask a good question, it's not only just that you're going to learn the answer, but also all of the other people that are sitting next to you, they're going to learn the answer. Maybe they had the same question and they didn't even know. And now they're going to learn the answer. So you benefit from every single thing that they learn, you benefit from. The people at home are going to benefit from it, and you obviously benefit from it as well. The point being is that HaKadosh Baruch Hu always tries to give us more and more mitzvot, more and more opportunities for Him to give us merits, for Him to give us a reward, an eternal reward. So it's worthwhile to think about your questions twice before you ask them and not waste them on nonsense. But most importantly, to get somewhere, to get to some point of significance. Before we start with the questions, the shiur is going to be also for Hatzlacha Rabah and also Zivug Hagun for Marina Mazal Bat Yelena. Also Refuah Shlema, Refuah HaNefesh, and Refuah HaGuf for David Ben Esriah, Doris Bat Jorah, and Levana Bat Sarah.

2:41Rabbi Efraim Ben Shulamit, Rabbi Nitzara Bat Anat, also for Hatzlacha Rabah and Zivug Hagun. good and blessings in all that she does. The person that really started this amazing program, Baruch Hashem, Michal, has really been behind this and has really taken care of this better than people take care of their kids. So that's obviously also been behind this. So all of the people that help, Baruch Hashem, it's not so simple. It's not so simple to get this together. So, Baruch Hashem, all of the people that behind it are really working hard to get you, rabotai, closer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Now, when you really think about it, it's important to get close to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Anyone that spends a little time learning about some of the Sippurei Tzaddikim of what happened at the time of the Holocaust, at the time of the Beit HaMikdash, and the time of Mitzrayim, you see that Am Yisrael, Baruch Hashem, has always had special Jews.

3:50Now the Yetzer Hara has a deadly weapon that unfortunately works extremely well no matter how many times he uses it. To fool us into abandoning Hashem, into abandoning Torah and mitzvot, into abandoning what even makes sense by using this weapon that we never even realize is his weapon. And it's called bilbul. Bilbul means confusion. The Yetzer Hara starts off by confusing us, giving us all types of things that are confusing, confusing experiences, confusing teachers, confusing family members, confusing life. Now, using this weapon that we never even realize is his weapon. And it's called bilbul. Bilbul means confusion. The Yetzer Hara starts off by confusing us, giving us all types of things that are confusing—confusing experiences, confusing teachers, confusing family members, confusing life. Now, Many times people come to me, and they ask me, "Oh, listen, can you help me? I have a son or a daughter that's off the derech. They used to be religious, grew up religious, but now they're completely off. They drive on Shabbat, they smoke cigarettes, they're married to a non-Jew," and so on and so forth. This happens, unfortunately, very often today. Almost 80% of Jews in America are married to goyim. And it's a disaster. And the reality is that if we don't do anything about it...

5:11We're one generation away from not having any more Jews in America. So, it's that bad. And that's why, Baruch Hashem, every person needs to do what's called Mesirat Nefesh, the sacrifice. Everything they possibly can in order to get Am Yisrael to turn things around. But one of the main things is that we need to turn ourselves around by stopping ourselves from becoming confused. Stopping ourselves from ever getting to that point of confusion. Now, how can we do that? The only way is to learn to love. Because Torah is the only place in the world that's going to have answers. And that's why we have this program for you guys to ask questions. So if there is something or there was something that ever confused you, that ever made you think, yeah, maybe the mitzvot are not relevant anymore. Maybe Shabbat is not really this anymore. Maybe this, maybe that. Anytime you have a "maybe" in your mind, this is the time. This is the time to ask that question so you can get that "maybe" out of the way.

6:13Get that confusion out of the way, because what happens is that once the Yetzer Hara uses that weapon and makes you confused, that confusion leads to all the bad things in the world. It leads you to have less emunah in Hashem, less yirat shamayim, less fear of Hashem, less desire to do the mitzvot, and ultimately can get a person completely away from HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Simply by not answering one question. So, with all that being said, B'ezrat Hashem, I'm hoping a few people will actually ask questions before the shiur, but you guys could ask first if we don't have any more questions, and I could read some of these that people have asked before. I don't know if they're here or not, but Michal wrote them down for me to answer. I don't know what they say, but I'll read them if you guys don't have any questions. So, B'chavod, who wants to be the first one to ask a question? Okay, so the Arizal writes in a work called Sha'ar HaGilgulim. Sha'ar HaGilgulim is a very high level

7:35book full of things that are very mystical, things that are supernatural, but also things that can be very, very confusing. I think I mentioned it to you guys before. In Sha'ar HaGilgulim, he talks in detail about how each one of us in reality has been here before. been here before. So when you ask a question, for example, okay, so let's say in the time of the Holocaust, there were a lot of people that were wicked—murderers, rapists, pedophiles—that died, and there were some good people that died. You could always rationalize how, why Hashem killed this one, why Hashem killed that one, but the one thing that people have difficulty with is the babies. What did the baby do? What did the little baby do? He's only two years old. He doesn't even know Aleph-Bet yet. And why did Hashem kill him also in the Holocaust? Why does Hashem kill little babies now? You know, sometimes you have a baby, you know, mamash, born sick. Born sick and sometimes, unfortunately,

8:40Hashem decides to take him out of the world. So the reason is because there's no such thing as a baby. The neshama that you have right now was originally here from the time of creation. All of our neshamot were originally inside Adam HaRishon. Adam HaRishon had all of the neshamot, and his neshama split into all of the neshamot in the world. Now, in each one of those neshamot that broke off into another person, that person had a mission in the world. If they achieved that mission, that spiritual mission that HaKadosh Baruch Hu had, that neshama graduates and goes to Gan Eden, goes to Heaven forever. If it fails, depending on the level of failure, Hashem can do something called gilgul, which is reincarnation in English, meaning give that neshama another chance. Another chance at life to redo what they failed at in the previous life.

9:42So, let's say, for example, a person, just hypothetically speaking, came into the world and he kept Shabbat, and he kept kosher, and he did a lot of things right. He did a lot of things right, but one time he stole $150 from one of his friends. He stole it, you know, he was 18-19 years old, and he needed the money, or the money was, like, you know, kind of smiling at him. You know, even though it was in his friend's pocket, it was looking at him. It was like, winking at him. So he figured, maybe it's winking at me. Maybe I'll take it. And life went on. He took the $150. His friend cried about it. He didn't know who stole it from him because he would never question his friend. "My friend's never going to steal from me." By the way, usually it isn't your friends that steal from you. Just to let you know, it happened to me a few times. All the money that has ever been stolen from me was only from my friends. Not to you if you question your friends, it's just a reality check. If the friend is a talmid chacham, then you don't have to worry about it. But if he's not, unfortunately, sometimes that's what happens. The point being is that life happened, the 18-year-old moved on, he forgot that he even stole the $150, he got a job, he got married, he went on in his life. At 40, 50 years old, one day Hashem decides to take him from the world.

10:58And he comes back, he comes to Shamayim, he's like, oh, I kept Shabbat, I kept mitzvot, I kept everything. And Hashem says, yes, you kept everything, but we have a rule. We have a rule in Shamayim. No one that has blood on their hands is allowed to enter Heaven. he said, no, no, I never killed anybody, Hashem. He goes, no, you didn't kill anybody. But we have something called money. Money is called damim. Damim means blood in lashon kodesh. Because people spend their lives chasing money. So when you steal money, it's like you stole a piece of somebody's life. He spent five hours of his life to get that $150. So you stole five hours of his life. Hashem says, if you steal and don't return it, You stole life. You have to come back, and he has to come back also. And you have to pay him back. You have to return that money that you stole. So that person, even though he kept all of the mitzvot, because he did not do teshuvah for stealing, Hashem has to give him another opportunity to do teshuvah for this thing. There's a very famous story from the Baal Shem Tov of somebody that owned a couple of...

12:07owned some horses, and the Baal Shem Tov came to him and said, "I want to buy a horse from you. Can I buy any one of them?" He said, "Yes." The Baal Shem Tov said, "I want to buy this one." The owner responded, "No, Rabbi, any horse you want. I have 500 horses, just not that one." The Baal Shem Tov asked, "Why?" The owner explained, "Because this one is the best worker. This one, I don't even have to tell him to work; he works." The Baal Shem Tov insisted, "Yes, but I want that one." The owner finally said, "Okay, Rabbi, it's you. Fine, sold." As soon as he said "sold," the horse died. So the guy got scared. He said, "What happened?" The Baal Shem Tov replied, "Do you have anybody that you know who died?" He answered, "Yes, my best friend. My best friend died three weeks ago." The Baal Shem Tov asked, "Did your best friend owe you any money?" He responded, "Yes. How do you know, Rabbi?" The Baal Shem Tov said, "Because I have Ruach HaKodesh, and I knew that your best friend's neshama was inside that horse. That's why he came back as a Gilgul. He came back as a reincarnation into the horse, and he had to work for you until he paid the money back." point being is that it's very common language in the Torah that reincarnation exists. So when a baby dies, it's not really a baby; it's a neshama that Hashem gave a certain mission, maybe perhaps to live for only one week, one year, 10 years, 20 years, and so on and so forth. Now, why did I mention all of this? It is because this is one of the main ways

13:25that we could easily explain and answer your question. If you go into a certain place that you've never been in, in your life now—you live in the world 15, 20 years, whatever it is—but you go somewhere and you've never been there, you go on vacation, you go to some, I don't know, place in the middle of nowhere, and you remember this place, but you've never been there. What's the answer? The answer is, it is very possible that your neshama was here in a previous life. Was he in a previous life? That's one of the ways that we could easily explain that question. Things that you've experienced in your life, things that you've seen in your life, could very well be something that you've seen in a previous life. And there are actually people in the world today, over 30 million people, who have admitted to having near-death experiences, and several million people have also admitted to remembering their previous life. There are actually some of them that have YouTube videos. There are a few Druzim—you guys know what Druzim are?

14:35They're like Arabs, but they're not the terrorist type. They actually like Jews. So they live in Eretz Yisrael. For whatever reason or another, it's very common among their people to have kids who are born remembering their previous life. So there are a few videos on the internet where you see this little five-year-old kid who tells his parents, "I want to go see my wife." Your wife? What wife? And he tells them, "My wife, she lives on this street." And he tells them exactly where they live. They take him there and he says, "Oh, that's my wife. And that's my son." The son is 30 years old. "That's my son, he's 30 years old." "Yeah, but you're five. How is your son?" He goes, "No, I lived here before. I died in the war. I can even tell you that I hid money in the house." And he tells them exactly where there's money hidden in the house. And they go and find it. So, there's many of these stories. You could verify all this stuff. Point being, Rabotai, is that the Torah is wider than the ocean, and it has answers for everything, including something as simple as seeing something twice or seeing something again. But there are other explanations. This is just one little taste of it. Next question. If you could pass the mic to whoever's going to ask the question, that would be good. Yeah, pass them the mic, please.

15:54It's good, it's good. It's just feeding to the camera. Doesn't make it loud. Basically, like, if you have some dreams in the past, and you see it again, like, from nowhere, like, you try and remember, like, where it came from. Like, an example, like, you saw, you were in this store, and you dream, and a couple of years later, then you see, like, you're in this dream. So, the Gemara in Masechet Berachot says that most dreams are complete nonsense and a culmination of... Things that you saw in your life, but sometimes a dream can be one-sixtieth of a prophecy. Meaning that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is trying to give you a message, whether it be good news or it be bad news. But He's trying to give you a message of something that you need to do something about. And so sometimes I'll show you something that's happening in order to warn you not to go somewhere, in order to give you a message not to spend any time with a certain person. So it's HaKadosh Baruch Hu who's trying to tell you something. Now, I know somebody that this literally happened to two weeks ago. She told me that she had a dream about

17:05certain person that she knew that this person was going to meet some Spanish Jewish guy. That guy looked good, but he wasn't good. Something was wrong with him. Why? Because in the dream he seemed like a really nice guy, but right behind him there was a bunch of dead bodies. that's not exactly the best indication but she said, "Oh, it's just a dream, crazy dreams, okay, fine, no problem." Today, five hours ago, she tells me the friend tells her, "Yeah, I just met some Spanish Jewish guy." So, is it the dream? Is it not the dream? Long story short, she didn't tell her the dream, but she was very, very happy when she told her, "Yeah, but I'm not really interested in him." She goes... Point is that sometimes HaKadosh Baruch Hu gives you different insights, different messages of different things. Maybe you can do something about it. In general, most dreams are not. That's why anytime you have a dream, before you get nervous, before you start, let's say, for example, sometimes people have terrible dreams where someone is torturing them or they die or something like that. Before you get nervous, just know,

18:23only time to even consider this dream of any value whatsoever is if you have it more than once. If you only had the dream once, 99.999% of the time you could just delete it. Like as if it never happened. If you have the same exact dream more than once, or a very, very similar dream more than once, then it's something to consider. And at that point, you have to go to a Talmid Chacham, somebody that knows a lot of Torah, and give him some insight into what you dreamt. Try to write down as many details as you possibly can. But most importantly, you have to tell the truth. Don't cut things out. That truth also means truth about yourself. like if, let's say, for example, somebody comes and they give you a certain message. And if you know what you're talking about, you ask, "Okay, do you violate Shabbat?" "No, no, no, I keep Shabbat." "Do you waste seed?" "No, no, I don't." You say, "Okay, so the dream means nothing." But in reality, the person doesn't keep Shabbat and does waste seed, and what ends up happening is bad things. Why? Hashem was warning him. He went to the Rabbi to give him a translation, and the Rabbi gave him a translation based on wrong information.

19:31based on wrong information. So you have to be very honest. If you want help, you have to be very honest. But again, don't get overly nervous about these dreams. In general, they don't mean much unless you have them repeatedly. Also, it needs to be in the morning. Dreams at night are more likely to be nonsense than the ones you have in the morning. You know how sometimes you have to wake up at 6:30 in the morning, seven o'clock in the morning, but you don't want to. You have to go to shul, but you don't really want to. You're like, oh, 10 minutes, Ima, 10 minutes, 10 more minutes, 10 more minutes. You end up sleeping for another hour. It's like you feel like you slept for a week. And during that one hour is when you have that dream. Well, you had that dream. That dream is much more meaningful than the dream you had at the beginning of the night. So, there's a... uh... there are rules, there are rules to these things. But I wouldn't spend too much time worrying about most of your dreams because, like I said, if you are... uh... you know, most people, they're not going to mean very much. But if they do, it's usually Hashem trying to tell you what exactly I'm telling you without the dream. I'm telling you exactly what Hashem is trying to tell you. You know what it is? Who wants to guess?

20:43There you go. That's it. That's what Hashem is trying to tell you in everything. Every single thing that's happening in your life is Hashem sending you some type of message to do teshuvah. To get stronger. That's the whole point of your life. You know how you know that you need to do teshuvah? If you're alive. If you're alive, you have to do teshuvah. Why? If you completed your teshuvah, Hashem will just take you to Gan Eden and All of us have to do teshuvah for something. Some people for Shabbat, some people for wasting seed, some people for being with a goya, some people for being with a goy, some people for modesty, some people for stealing, some people for whatever it is. Countless different reasons. Some people are really arrogant, some people are really stingy, and so on and so forth. Every one of us has to do teshuvah for something. So if you're alive, you need to do teshuvah for something. That's in general what message Hashem is trying to tell you. The only difference is that when I tell you it, it's a relatively harmless message. When Hashem is telling you the message, that means the clock is on. That means the clock is on and Hashem is trying to tell you, get going. Next question. Yes. You mentioned before that all of our neshamot come from Adam HaRishon. I've heard that before, and I never really understood it because

22:02Yeah, well, Adam HaRishon was the first neshama. HaKadosh Baruch Hu put the original neshama into Adam HaRishon. He put a piece of Himself into Adam HaRishon where He blew into his nostrils the neshama. And a neshama is not physical. It's the only thing that you can compare it to where each one of us will have an understanding. It's like fire. A neshama is like fire. So fire, let's say for example, I have a candle and it's lit. And if I want to light a second candle, I'm going to take that candle and take a second candle that's off and light the second candle. Now, once I have two candles, did the first fire change? It didn't change. It's the same exact fire. But now I have two candles, and they both have the same fire. Now let's say I take the same candle again and light ten more candles. Did the first fire change? No, it's still the same one.

23:19I can split into an infinite amount of pieces. Each one of us was in a different part of the body, the physical body of Adam HaRishon. Some were in the head, which is usually the tzaddikim, the biggest tzaddikim in history. They were in the head; some were in the shoulder. Quite frankly, with all due respect for all of us, we are most likely in the feet section. We're in the feet section. That's just the reality. The last generation, most of the people are from the feet. But that's also part of the reason why we all have to still do teshuva for the original sin that Adam HaRishon did, because we were partners to it. We were part of that original neshama. So Adam HaRishon's neshama went into his children. Now, after that, the generations continued. Each one of those children had more kids, but that original neshama that split into, let's say, three kids, those three split into another 10, those 10 split into another 20, those 20 split into another 50, and so on and so forth, all the way to the generation of Noach, 10 generations later, but it still has that original piece.

24:29still has that original piece that's carried it forward the whole time. The point being is that the original piece, 5779 years later, is still here and that's why we still have that connection to Adam HaRishon. Just as a last footnote, the reason why the Noahide laws, which are the laws of the B'nei Noach Accord after Noah is not because Noah was more significant than Adam HaRishon, because Adam HaRishon also had those rules. Adam HaRishon also had those rules. It's just that Adam HaRishon had the first six rules, and Noah got the seventh one. So there's a rule in the Torah that whoever completes the mitzvah, he gets the mitzvah named after him. So that's why it's called the seven laws of Noah. Chaviv, next question. Yes. That's why he already asked the question; it's fine. So the question is

25:38If we are originally from Adam HaRishon, and we have to do teshuva for that original sin, how come the goyim do not have to do teshuva for the original sin? Well, they actually do. They also have to do teshuva for the original sin, and they have to do teshuva for everything else. That's why they're alive also. The goyim also have a mission in the world in order to fulfill the Torah, which is to achieve their own state of fulfillment by complying with the Torah, which is seven Noahide. laws, 60 ethical laws. There are seven Noahide laws: don't murder, don't commit adultery, don't engage in idolatry, and so on and so forth. They must have a court system to ensure there is no mayhem. Additionally, they are prohibited from eating an animal that is still alive. They can eat whatever they want, but it must not be alive. But the point is that they have laws that are the seven obvious ones. Like we have the Ten Commandments that are obvious. But those seven break up into about 50 or 60 ethical laws that are in the Torah. And they have to...

26:42do teshuvah in essence by following those laws because that's their imperfections. One of those main things that they have to follow is part of their imperfections. And that imperfection is the reason why they are still here. They also get reincarnated. Non-Jews also get reincarnated. It's not just Jews. So the point is that they also have to do teshuvah, partly for what happened originally, but even more so for their own issues, for what they themselves have committed. The biggest teshuvah that everybody has to do is not for Adam HaRishon. The biggest teshuvah we all have to do is for ourselves. For our own sins, for our own mistakes. What we did in this life and perhaps in previous lives. And by the way, if you're going to ask the question of how do I know what's the biggest thing that I need to do? The biggest thing is usually the most difficult. Whatever is most difficult for you, that's usually the biggest thing that you need to do. Kavod, what's your next question? Yes. In this week's parasha, like in the past parasha, it says that Moshe sent spies into Eretz Yisrael, right? And he changed Yehoshua's name, and he took the yud and the hey, which is like Hashem's name, so Hashem should be with him, to save him from the other tzaddikim. But why would he send the other tzaddikim with him, if he knew they were going to be a bad influence?

28:06Why did he send the other tzaddikim with him if he knew that there would be a bad influence? So, in the beginning of the parasha, if you look at the midrash, it's a very good question. The beginning of the parasha, if you look at the midrash, the midrash says that the nation complained to Moshe Rabbeinu to no end. And one of the complaints is that they want to see this big promise that Hashem made to them. Hashem said, I'm going to give you a land of milk and honey; I want to see it. It's like somebody telling you, I have a big present for you. Oh, what is it? No, no, I'm not going to tell you. What is it? I don't want to tell you. You keep asking, I want to know, I want to know. Especially since he keeps repeating, he has a present for you. I want to see it. So the people were complaining; He promised us a land of milk and honey, but... Let us go check. We want to see it. We want to see it. Before everybody goes, millions and millions of people go to this land, let us go check it out. Maybe there are some enemies that we have to know about. Maybe there's this, maybe there's that. Which means they didn't really have full emunah in Hashem that Hashem is going to give them a present without anything to worry about. So Moshe Rabbeinu heard their complaints and said to Hashem, okay, so they have free choice. They want to go. So I'm going to send them.

29:31Hashem says, "You want to send them? Go send them. I didn't tell you to send them, but you want to go send them, send them." So Moshe Rabbeinu knew that this is allowing them to practice their own free choice. Now, Yehoshua Rabbeinu wasn't going because he wanted to go. Yehoshua Rabbeinu was the talmid of Moshe Rabbeinu. Everywhere Moshe Rabbeinu was, that's where Yehoshua Rabbeinu was. But Yehoshua bin Nun was one of the leaders. And it says in the beginning of the parasha that HaKadosh Baruch Hu decided that Moshe Rabbeinu picked Rashei Yisrael, the leaders of each one of the tribes. Moshe Rabbeinu knew that Yehoshua Rabbeinu didn't really want to go and that it was really going against his own free will. He wanted to give him extra protection. He's like, I'm going to give you a blessing. Like, you know, today, anytime you want to do something big, you want to ask your parents for a blessing. You want to ask a Talmid Chacham for a blessing. "Hey, I'm going to have a big test. I'm going to do a big thing. Please give me a blessing." So Moshe Rabbeinu was not your typical rabbi. Moshe Rabbeinu

30:41gave him a blessing by adding one letter, not two letters, one letter to his name. The letter Yud. The letter Yud was added to his name, because his name was Hoshea. And Moshe Rabbeinu added a letter, he's like, "Oh, Hashem will be with you, because now you are Yehoshua. Yehoshua Rabbeinu." Now, that blessing helped him because, again, he did something as a mesirat nefesh (sacrifice). But the Gemara says that Hashem did not have this as part of the plan. Meaning that these spies with Am Yisrael practicing their own free choice, Moshe Rabbeinu blessing Yehoshua with an extra letter, was Moshe Rabbeinu acting on his own free choice. But that means that Moshe Rabbeinu was adding one more letter. One more letter to the Torah. Now we know that HaKadosh Baruch Hu, when He wrote the Torah, everything was precise. Everything was precise. Everything was in the right place. He didn't add even a single letter from nothing. So where did this letter come from?

31:44Where does this letter come from? So the Gemara in Masechet Sanhedrin says that Sarah Imenu, her name originally was Sarai. But Hashem changed her name to Sarah. He took the yud, took it out, and put a hey instead. That yud, the Gemara says, was crying to Hashem for hundreds and hundreds of years, begging Hashem, please put me back in the Torah. Hashem says, ah, perfect. I'm going to put you in Yehoshua Ben Nun's name. I'll put you in Yehoshua Ben Nun's name. Now the yud can stop complaining. The point being is that the yud obviously had a place. Now, because of free choice, Hashem put it somewhere else. But that also explains other things in the Torah that no matter what we do with it, Hashem obviously makes things work. So you could see literally everything and anything you want in the Torah, no matter which place in your life you are. If you're secular, if you're religious, if you're born into a religious family, or if you're born into a secular family, you could find yourself in the Torah throughout your entire life if you simply know how to look. Yes? If a woman gets married, right? The husband passes away, and then she gets remarried. When she dies, who is she with?

33:04Very good question. It also has to do with if you were here several times, several incarnations. You were here, let's say, five times, ten times, until you finally achieved your mission, you finally did teshuva, you came to the Wednesday shiur, you decided, okay, enough with the sins, I'm going to do full teshuva and become the Moshe Rabbeinu of my neighborhood. Now, Mashiach comes. Mashiach comes, everybody's happy. At some point, 40 years after Mashiach comes, there's the resurrection of the dead. Resurrection of all the tzaddikim that died in the past, they come back to life. So the question is, which one gets reincarnated? Which version of you? The version of you now, the version of you from the last time, the version of you from 500 years ago, which version comes out? Next thing, you give the shiur. So which version comes out? The one that was the most righteous, the one that was the best version of you. Same concept with the zivug, whichever one was the...

34:17the best husband, meaning if the original zivug that she, for example, spent 20 years with, 30 years with, that was her original zivug, but his life was cut short, and then let's say she spent the next five years with somebody else, that somebody else served a certain purpose in the world, but her original zivug that she spent her life with is that. Not because of the years, but because the match was better. The match was better. It could be that the first 20 years was a mistake, and the second one for five years was better. So whichever one was a better match for the neshamah, whichever one brings more pleasure to the neshamah, that's the one that, in essence, becomes united. Next. Yes? Is Korach still in Gehinnom? Ah, very good question. So the question is, is Korach still in Gehinnom? Now that's this week's parasha. In this week's parasha, Parashat Korach, it says that Korach tried to go against Moshe Rabbeinu.

35:20And after HaKadosh Baruch Hu opened the ground in the desert, it swallowed Korach and everyone that followed him, 250 great rabbis that followed him, and his wife. But his children were saved at the last second because they did teshuva and realized that their father was wrong. And it says that they all went to Gehinnom alive. The ground opened up, and they all went into Gehenom alive. And until this day, until this day, the Gemara says, there's a place in the desert that's one of the entrances to Gehenom. There are three in the world: one is in the desert, one is in Yerushalayim, and one is in the ocean. There is a place in the desert where you can actually hear Korach and all of his followers who are still in Gehenom, screaming, "Hashem Hu Ha'Elokim." Moshe Rabbeinu is emet, and Torah too is emet. Still doing teshuvah until this day. Still saying I'm sorry until this day. But there is an opinion by Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai in the Zohar that says on the pasuk, Tzadik katamar yifrach. There's a pasuk in the Torah that a tzadik will come out, will grow like a palm tree. And Rabbi Shimon...

36:49He's showing that at the time of Mashiach, Hashem will eventually let the tzadik out. Let the tzadik out. Which tzadik? Korach. How do we know it's Korach? Because tzadik, the last letter of each one of those words, spells the name Korach. So, there is an opinion that Korach will eventually come out of Gehinnom. Not everybody agrees with it. But there is a source in the Gemara or in the Zohar that says that Korach may actually be let out of Gehinnom at some point when the Mashiach comes. But not now. He's still in the desert. He's still in Gehinnom right now, screaming his lungs out with everybody that followed him and went against the Torah. Yes. If you could pass the mic because I can barely hear them as it is. So I'm sure the people at home want to hear also. Yes. Ah, what happens to people that commit suicide? It's a fantastic question. This is a very, very important question, Rabotai, even though you all seem very normal, and Baruch Hashem, I don't think anybody here is suicidal, please pay attention to this question, even if you don't care about it. Because somebody in your life may care about it. You with me? Now, your body...

38:07It's not your body. Your body is not your body. It's Hashem's body. You have no right to damage it. That's why we're not allowed to put tattoos on it. If you have a tattoo, the sin was in getting the tattoo. But once somebody has a tattoo, they don't have to remove it unless it's in a spot that everybody sees or if it's something related to idolatry or immodesty. But the sin itself is the original damage to the body. The same thing applies to smoking cigarettes or doing drugs. You're not allowed to do it because you're damaging a body that's not yours. The same thing with... Suicide, anyone who commits suicide is judged in Heaven as if they committed murder—of themselves. They violated the Ten Commandments; the Sixth Commandment says, "Do not murder." Suicide falls under that definition of murdering yourself.

39:13So, a person that murders themselves by committing suicide, thinking foolishly that by committing suicide they're going to get rid of all the problems that they have in this world—whether it's a heartbreak, which is very common, or financial problems, or different types of stresses that happen in life—they think that if they commit suicide, therefore they're not going to have any problems anymore. Little do they know that as soon as their body is murdered by themselves—whether they jump off a bridge, take some pills, or shoot themselves—all types of horrible, horrible, horrible things, they go up to heaven, and they have a Beit Din in Shamayim judging them as a murderer. And a murderer in Shamayim does not get a good judgment. They don't go to heaven. They go to Gehenom for a certain amount of time, not forever. But for an extended period of time, if you want to know more details, I can show you in Reishit Chochmah, Masechet Gehinom, exactly which chamber they go to and exactly what happens to them. It's not a pretty sight. Point being, Rabotai, committing suicide is the dumbest thing a human being can do. Number one, it doesn't end problems. It only begins them. Only now, you can't fix them. At least here, if you're alive, it doesn't matter what problem you have, I promise you it's fixable.

40:33Just give it time. Give it time, it's fixable. You don't have any money, eventually you can have money. If somebody broke your heart, eventually you're going to find somebody who will repair that heart. If you're bored, eventually you'll find something to do. If you're sick, if Hashem wants you to live, He'll give you a cure. If He doesn't, then why are you expediting the death anyway? Point being, Abutai, committing suicide does not end problems. It actually creates a much bigger one. One that you cannot solve anymore. Why? Because you're no longer alive. Once you're over there, once you're in the next world, there's no teshuvah over there. There's just judgment. That judgment is either good forever or bad. And if it's bad, trust me when I tell you, you don't want it. You don't want it. I promise you. You don't want it. So overcome the problems. If it's hard for you, ask for guidance. I'm sure you have somebody that cares about you in your life. If you don't, you can always come to us. We're more than happy to help in any way, shape, or form that we possibly can. But I promise you, it's not worth it to commit suicide. It only seems like it.

41:40It only seems like life is hopeless, it only seems like life is meaningless, but I promise you I've seen a lot of people who had really, really bad situations, myself included, where I was sure, I was positive, my life was only going to get worse. I was wrong, I was very wrong. Eventually, my personal story lecture movie version will come out. We're going to do something very big for all of you guys to come and see it, and you'll see what a small piece of Gehinnom in this world looks like, but also how HaKadosh Baruch Hu can turn something that looks like Gehinnom and is Gehinnom into the Gan Eden we live in today. so don't ever give up. You just have to be patient, and you'll see that salvation is definitely there. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Yes, if you could pass the mic to him, please. I'm sorry it's taking a little time, but I really want the people at home to listen to you guys too, not just me. They get bored of my voice. So, if you're not allowed to damage your body or do drugs or anything, why is drinking wine praised, then?

42:45So, you're allowed to drink wine. You're right, it's a very good question. You're allowed to drink wine, but you're not allowed to drink excessively. You're not allowed to damage your body with wine. If you drink, let's say, for example, a l'chaim, a sip or something like that, or you drink the kiddush wine, you're not drinking enough to damage your body. not drinking it, in fact, actually, not only does it say it in science—science, I know people like science, scientists like this—they say one cup of wine a day is actually good for your heart. Now, the scientists, they did a lot of research and spent millions and millions of dollars finding out that a cup of wine per day actually helps your heart. Now, they didn't have to spend all these millions of dollars. Didn't have to. Why? It was written in the Gemara. Masechet Megillah, almost 2,000 years ago, said wine helps your heart, but beer hurts your heart. Beer hurts your heart; wine helps your heart. Which means if you drink, even if it's a glass a day of wine, it's not bad. It's not bad. When is wine bad? When you're drinking excessively. Or if you drink it and you have a health condition like diabetes or something like that, then obviously those conditions change because the circumstances changed. But if you are drinking l'kiddush wine or something like that, in the old days, by the way, water was very, very difficult to purify.

44:12Most water was full of all types of disease. So the most common drink that people drank was actually wine. That was the most common because, in its purest form, it doesn't go through any type of filtering system, and you could literally make wine with relative ease and have something to drink. But in those days, the wine actually had much more alcohol in it. than there is today. So back then, they wouldn't drink very much of it at once, and if they did, it was only on special occasions, like for example in Purim. So Jews are allowed to drink, but again, special circumstances if they're drinking more than the norm because that "more than norm" has to have an exception. In general, though, it doesn't require the exception because you're just drinking a little, and that's not hurting your body; it's not harming your body, it's actually helping it. Yes, you want to follow up? What about medicinal marijuana and marijuana? So I have a shiur about it on the internet, and you could just type my name on the internet along with "marijuana" or "drugs" or something like that, and you'll see a whole shiur about marijuana. We've addressed this question before, but I'll answer you anyway, just for the sake of you having something to go home with and...

45:32The first commandment in the Ten Commandments, HaKadosh Baruch Hu tells us that He took us out of Egypt. Then He tells us in the second commandment that we're not allowed to have any other god. Then He tells us to not use His name in vain. So the first three commandments tell us that we have a certain set of responsibilities regarding where we spend our time, how we spend it, where our mind is, and so on and so forth. And the Chachamim explain to us that we are not allowed to intentionally alter our state of mind. and the reason why is because you have to know that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is next to you at all times. Not just when you go to the Beit Knesset, not just when you learn Torah, not just when you're eating and doing Birkat Hamazon, not even just when you're putting Tefillin on. At all times, Hashem is next to you, which means if He's next to you, you have to be prepared. Now, Means you have to be prepared to talk to the King of Kings. You have to be able to talk to Him. You have to be able to pray to Him. You have to be learned. If a person really has that in his mind, they're not going to want to alter their state of mind. Now, if a person alters their state of mind electively, Rav Moshe Feinstein, זצ"ל, says that somebody who alters their state of mind by taking drugs, whether it be marijuana or any other type of drug, electively for fun...

46:52They are considered a Ben Sorer U'Moreh. A Ben Sorer U'Moreh, the Torah says, is a wayward child who would be given the death penalty. So that means that the person is violating the Ten Commandments because he's altering his state of mind. He's putting himself, literally, in a state of mind where he's not able to talk to Hashem. It's like, for example, if you're going to get a job, all of you guys, I'm assuming, want to work one day and make a lot of money, probably, right? What do you want to do when you grow up? Oh, so you want to be a billionaire, not just a millionaire. Okay. Multi-millionaire. Not just one million, multi. Okay. Now, on the way to becoming a multi-millionaire, you're going to have to have a boss at some point, probably, right? And at some point, you're going to have to have big customers, too. Now, imagine you're going to a meeting with the biggest customer in the world. You're going to meet, I don't know, Exxon or something. You're going to meet the best of the best. Now, are you going to go to that meeting high? no, right? Why not? Because I want 100% consciousness. You want them to know that you're all there with them. You want them to respect you because of who you are and not, uh, some, uh, you know, some, uh, mushroom that you have in your head. And, uh, you look at the guy, he looks like an elephant sometimes, and you know, no. You want to know, ah, I'm here, he's here, we're going to do some business together. We'll do some business together. Now, that customer one day is going to turn to nothing. Why? He's flesh and blood.

48:19is always going to be here. He's the King of Kings. We have to know that we are meeting Him, whether we want to or not, at all times. So when a person alters their state of mind, they're disrespecting the King of Kings, much more important than the customer of all customers. Now, on the other hand, the second part of your question is what about medicinal marijuana, meaning marijuana that somebody needs for medical reasons, because they have some type of disease. It could be arthritis, it could be cancer, it could be all types of Hashem ya'achem (God should have mercy), terrible diseases that have a lot of pain. Now, Baruch Hashem (Thank God), you are in luck. I'm an expert in pain. I've been experiencing it every day of my life for the last 17 years. So now, I know a little bit about this. Now, the good news about pain is that there are treatments for pain. Not all treatments alter your state of mind. Yes, you can use marijuana to help your pain. For some people, it helps; for some people, it doesn't. For some people, it just gets them high, but they still have the pain. For others, it helps them, so they get high, and they don't have the pain anymore. But the good news is that HaKadosh Baruch Hu does not want us to sin, so what did He do? He gave somebody the idea. He's like, you know what, why don't you take out

49:34the part, the THC part, that gets people high—take it out. Take the CBD and give them just the medicine; that way, you can get rid of the pain without getting high. And even more so, convince the government to make it legal and sell it in CVS stores. Ah, there you go. So if somebody really wants it for medicinal reasons, they can get it for medicinal reasons without getting high. Which means that anybody that's taking it for medicinal reasons and still getting high, guess what? They want to get high. They want to get high. And for that, there's a punishment. There's a special chamber. It's nice and hot. I'm waiting. Point being, Rabotai, it's not good for you. It's not good for you for a lot of reasons. Aside from the sin, aside from the sin, I know a lot of people. I know I'm much older than all of you. I know a lot of kids. That when I grew up, marijuana was very common and not any different from today. Kids would smoke in schoolyards and from ages of 10, 11 years old, 13, 14, 15, all ages.

50:43And they had no shame about it, and they did it every single day. I know one kid named Cheeto. Cheeto, Cheecho, something like that. Whatever his name was, in New York. And this kid literally was always smoking. One day, we're on the bus, and I asked him, "Doesn't it feel weird to you to be high all the time?" He said, "No, I smoke so much that for me to be not high is not normal. For me not to be high is not normal." He said, "All right, I got you. The high is the normal for me now." I don't know if he's still alive. I doubt it. But I can promise you, I can promise you that he cannot, he cannot do a calculation of 15 times 15. How many of you can do 15 times 15 in your head? How many of you can do 10 times 10 in your head? 9 times 9. 7 times 7. 325 divided by 5. Okay, all of this stuff you're supposed to be able to do naturally. Why? You have a fantastic brain.

51:53But you have a fantastic brain that even if you don't think that you have a high IQ, even if you took a test that says you are like a half a moron, by the way, your brain has more wiring in it than all of the technology in the world combined. Every time you smoke drugs, regardless of what they are, it's destroying that wiring, it's killing that wiring, and it's literally making you stupid. unfortunately, those brain cells don't regenerate. So what happens now? It's not a big deal, one cigarette after another, then another joint, another bowl, another this, another that. I know, but I wasn't born yesterday. I know. Don't worry. Now, what happens in the beginning is not a big deal. In the beginning, you feel like it's even making you smarter. Guess what? By the time you get to my age, all of a sudden you forget people's names. All of a sudden, you don't even know where you are. All of a sudden, the feeling you had that was kind of cool when you were 18 becomes standard, and it's not cool.

52:58It's not cool at all. Why? Because you get fired for stuff like that. Because they ask you, how come you didn't meet the deadline? Oh, I forgot we had a deadline. What do you mean you forgot? Five million dollars is depending on this deadline. And you forgot? What are you, high? No, but I used to smoke. Oh, used to smoke. Now there are no results. So if you want to get yourself to a level of stupidity, continue smoking. It's also a sin, but it's also going to make you stupid. Now I know you're going to say, yeah, but there are a lot of really smart people that smoke. Yeah, there are a lot of really smart people that smoke. They would be smarter if they didn't. Next question. You, pass the mic to him if you don't mind, please. Thanks. Is it okay if I ask two questions? If they're connected to each other? My first question is, if everything happens for a reason—and it does because we know hashgacha pratit—then how can free choice fully exist? Because everything

53:59Does the reason come before the thing that happened? Because, like, if something needs to happen... Okay, so the question is: does everything happen for a reason? we doing it for that reason. Okay, so I answered this in the past, but it is a simple explanation the Rambam gives and others as well. If, let's say, for example, I tell you that I know the future and I write down everything that you're gonna do for the next week, and I say don't look at it. We'll put it in an envelope, and at the end of the week we're gonna open the envelope in front of everybody. gonna go back to your life, I'm gonna go back to my life. The envelope is in some safe. There are bodyguards watching it so you know that I'm not tampering with it. There's no magic. At the end of the week, we come, we put it on camera. You start reading the letter out loud. That letter says every single thing that you did that week, and it's right. Now, the fact that I knew, did that change your choice?

55:17It did not. Right. So, the first thing is, now, me knowing the future, Hashem obviously knowing the future, does not alter your choice. Does not alter your choice. Now, You have free choice to do whatever you want, and Hashem manages the world based on that. There's a cause, and there's an effect. You're going to do something, and something's going to happen as a result of it. So Hashem sees all of these infinite things, sees all of these infinite things, all of these infinite destinations that you can get to, and you choose which road, and how you're going to get to it. Now, I can simply answer this in a pasuk in the Torah. The Ramban, almost 900 years ago, 850 years ago approximately, writes that every single thing that's ever going to exist, that ever will exist, existed and so on, including today's conversation, is inside the Torah.

56:17How can we see this? It says that originally the Torah, when it was written, the Gemara Masechet Chagigah says the Torah was written 974 generations before Hashem created the world, as if it was one single word. Meaning, all 304,805 letters were one single word. One single, there weren't any spaces. Now you read Torah, you take Chumash, you see the spaces, Bereshit, Bara, Elokim, these are three words. In the beginning, all of it was one word, one continuous, same exact letters, nothing changed, same exact letters, but it was all there just as a single word. As Hashem created the world, and He created Adam HaRishon, and Moshe Rabbeinu, and so on and so forth, He separated those letters at the appropriate places. This means that the Torah never changed; He just separated those letters to make words that matched the creation itself and people's actions. Where can we see this? For example, the Ramban gives an example of "Bereshit Bara Elokim."

57:31Okay, now everybody knows this. In the beginning of God's creating, at the beginning of creation, the Ramban says if you combine all of these three words, you are going to get—I'm sorry—the first two words. meaning, "in the head it was created," which is, Hashem is telling us, free choice. Free choice is already in the first two words. Hashem created, but also in those same exact words. The letters don't change places. It's just the separation that changes. Instead of the first word ending in taf, the first word would end in shin. And then the last two letters would just simply be connected to the second word, bara. So instead of bara, it's idbara. So it's barosh idbara. In the head, it was created, meaning free choice. Point being, rabotai, is that this is a small, small, little, tiny understanding of how everything is inside the Torah. So your actions are inside the Torah.

58:37As far as which ones you will pick, all of those choices are in the Torah. All of those choices, Hashem knows. What you choose is going to be in your hands. That's in your hands. Everything is from Heaven, except the fear of Heaven. Meaning, Hashem knows all of the choices that you will possibly make, all of your possibilities, as far as which one you will choose, you end up choosing. But to Him, all of those choices are as if they are the same. They're all parallel to each other. So, yes, the follow-up? The follow-up is, well, Hashem wrote the Torah before the world was created. Yeah, so, the... Most of the forefathers knew the Torah. Moshe knew the Torah. A lot of people before the Torah was given down in the world knew the Torah. So then they knew what they had to do because they knew what was supposed to happen. How is that? It's not for the bad, it's for the good. They had to do something. Very good question. Now, if you look at the Torah in Parashat Yitro. Parashat Yitro is the parasha of Matan Torah.

59:47when we actually received the Torah. Now, if you look at Rashi and you look at the Gemara, it explains that at that moment, all of the Torah that we had from Bereshit all the way to that point was oral. We didn't have anything in writing. We had Sefer Yetzirah, which was the book... and also the Book of Creation that Avraham Avinu had, but nothing was written down as from generation to generation. Like what we have, the Chumash was not there. When did we start having the Chumash? In Parashat Yitro. But what do we have? We only had, Hashem gave to Moshe Rabbeinu to write everything from the beginning. At Mount Sinai—where is Mount Sinai? He told him to write everything from the beginning. He dictated to him to write it all the way to Parashat Yitro. All the way to that present day. Which means that the future... the next 40 years of Moshe Rabbeinu's life weren't written at that moment. Every so often, Hashem would talk to Moshe and tell him to write another parasha, another added section of what happened. So, He never told him the future. The only makhloket, the only debate that we have, is who wrote the last two verses of the Chumash, of the Torah. Why? Because the last two verses talk about Moshe dying.

1:01:11So the question is, did Moshe write about him dying? Or did Yehoshua bin Nun complete the last two verses? That's the only debate we have. The most common opinion is that Hashem told Moshe Rabbeinu, "You're dying, write this; this is what's going to happen," because it's the end, and nothing's going to change as a result of it. But some say that Moshe Rabbeinu died, and Yehoshua bin Nun actually wrote the last two verses. Meaning that we never knew the future. We never, Moshe Rabbeinu, never knew the future. So the Torah that Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov and everybody had, they had the Oral Torah. The Oral Torah is the laws, not the history. The history we only got on Har Sinai, and then little by little over the next 40 years, we got pieces of the history as it was happening. We never knew the future. So it wouldn't change our future. Yes, if there's somebody new or... Just give him the mic back. Yes. Yes. Okay, like I said, there's an exception, there's an exception to the case. This is a time that we're supposed to, but it's not daily.

1:02:28This is a time that we're supposed to celebrate the miracle that happened a couple of thousand years ago. That's a takana from the Chachamim. But the rest of the year, the average day, we're not supposed to get drunk. Why in that case? Because on that day, Am Yisrael was nearly annihilated by that day's Hitler, whose name was Haman. And Hashem miraculously turned Haman from being the strongest person in the world, who was about to annihilate all of Am Yisrael in a single day, into a dead person. And everybody that followed him died as well, all of a sudden. And Hashem miraculously turned destiny around. So with such a great miracle, we celebrate. We celebrate to this day that Hashem, in essence, changed nature for us to save us. so that's why we celebrate it now. As far as why we celebrate by getting drunk, one of the ways that a person celebrates on Yom Tov is by eating meat and drinking wine. But on that particular day, we drink more than usual in order to get to a state of mind where we forget.

1:03:48Like whether it's Mordechai or Haman that's winning. Why? Because in the beginning of the story, Haman was winning. Haman almost killed all of us. In the end of the story, Mordechai HaYehudi, Mordechai the righteous, he won. And all of Am Yisrael won. So just like the story and history change and turn around, we, in essence, reenact, if you will, by getting drunk on that day. But again, it's not something to practice on a daily basis. This is something that's specifically once a year. Yes, if you could move the microphone to the back. Yeah, he hasn't asked yet. Yes. Does God keep Shabbat? Because you would think that He does, but it rains on Shabbat. It rains on Shabbat. So why is raining a violation of Shabbat? Watering the grass. Huh? Watering the grass. Interesting question. So it says that HaKadosh Baruch Hu toils in the Torah for a third of the day, meaning that's His pleasure in the world. And He says that He cannot remove Himself from the Torah.

1:05:02He's addicted to His own Torah. Now, obviously, He has much more Torah than we do. We have the essence of Torah; He has the real Torah, and He toils in the Torah every day, the Gemara says, for a third of the day. And He keeps the Torah. But again, you have to also understand that Hashem has a world to run, and He implemented different malachim, different creations, in order to have things run, in order for the world to run, and we call it nature. So what is it like? It's like having, let's say, a timer. timer you're gonna hang on the wall because you want the light to turn on, but not for the whole day. You don't want to waste electricity, and you don't want your bill to be $500 every month. So, you're gonna put a timer that, let's say, from 7 o'clock at night until 11 o'clock, the light will be on. But then, automatically, you pre-programmed it before Shabbat. At 11 o'clock, because everybody goes to sleep, it turns off. So that way, in essence, this is electricity that religious people use; you're not wasting electricity, but it's on when you need it. In essence, that's a simple, simple way of explaining how Hashem runs nature, where He has certain things in place.

1:06:25So, rain, wind, gravity, and all of the laws of physics are running, in essence, on autopilot. Yes, of course, He's involved in everything, but His everything and our everything are two different things. It's just that He has to run the world, and that's why He implemented those things, because if He wouldn't create everything all over again every single day, the world would cease to exist. ...because everything that we have in the world is energy. And that energy is based on atoms. Atoms are energy. Those atoms need to spin continuously in order for everything to be what it is right now, solid. If the atom stops spinning for a second, it ceases to exist because 99% of the atom is empty space. So if it stops spinning, the empty space would be exposed and therefore would simply disappear, be destroyed... So, Hashem has to recreate the world every day, every second, constantly. But that doesn't mean He doesn't keep Shabbat. He keeps Shabbat in His own way, whatever way that is. Because again, remember, He's not a being like us. He doesn't have a body or likeness of a body or anything like that. Yes? How many stones were used to build the first Beit HaMikdash? How many stones were used to build the first Beit HaMikdash? To build the thing.

1:07:50I'm not following. How many stones were used to build the Beit HaMikdash? 9,427 and a half? No, I just made it up. It's not, it's not, it's not a, it's one of those questions that is, it's immaterial, meaning whether we had it or we didn't have it, it wouldn't really make much of a difference to us. I don't believe that, I don't know the specific answer, but I don't believe that answer exists. Simply because it's not one of those things that would change what we do. What we do know is the exact measurements of the Mizbe'ach, whether we entered the Mizbe'ach on the right or where the rooms were in the Bet HaMikdash. We know the general size of Har HaBayit was 500 Amot by 500 Amot, which is in essence three football fields by three football fields, so it's nine square football fields.

1:08:58those things we know, but as far as the specific amount of stones that were used, I don't believe the answer exists. If it does exist, I'll give you 50 bucks next week. I just don't believe it exists. If there's an answer, it's not that I don't know it; it's that it doesn't exist. But I'll look into the answer. If it exists, I'll give you $50 because I don't know it. I just don't believe the answer exists, but I'll find out if it does. If it does exist and I just don't know it, then you deserve $50. I just don't, I know that there are measurements of the Beit HaMikdash. We know where the rooms were and so on and so forth, what the rooms were used for, but as far as the exact number of stones, I don't believe any of the opinions specifically discussed it, but I may be wrong. Yes. In the back, in the back. Yeah, yeah. One second, give her the mic, give her the mic. If someone sinned all their life and then one time they just did something really great, will that determine Hashem's judgment on them? Sure, it all depends on how great that something was.

1:10:15It all depends on how great that something was, and it all depends on whether they did teshuva, meaning before they died. So if they had hirhurei teshuva, if they thought about doing teshuva but didn't achieve doing teshuva, yet they thought about it before they died, then they would still get punished; it just wouldn't necessarily be eternally. It would be for a very, very long time because they still have to pay for the sins. But it wouldn't necessarily be eternally like people that don't do teshuva. Now, if they did something great, let's say, for example, they saved a bunch of people, like a lot of people—saved lives in the Holocaust. They saved people's lives, but they themselves were atheists. They themselves were idol worshipers. Now, even though they did something great, if they died that way, they would still get punished for a very long time, most likely eternally. And that good thing that they did would be something that they would get paid for in this life.

1:11:20Meaning that, let's say, for example, somebody donated money to someone who really needed it, and donated a lot of money. They took, let's say, he had all he had was $50,000, and he decided, you know what, it's a really good cause, I'm going to donate that $50,000 to this really, really good cause. And now he leaves himself with pretty much just enough to eat. But for the rest of his life, he lives another 20, 30 years, he's an idol worshiper, he's Mechalel Shabbat, he's doing all types of things against Hashem. Now Hashem gives him opportunities to fix himself throughout his life. But once He sees that this person is on a path of self-destruction where he's not going to do teshuva, He gives him the reward for that mitzvah that he did, that good deed that he did in this life. So by giving him, let's say, he gave $50,000, He'll give him, I don't know, $5 million back. So where do we see this from? At the end of parashat Va'etchanan, At the end of Parashat Va'etchanan, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says that He pays His haters cash to their face to destroy them. This means that even though they have done some good things, they are still considered haters because they are still disobeying Him.

1:12:34Someone that is violating Shabbat, someone that's immodest, someone that is an idol worshiper, and so on and so forth—that person, in essence, is disobeying Hashem. So, Hashem calls those people "my haters." He calls them as if they hate me. That's why you disobey me. Just like, for example, a father, if he asks his daughter, "Honey, can you please give me a cup of water?" She says no. That's a little unusual. He says, "Oh, honey, can you give me a hand with this bag?" "No, no." Oh, wow, okay. Honey, can you open the door for me? No. The kid says no. What conclusion is the father going to arrive at? The kid doesn't like me too much. So that's what Hashem says. If the kid continuously disobeys me, that means he hates me. So He says, He pays his haters, cash to their face. He gives them reward in this world in order to destroy them. Meaning that since they're not going to have eternity with Him, He has to give them a reward in this world. But if the person does teshuva, then obviously the whole circumstance changes. Next question.

1:13:45Yeah, if you could pass the mic for one second. Good question. Why did Hashem pick 613? That's the will of Hashem. There are a few ta'amim that add to it, that you have parts of your body, your limbs, and your bones add up to 613. Some say it's more, but that's also because the physicality has changed over the years. And like you said, many, many things add up to 613. But many other things, there are other numbers in the Torah that are of significance. We don't know why He chose them, just like we really don't know why Hashem decided to give us kosher. You could say, "Oh, it's healthier." Yes, that's a reason, that's our benefit, but that's not the reason He chose it.

1:14:54You could say, "Oh, why did Hashem give us taharat hamishpacha? Why did Hashem limit the amount of time that a man will be with his wife?" You could say, "Well, it's healthy for the marriage, it's healthy for the psyche, it's healthy." Yes, that's a benefit of it, but that's not really the reason. The reason why we do all of the mitzvot, the real reason, is because Hashem said so. Why He said so, we don't know. We would have to be Him in order to know why. we'd have to be God in order to understand God. But there are many significant numbers in the Torah other than 613. The number 10—you see that there's the Ten Commandments, you see the number 10 appear several times. The number 40 also appears several times, the number 7, and so on and so forth. So, different numbers in the Torah are of significance. Why Hashem chose those specific numbers, we don't know, but there are teachings that connect different things to those numbers throughout the Torah. Like, for example, anytime you see 40, it's symbolic of renewal, something being renewed. So, for example, the Mabul (the Flood), Noach’s whole ordeal with the Mabul, was 40 days and 40 nights. Why? Because it’s as if the whole world went into a mikveh and became purified from all the tumah that was created.

1:16:10Moshe Rabbeinu went to Har Sinai, 40 days and 40 nights. Why? In essence, Am Yisrael was being born, was renewed. They were idol worshipers, now they actually are going to be following Hashem, and so on and so forth. So 40 appears in the Torah several times. 10, 7, 613, and so on and so forth. Next question. Yes, he has a question. Pass it to me. Right, oh no, you can, so yes, so there's a mitzvah in the Torah that HaKadosh Baruch Hu tells us That this mitzvah, this obligation is close to you, it's in your mouth, it's in your heart to do it. And the Ramban says this is the mitzvah of teshuva. So what's teshuva? The basics are sur me'ra ve'aseh tov. You know, run away from bad, from evil, and do good.

1:17:32stop sinning. The first step is to stop sinning and then do good. So the first part is the critical one: stop sinning. Stop violating Shabbat, stop wasting seed, stop sinning, stop doing all the things that you know are forbidden. Stop it. That's the first and most important step. After you've stopped, and along the way of stopping, and simultaneously while stopping, do good things. Do things that Hashem says are mitzvot. It's a good thing to do. You know, give tzedakah, give somebody a hand, learn Torah, you know, say nice things to people, and so on and so forth. Do good. So, teshuva in essence is stop sinning, And do good things. So now, automatically, as soon as we are at step number one, we already know, okay, wait, stop sinning. What am I sinning? So that obligates us to learn what we are doing. Not only from the book itself, what does the book say that Hashem says that we're obligated to do, but also, you know, comparing that book, comparing those rules that Hashem said, this is not allowed, this is forbidden, to our actions. So if the Torah says, you're not allowed to light a fire on Shabbat,

1:18:54and we know that driving is like lighting a fire. When I drive on Shabbat, oh, so if I drive on Shabbat, I know that would mean immediately I can't drive anymore. If Hashem says don't eat, uh, you know, only eat kosher, only eat kosher. Now if I know that I eat whatever moves and whatever doesn't move, whether it's kosher or not is irrelevant to me, automatically I know, oh, so stopping doing bad means to me, stop eating non-kosher and only eat kosher. So here we see that stopping the bad stuff is already a moment of self-reflection, but also education. Education of what the Torah says, and education of yourself. Of who you really are, and you compare yourself to who you're supposed to be. Then after that, you're going to start doing good. Why? Because you have to replace this bad with something good. to replace this, you know, the stuff they used to do you're not doing anymore. You're not killing people anymore, you're not, uh, you know, uh, doing drugs anymore, you're not doing all the things that person was doing bad you're not doing anymore. So now you have to do something with your time. Okay, so I don't want to go back to doing bad; I'll do something good. What can I do? Oh, let's see what else the Torah says.

1:20:02What else does the Torah say that I should do? What are the good things that Hashem advises? So the biggest thing that a person can do is learn Torah and apply as much of it to their life as they can. Now, the biggest and most important goal, if you will, that the Torah and the mitzvot themselves have, the 613 mitzvot, is to affect and improve our character. We have character traits that can be used for good and for bad. Now, if we look at the Torah, we see that several times in the Torah, Hashem says, "I am disgusted by arrogance." Anyone who is an arrogant person, I am disgusted by him. So that shows us that Hashem doesn't like arrogant people. So that means that I have to find a way to use these mitzvot that He gave us, which I'm obligated to do anyway, in order to also work on my own arrogance.

1:21:06So how could that be? Simple way. Sometimes your Rabbi is going to tell you, listen, you're obligated, according to the Torah, to do such and such. And that mitzvah at that moment is not going to make sense to you. Why? You don't know that much about it. You don't really know why it's relevant today. You know, they say, listen, you know, in the exile, you have to keep Yom Tov two days. You live in Eretz Yisrael, one day. Now, in the days they had this rule, it was because we didn't have electricity, clocks, and calendars. Today we do. So you figure, wait a minute, maybe it's not relevant anymore. Maybe today we should only keep one day because we know the time. Torah says no. Once it's implemented, it's two days in the exile forever until Mashiach comes. But you're going to say, wait, it doesn't make sense to me. Ah, so Torah says, if you're arrogant, it's disgusting. How do I work on my arrogance? Accept it regardless of whether you accept it, tolerate it, or understand it. Know that if Hashem allowed it, that's what He wants.

1:22:12So, sometimes, even if a certain law or a certain mitzvah doesn't make sense to us, we have to know that we still have to do it. Why? Because in reality, it's Hashem's will. Hashem says, do it, that's it. That's enough. That's enough of a reason. So, teshuva in general is to stop doing bad and do good. And that, Baruch Hashem, is a lifelong mission for every single one of us. And Baruch Hashem, all of us achieve it. Kavod, next question. If you want to know where the mic is, but if you could throw it to him. One second, let the mic... If you're loud like me, I'll tell you fine, but you have a... So, in the Kotel Shema, after we say for the Torah, why do we have to say that the pasuk at the bottom, that's from the Torah? Why do we have to say that? Oh, this is the Tikkun of the Chachamim. The Chachamim put the entire Siddur together, and they knew specific words and how the sound of those words affect heaven.

1:23:30That's why if somebody doesn't speak Hebrew, then it's important for them to first learn the prayer. Learn the prayer, learn what you're saying. But ultimately, work on it to the point where eventually you can actually say the words in Hebrew. Why? Because the Chachamim specifically used those words because they knew that those words make certain types of Kabbalistic, mystical changes in the world. Everything from Birkot HaShachar all the way to the end of Shacharit, all the way to the end of Arvit, and then all of them. Each one of the words has a certain impact on the world. Just like, for example, anytime you do a bracha. Now, let's say you want to eat a cucumber. Cucumber, Baruch Atah Hashem, Borei Peri HaAdama, Chazak U'Baruch. You figure, okay, I did the blessing, I ate, great, nothing happened. Wrong. Wrong. You know how many things happened? If you knew how many things happened the second you made that bracha, your mind would be blown. First and foremost, there's a very good chance there's a neshama inside that cucumber that is actually leading someone to make the blessing. Rabbi Yehuda Fatiyah has a story in his book. He says a woman came to a rabbi and said,

1:24:53went to the market today. I bought some vegetables, and I bought a cucumber. Then later on, I remembered, you know, I said, I did it, but I said, uh, and later on that night some weird guy showed up in my dream and he said, "Oh, thank you very much for doing the blessing on a cucumber. It just would have been much better if you would have done that, uh, the HaAdamah." So she went to the rabbi. She goes, "Well, let's go. Who is this guy? Is this real, or am I just imagining things?" The rabbi says, "No, no, it's real. There was a neshama inside the cucumber that had to have a tikkun. He did something really wrong, that he had to go into a cucumber. And the only way he can upgrade and go back to being a human is if somebody gets that cucumber and does a bracha. So in essence, when you did a bracha, you were metaken, you fixed that neshama to a certain aspect." if you do the right bracha, you did a bigger tikkun, less of a chet, less of a tikkun. So first and foremost, you know that when you do a bracha, you help somebody. Not always, but very common. Second thing, anytime there's divrei kodesh coming out of your mouth

1:26:04It's a mitzvah. So the first thing we want is for a person to say a pasuk from the Torah, because every letter is a mitzvah. So the first thing HaKadosh Baruch Hu and the Chachamim want you to do is start off your day with mitzvot. Not just saying, "Thank You, Hashem, for not making me a woman." "Thank You, Hashem, for giving me Torah." "Thank You, Hashem, for waking me up." No, start with mamash mitzvot. What mitzvah is the best mitzvah? The best mitzvah is learning Torah. So we start off with a nice pasuk, where every single letter is a mitzvah from the Torah. And now you started off your day without even realizing, you just made 45 mitzvot. 45 mitzvot. You know how many worlds you're going to get in Shamayim for those 45 mitzvot every day? If you're going to see it now, you're going to want to leave this world right away. Enough. I just want this. It's enough for me. Last but not least, every single time you say anything world. Words that you say travel in the world. They exist; you don't see them, not because the glasses see them. They travel in the world and eventually they land somewhere. They may land on an apple, they may land on an orange, they may land on a schnitzel, they may land on something. Now somebody's going to eat it.

1:27:22Somebody's going to eat it, and immediately, whatever words you said are going to influence that person. If you said something good, it'll influence the person to do something good. If you cursed, guess what? He’s going to curse. But now you get punished twice: for your curse and for what you created in the world. That's why on Shabbat, a person needs to be very, very careful with speaking mundane matters. In reality, we shouldn't be allowed, we're not allowed to speak about regular things. So much so that the Chachamim had a big debate for years, whether you're even allowed to say Shabbat Shalom. Why? They said, we're not really sure it's necessary for Shabbat. What's necessary? Kiddush, learning Torah. That's necessary. Everything else is extra. So they had a big debate if you're even allowed to say Shabbat Shalom. In the end, they said, okay, okay, we'll be lenient. Say Shabbat Shalom. But as far as talking about baseball, football, business, all that stuff, asur. Asur, and there's even pesukim in the Torah that say bad things about that stuff. Yes? So, remember as you were saying earlier, that if somebody doesn't say berachah from...

1:28:35Let's say, as you just said now, there sometimes could be a neshamah inside something like food or whatever. Let's say if you don't say the berachah, also made you kill that soul? Unfortunately, you're not punished for killing that soul, but yes, you hurt that soul. That soul has to now be reincarnated again in something else, go through that whole pain again, to get their neshamah put in some other fruit, or some other vegetable, or some other entity, and go through the whole process again. Because this, let's say for example, Is the worst reincarnation being inside a rock? Why? Because what kind of mitzvah can you do in a rock? So you heard of the Ben Ish Chai? Okay, the Ben Ish Chai was arrested one time; they put him in jail. So the Ben Ish Chai tells his talmidim, "I was crying to Hashem not because I was arrested; I..."

1:29:38Just because I didn't understand what, how could I do anything good in the world to do Kiddush Hashem inside a prison? HaKadosh Baruch Hu heard my cries, and they came to me in a dream. Came to me in a dream and said, you have to be in this prison. Why? Because the Torah that you're going to learn in this prison cell is going to save all the neshamot that are stuck in the wall. And the only way, the only way they could fix themselves is if they listen to a shiur Torah. Why? Because their tikkun, they didn't want to go to a shiur Torah. So Hashem says, you don't want to go to a shiur Torah? I'm going to put you in a wall where I'm going to bring some tzaddik who's going to force you to listen to a shiur Torah. Meaning, if a person goes into a rock, he feels, oh, so now what happens? A person goes into a room, he hasn't learned Torah. doesn't learn Torah. Guess what? If there are neshamot in those walls, and they need him to learn Torah, and he doesn't learn Torah, they could be there for centuries. It could also be the same thing like how when Yosef was in the... Chazak U'Baruch. Chazak U'Baruch, yeah, yeah. So it's a... We have a very, very big impact on the world around us, even though we don't see it. And that's why it's important to watch your words, what you say, what you don't say, what you allow to enter your mind, how you spend your time,

1:30:58If people really knew how valuable their time is, they wouldn't waste a second doing anything. Because you can get an infinite reward for something that takes one second. Let's say, for example, tomorrow you have your day. You go to school, you work, you learn. Now, your day could be a regular day. Or you can get enough mitzvot with something that takes one second to get 310 more worlds in Olam HaBa. 310 worlds. How? You take the link for this shiur, you press forward to all the people on your contacts. That's it. You don't tell them, "Oh, this is a good shiur, you should watch." No, no, no. Nothing. Do nothing. You just go. You get the link tomorrow on the group. You press forward. Enough mitzvot with something that takes one second to get 310 more worlds in Olam HaBa. 310 worlds. How? You take the link for this shiur, you press forward to all the people on your contacts. That's it. You don't tell them, "Oh, this is a good shiur, you should watch." No, no, no. Nothing. Do nothing. You just go. You get the link tomorrow on the group. You press forward. the phone numbers you have of Jewish people and even if they're not Jewish, put everybody. Everybody can learn from this. You put it forward, finished. Somebody watches this, somebody does teshuva. Who says, "I'm going to give you 310 worlds for one person doing teshuva"?

1:32:10One person does teshuva. You can get 10 people to do teshuva. You can get 100 people to do teshuva. Who knows? The point being, one person does teshuva, that's 310 worlds. Which means that when Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, Rabbi HaKadosh, found out how they were treating his cousin, Rabbi Chiya, In Shamayim, because he did kiruv, Rabbi HaKadosh stopped doing what he was doing and started looking for hilonim, started looking for secular people in the streets. Why? Because Rabbi Chiya was doing kiruv. He helped people do teshuva. He says now Rabbi Chiya can go to any Gan Eden that he wants; he can do whatever he wants over there. "I want to be like him." So he started helping people do teshuva in all the streets. Back then, it wasn't so easy to find secular people. Today, it's unfortunately a lot easier. So anyway, it's also a lot easier to get people to do teshuva too. You can just press the forward button. So that second can exist or not exist. It's a choice. And b'ezrat Hashem, you spend that second or even more than that to do kiruv and you can get, baruch Hashem, a lot of reward for it. Next question. Yes. Pass the mic. What's the shalom bayit?

1:33:18What's the best way to deal with this generation, to deal with people such as Apikorsim and Avodah Zarah? What's the best kind of solutions to how to deal with them, how to treat them with And still following the rules at the same time. Okay. So it's a difficult question because we have halacha. We have halacha. If you look at the Rambam, and of course the Shulchan Aruch agrees with it. Chachamim agree with it. And the Rambam in Hilchot Teshuvah, and he also repeats it, I believe, in Hilchot De'ot as well, expands on it. He says that there are certain types of people that have no share in the world to come. And there are certain types of people that you're not even allowed to, not only you're not allowed to talk to them, but you're not allowed to even be within six feet of them. Not to stand next to them. Let's say, for example, you had a pope. He wanted to come to the shul. All of us would have to leave. That's how bad it is. If someone is a missionary and he knocks on the door, the only thing you're allowed to do is close the door.

1:34:44Not allowed to debate them, unless you're a professional, which is a different story of its own. There are very few in a generation. So, the halacha is, if someone is an apikores, someone is a min, someone is somebody that entices people to sin, you're not allowed to talk to them, you're not allowed to be next to them, you're not allowed to associate with them. So, that's halacha. The problem is that in this generation, people don't like halacha. They don't want to listen to halacha. They figure, no, no, maybe the Rambam didn't know about this generation, so maybe, no, no. Maybe I could do something else, maybe I could convince them to do teshuva, maybe I could this, maybe I could that. Now, it all depends if this person is an apikores because they're clueless, they're an ignorant person, which is the majority of people, or they're an apikores because they just enjoy sinning and they hate Torah. If they enjoy sinning and they hate Torah, then they fall into the first definition that I just told you, which is you're not allowed to associate with them. If they're in the second category, which is that they're just ignorant, which is the majority of people, then you have a responsibility to try to get them to the shiur, to try to get them to learn Torah, to try to get them to learn the truth. Not necessarily by debating with them yourself, but by sending them shiurim, doing it from a distance.

1:36:02doing it from a distance. It's very easy to get people to wake up to the truth. And you have a mitzvah of rebuking. You must rebuke your brother, meaning that anytime you see your brother driving on Shabbat, you see your brother. It doesn't have to be a literal brother, meaning another Jew. driving on Shabbat, eating pork, being with Goyot, and so on and so forth, you have an obligation to tell them something, to do something about it. If you can, whether it's inviting them to the shiur, sending them to the shiur, giving them a CD, say something, you have to do something if you have some connection to them. Now, the biggest problem that people have is that if it's a family member, they're not going to be able to tell them the truth themselves. And even if they do tell them, those people are not going to listen to them. They're wasting their time. So, for example, if somebody's brother is an atheist, all of a sudden he did teshuva and now he wants to go to his brother, says, "Oh, listen, God is real. I could show you, I could this, I could that." 99% of the time, you're wasting your time. Why? Because your brother remembers you as what you were before you did teshuva. So he's not—even though everything you're saying is right—he can't see it. He can't hear it. So, how do you get your brother to do teshuva? Or your father, or your uncle, or your mom? You get somebody else to do it.

1:37:23How? You give them a CD, you give them a lecture, and you, in essence, become a mailman. A mailman of information. No matter what's going on, you send information. You send them the Torah, you send them the truth, and hope that one day they click on it. Hope that after they click on it, they listen to it, and that's it. That's all you can do. Because the people that are the closest to you are the most difficult people to help. Because, in general, they don't want to listen to you. But if they listen to the shiur, they listen to the truth in some other way, they're going to be led to, most likely, if it hits them in the right way, they're going to say, "No, it's my idea. He just sent me this shiur," and they're going to forget about it. They're going to feel like it's their own idea. They did it on their own. They chose themselves. So it quiets their ego a little bit. But if it's strangers, it's much easier. If it's complete strangers, then strangers are not going to judge you. They don't really care where the information is coming from. And you can help a lot of people that way. But as far as people that are against the Torah, I mean, it's the vast majority of the world. It's not just the vast majority of Am Yisrael; it's the vast majority of the world. So you have a lot of work to do. All of us do, yeah? And to follow up on that, let's say, for example, someone has close relatives that are extremely against Hashem. Okay.

1:38:43How would that person handle their relationship with them without, you know, being disrespectful? Because, as the Torah says, you have to respect your mother and father. But let's say, you know, that's not always the case. I mean, it's not always the case that you feel that you should respect your mother. As a matter of fact, it says, you know, if you... If they hate Hashem, you should also hate them. Right. So, Parashat Kedoshim says, the Torah says that you have to respect your mother and your father. You have to fear them. But you have to keep Shabbat. And just remember, I'm God. What does one thing have to do with the other? Okay, respect your mom and dad. Fine, that's a commandment. Okay, keep Shabbat. I get it. Why are you reminding me that you're God? I mean, you already told me a thousand times already you're God. I have to know I'm your God? Who else is talking if it's not God? So what is Hashem telling us here in Parashat Kedoshim? He says, listen, you have an obligation to fear your mom and dad. You also have an obligation to keep Shabbat.

1:39:52But remember, if your parents, whom you're obligated to respect, tell you to violate Shabbat Then remember, I'm God. I come before your parents. So, at that point, you're not allowed to listen to your parents. This means you are obligated to respect and honor your parents as long as they don't tell you to do things that are against the Torah. But the minute they tell you to do things that are against the Torah, remember, I'm God. I come before your parents. I come before your parents. So even if your parents don't keep Shabbat, it doesn't give you the right to curse them out, to yell at them, to insult them, or anything like that. But if they tell you, "Son, do me a favor, go buy me some cigarettes on Shabbat afternoon," you don't have to even respond to them. You don't have to respond to them. If you respond to them, you can say, "No, I don't violate Shabbat." Point being is that you're not allowed to violate Shabbat for your parents, under any condition. It's "Yehareg Ve'al Ya'avor."

1:40:53Up to that point. But if they simply tell you to do something and you don't want to do it, don't do it. But you don't have to violate the Torah for the sake of honoring your parents. That's not something that's permissible in the Torah. So if they just don't like the Torah, they don't like the Torah, then try not to... Enticing them, so don't have debates with them if you know that every time they debate, they say things that are disgusting. They curse Hashem, they insult the Torah, they do things like that. Don't bother debating them yourself. Just send them links to shiurim—send Rabbi Mizrachi's shiurim, my shiurim, Rabbi Alon Anava's shiurim, Rabbi Zitron's shiurim—you know, people that actually speak the truth. Send them the shiurim; let them fight with themselves. Don't fight with them yourself because, again, also remember people have a very big ego and People have a very big ego and nobody wants to be told what to do. Even the best of us do not like to be told what to do. So no father in the world is ever going to be happy that his son is telling him what to do. Even if his son is a tzaddik, no father wants to hear what to do. So what do you do? You want to help your father? Send him a shiur and pray that Hashem has mercy on him and opens his heart.

1:42:13Your mom doesn't know how to dress, send her a shiur, pray for her, and maybe HaKadosh Baruch Hu reminds her that she's supposed to leave the house with clothes on, not with the clothes in the closet still. You know, it happens. Sometimes people go outside but they forget the clothes at home. The clothes are at home, the woman’s outside. So sometimes you have to remind people. The clothes belong on you, not in the closet. All of them, not just the underwear. Everything will go along. But in general, it's best to do it indirectly. Indirectly because, again, people are not going to take well to you directly going to them unless they want it. Because they're going to view it as you are attacking them. whereas for my position, I'm just speaking generally. I'm not looking at anyone specific, saying, "You did this, you did this, you did..." I'm not accusing, I'm not judge, I'm not jury. I have no idea what anybody does. You most likely are all bigger tzaddikim than I could ever be. I don't know. The point is, I'm saying general things. Maybe he'll take something, he'll take something, he'll take something. Hopefully, everybody takes something.

1:43:21Worst case, then I'm going to do teshuva. The point is that I'm talking in general, so it's not attacking anyone. It's not attacking anyone. Whereas if you're talking to somebody directly, and it's not unsolicited, like you're just going out to them, it becomes more difficult if they don't want it from you. So tread carefully. You can do it, but it's under certain circumstances. Put it that way. Not in every case. Not in every case. Yes? If a person... commits a sin on Shabbat, but it's not related to Shabbat. Is it if he violates Shabbat? Let's say a person wastes seed on Shabbat. Did he violate? Yes. So the Gemara says that when the Zohar, actually, I'm sorry, the Zohar says that when a person wastes seed, the act itself is heating the body.

1:44:21It's heating the body, and the punishment is fire. You heated the punishment. He heated the body in order to do something. Hashem's punishment is fire. Fire for fire. Just it's not fire like you know here. It's green fire. You don't want to know about it. Now, if he lit that fire on Shabbat, he lit the fire, even though he didn't see the fire. He said Lashon Hara. He didn't know what actually happened at the end, but he lit the fire. Same thing with anger. Someone who is angry on Shabbat, in Shamayim they say you lit a fire. Same thing as lighting fire. Same thing as lighting fire. Which means he not only violated the Torah by being angry, but he also violated... because anger is fire, anger is fire. So yes, yes it can. If a person makes a sin on Shabbat, it carries a lot more weight, unfortunately. But that's also the opposite. If a person learns Torah, for example, on Shabbat, the Torah that he learns, as far as how many mitzvot that he gets, is multiplied by millions. Meaning, if let's say he got one mitzvah for it during a, you know, Monday to Sunday...

1:45:37On Shabbat, it's a million. I believe one of the Chachamim did the calculation. There's a debate whether it's like 60 million or 30 million or only 1,000. The point being, it's a lot. It's worth a lot more to learn Torah and do mitzvot on Shabbat than it is during the rest of the week. But unfortunately, it's also the opposite. A sin on Shabbat carries a lot more weight than a sin during the rest of the week because that's a very, very special day to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. As the Gemara in Masechet Shabbat says, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says to Moshe Rabbeinu, "I have a very big present in my treasure chest, and its name is Shabbat. Go and tell Am Yisrael I'm giving it to them." This means HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave them the biggest thing He has. You have Torah, I gave it to you. Now what I have, I have Shabbat. Shabbat, all I have. That's what He gave to Am Yisrael. So when somebody takes the most valuable thing that HaKadosh Baruch Hu had to give us, and violates it, Hashem takes it very personally, to say the least. But if he honors it, it's like somebody has a daughter, somebody has a daughter, and he wants to get this daughter to, you know, marry somebody. Now, if somebody says, you know, comes to him and says, yeah, I want to marry your daughter.

1:46:54Who are you? I don't know, I just saw your daughter in the street. think she's cute. Most likely, you're gonna give him a nice right, a nice left, and maybe a knee. "Who are you? You're looking at my daughter?" But if the guy says, "Hey, how are you? Listen, maybe I don't know if you know, but I come from this family, and I'm really interested in getting married. I heard that you may have a daughter. I don't know if I'm worthy, but I'm hoping maybe we can get to know each other. Maybe we could, you know, talk about that, and hopefully, maybe if you think I'm a good person after getting to know me for a while, maybe..." you introduce me to go on a date with your daughter. That person, more interestingly, now if you see after they go out a few times, every time your daughter comes home, she's on cloud nine. "Oh, Abba, he's the best! He treats me so nicely, he opens the doors, and he pays for the food, not like this rotten generation that makes the girls pay, you know. He pays for everything, he buys me a present every time I see him, and he makes me feel good about myself, and he makes me laugh, and he cares about what I say, and da-da-da-da-da-da. Abba, huh, huh, huh?"

1:48:00That makes you happy. Now, after they get married, after they get married, your daughter says even more good news. Abba, he loves me, and every day he comes home, he brings me flowers, and he brings me presents, and he still opens the door for me, even though we've already been married for five years. Guess what? What does that make you? That makes you love the person. Even though he's not your son, it makes you love him. Why? Because he loves your kid, and he treats your kid well. So now, when someone treats Hashem's Shabbat, Hashem's daughter, well, Hashem loves them. When someone treats Hashem's daughter like she's some bas Yisrael from the street. Next question. Yes, in the back. Give him the mic if you might. Why is the yetzer hara so strong on Erev Shabbat? The question is, why is the yetzer hara so strong on Erev Shabbat? In essence, it's the same answer. It's because the mitzvot, the reward that you're going to get for observing Shabbat the right way, is magnified by thousands or even millions compared to what you're going to get for the rest of the week. So everything has to be measure for measure. Everything has to have some type of presentation of what its true value is. So let's say, for example, you and I wanted to go get 10 bucks.

1:49:2510 bucks. We want to get 10 bucks. Both of us are willing to spend a certain amount of energy to attain this ten dollars. Most likely, we're willing to spend, let's say, I don't know, 10 minutes or even an hour to try to get ten dollars. But if somebody told you, "Listen, you're gonna have to work for three weeks to get ten dollars," you're gonna say, "Thank you, but no thank you." Why? It's not worth three weeks of my life to get ten dollars. It's not worth it. Somebody told you to get a million dollars. To get a million dollars, you have to spend three weeks. What are you gonna say to them? So you know what, make it six weeks, it's still good. Make it a month, make it two months, make it five months, it's still good. Make it a whole year, it's still good. For a million dollars, I'll do it. Why? It's worth the energy for that kind of reward. He wants to give us an enormous reward for keeping His Shabbat the right way, for learning His Torah the right way, for doing His mitzvot the right way. The reward is infinite. It's not something we can comprehend with our human brain. So, there's an added pressure. There's an added pressure. It takes a lot more to fulfill this mitzvah in order to get this reward because the prize is much bigger. So it's much more difficult to get it.

1:50:39if it's an average day, I told you, "Listen, don't drive today." So, you know what? "I don't have to go anywhere anyway. I don't have to go anywhere, so okay, I won't drive." But if I tell you, "Don't drive on Shabbat," Now you think, wait, you know, I really have that appointment. All of a sudden, there's appointments. All of a sudden, you need to go. Why? Because there's the Yetzer Hara. On an average day, there's no Yetzer Hara for driving because you're allowed to drive. On Shabbat, there is a Yetzer Hara for driving. Why? Because you're not allowed to drive. So that's where we learn from Shlomo HaMelech, "Stolen water is sweeter." Even though someone could look at two cups of water, and it's the same water. This is from one bottle, this is from the same bottle. if his neshama knows that this one you bought from the store, but this one was stolen, automatically the Yetzer Hara is going to tell him to pick this one. Why? It's stolen. He's like, no, no, this one looks sweeter to me. It looks sweeter to me. They actually did a study and they didn't know they were actually helping us do kiruv with this. They don't realize, everybody doesn't realize that everything can be used for Torah. They showed a group of guys, identical twins,

1:51:49Identical twin girls, grown women. Both were attractive, and they showed them to the guys. They showed him one girl, and then they showed him the other girl, asking, "Which one is prettier?" Now, they're both identical. Not just identical because of identical identity—you can't tell the difference. They said something like over 90% of the men said it's the one on the right, not the one on the left. Now, the scientists didn't understand why everybody picks the one on the right. They both have the same features, same hair, same everything. The only difference between the one on the right and the one on the left is what? The one on the right is married. The one on the left is single. The one on the right, obviously, they don't know. The guys don't know this. But their neshamah knows that one is forbidden. It's already taken. That's taken. Their Yetzer Hara knows, that one's taken, I want that one. Stolen water is sweeter. So that's our Neshama. The same thing goes with Shabbat, the same thing goes with every big mitzvah. One of the ways that you know that you're going in the right direction, as far as mitzvot are concerned, as far as Kedusha is concerned, is if the Yetzer Hara interferes. If the Yetzer Hara is not interfering, if you're trying to raise money,

1:53:15for some Beit Knesset, and you want to raise, I don't know, a million dollars, and you're able to raise that money in 24 hours, most likely you shouldn't build a Beit Knesset. Most likely you should refund the money. Why? That Beit Knesset is not going to have much bracha. Why? It's too easy. It's not supposed to be so easy to build another Beit Knesset in the world. Same thing with any big mitzvah. If it's easy to get something, there's a problem. That means the Yetzer Hara doesn't care about this. If the Yetzer Hara doesn't care about it, why should you? I'm not saying you should only go after the difficult things, but you'll notice that the things that are the most valuable are much more difficult to attain. Much more difficult to attain. So, for example, you'll see different organizations raise money. I never believed this when I first started doing Teshuvah. My rabbi told me this. I said, nah, come on, this can't be real. This can't be real. No way. I was on Wall Street. I could raise money. I was able to raise $10 million a month for my business. I'm not going to be able to raise money for this Kiruv stuff. Nah, it's easy. now I don't like talking to people about money because I'm focused on Torah, but I figured that, you know, the world's gonna see what we're doing. It's good, it's easy, and people are gonna donate. Unbelievable! You see, every other day there's a new campaign: 24 hours, 36 hours. We're raising a million dollars, we're raising a million and a half dollars, we're raising five million dollars. Different organizations, bless them, I'm not saying they're bad, but you see, they get more than what they want.

1:54:40They want to raise a million, they get a bonus round, a million and a half. 36 hours, we need two million. They get three million. Unbelievable. Now, you see, what are they doing with the money? More times than not, they're buying another building. More times than not, they're buying another building, hoping that people are going to come to this building to learn, to do something. Hashem, you look at all the few Kiruv organizations that actually help people do Teshuva. Not buildings, actually help people go from Gehinom to Gan Eden, go from being atheists to being Shomer Shabbat. Campaign? We're trying to raise 500,000. Forget it. We're trying to raise a hundred thousand dollars. A week later, 195 dollars donated by Steve. Why not? What happened? The Yetzer Hara doesn't let this go free. It's very hard to raise money for kiruv, even from your own students, even from your family, even from everything. Why? Because the Yetzer Hara will do everything and anything possible to interfere. It doesn't mean it's not possible. It's just that the reward is so much greater for this versus that, that the Yetzer Hara would interfere. Just like, for example, if you're going to watch a shiur Torah on YouTube versus come to a shiur Torah.

1:55:59To watch on YouTube, two seconds, you press, it works. To come to a shiur Torah, all of a sudden the car doesn't work, all of a sudden the wife needs you to stay home, all of a sudden you're tired, all of a sudden your stomach hurts, all of a sudden you just heard bad news, something happens. Why? The mitzvah for coming to a shiur Torah versus watching on YouTube is a world apart. says there's a special reward for actually going to a shiur, not just watching it, not just knowing about it, but actually attending it. You become part of the shiur. So, for that, there's a bigger yetzer hara. Same thing. Next question, anything? Thank you very much for learning with me. May G-d bless you. May Hashem bless you. May Hashem bless you. May Hashem bless you.

1:56:59I have a question. Now you have a question? Yeah. Was that guy Cheeto that you talked about, was he Japanese? No, he was, I think, some type of Latin face. Thank you, thank you. Women, do not let us pay. Do not let us pay for them. This generates the women. it's you're right there you know there's truth in what you're saying yes the whole feminism thing you're right there is a lot of truth in what you're saying and then to get rid of the yetzer hara, Arav, just be on time for Shacharit, an hour before, an hour before, and say it helps a little bit it's even better yeah that way already he's uh he's he gives up on you already at that point Thank you. Thank you for coming. Did the guy have long hair? No. Oh, I thought there was somebody that I knew. Is there somebody that I knew in, like, 8th grade? He says 25 years ago. He had long hair, and they called him Cheeto, and he smoked cigarettes. No, no, no. I was in New York. Not here. It's not Florida. I was in New York.