Do Not Gloat When your enemy Falls

1:27Based on this pesuk. He says: Don't celebrate when your enemy falls. Don't even be happy when your enemy falls because that can lead Hashem to be upset to such an extent that He could take His entire anger that He has on this person that He's punishing right now and put it on you. Hashem... Just turned our entire world upside down. Anyone that understands what we just said? It just turned our reality upside down. Why? Because like I said, in the world we live in today, it almost seems like we are, it's like one of the pleasures in the world. You have, let's say, sex, money, I don't know whatever else there is in this world, food. And then you think, "pleasure from my enemies falling," and... You think it's like one of the greatest gifts Hashem can give me, to see my enemies fall. Even like you said, this segulot, this Tehillim, the specific Tehillim that you read, one of the Tehillim is different. There's a book I have that says, you know, if you want to pray for certain things, you want to read Tehillim for certain things to happen, certain things, you know, certain segulot. It's actually a Tehillim for your enemies to fall. But here's where the Gemara says if you celebrate your enemies falling...

2:48You're doing the worst possible thing you can possibly do. Now, the Gemara in Masechet Bava Kamma, page 93a, says: The Gemara in Bava Kamma states that anyone who wishes punishment upon his friend, or wishes harm on another, will be punished first. You might say, "Hey, look, I said, look at this rush! I'm a malach who's going to intervene and teach him a lesson right now. Look at his unrighteous deeds, I'm stealing from his customers. Punish him right now for what he's doing!" Hashem, our Rachmana, reacts to the words that go up to Shamayim. Therefore, be cautious because the desires for vengeance can reflect back on oneself. Wishes punishment, wishes bad on his friend or another, gets punished first. You say, "Hey, look, I said, look at this rasha. I'm jealous about him, right now. Look at this rasha; he's stealing from his customers. Punish him right now! Look at this rasha; he's having a Christmas party, even though he's a Jew. Punish him now!" Hashem, the Master of the Universe, says, "What you said goes to Shamayim?" Tosh Hashamayim, the angels come to Hashem. "Hashem, look! Tzvika over here said that this other guy, Dror, is a rasha. Look what he did! Look what he did!" Hold on, before we look at Dror, let's look at Tzvika. Tzvika is asking for something. Okay, let's see if we should listen to him.

4:06Let's see if we should listen to him before we punish, because maybe the law is actually the result. But before we look at those accounts, let's look at Tzvika. Let's look at Shmuli. He's the one who brought this case to us. He's the prosecutor. Let's see who's actually bringing the case. Is he clean, or is he like a gangster telling on his friend so he can clean the market? You know, sometimes the gangsters think they're smart; they tell on their friends, on their competition, figuring the cops will arrest this guy and... Therefore, I have the entire market more than all the other guys already told on them. But so he's like, "So there?" And Shamayim, they say, "No, who are you? You're a prosecutor." Where do we learn this from? We learned this two weeks ago. We learn this from Sarah Imeinu, Sarah Imeinu who tells Avraham, "Let Hashem be a judge between you and me." They got into a disagreement, "Let Hashem be a judge between you and me." And the very next parashah is Parashat Chayei Sarah. We learn Sarah died first. Why? In Shamayim, they said, "Don't say, 'Let's see who's right, who's wrong.' Don't be a 'dayan,' an attorney, a lawyer for Hashem. Don't be a judge for Hashem."

5:29Don't say such things like, "Look, Hashem, you know, whoever's right, bring the Din on him." No. Why? They're going to look at you first before they look at him. Shmuel HaKatan takes this pasuk from the Torah. He says this is dangerous. How dangerous is this, though? How dangerous is this? Now, all of you, I'm hoping, the men at least, are learning Torah every day. Some of you, Baruch Hashem, have gotten to the point where you're starting to learn Gemara. Masechet Berachot is kind? It hasn't come to me in a dream the last couple of days. I'm hoping it's... So, no, because I learned a little of Masechet Berachot, so maybe because it wasn't kind, because I was learning for you, I'm not so sure. Anyway, it says, how dangerous is this celebrating the fall of your enemy? We're not talking about the fall of your friend. If you're celebrating the fall of your friend, obviously, you're not really his friend. What kind of friend are you if you're happy about your friend's downfall? With a friend like you, who needs enemies? We're talking about celebrating your enemy falling. What if...

7:00We're talking about Jews talking about Jews. So now, Shmuel HaKatan is saying this is something that must be a pasuk, not only in the Torah. Not only in case you missed it, if you only read the Five Books of Moses and you just started Joshua—you've just started, you're sure you've just started—after Yehoshua bin Nun took over, you're not up to Proverbs yet. You're not up to Nevi'im yet. You're not up to Tehillim; you're not up to it yet. You haven't gotten to it yet, but listen, you have to learn Mussar. Right? You learn from Chazal. He says you have to understand. We've actually taken a pasuk from the Torah and elevated it, and why? To rise to the highest level. Now you have, he made that part of the Oral Torah also. He says you must learn this and make this a principle in your life. Why is it dangerous? It's dangerous. How dangerous is this, how dangerous is this? In the Gemara, Masechet Chagigah, page 28, it actually says something very scary.

8:14It says, before you learn Yom Marah, they asked Rabi Nechunya ben Hakanah, what do you do? Before you learn Torah, you know, we see that you pray before you come into the Beit Midrash, and you pray when you leave. What's this prayer that you do? What's this prayer that you do? He says, before I actually start learning, I say, I pray to Hashem: Please, Hashem, let no mishap happen through me that will cause my colleagues to celebrate, meaning my failure will lead to their celebration. Also, let my colleagues not fail, for I would not want to feel joy at their failure. And this is actually a... Rambam was actually saying a lot. In Hilchot Tefilah, Chapter 8, Halacha 5, he expresses surprise. Why is he surprised? He's surprised that they didn't actually write at the end of this that this is actually a halacha. This is a law. It's not a minhag to pray these prayers; it's actually a halacha. You must do it because the Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 110:8, instructs accordingly.

9:40Debate yourself, put it as Halacha, ruled as Halacha. So, what you have in pretty much every single Gemara, regardless of who wrote it, you have this blessing that usually goes on the cover, which says exactly what I just said, with a few other additions to it. It says, you must say, "Hashem, may it be Your will and Your..." ...a mishap does not happen through me, meaning that you don't reach the wrong conclusion and make the wrong halacha, the wrong decision. Not just because of the sin that you're going to make as a result of your mistake, but because your failure can lead your colleagues—not just talking about your enemies, but your colleagues, other people—they're in a Beit Midrash, to be happy you failed. Let it not happen. Why is it one? Why is it a big deal? This is actually in every Gemara. In every Gemara, why? Why is it in every Gemara? The Rambam puts it on another level. He says it's so important to know this that they wrote it in two sefarim in his halachot in Mishneh Torah. It's both in Hilchot Teshuvah and...

11:08Two places and it's also in the Gemara Bavli and Yerushalmi. This principle that you probably never heard of, of not being happy when your enemy falls, is actually in Gemara Bavli in several places. It's in the Yerushalmi. It's in the Shulchan Aruch. It's in the Rambam and two other books. But most of us have never heard it. Why? We thought it's fun. Great. Look, Hashem is punishing my enemies. Baruch Hashem. You want to say Kaddish? They brought it on themselves. Their fault. Resha'im. Right? You want to celebrate. The Rambam says the following. In Hilkhot Teshuva, chapter 3, halakha 14.

12:09Our sages said that a person who frequently commits these sins, you know mentioned several different sins, has no olam haba. Loses olam haba. He keeps Shabbat, taharat mishpacha, gives tzedakah. He's a nice guy. Wonderful. Goes to the Beit Knesset, has tefillin, Rashi, Rabbeinu Tam, lulav is six feet tall, whatever. He does these different sins, no olam haba. One of the sins is when he embarrasses his friend in public. He sees a Jew who comes to him asking for tzedakah. He says, "Hey, go get a job." He's kicking him when he's down. The guy is already suffering. He doesn't have any money. He's struggling for money. On top of that, you're yelling at him as if he's a bum, as if he doesn't have a neshama, as if he's not the son of the same King. You just embarrass him in public. That guy has no Olam Haba. But we already learned this from David HaMelech. What's the chiddush? The chiddush is the following: The sin is one who takes pride in another person's shame. Someone who takes pride in another person's shame has no Olam Haba.

13:33What does it mean when someone takes pride in another person's shame? He explains it in another book, in Hilkhot De'ot. Hilkhot De'ot, Chapter 6, Halacha 3. We'll get there in a moment. It's all live. Says anyone who gains honor at the degradation of a colleague does not have a share in the world to come. What does he do here? What it means is that he builds his reputation by emphasizing his colleague's flaws and...

14:34He's a terrible speaker, and he's not as smart as me. He made a mistake last year. He did that, and now you celebrate that everyone has discovered he's a shoteh (fool). They all discovered he made a mistake; they all discovered all these different things. And through that, you're celebrating that he fell; you're celebrating that he lost everything. You have made such a big problem for yourself that now, instead of saying Kaddish on his career, you have to say Kaddish on your own olam haba. You have a problem. So Shmuel HaKatan says this is such a big deal; we have to turn this into a Mishnah. We have to make it into a Mishnah. Such a big problem for yourself that now instead of saying Kaddish on his career, you have to say Kaddish on your own Olam Haba. You have a problem. So Shmuel HaKatan says this is such a big deal. We have to turn this into a Mishnah. We have to make it into a Mishnah. We have to put it in the Gemara. We have to put it in Shulchan Aruch. We have to put it in the Rambam. We have to put it everywhere you can. Why? Because it's so easy to fail. Because our natural inclination tells us the opposite. Our natural inclination wants us to celebrate when our enemy fails. We're not talking about celebrating when our friends fail. We're talking about celebrating when our enemies fail. He's an enemy. Why shouldn't I celebrate? Maybe Hashem is rewarding me by punishing him.

15:57Different story. Different, different, different story. We'll get to it in a second. I'm saying it for a reason. So first and foremost, before we delve into this deeply, right now we just realized we have an atomic bomb in our hands, and we may be the one to make it explode. So who's this more like Aton? It just rocked our life and told us that everything we've taught, everything we knew, everything we behaved like is wrong. We thought we already did Teshuva. We just realized we're just starting. We don't know we did Teshuva; we're really starting right now, today—today is the first day of Teshuva. Thank you. How are you? Thank you, Hashem, for giving me enough time to do Teshuva. What happened? Well, it can't just rock that world. Just told us we're not allowed to celebrate when our enemies fail. We thought it's one of the pleasures of life. Now, a problem that existed in those days, a problem that unfortunately 2,000 years later, we are actually still dealing with, is that Christianity was born around that time.

17:24and the original members were Jewish heretics. Some people like to say that it was based on the Sadducees, but it's not. The historical records indicate there were many heretics who went to Christianity, attempting to recruit and missionize other Jews—those who were ignorant. That's how Christianity was born; it was founded by ignorant Jews, not by Talmidei Chachamim. Scholars are a bunch of ignoramuses; they even say it themselves. Even the Christians acknowledge, a bunch of illiterate and ignorant people. It's not a secret. They say it themselves, people didn't know how to read. They're not righteous tamidei chachamim. Okay, fine, the same goes for the cows. No different. They admit it themselves. I didn't make this up. It's not about making fun of it. Oh, and by the way, the whole "JC Penny being God, being Mashiach" and stuff like that—making fun of it is a mitzvah from the Torah. One of the 613 mitzvot is to make fun of idol worship. We also learn this in Gemara Masechet Megillah; you're gonna get to it with the help of Hashem. Page 25b says it is a mitzvah of the Torah to make fun of idol worship. You're not allowed to make fun of anything else. You can't be a joker. Why? Because Gemara Masechet Avodah Zarah says for the jokers, the people who like to make jokes, their beginning is suffering, and their end is destruction. Hashem hates jokers. He hates when people, in the middle of the shiur, start throwing a joke for no reason. He hates it. Why? You ruin the whole shiur.

18:55Don't be a joker; be a serious person. You can joke when it's the right time to joke, fine. But there's only one thing you're allowed to joke about at any time: idol worship. It's a mitzvah, a mitzvah, a mitzvah, a mitzvah to make fun of idol worship. It's a mitzvah, a mitzvah to make fun of Christianity, a mitzvah, a mitzvah to make fun of all that stuff. It's a mitzvah. Mitzvah to make fun of all these people who say the Rebbe is God or that the Rebbe is some type of idol that they've made him into. He was a tzadik. He's not God. It's a mitzvah. Mitzvah to make fun of it. It's not just my opinion. It's a mitzvah.