Economic Update, Religious $ Problems, Guarding Your Eyes, Chumash Basics - STUMP THE RABBI (50)

0:17We are back in Sunny Isles, Florida, for our shiur, "Stump the Rabbi," where you guys will ask some questions, and HaKadosh Baruch Hu will give us some answers to give you. The shiur tonight will be for a refuah shlema for Levana Bat Sarah, Rav Efraim Ben Shulamit, Rabbanit Sarah Bat Anat, Yitro Ben Avraham, Refael Ben Chana, David Ben Esria, Doris Bat Jora, Dvora Bat Mercedes, Esther Bat Zipora, Serach Bat Batya, Batya Bat Sarah, and all of Am Yisrael. Bezrat Hashem, they will have a refuah shlema, refuat hanefesh, refuat haguf. So, Baruch Hashem, the pe'ilut continues, the kiruv revolution continues. Many, many people, Baruch Hashem, are getting our videos one way or the other. HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave us a gift where He not only made us shlichim to deliver His Torah in a generation that needs it more than ever, but also He gave us different periodic gifts, and one of them is this coronavirus.

1:39Not that we want anyone to die or even get hurt, but many people have been forced over the last couple of months to analyze their lives. What's the point? Why am I here? What is the purpose of my life? Okay, so I made money, now what? Okay, so I got married, now what? Okay, so I had kids, now what? A lot of people are asking themselves this question, now what? Where do I go from here? Okay, so I make money, and I'll make more money, and I'll lose money. Okay, then what? Okay, I get married, hopefully stay married, then what? The kids, okay, they're cute, little, little, little. Eventually, they grow up and they become big kids, and then they have their own lives. You can't live vicariously through your kids forever. The point is, you have to ask yourself, why are you here? Not why all of them are here. And if it's about money, then what if you didn't have money? if it's about a skill, what if that skill was taken away from you? You know, there are all types of things that people build their lives on, and one day Hashem shakes them up and makes them realize that this pyramid that you built your whole life on, in reality, was a house full of straws that just didn't work out. So, this coronavirus is making...

3:00Coronavirus is making many, many people question themselves because a lot of people have seen their foundation collapse. And I had one guy contact me, a really, really nice guy. He said he was making five to ten million dollars a year, doing all business and so on. He says, as soon as the whole situation with coronavirus happened, pretty much his business went down 99%. Like right now, he's middle class. You're still okay. You make $5 million, $10 million, a lot of money. So you go down to $100,000, $200,000 a year. You're not starving. You have food to eat. You know what the problem is? He doesn't have middle class expenses. Because when you have a $5 million, $10 million income, you have $5 million, $10 million expenses. That kind of lifestyle. So, which means that he's struggling even more than people that were making $50,000, $60,000 a year because of the debt and so on. He's like, "I don't know what to do with myself. What do I do? What do I do?" Other people had good jobs, 5, 10, 15, 20-year careers. The company tells them, "Thank you for your service, but we don't need you anymore." "What do you mean? I've been here for 20 years." "Yeah, thanks." "But I thought you guys liked me." "We do. That's why we're saying thanks."

4:21People are losing their jobs like flies. And if you guys think this is the end of it, you're dreaming. Simply because right now HaKadosh Baruch Hu is shaking up the world in such a way that the whole system is changing. Already there's news that major corporations in the technology sector, the engineering sector, and many, many other major sectors in the world are now reconsidering their whole thought process behind the location of their employees. They're seeing that, in reality, they don't need their employees to come to these huge multi-million dollar buildings anymore because they do just as much work, and maybe even more, from home. So now they're saying, listen, so that not only changes our perspective of whether we're gonna continue expanding physically as far as buying more buildings, but on top of that, that also changes our perspective of whether we even need to hire the local people.

5:22that if you're in New York, you're in San Francisco, you're in Los Angeles, you're in different places like that where it's a high-income area, you want to hire somebody, you have to get ready to pay him $150,000, $200,000. Why? Because that's the cost of living. But if I'm a company, and I have shareholders that are my boss, and they want me to make sure that I continuously make more money, and I know that I can get an employee for $30,000-$40,000 from India, $30,000-$40,000 from China, $30,000-$40,000 from different parts of the world, because I don't need him to be next to me. In fact, he may be more productive when he's working from home in some place. Why not? And on top of that, I'm making money from that? On top of that, I don't have to pay him $200,000. Who's better than you? All of a sudden, you become the biggest, greatest CEO in the world. But what does that mean to the economy? You start firing people by the tens of thousands. By the tens of thousands. The real estate sector will have a major collapse. Why? Commercial real estate is going to be affected by this. Companies are realizing that in reality, we don't need all the space. We thought we needed all the space because...

6:33We had, you know, all these employees. Companies were buying more and more buildings, but in reality now, especially in America, where it's pretty much a service-based economy, you know, we don't actually manufacture anything anymore here, or barely anything. They pretty much provide services. So we don't need the physical space anymore. I could just hire somebody from different countries, from different places for half the money, don't need the building. So I save money on the building. I save money on the electricity. All I gotta do is send this guy a $500 laptop. Who's better than you? And if you pay him $40,000 a year, he's as happy as can be. Why? Because he was making $5 a year over there. So we're seeing the reality is that the economy is going to change. The economy is going to change drastically. That also means that the stock market is going to change drastically. Some companies will do extremely well, while many companies will do poorly for a little while. So this means that everybody's so-called nest egg is in question, but you won't see this in the market yet. I don't follow the market, but people tell me what it does. No one has told me what it's doing recently, at least in the last couple of weeks, but I know that no one has told me it's crashed in the last couple of weeks, which means it hasn't crashed.

7:46but the market is not pricing that in. What I'm telling you is not priced in. I told everyone when I was in New York, right before Corona, the market is poised to crash because of all these things that are happening with Corona that everyone's ignoring. That's in essence what started happening, but I believe things are going to get much worse. Why? Because again, it's not necessarily the market that the economy is going to go into a depression. even though some very, very smart people are saying that the market in the world is going into a depression, I don't necessarily think that's the case, but that does not mean that the market won't drop 50%. And the reason why is because the market has been going up for 10 years in a row, and it got to a point where the valuation of major companies has gotten so out of hand that they are basing the entire valuation on perfect expectations, meaning everything will go perfectly. There's not going to be any major tornadoes, no hurricanes, no major financial crisis, no epidemic, nothing. Everything is going to go perfectly. Well, as we've seen in the last couple of months, nothing's perfect.

8:58so the price of everything is based on everything being perfect, and therefore they're expecting a certain growth rate. Now that we see that things are not perfect, people just don't know how bad it's going to be, because they're assuming maybe as soon as we go back to work, in a week, in a month, in two months, in six months, whenever that happens, things will just go back to how they used to be. Wrong. Wrong. Why? Because, again, companies, smart people, are realizing that they're Plan needs to change, needs to adjust to this new type of economy. They don't need the same type of local employees. They don't need to pay people as much. If I could replace a $200,000 employee for $40,000, $50,000, and I don't have to look at them, they'll make the right articles about me, about how smart I am. Yeah, but you're ruining people's lives. Okay, business is business. Business is business. So now people who were used to all this financial success are questioning, where do I go from here? The same thing goes for people who have gotten sick. At 25, 35, 45 years old, they felt perfectly healthy. All of a sudden, the person gets sick. They question, how long am I going to be in this life? Why? Until now, I didn't care about life. Why? I figured I'm going to be here 70, 80, 90, 100 years.

10:19But as soon as a person gets really sick, he has to go to the hospital, he starts feeling like he's going to die, and he starts questioning, how long am I going to be here? So a lot of people are getting to this point, Baruch Hashem, and we're perfectly positioned with the Torah HaKedoshah to give people the answers. The answer is, you're not going to find you never had happiness to begin with; you just had a state of being elated. Excited about different things that were happening, happiness you never possessed, and anyone that's honest with themselves knows that. Unless you had Torah in your life, but not just to have Torah in your life like you went to shul once or twice a week or even every day, but you didn't learn Torah. Happiness comes from learning Torah every single day and living by the Torah every single day. There are some people in the world that learn Torah every single day, but are a hundred percent kofrim and 100% heretics, and you see it when you know them, that they're miserable. They learn Torah, but they're very, very miserable. Why? Because they learn Torah in order to beat the system. It's like someone learning the law in order to find out how to violate the law, or learning the tax code to know how to cheat on taxes. Such a person is as miserable as it gets. So, people are questioning themselves a lot.

11:36And Baruch Hashem, they're finding their answers in our shiurim. You know, online has grown dramatically, Baruch Hashem. Now we have the CD campaign. We've already given close to 80,000 CDs in the last couple of weeks on Lag BaOmer. Of this new CD, we're trying to give out much more. Hopefully, we'll complete another 120,000 before Shavuot. And some other generous people will come through and help us fund the next campaign to try to maybe do 500,000 or maybe a million CDs. Because so far, the people that have gotten the CDs that are actually playing them are giving us fantastic feedback. Some of them have never heard from us, so this is the first time they're being introduced to our work. Some of them are familiar but never saw these movies or this perspective. And it's amazing how people are waking up to the truth. One guy I spoke to today, he says to me, "Listen, I've been through my whole life, but once I saw your movie, I used to watch the whole thing." He said, "So now in 34 minutes." I said, "Okay, so you watched the whole thing. Everybody likes to tell me the time. Now in 34 minutes, yeah." He says, "I'm through my whole life. But as soon as you started talking about seeing religious people in a casino, I said, 'He's right. It's true. It's true.'"

12:54We have something wrong with religious people. We have something wrong with us. Secular people, it's a given. Don't keep Shabbat. What's the difference between you and a goy? You don't keep kashrut. What's the difference between you and Mustafa? What's the difference? What makes you a Jew? My mom is a Jew. Who said that makes you a Jew then? Who said that your mom being a Jew makes you a Jew? The Torah. Okay, Torah says keep Shabbat. Torah says keep kosher. Torah says keep taharat hamishpacha. So if you say that what makes you a Jew is your mom made you a Jew, that means you have to comply with the rest of the Torah. Oh, I didn't think about it that way. Okay, now you're thinking. Now you're thinking. But the guy said, listen, okay, the secular world, we know we have a problem. But I never saw things the way you said it, where the religious communities have a problem. Why? It's true. look religious, we act religious, we do the mitzvot, but unfortunately, not everybody is fixed. Not everybody's 100%. You're still going to see a few guys at the casino. You're still going to see a few guys at the strip club. You're still going to see a few guys cheating in business. You're still going to see—I'm saying a few just to be nice. The fact that the entire cash advance industry is comprised mainly of people that call themselves religious is an embarrassment to Klal Yisrael.

14:23But out of everyone that I know, I'm the only one that spoke against it. Other rabbis have called me about it, talked to me about it, and said, "We agree with you." I said, "Okay, so you agree with me, so make a lecture about it yourself. Talk about it." "No, come on, it's not my style." What do you mean it's not your style? They're killing people. They're killing people. They're taking people, and they're putting them in a condition where these people are going to lose every single penny they have. second they miss payment, the second their business has a hiccup and they can't make the payment, the agreement that they have is simply going to destroy their life. People are declaring bankruptcy. One of my students that used to be in the cash advance business told me, “Good news, Rabbi.” I said, “What's the good news?” He says, “The cash advance business is collapsing.” collapsing. They're all losing money. Why? All of the people—it's not like a random one here and there can't make payments—no one can make payments. So, when one or two guys can't make payments, you have a lawyer on staff. He can handle all the cases pretty much, but when all of your clients

15:30Pretty much can't make payments, or a large majority of them can't make payments. Guess what happens? Your lawyer can't handle it, and you can't afford to get more lawyers. You know why? Because the bank that was giving you the money to lend these people shut you down. Why? You have too many defaults. You have too many defaults. Who wants to lend you money? You're a high risk. We don't want to lose our money. No one can pay this money. So now that business, Baruch Hashem, is collapsing. Baruch Hashem. Hopefully it stays this way and gets even worse. Sadly, I don't think that's going to be the case, but we could always be optimistic. Point being is that a lot of those guys are questioning, what do I do now? So Torah HaKedoshah always tells us that you have to comply by the rules. Now, sometimes it's hard for us to understand. How do I comply with the rules in this generation? Why? Because we think we're something unique. We think that we're the only generation that has a yetzer hara. Now, the truth is, every generation has a yetzer hara. The generation of Yeshayahu, the prophet Isaiah,

16:53had women walking around with high heels and long wigs. They still didn't look anywhere near as realistic as the ones of today, and they were trying to entice the goyim to be with them. When the prophet rebuked them, the women responded, saying, "So what, Rabbi? What are they going to want to do? Marry us? So let them marry us, these goyim." So the sages say, who are these wicked women? The Gemara answers, these were the wives of the rabbis of the generation. That's how bad it was. That's how bad it was. Which means that nothing new is under the sun, Rabotai. Nothing new is under the sun. Horrible things that happened back then are happening right now. I just got a poster. embarrassment to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, a poster from one of my students in Canada. Chabad is having an event. Chabad of Canada is having an event. What's the event? An event, you say, oh, we're bringing a big rabbi.

18:07represent the teachings of the Baal HaTanya, represent the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, represent the teachings of HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Big event! No, no, no. We're having an event for the kehillah. What's the event? We're gonna have Two people discuss a show that's on television that you are forbidden from watching. Why? It talks about a woman that used to be religious and went off the derech and pretty much makes fun of Judaism the entire show. We're going to have a talk about this. Who are the people? One of them is our cousin who's also off the derech. We're gonna put somebody that's against Hashem on a stage to give her opinion to Klal Yisrael. We've run out of people that keep Shabbat, so we have to pick these people to teach us something. Next they're gonna show you how to dance with women.

19:12This is what we have. And they're publicizing it like they're proud. We're bringing it to the community like it's a good thing. Should have said, we're bringing cancer to the community. It's even better. But this is what we have. This is what we talked about in the Gemara yesterday. It says the place of the wise people will become a place of zonot, a place of prostitution, immodesty, immorality. This is what it is. When a religious organization that has such a great reputation highlights people that go against God, what do you have left? What do you have left? What's the difference between you and Reform? What's the difference? What's the difference? But that's what happens when you don't have strong leaders. Because people think this generation is unique. We have to cater to the people. Now, how do we know that there's nothing unique about this generation and the yetzer hara has existed at all times? We have to look at the sages. What kind of yetzer hara did they have? Now, Sonny, God bless him, asked me a question. He said, if doing kiruv and helping people get closer to Hashem is such a big thing, how come not everybody is doing it? And the second question is,

20:42the big rabbis have the same yetzer hara. Why? Because when you do kiruv, the Yidden do teshuvah, and it's actually effective. As I taught you guys yesterday, we learned together, the yetzer hara himself gets out of the chair and deals with you. All types of strange things happen in your life. Strange emails, strange phone calls, strange things happen in your life. Why? The yetzer hara is annoyed by you. It's a good thing. If he's not annoyed by you, it's not a good sign. That means you're not doing anything. If your competition is not worried about you, that means you're not competition. The best sign, the best sign that you're doing the right thing is when your competition copies you. When you make a product, and your competition makes the same product, that's a good sign. Yeah, but I worked so hard on it. Good, that means it works, and the competition recognizes it. If no one's copying you, that means what you're doing is not working, it's not effective. Why do you think every single headphone that they sell on the market is white?

21:45They're copying Apple. Why do you think that every drink for many, many years was called Coke? Copy Coca-Cola. And so on and so forth. Good products, good things get copied. Your competition is worried about you. He's going to copy you. If no one's copying you, something's wrong. If the Yetzer Hara is not trying to fight you, there's something wrong. What you're doing is not effective. Which means if you're doing real Kiruv, you're helping people really leave the Yetzer Hara, leave the Tumah, leave the impurity, and go to the Kedusha, obviously you're going to have some resistance. If there's no resistance, you're not doing anything. If you don't have people calling you every single day, telling you, "Thank you very much for helping me do teshuva," if you don't see the world around you change, "Thank you very much for helping us," go get a job at the post office. Now, when people don't care about kiruv, they just care about money, that's a different story. That's the Erev Rav. We'll talk about that a little bit more next week. Now,

22:55What happened with the sages, though? What happened if somebody is a big talmid chacham? Well, as you would have it, many of our huge talmidei chachamim were also big kiruv rabbis. One of them, his name was Chofetz Chaim. You guys heard of the Chofetz Chaim, right? The Chofetz Chaim, heard of him. Recognizable name. The Chofetz Chaim was not only the Baal Mishnah Berurah and also the Chofetz Chaim, But he was also an enormous kiruv rabbi. Literally, he was willing to go door to door, knocking on people's doors, trying to help them do teshuva. An old man, 100 years old, please, just somebody take me door to door, I'll help them do teshuva. He met one guy one time that was a big donor. But he was mechalei Shabbat. And the guy came to the Rav to shake his hand. Chofetz Chaim. shook his hand, but didn't let go. And you know, the guy is holding a holy hand. Okay, don't let go. Only problem is he started seeing, the Chofetz Chaim starts to cry. Hysterical, tears, mamash, tears. He goes, Kvod HaRav, did I do something wrong? What happened? You okay?

24:08It's so bad. It's so terrible. I can't believe it. So horrible. So awful. And he starts crying. Somebody's dying. What happened? Anything I could do. More money? No, it's so bad. It's so terrible. It's so terrible that this wonderful, generous hand is going to be burned in Gehenom forever. It's so horrible. Such a generous hand. It's so awful. How this generous hand is going to be burned in Gehenom forever. What can we do? It's so horrible, so terrible. He's crying like he sees his hand burning on fire. "Okay, okay, fine, fine. I'll keep Shabbat. Just give me like five or six weeks to set up my businesses, and then I'll start keeping Shabbat for the Kvoda Rav. It's for you." The Chafetz Chaim starts crying even more. "No way, Kvoda Rav. No, it's not good. Last two weeks, three weeks." He goes, "Wait, you think it's my Shabbat? It's my Shabbat? If it was my Shabbat, do what you want. It's not my Shabbat. It's HaKadosh Baruch Hu's Shabbat." It's so terrible, it's so awful, that this generous hand, wonderful heart attached to it, is going to be burned in Gehinom forever. You see the Gadol HaDor, almost 100 years old, starts crying, you do teshuvah. Guy says, "Kvoda Rav, this Shabbat I'm keeping. From now on, I keep Shabbat." The Chafetz Chaim had no shortage of tests. When he was writing the Mishnah Berurah, he had all types of tests.

25:35One day, his dear son got sick, really sick. The Chafetz Chaim did not slow down; he knew that this Mishnah Berurah has to be written. Sick, not sick, we have to do it. Why? Am Yisrael needs this Torah. His son died. His son died. Do you think the Chafetz Chaim said, "Okay, my son died, that's it, okay, finished, I'm going back, I'm going to take care of the... Chafetz Chaim says out loud and people saw it. He says, Yetzer Hara, what do you think? That if you take my son's neshama, I'm gonna stop teaching Torah? Stop helping Am Yisrael? Dafka, I'm gonna do more now. Dafka, we're gonna publicize this book everywhere. And that's what he did. You have a bigger Yetzer Hara than that? Baruch Hashem, the Yetzer Hara is not killing your firstborn son. And Be'ezrat Hashem, he never will. But you see that when somebody deals with something that's going to help the klal, the tests are enormous. The tests are enormous. The bigger the influence, the bigger the test. Many of the Chachamim had tests when it came to money, parnassah. Yosef Zundel, a"h, was addicted to only one thing, learning Torah.

27:02Wife, who handled the finances, would send him once in a while to go to the market that was there a few times a year to take their money and buy the fabric that she would then sell and make into dresses, or sell it to different people in the community, which was full of poor people. When the time came, she said, "Please take our money and go to the... the place and invest our money to go buy fabric so we can make all types of clothes for the community. Sell it so we can make a living. You continue to learn Torah. So Rav Zundel went to the market. The time he got to the market was early in the morning. He says, "Hashem doesn't need me to go search for things all day, work all day." make money. Hashem runs the world, so why am I going to waste all day working, looking, is this good, is that good? Let me just go learn Torah and come here, you know, five minutes before they close, and whatever is left, I'll buy that. What do I need to go, you know, use my own brain? Let me go learn Torah, do what HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, and whatever HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants me to have, it'll be available at the end of the day.

28:21Because surely, no dollar will be taken out of my pocket that belongs to me. And no dollar will go into my pocket if it doesn't belong to me. As the Gemara in Masechet Beitzah, page 16, and also Rosh Hashanah, page 16, both say that your parnassah is decided in Shamayim on Rosh Hashanah. From Rosh Hashanah to Rosh Hashanah, your parnassah is already decided. And the only thing that changes is the money that you use for mitzvot. Why? Because HaKadosh Baruch Hu says on the mitzvot money that you have, I'm going to pay for that. Whatever money you use for mitzvot, I'm going to pay for it. So anyone that has real emunah spends a lot of money on mitzvot, a lot of tzedakah, a lot on Shabbat, a lot on Chagim. People say, "Oh, Judaism is expensive." It's supposed to be if you want to be rich. If you want to be rich, you have to spend a lot of money on Judaism. Why? It's the only money you're guaranteed to get back. Why? HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, Who did me a favor, and I'll pay him back? Meaning, who invested in a mitzvah without even having all the money yet? You wanted to go buy $500 worth of stuff for your Shabbat because you're having guests. Not because you just have a big stomach. You have guests. You want to honor Shabbat. You want to have guests. You want to teach Torah, learn Torah. You spend $500, $1,000, $2,000 on your Shabbat. HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, that's for the honor of my Shabbat. I'll pay for it.

29:45When? HaKadosh Baruch Hu has His timing, don't worry, you'll get it. You'll get it. Don't give Hashem deadlines. You don't give the Boss deadlines. You give yourself deadlines. You just do what you're supposed to. HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, who did Me a favor first, I'll pay him back. Because in reality, we never do many favors first. That's in essence what He's saying. But if you did something, cash. So Rav Zundel says, what do I need to waste my time Checking if this is better, that's better. HaKadosh Baruch Hu was going to decide for me. So what did he do? He went to a place where no one could bother him. He started learning Torah all day. All day, he's in Torah, he's in sefarim. Eventually, after hours of sefarim, he looked at the clock, oh, five minutes left. Goes into the market, everyone's closed. Except one guy. One guy that has really, really high-end fabric that only kings buy. It's so expensive, only the kings can afford it. But he's the only one that's still open. Rav Zunder says, okay, here's all my money. Give me the fabric. Give me everything. Now, Rav Zunder didn't live on Fifth Avenue in New York. He didn't live in Beverly Hills in Los Angeles. No. He lived in a village where it would take them a thousand years to sell one of these fabrics. No one wears such a thing.

31:13Poor people. He comes home with this fabric. He put all of the finances. His wife starts crying hysterically. She says, what did you do? Who are we going to sell this to? Who are we going to sell this to? No one can afford such fabric. She starts crying and says, no, it's going to be okay. Don't worry. Hakadosh Baruch Hu runs the world. Divine logic is not human logic. We can use our human logic. Hakadosh Baruch Hu's logic is much better than ours. But his emunah at that stage was higher than his wife's. As you would have it, the wife doesn't even know what to do with this fabric. She doesn't know what to do with it. A few days, not even a season, a few days pass, a messenger from the king comes to the town. Anyone here deal with dresses and fabric? Oh yeah, the Zundel family. Oh, oh.

32:14yes, you! Hi, yeah, you deal with fabric? Yes, yes, okay. The king's son, the prince, is getting married, and everyone needs to wear the same exact thing. But it's only a special type of fabric. Do you have anything? Uh, we have the perfect thing for you. How much do you want? All of it. He became very rich, became very rich. Why? Because he understood divine logic is not human logic. We can work 20 hours a day; it doesn't mean you're going to succeed. There are many, many people that work a lot and don't make any money. Many people that work very little make a lot of money, and vice versa. But the test of parnasa, Rabotai, is not an easy one. It's impossible if you don't have bitachon. Chazal say... that in his house he has a rule. He has a rule, teaches his little girls and his boys, there's a rule. We never cry or ever get angry over something material. It's forbidden in the house. You lost a toy, you broke something, you want something, never allowed to cry over something material. Why? Because it brings a kitrug, a case against you in Shamayim.

33:42Because why are you crying? Okay, so you lost 500 bucks, you lost 5,000, you lost a toy, you lost something that's material. So Shamayim said, oh yeah, Hashem is crying about this toy. She's crying that she doesn't have a fridge. She's crying that the tiles of the kitchen look like the desert. Crying that you know stuff's not working, crying angrily. They got into a fight on Shabbat because the food wasn't so good. Those who have whatever, I'm back in the Beit HaMikdash, they cry about that, too. I don't have a house for 2,000 years. They cry about that. Am Yisrael got slaughtered by the millions over the last 2,000 years by the Christians. He must remember the Churban. They cry about that. Torah is being desecrated every single day by both religious and irreligious people. They're crying about my Torah. Over a million kids in Eretz Yisrael do not know. They cry about those kids. There are hundreds of families, thousands of families that we're trying to reach and help. I mean, we can only do what HaKadosh Baruch Hu allows us to do.

35:03Anyone that saw the video we publicized a couple of days ago, I couldn't watch it. It took me two or three times to actually watch the video. Even though we made it, it took me a few times to actually sit there and watch the whole thing. Seven-minute video, I just, after three minutes, I just start crying. I have to stop, wait the next day. Why? You're seeing tzaddikim with little kids, the shoes don't fit them. They're too small on the kid. The shoes are ripped, the shoes open like it's a, like it's a hippopotamus. She's wearing winter clothes because they can't afford anything else. In the summer, 90 degrees weather over there, can't afford anything else. A mother says, my kids are asking me, ima, ima, can we have food? Food, food. Not ima can I have a Nintendo. Not ima can I have another motorcycle. Can I have food? You cry about those people? You cry about them? What did you cry about? You lost the game that you were playing against your friend on the internet? He beat you three times in a row? You're upset? You broke the joystick? That's what you're crying about? That's what we said, okay. That's what you care about. We'll turn you into a joystick. Cry about joysticks, we'll turn you into a joystick. When we cry about material things, it doesn't look good.

36:30Never cry about material things. Never get angry about material things. Why? HaKadosh Baruch Hu is going to say, "Look, if you at least cry about material as much as you cry about the spiritual, okay, fine." Don't get me wrong, it's tough to lose money. Trust me, I lost millions. It's very, very difficult to lose money. But do we care as much about HaKadosh Baruch Hu as we do about our own pocket? You're going to cry about losing money. You're going to cry about all types of material things. Fine, that makes you human. You shouldn't, but nonetheless, it makes you human to at least have a difficulty. But are you crying about the fact that we have kids that went to yeshiva, kids that went to yeshiva their whole life? They added me to some group. Oh Hashem, I got out right away when I found out what this group is. But before I got away, I was doing yeshiva last night. So by the time I got home, I saw there were like 300 messages in this group. All yeshiva bachurim from here, from Florida. What are they discussing in this group? The filthiest stuff you can possibly imagine. A meivin yavin. Cursing, filth, garbage, disgusting. You would have thought you were in some prison cell with a bunch of hoodlums.

37:53Yeshiva guys or former, if that's what the product is of the yeshiva system here in Florida, you might as well sign up to public school. I know public school kids that don't speak like that. You're crying about those people? They don't know anything. If you're not crying about them, that they don't know anything, and they have such filthy mouths and such horrible addictions... can you allow yourself to cry about your Nintendo and your PlayStation and your money and your stock market? How can you allow yourself? If you cry just as much, at least you're going in the right direction. What's the mindset of a person that understands the value of money but also the value of a Jew? One of the Gedolei Olam, Rav Nissim Karelitz from Bnei Brak...

38:55One time, someone came to his house. He says, "Kevod HaRav, I have a problem with you." "Oh, what can I do? What happened?" He says, "The Rav owes me 600 shekels." "Oh, why do I owe 600 shekels?" "Because you guys painted the house," and then emptied out all the remaining paint into the sewage system. The sewage system caused a clog in my house, and to unclog it cost me six hundred dollars. So, one second, got the money, one, two, three, four, five, six hundred dollars. Here you go. "Oh, thank you," he leaves. Talmidim saw that I've just given this guy in two minutes $600. They say, "Well, is this Din Torah, huh?" Because usually the process proves it down, you know, there's a Din Torah halacha. I have a nice analogy, one of the greatest lessons you could ever learn. He says, "I have at least three reasons why I don't have to pay him. This is one: he lives across the street and..."

40:17Which means the sewer system that I have and the sewer system that he has do not connect. There's no way that he was affected by my stuff. No way. Reason number two. The sewer system is constantly watering there, moving, so there's no way that the paint could have clogged his house. No way. Scientifically impossible. Reason number three. We didn't paint the house. There's no paint. We didn't paint the house. Now the talmidim are even more confused, like you. Like I was. I was laughing and then confused. "Rebbi, why'd you pay him then? You have three reasons. You didn't even do anything. Why'd you pay him?" He says to pay $600 to a Jew to have a good neighbor is a good investment. It's a good investment. It's worth it. Pay somebody $600 to be a good neighbor. If I didn't pay him and I told him these excuses, he wouldn't believe, he wouldn't agree, he would be upset. It would be something between me and another Jew. If I have to pay him $600 to make him happy, good neighbor, cheap. Ma'alah. Good investment. How do you know it's a good investment? You never have a bad neighbor. Having a bad neighbor is like cancer. Everything you do, they have a problem with.

41:44Your kids are too loud, your kids are too this, your car is in my way, you looked at me the wrong way, you're cutting on my lawn, you're cutting on this, all types of things. You know how many fights there are that go to actual court because of neighbors that are jealous of each other? All of a sudden, the city marshal shows up at your house. Yes, sir. Okay, here you go. You get a letter, a scary letter from the government. No one ever wants to receive it. Okay, you have seven days to remove your entire balcony or to remove this garage. Why? You didn't get a certification from the state. You didn't get the permission from the state to do this. Yeah, but how does the state know about my house? There are a million houses in the city. How do they know about it? How do they know? Your neighbor doesn't like it that you're expanding your house, doesn't like it that you're making it nicer. So what did he do? He called the city. "Yeah, city, yeah, yeah, my neighbor, he's doing something illegal." "Oh, what is he doing?" "Oh, he's doing something without getting permission from you."

42:51to build back balcony, this basement apartment, all types of things. Call the city. "See, it is, you did our job for us." They show up to you. "You have a week," and there's no like, "Oh, let me go to court." You have a week to destroy this thing. "Yeah, but I spent 30, 40, 50,000 dollars on this thing!" Mistake. Why? Jealous, jealous. Nominees, how many places have these stories, how many times do people tell me, "Listen, maybe you can show people like that"? There's no fixing them. To their shame, unless you build for them also what you're building for yourself. No way. Well, you're expanding your house, you're investing another hundred thousand in your house; unless you invest a hundred thousand in their house, it's never gonna happen. Never gonna happen. Why? A jealous person, and that's what the Torah says to us: jealous people — meaning the reshaim (wicked people) — will not be resurrected with the dead.

43:52G-d hates them. So when you know what a bad neighbor looks like, you're willing to pay to get a good one. Now, that also means that you have to have a certain understanding of Torah. Now, there is a mitzvah that says there are times, specific times, that you have to prove the case that you are right. to show that you're clean of this accusation that somebody makes of you. You can't just admit, "Just to be a good neighbor, let me just give money to everybody." If somebody accuses you of something wrong, there are certain times in the mitzvah from the Torah that you have to prove that you are right. Why? To show that you're a kosher Jew, to show that you are clean in the eyes of Hashem, you're clean in the eyes of people. So, different times to use, but the point being is that You have to know enough Torah to know when to use it and when not to use it. If it's something like this, like what Rav Nissim Karelitz says, your neighbor comes complaining to you about your parking in his spot, and in reality, there's no such thing as his spot, just move your car, go somewhere else. Why? It's not worth the fight. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it's your spot. I didn't know, I'm sorry. We just moved here. I'm sorry. I didn't know it was your spot. Oh, it's your chair? Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Move. Why? It's not worth fighting.

45:13Pick your battles. Pick your battles. It's not worth fighting over stupid things like that. His chair, his spot. The guy thinks he runs the world. Let him believe that he runs the world. Okay, what are you going to do? Fight him over it? People fight over chairs. Oh, you're sitting in my chair? I'm not coming in anymore. Give him the chair. Give him an ice cream too, a lollipop, like the little child that he is. Oh, it's your spot? Oh, sure, sure. City traffic is yours too. The air is yours. Enjoy. It's yours. You're right. I saw your name. I didn't know it was your name when I saw it in the air. I didn't know it was your name. Now I know your name, I'll recognize it forever. I'll recognize it forever. It's you. It's all you. Enjoy it. Why? It's not worth the fight. But if somebody accuses you of stealing, ...lying, something like that, you have to show proof. "No, I'm clean. I'm clean. I'm ethical. I'm clean. Everything I'm doing is kosher." Why? You have to show that the Torah led you to be a kosher person. Now, your perspective of money changes as you get more and more Torah. When you get to a high level, like the sages, money simply becomes meaningless to you...

46:39So much so that when somebody came to Rav Steinman, one of his talmidim came to him in a joking way and said, "You know, Rav, there was one guy that was a rich guy. We told him we need to donate for the yeshiva. He says, 'Listen, I'm willing to give you guys half a million dollars, but one condition. I want Rav Steinman to engrave a pen for me. You know, write his name on a pen for me.'" Give me that pen. I'll give you half a million dollars, you know, come on, you're gonna make such demands of one of the biggest rabbis in the world. Are you ridiculous? Okay, that's my condition. So the talmid was saying in a joke, this guy has no respect for the Torah. He wants the Rav... Rav Steinman says, no, no, no, why not? Why not? 500,000 alms for the avrechim, why not? Chabibi, just I need somebody to teach me how to engrave. Bring me somebody to engrave. And how much percentage is the Rav going to get from the $500,000? Nothing. Why? What do I need the money for? A rich guy came to Rav Steinman. When you looked at his house, anyone who saw pictures of Rav Steinman's house got an understanding of what houses looked like during the Holocaust. It didn't change. You couldn't find the refrigerator he had in a museum. He had milk crates as his bed. Milk crates. Do you guys even know what milk crates are? Milk crates were his bed.

48:09No joy whatsoever out of this world, did not want anything to do with it. Some rich person came up to him and said, "Please, let us redo the Rav's house, buy the next-door house, buy the property, make the Rav a nice house, comfortable. A normal house." Rav Steinman looks at him, "Why? What do I need this stuff for? Why do I need all this?" What will it do for me? Just like his Rav, the Chafetz Chaim. Someone came to the Chafetz Chaim and said, "Kevod HaRav, you know, you're known as the Gadol HaDor. Yeah. No. Well, I don't know, where's the house? Where's the furniture? Where's the, you know, glory of the Torah?" The Chafetz Chaim says, "Where's yours?" I'm just visiting here; I'm from London. But if you come to my house in London—big house, nice couches, all types of chandeliers—I'm just visiting here. I'm visiting here also. I'm not going to be here forever. I don't invest in this world. You come to my house; I show you, I have this, I have that. Why should I invest in a house if I'm only going to be here for a short period of time? For what?

49:38For what? The perspective of money changes. Your understanding of what's valuable changes. Why? You know you're only going to be here for a little while. You're only going to be here for a little while. What if you don't understand it? Then HaKadosh Baruch Hu will force you to understand it. But unfortunately, it can get to a point where it's too late. I'm going to tell you a real story happening as we speak. Some of you that have seen many of my lectures, been here, heard me talk to you about my cousin. I didn't know him personally. Young kid, 23 or 26 years old. His father, from what I know, has enough money to build a country. Hashem gave them a lot of money. What did he give Hashem? Nothing. secular school for the kids, wife is an atheist, don't keep anything on Rosh Hashanah, violating the entire Chag, nothing, don't keep anything, zero. But money, they have. So two and a half years ago, 23, 26-year-old cousin, on the second day of Rosh Hashanah, while the parents were on vacation,

51:02goes on a scooter instead of going to the Beit Knesset. He goes on a scooter right outside of his mansion, falls off the scooter, hits his head. The ambulance comes, takes him to the hospital. They do some CAT scans, this scan, that scan. They know the guy; they know the family. Obviously, with money, everybody knows you. They say, "No, you're okay. Everything's okay. Just go home and rest." My cousin goes home, he goes and he rests, and he dies. And His whole life was in front of him. Cute kid, smart kid, unfortunate kid. Didn't know what Torah was. Died before he even learned. Now, that would be one of the greatest punishments that HaKadosh Baruch Hu can give a father, to see his own kid die during his lifetime. Now, if that didn't make the person do teshuva, what does HaKadosh Baruch Hu do? What did I tell you guys many times? What happens when HaKadosh Baruch Hu...

52:04When he says, "If I do something to you, I give you difficulty, I give you suffering, you don't do teshuva, guess what? What are you going to say? It's nature, happenstance, it's a misfortune, bad luck. You can say that, I'll punish you even worse." Less than six months ago, his second son, 48 years old, was found dead in the apartment. Found dead in the apartment here in Florida. They didn't say why, but anyone with a brain can figure out why. Did they do teshuva? Unfortunately, no. The wife is still an atheist, still keeping nothing. Monday, last week, Sunday, last week, my father calls me, says, "Yaron, please, do me a favor." "What?" "Please, refuah shlema." "For? Why?" This morning, the doctor called them. The father, two sons died, not teshuvah. The doctor called them, "We're sorry, you have throat cancer." Meaning, you're pretty much living on borrowed time. Every day you live here, it's a miracle.

53:25Now let me ask you a question. How much is a hundred, two hundred, three hundred million dollars, a billion dollars, however much money you can count—how much is it worth when two of your kids die during your life and you're about to die any day? How much is that worth to you? How much? And this is why we warn people constantly: don't mess with HaKadosh Baruch Hu. He said, keep Shabbat, keep Shabbat. He said, be a kosher business, be a kosher business. Why? You don't want to turn into my uncle. He says at the end of Parashat Va'etchanan, I pay cash to My haters to their face to destroy them. They had a lot of money. She has a lot of money. What's that money going to do for him now? Zero. Nothing. Can't help him. Can't buy him an extra day in life. Can't take it to the next world. The Chachamim were so worried about leaving anything in this world that the Gemara in Masechet Gittin, page 47a, has a story about Reish Lakish. Reish Lakish, one of the greatest sages we ever had, also one of the greatest Baalei Teshuva that we ever had, used to be the head of the Mafia, became the chavruta of Rabbi Yochanan.

54:51At the end of his days, he started crying. Moments before he left this world, went to Olam Haba with Rabbi Akiva, with the greatest of history. Why did he cry? He said, I can't believe that I left a kav demorika, a few vegetables. Can't believe I left a few vegetables in this world. I left them all of my strength. I left them all of my strength. People say, oh no, I want to save up so I can leave a big inheritance for the next generation. One of the greatest sages in history said, I can't believe I left a few fruits and vegetables. It's all my strength. So the Chafetz Chaim says, what's the meaning here? It says when somebody understands the value of Torah, he understands that those fruits and vegetables, the money that it took to pay for them, that took time to make that money, right? That time was wasted. Why? Because you didn't need it. You didn't need those fruits and vegetables because you didn't use them. Somebody else is going to eat from it. That means that you could have used that time to learn more Torah. What a waste. What a waste. That's the perspective of someone who understands what Torah is.

56:17Be'ezrat Hashem, this gives us a little bit of an understanding, a little bit of a chizuk of how much we have to mamash fight, fight for Torah, fight. Fight for Torah. A minute here, five minutes there, ten minutes, twenty minutes. Because that's the cure, guys. It's the only thing. With that being said, b'chavod, who wants to start with some questions? Yehoshua, you had 87 questions after the lecture yesterday. eighty-nine, eighteen, I'm sorry, but the last two, no. Give me one of these. Shoni already had you by two today, so no. You're yes for the start of the shiur, so you have to catch up. So what's the question? So there's a pasuk in the Torah that says that Avraham

57:42who was blessed bakol. Some of the Chachamim say that actually Avraham Avinu did have a daughter, and her name was Bakol. That was her name. So he did fulfill that mitzvah. There are some that say otherwise, that that was referring to something else, but we do know that Avraham had many children, But as far as the one that was turned into Klal Yisrael, that was Yitzchak. So he had two sets of kids. He had Yitzchak and then he had all of the sons that he had with Hagar. So it says that he gave Yitzchak his inheritance and he gave many gifts to the Bnei HaGagar, all the children of Hagar. Chazal said, what are these gifts? They said, Avraham gave them koach kishuf, witchcraft. All types of things that they could use to do whatever it is that they wanted to do in the world. That's why much of the witchcraft that exists in the world today comes from the Middle East, specifically from the Arabs. This was one of the gifts they got from Avraham Avinu. So he had many kids, but that's again that side. As far as from Sara Imenu,

59:00he had Yitzchak. But some say again, like I said, that there was a daughter named Bekol. But in regard to the sages and the forefathers that we have, we have to understand that we don't have complete clarity of every single thing they ever did, but we do have an understanding that, for example, the sages, teach us that Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov technically were not Jewish, according to some Chachamim, because Judaism was born at Matan Torah. There was no Judaism back then. There were Israelites. There were Hebrews. So technically, what were Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov? They were Noahides, technically. Because Judaism was born with Matan Torah. But yet, Chachamim teach us that Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov merited to be the forefathers of Am Yisrael because they followed the entire Torah. They knew the entire Torah and they followed the entire Torah even before we got it.

1:00:04It was just transmitted orally. So, in the beginning of the Gemara Masechet Avodah Zarah, it says that Avraham Avinu's tractate of Avodah Zarah was 400 chapters, which means that it was 80 times bigger than what we have today. His Torah was much more extensive than what we have today, and his wisdom was even more extensive than Shlomo HaMelech's. Avraham Avinu. So it's very hard for us to truly understand the significance of our forefathers, but nonetheless, we do know that they fulfilled the entire Torah, but they also knew that they were forbidden from doing certain things. So the Zohar HaKadosh says that if Avraham is forbidden from keeping Shabbat, but yet the Chachamim say that he kept Shabbat, it's not allowed. Why? It says a Goy that keeps Shabbat, it's a death penalty. So how could Avraham keep Shabbat if he knows the entire Torah, he's following the entire Torah, and he knows he's forbidden from keeping Shabbat. He says, Avraham would use the wisdom that he had from a book called Sefer Yetzirah, the Book of Creation, that originated all the way from the beginning of creation, in order to create something. What would he create? He would create a cow every Shabbat. That was his breaking Shabbat.

1:01:25You create a cow. Take some clay. Cow. That's it. Now, Baruch Hashem, we deal with a lot of converts. I don't know if you guys knew that. Sometimes we have to deal with converts. And Baruch Hashem, We tell the converts that you're not allowed to keep Shabbat 100%. Why? You're not Jewish yet. Once you're a Jew, once you finish the conversion, then you keep Shabbat 100%. But if I tell you to do whatever you want throughout the whole time, that's not good. Why? Because one day you're going to become Jewish, and you won't even know how to keep Shabbat. So what do you do? You keep Shabbat 99% throughout the whole process. However long that process takes, whether it's a year, six months, two years, whatever it is. You have to keep Shabbat 99%. The same thing with all of the mitzvot, 99%. So what does it mean to keep Shabbat 99%? You violate it intentionally with something small once on Shabbat. So, for example, on Shabbat, you go and you turn on the light one time. On Yom Kippur, you take a drink. You don't fast the entire time; you take a drink or eat something small. You know, don't make a big thing of it. Don't drive to the mall on Shabbat. That's obviously not keeping Shabbat at all.

1:02:35You know, just do something small. Why? Because you don't have to keep 100%. So when you live in this generation, you have a merit to breaking Shabbat through your process by what? Turning on a light. But if you have a Rav Avinu, you're breaking Shabbat, you create a cow. That's how you break Shabbat. Next question. Yes. Can a person do teshuvah a second before his death and would it be accepted as sincere? There is a Gemara that talks about Rabbi Elazar ben Dordia. Now, Rabbi Elazar ben Dordia wasn't really a Rabbi. He was actually a rasha throughout all of his life, committing every single sin you could possibly imagine. Every woman that he would see, he would do whatever he could. He went to every prostitute in town, committing every sin you could possibly imagine. But one day, he went to a prostitute, and she rebuked him. She said, "Somebody like you, you have no chance." Now, he took it to heart, and he went to the mountains and started crying hysterically because he realized she was right; he had no chance. He's going to Gehinom. And he started crying to the heavens, saying, "Heavens, heavens, please help me, please help me."

1:03:56And the heavens responded, the Gemara says, "All of the sins you made have tainted us too. We have to do teshuva for ourselves." The luminaries—the sun and the moon—said, "Please, the angels of the sun and the moon, please help me." The sun and the moon replied, "You made so many sins, you affected us. We have to do teshuva. We can't help you." He then asked, "Who's going to help me? The mountains, the mountains, I'm here. Please, the mountains, the mountains, please help me." Melachim say, "You defiled us, you made the tumah of the world so bad, it affected us too, how many sins you made." And then Rabbi Elazar ben Durdaya says, "There's nothing I can do, there's nothing I can do, no one's going to help me, I have to rely on myself." And he cried himself to death. Literally, he cried so much that day from his sorrow that he died. And as his neshama came out, there was a bat kol that came out, a heavenly voice came out. Rabbi HaKadosh, Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi heard it also. It says, "Olam HaBa welcomes Rabbi Elazar ben Durdaya." And Rabbi HaKadosh started crying, because he understood what happened. He says, "Look at this."

1:05:15Someone can buy Olam HaBa in a moment. How? Serious teshuva. Now, so that means, if you can cry yourself to death from your teshuva, yes, you can go to Olam HaBa. One minute before you die. But how many people can do that? Zero. Zero. So what does it really mean? Practically speaking, if a person makes major sins... his life not because he wants to anger Hashem, but he makes sins. Or even if he does, the point is, if that person does not have any remorse whatsoever, he doesn't regret any of it, and he dies, he goes to the seventh level of Gehenom and he never comes out until his neshama is completely destroyed. And the only thing that's left is the Chelek Eloka Mima'al, the piece of God, if you will, that Hashem put into Adam HaRishon. That person, after a certain amount of years, millions of years, whatever length it is over there, of suffering to completely destroy the neshama—apparently, it takes a while to destroy the neshama—that person is never coming out of Gehenom. Esav, for example, the Gemara says Esav is still in Gehenom to this day, 4,000 years later.

1:06:36Why? But he made a sin a long time ago. Why is he still in Gehenom right now? HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, et Eisav saneti. Esav, I hate him. Why? He knew the truth. He knew he had to keep Shabbat. He knew he had to keep Taharat HaMishpacha. He knew he had to be, he knew. His father was Yitzchak Avinu. His grandfather was Avraham. His brother was Yaakov. He knew he had religious people around him. But he dafka still chose to go against Hashem? I hate him. He knew the truth and he still went against them? I hate him. For me, hating, for HaKadosh Baruch Hu, hating a person means going to Gehenom permanently. Four thousand years in this world have passed—millions of years in that time frame over there—and he's still there, and he's not going to leave permanently. He could have been, by the way, your forefather, my forefather. That's what the Maharal actually says. He says that, technically, the 12 tribes were supposed to be split—six for Yaakov and six for Esav. because Esav chose the wrong way, Hashem says, "I'll give everything to Yaakov. All the reward goes to Yaakov, and you, I hate you, Esav, I hate you." It's the only place in the entire Torah where HaKadosh Baruch Hu actually has a verse in the Torah where He says, "I hate a person; this person, I hate him," specifically by name. So now, a person that makes such a sin and dies this way, nothing can help him.

1:08:00On the other hand, if a person has at least an hirhur teshuva, he has at least some type of remorse, he feels bad for the sins that he made, that alone can help him not go to Gehinnom permanently. He still has to go to Gehinnom, could be even for a million years, but there is a good chance that it won't be permanent. Why? Because at least he had some remorse. The question is, will he have the merit... have that remorse before he dies. Because for that, you need to have merit, you have to do something good for Hashem to allow you to want to do any type of teshuva before you die. Most people die unexpectedly—car accidents, diseases, heart attacks, all types of things. They don't die like in the movies where it's like the guy goes to sleep after he tells everybody goodbye. It doesn't work that way in real life. In real life, the vast majority of deaths are unexpected and

1:09:01So is he going to have the merit to do that? And the Rambam writes in the Mishneh Torah that the worst punishment that a person can get in this world is that Hashem removes his desire to do teshuva. Well, Pharaoh actually did do teshuva. Hashem just hardened Pharaoh's heart. Pharaoh eventually did teshuva and he became the king of Nineveh in Sefer Yonah. He was the king of Nineveh that did teshuva. That's why the goyim did teshuva, because Pharaoh knew that God wasn't messing around. But he hardened his heart while he was in Egypt because he wanted to bring all the miracles and so on. Pharaoh was wicked at the time, but eventually, he did teshuva. But there are certain people that HaKadosh Baruch Hu removed their desire to do teshuva, and that, the Rambam writes, is the worst punishment that a person can get. Because pretty much the thought of getting close to Hashem is far, far removed from them. They hate Hashem. They're anti-Hashem. And they die that way. Such a person, nothing can help them. Nothing can help them. That person is doomed. I mean, even the many, many resha'im, many people that were wicked, but still didn't hate Hashem. They just were addicted to their desires.

1:10:18You know, they were addicted to whatever desire they had. It had nothing to do with their hatred for Hashem. So those people, they do have some type of chance, possibly, if they had this desire to do teshuva at some point before they died. But bottom line is, a person shouldn't play with the fire of Gehinnom. It's not the fire of this world. You do teshuva while you're alive, like Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus says in the Gemara, you have to do teshuva every day. Why? Because you never know when you're going to die. No one's promised tomorrow. We do teshuva every day, and that way you're assured that when the time comes, you'll be going to a good place, and not the place of Esav. Next question. Yeah. How can you do teshuva every day? Okay, so doing teshuva doesn't necessarily always require a person to go into tears. Doing teshuva means that you are improving whatever you're deficient in. If a person was stingy yesterday, his teshuva today is to be generous. If a person was arrogant yesterday, his teshuva today is to be humble.

1:11:46If a person was angry yesterday, his teshuva today is to be patient. And if a person wants to do teshuva, HaKadosh Baruch Hu will help him. As the Gemara in Moed Katan says, someone that comes to become purified, has a desire to become purified, Hashem gives him a hand. If Hashem knows that you have a desire to do teshuva, He will give you an opportunity to do teshuva. He'll give you an opportunity to do teshuva. You yelled at your wife yesterday. You felt really bad about it. You want to do teshuva for it. Tomorrow, Hashem is going to make your wife extra annoying. Why? So you can do teshuva this time. How do you do teshuva for it? "Honey, you're right." She's not right. She's wrong. "Honey, you're right. 100% right. 100% right. I can't believe I... You're right. I'm sorry. Yeah, you're right." Why? I'm doing teshuva for yesterday. I'm doing teshuva for yesterday. Today you have to be patient. Why? Because yesterday you were a little troll. So today you have to be a tzaddik.

1:12:47And that's it. You have to. HaKadosh Baruch Hu will give you the opportunity to do teshuva. Now, what happens if you mess up again? Why do you have double work the next day? The next day, you'll be annoying at 4 o'clock in the morning, not at 2. And then the employees, and then the boss, and then this, and that. It gets more difficult. Why? Because Hashem said, you want to do teshuva, I'm going to help you. I'm going to give you a test to do teshuva. But don't keep failing. Try it, try it, try it, try it again. And Hashem is going to keep giving you the same test until you pass it. So teshuva doesn't necessarily mean that you have to cry about all of the worst things that you've ever done in your life every day. Teshuva means that you have to improve something that you were deficient in in the past that you're aware of. Whatever it was, and I promise you, if you are honest with yourself, anyone that thinks about themselves knows that they had something that they did wrong yesterday or last week or the week before or sometime. Everybody knows that. And the more a person knows about Torah, the more they know how many deficiencies they really have. Yes? Oh, okay.

1:13:56you made an accidental sin. So sometimes if a person, let's say for example, ran into the light switch. But if he ran into the light switch, it's not even a sin, it's not even an accident. Why? He ran into it; it's as if it didn't happen. if he turned it on because he forgot it's Shabbat, then that's an accident—that's shogeg. So what do you do? Yes, you feel bad for a bit; you feel bad that something happened. But you say, "Okay, the mitzvah is that we're not allowed to be upset on Shabbat. I'm going to continue celebrating Shabbat. After Shabbat, I'm going to do teshuvah for it." How do you do teshuvah? I'm going to ask my Rabbi what I need to do, which, in essence, many times, is to give tzedakah. Because it's a car is a replacement for korbanot. There's no korban anymore. There's no sacrifice anymore. So, instead of korban, I'm going to give tzedakah for the sake of this mistake that I made—an accidental sin. But if it's not an accident, you just ran into the light bulb, you ran to the thing, you turned something on—that's not a sin at all. So it's very important to know what's an actual accidental sin, what's not a sin at all, and what's an intentional sin. Sometimes a person...

1:15:16Gets really, really upset. I know one time this guy, he was in the early stages of his teshuva, got into an argument with his family, decided to heck with it, went into his car and drove out. He got really upset and drove away, ran away from his family. Now, is that an accident? No, it’s not an accident. Can he do teshuva for it? Absolutely. What is he going to do? He's got to make sure that he learns halachot Shabbat. He's got to make sure he learns mussar and stops being angry. And he's got to make sure to help other people not make the same mistake. Why? Because it's much, much worse to violate Shabbat than it is to do anything else in the world. Much worse. Because when a person understands what Shabbat is in the eyes of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, he understands that he shouldn't play with fire. That's why it's silly. Sometimes I have young people ask me, "Rabbi, can I play basketball on Shabbat?" Yeah, Chachamim said that if you're an adult, you're not even allowed to touch a ball. It's muktze. Why would you do that? He goes, "No, but I don't know, all the friends are doing it." Oh, so you're relying on somebody that says it's allowed?

1:16:27Giants of the generation said you're not gonna touch a ball, needless to say not to play basketball on Shabbat. But needless to say, it's not even necessarily the greatest idea to do it during the week. Because how much time are you gonna waste on it unless you're doing it purely for exercise? But if you're spending two, three hours a day playing basketball, it's not exercise anymore; it's an addiction. Why are you playing with fire? Why are you playing with fire? Don't play with fire. Shabbat is Shabbat. Shabbat is a time to be with family. It's a time to get close to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, learn His Torah, and rest a little bit. That's what Shabbat is for. All of these other things that you do during the week, do them during the week. Shabbat needs to be different than the rest of the week. If your Shabbat looks like the rest of the week, or worse yet, your Shabbat looks like the vacation of the goyim, it's not Shabbat. It's a vacation for the goyim. People say, "No, no, I'm going to the beach. I'm going to have my own private beach on Shabbat." You know, rich people, they have a weekend house. Weekend house. "We're going to sit on the beach on Shabbat." Did you ever hear Rabbi Akiva sitting on the beach on Shabbat? Did you ever hear Rabbi Ovadia sitting on the beach on Shabbat?

1:17:46We're not talking about the immodesty and all that stuff. Obviously, that's again, I'm talking about a private beach. You're the only one there, you and your family. No one's wearing anything inappropriate over there. Everybody's wearing whatever they wear. Beaches for Shabbat? No. I'm going to go sit by the pool on Shabbat. Pools for Shabbat? Pools for Shabbat? You don't think about Shabbat? Shabbat is a time to learn Torah, to improve our spirituality. If a person understood what you get for learning Torah... He would use every minute he had to learn Torah on Shabbat. Why? Because if you take all of the good that anyone has ever had in his life and you multiply it by infinity, that's not even worth one word of learning Torah during the week. On Shabbat, the reward for learning Torah is a thousandfold. Whatever you got during the week for learning Torah is multiplied by a thousand on Shabbat. is the reason why many of the gedolim, for example, wouldn't sleep on Shabbat at all. Like, no sleep, zero. He would barely sleep anyway; he would sleep a few hours, like many of the giants, they would barely sleep. They would study constantly, but on Shabbat, he wouldn't sleep at all. Why? Because he couldn't waste the time to sleep. "I gotta learn Torah," like he's missing mitzvot.

1:19:11So, when a person understands how much Torah is worth on Shabbat, these ideas of secular behavior escape him. But you're not going to understand it unless you learn Torah a little bit every day. You watch one of the lectures every day, every day, another one, another one, another one. You keep adding up and build your spiritual immune system. You're going to get much more clarity on life and what to do with life. But if you're going to constantly depend on your own secular knowledge and just general human knowledge, you're going to have very, very big ups and downs in your life. So that's, in essence, what the Chachamim are constantly trying to teach us, that the Torah is not a suggestion book. The Torah is simply a rule book of how to achieve success in everything, in this world and the next. if you don't do it, it's not like if you do it you succeed and if you don't do it you'll find something else that's better or maybe not as good. No, the Torah is: if you do it, you will succeed; if you don't do it, you will fail at everything else that you will do. Yeah, my uncle has hundreds of millions of dollars, but guess what? A bunch of strangers are gonna get it. All the money he worked for, strangers are gonna have it. He's not gonna enjoy it. Why? He's gonna die soon.

1:20:29throat cancer, unless by some miracle Hashem decides to give him another chance. Because right now, every single day he's alive is a miracle. He didn't get the signs. I almost died too. I had to fight for my life for a long time because I was stupid, playing with fire. I didn't understand that it's Hashem doing all this. I thought it's just bad luck; I thought it's a bad doctor. After 50 bad doctors, I realized it's not the doctors. Don't be stupid like me. Be smart. Be the second version of me. But don't wait too late. That's in essence what we're trying to learn here. People play with fire, they get burned. It's not that Hashem wants to burn you. It's a reality. You put your hand in fire, you're going to get burned. It's not that the fire is a punishment. It's a reality. It's an outcome of your actions.

1:21:31If you defile the neshama that Hashem gave you, He has to destroy you. That's it. You have no right to be next to Him. He gave you a pure neshama. At the very least, we have to return it pure. The problem is, we return the neshama worse than when we got it. And yet, we expect to go to Gan Eden. ludicrous. Imagine your boss at the company says, "Listen, we like you. We're going to put you in charge of a million-dollar account to take care of company business, grow the company, build the company, do whatever you can, all right?" "Okay." We come back to you a couple of months later and ask, "How much money did you make us with this million dollars? Turn it into a million and a half, two million, three million? What'd you do with it?" "Uh, no, no, we, actually, you're in debt of 15 million."

1:22:34Not only did you not make us money, but you lost the money we gave you, and you put us in debt of 15 million, and yet you want a promotion? You want to keep your job? Doesn't make any sense, right? When we make a sin, it's much worse than what I just gave you. Hashem gave us a neshamah. You know what a neshamah is? Your neshamah has to travel 500 light years. from rakia to rakia, different places in the heavens, in a matter of no time to enter your body. Your neshamah comes from under the Kisei HaKavod of HaKadosh Baruch Hu. It has to travel thousands of light years in a moment to enter your body. got from the highest place and you came to this world, beautiful neshamah. Hashem says, you know what, at least give it to Me like I gave it to you. And prove a few things. That's the whole point of why you're here. Don't think you're going to get back to the Kisei HaKavod if you're returning to Him something worse than what you got. That's, in essence, when you have an opportunity to keep mitzvot, it's an opportunity to purify your neshamah.

1:23:56It's an opportunity to purify yourself and get closer to Hashem. Why? Because HaKadosh Baruch Hu is the King of kings. He's not going to be next to anything filthy. It's just not going to happen. He's the King of kings. He's not your boy. He's not your friend. He's the King of kings. So, this is why we have to speak harshly at times to explain to people that the worst thing you can do is sin intentionally. Sinning accidentally happens. You're human. Even the tzaddikim sin accidentally from time to time. Even tzaddikim. There's a pasuk in the Torah about it. But an intentional sin is completely different. If you commit an intentional sin, you have a very serious problem. First, you have to focus on stopping the intentional sins. Do everything you can. Understand that making an intentional sin is worse than detonating an atomic bomb under yourself. Not under somebody else's country. You're blowing yourself up. You will suffer from that intentional sin.

1:25:07You have to understand what this fire is. Why? Because that's the only way. You see a beautiful woman practically walking around with no clothes on. Unless you understand the fire and the circumstances that you're putting yourself in by staring at her, you're going to sin, either with her, with someone else, or with yourself. You're going to sin. So what are you going to do? You say, "No, no, this is fire. You can't even look. Can't even look. Well, it's fire. It's a bomb." I got to run away from this. You look away. It becomes a reflex. Now, I know to some people it sounds impossible. What do you mean? How do you not look? If you train yourself long enough, it becomes your nature. The second you see a woman, it's immodest, you look away. And you can even get to the point where the second you see a woman, you look away. You're still appropriate, you're still polite, you say hello, and, you know, if somebody's approaching you, asks you a question, yes, and we look. Now, sometimes women tell me, "Listen, you know that woman that, you know, my friend, I brought her to the lecture that you did over there, and, you know, my friend that spoke to you after the lecture, she had the black hat and the blue this and the black that." No, I don't know. "No, no, a woman that was there." I have no idea. "No, but you were talking to her for 15 minutes." Yeah, I have no idea. I have no idea what you're talking about. Why? I wasn't looking at her.

1:26:32I was looking behind her. I'm looking at your face, but I'm not looking at you. I'm looking at something. You think I'm looking at you, but I'm looking at something. I had to train myself to do that. I can't tell, listen, hey, yes, ma'am, she's over here. Yes, ma'am, listen, I can't. I can't do that. She'll be offended because she has no idea what I'm doing. So I have to pretend like I'm looking at you to look at somebody behind you and hope that behind you there's something really, really ugly or a wall. Why? I know if I look at you, it's fire. It's fire. I don't want to get burned. That's what you have to do. You want to go to Gan Eden? That's what you have to do. To look at a woman that's forbidden to you is an issur from the Torah. To look. Forget about being with her. To look at a woman that's forbidden to you. If she is somebody else's wife, it's already eishes ish. If she's niddah, she's not your wife. But she's not your wife. She's niddah. She's not anybody's wife. Single woman. She's forbidden to you. You can't look at her. She's a goya, a non-Jewish woman, forbidden to you. Looking at her, you're already violating the Torah. Now, what do you do? You deal with things in a polite way. Say hello, and that's it. Whatever you need to do, cashier, yes, yes, but one second, no staring.

1:27:52You know, sometimes I remember in business, there were certain weird women that would, like, when they talk to you, they talk like this. Like, they want to look at your eyes. Like, what are you looking for? The brain behind my eyes? There are some weird people that want to look at you like this. Like, yeah, no, no. Are you high or something? Don't do that. Don't do that. If it's the opposite gender, look, but then after that, train yourself not to stare at people. Why? You have to protect your eyes. Because if you don't protect your eyes, evil will come to you at night. What's evil? Shlomo HaMelech already tells us, evil is wasting seed. So, when you understand that making this sin is fire, you will do whatever you can to avoid it. When you understand that non-kosher money is fire, you will do whatever you can to stop it. Rabbeinu Tam, the grandson of Rashi, one of the biggest giants in the world, every single day, every day of his life, he would read Parashat Ki Tavo, the scariest parasha in the Torah, specifically the section about who is cursed by Hashem. "Cursed is the person who sins in hiding." Why is the person that sins in hiding cursed? Why isn't he just bad? Because the Chachamim explained to us

1:29:22When you sin, when you do bad things, there are certain sins, certain bad actions you would be embarrassed to do in front of someone. You're not going to do it next to your wife. You're not going to do it next to your husband. If your husband is there, you're not going to do it. If your son is there, you're not going to do it. If your neighbor is there, you're not going to do it. If your boss is there, you're not going to do it. If the police officer is there, you're not going to do it. Sometimes, there are certain sins that, if even a dog is there, you're not going to do it. Who said, look, you wouldn't sin next to your wife, you wouldn't sin next to your husband, you wouldn't sin next to your neighbor, you wouldn't sin next to your boss, you wouldn't sin next to the dog, but you're sinning in front of Me all the time? You're the worst! You're scared of everybody except Me; that makes you cursed. If you made sins in public, you don't care about everybody. They say, okay, you're a really bad person, but at least you're treating all of us equally. But when Hashem is the only one you're not scared of, come on. So that's the thing. When a person knows what the sin means, he understands that Rabbeinu Tam would literally study Parashat Ki Tavo every single day of his life. Why? He says, I need Yirat Shamayim. I need to be scared of making sins. Yeah, but you're a big chacham. So?

1:30:49So, does that mean I have no Yetzer Hara? I have Yetzer Hara. Everybody has Yetzer Hara. You have to fight it. You have to fight the Yetzer Hara. You have to stay away from sins. Why? When you stay away from sins, your mitzvot become more enjoyable, your mitzvot become more natural, your mitzvot become part of you. But when you're making sins, even your mitzvot become defiled. Even your mitzvot become defiled. so that's one of the most critical things that a person needs to know. But again, you can't do everything in one day. So each day you choose something. Sometimes you may spend six months or even six years working on one thing because it's a big thing. If you're working on your anger, that may take you five to ten years to work on. But work on it. As you get stronger with this, start adding other things that you're working on. But if you work on yourself every single day, you'll definitely improve your life. For sure. There's no doubt about it. Next. Almost done? No? Is it a good thing if you study, let's say, all kinds of books, but you

1:32:13Never pick up a Chumash to read the Chumash itself. You have no idea what's in the Chumash. So you learned Gemara, but you never learned Chumash? You know all kinds of books, but you never pick up a Chumash and you don't know what's in there. So the Shulchan Aruch says that every Jew is obligated to read the Chumash every week in order to read the weekly parashah. Meaning, it's a halacha from the Shulchan Aruch that you have to do it. It's the minimum of minimum of learning Torah. Now, furthermore, Chachamim explained to us, it's impossible for you to become a talmid chacham or know anything of any value without learning Chumash. Meaning, it's a halacha from the Shulchan Aruch that you have to do it. It's the minimum of minimum of learning Torah. Now, furthermore, Chachamim explained to us, it's impossible for you to become a talmid chacham or know anything of any value without learning Chumash. --- Meaning, it's a halacha from the Shulchan Aruch that you have to do it. It's the minimum of minimum of learning Torah. Now, furthermore, Chachamim explained to us, it's impossible for you to become a talmid chacham or know anything of any value without learning Chumash. Further, Rav Shani, one of the Mekubalim in Eretz Yisrael, the grandson of the Ahavat Chaim, said that when you understand the spiritual, mystical parts of the world, you know that when you learn Chumash, when you learn the weekly parasha,

1:33:31at the time it's supposed to be learned, it's not just for the sake of wisdom, it's not just for the sake of fulfilling the halacha, but because you're doing all of those things, you're creating certain angels that will help you that week. You're creating certain spiritual power for yourself at that time. If you don't do it, you're, in essence, missing out on a lot more than you can possibly imagine. Now, of course, a person must at some point learn other books as well, learn the Gemara, and so on. But without learning the very basics and going straight to the high level, that means that you either don't have a Rabbi and you've decided to become your own Rabbi, or your Rabbi is not really a Rabbi. Because the minimum of minimums is to learn Chumash. That's how you begin, that's what you do throughout your entire life, even the Mishnah in Avot. that talks about what should be the seder of learning Torah. It starts with the Chumash before anything else. Why? Because that's the foundation of our Torah, the foundation of everything. Now, of course, if you learn Gemara, you will learn different parts that are from the written Torah. But you have to learn that in its time and the Chumash in its time. Everything has its time. Everything has its time. The...

1:34:57The Gemara is considered the highest level of wisdom, but you're not going to be able to understand the highest level of wisdom without understanding the foundation of all wisdom. So just jumping to the highest level is simply ridiculous. I mean, sometimes I hear things from new ba'alei teshuvah. Oh, yeah, listen, Rabbi. I was just introduced to the Zohar. I was just introduced to the Kabbalah. So I'm going to study with my rabbi. Wait, hold on a second. Wait, you were just introduced to the Zohar? When did you do teshuvah? When did you convert? When did you even get introduced to God? What, three, four, five years ago? You're already going to the highest level? Either you're the biggest genius of the generation or you're the biggest idiot. Most likely the latter. Most likely the latter. Why? Because even people that I know who read the entire Shas every year, the entire Gemara, not Daf Yomi, the whole thing, twice, three, four times a year, in one year—if you can finish it one time in your life, you're already a big shot. I'm talking about people that finish it a few times a year. They don't read the Zohar. They don't read the Kabbalah. Why? They know it's above them, and they're not ready for it.

1:36:22But you, you haven't finished the Chumash yet with Rashi, and you're going there. It's like you just got a janitor job at NASA, but you decided, you know what, let me try my luck at building the rocket too. You don't know how to sweep, but you're going to build the rocket. Go ahead. I'm not going to be on that rocket though. I'm not going to be on that rocket. I don't trust you. You cannot explain this to regular people that are doing it because their mind is so closed that unless it's coming from an authority figure that's their rabbi, they're not going to listen to anybody. They're not going to listen to anybody. Why? Because they've decided to be their rabbi. And that's why the Gemara says that someone who does not have a rabbi, God hates him. Why? Because there's a halacha. You have to have a rabbi. You have to have a rabbi that's going to remove you from doubt, that's going to teach you certain things of what to do, what not to do, tell you when you're wrong, tell you when you're right. But if you decide to be your own rabbi, for sure you're going to make mistakes, and you're not going to be able to fix them because you don't know you're making mistakes. Because you're your own rabbi. Who's going to tell you? Yourself? So that's the problem. People that don't have a rabbi, you'll always, always see that it's a matter of time before they go astray really, really badly.

1:37:47really, really horrible. Some people, who are rabbis, have changed drastically and have deteriorated dramatically with their teaching and with their understanding, and have even gotten to the point of becoming heretics. You'll see what happened—it's because their rabbi either died and they didn't replace him, or they stopped listening to their rabbi and they became their own rabbi. You see that those people became complete, complete heretics. Horrible. It's a sad thing, but it's a reality. It happens. So one of the greatest things that HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave me is that He gave me a rabbi that I knew from day one, he is much better than I could ever be. If I study Torah for a million years, a million years, I'm not going to be like Rav Ephraim. Never. It's never going to be. Why? Because I'll study for another million years also. And he'll be greater than I could ever be. Now, I knew this from day one. Now, despite my huge ego that's bigger than the world, I understood next to him, I'm zero. Zero, zero, zero. And I will always be zero. Now, you guys may think I'm a big guy and great and all that stuff. But I know myself, I'm zero. Zero. Now, in comparison to Rav Ephraim. And Rav Ephraim says to me, he is less than zero next to Rav Ovadia.

1:39:12Less than zero. So, if he is less than zero, I'm already at negative. I'm a negative. Okay, now Rav Ovadia, Rav Ovadia said himself, Rav Ovadia says, I will be like the Chida one day. The Chida from the previous generation, 100 years before, 200 years before him. I will be like him, meaning Rav Ovadia says, I am not like the Chida. I can get to where he is. The Chida, the Chida knew he's a nothing, he's a zero next to the Rambam. The Rambam was not even qualified to be the student of Rabbi Akiva. Because in order to be the student of Rabbi Akiva, you had to be able to resurrect the dead. Look at someone and pretty much pick him up. That's it, he's alive. Because you pray to Hashem and that's it, alive on the spot. Alive on the spot. Anyone that was a student of Rabbi Akiva resurrected the dead. Anyone that's mentioned by name in the Gemara was able to resurrect the dead. The Rambam wasn't able to resurrect the dead. Even though he did many, many miracles and different things, he wasn't able to resurrect the dead at will. Not happening. He wasn't qualified. The Rambam wasn't qualified to be a talmid of Rabbi Akiva. Rabbi Akiva, Rabbi Akiva, he was the talmid of Rabbi Eliezer ben Hurkanos. Rabbi Eliezer ben Hurkanos, the Torah that he had,

1:40:36They said you could literally, if you took, he said himself, if you took the entire ocean, which is 72% of the globe, 72% of the globe is water, took all of that water and, in essence, it became ink. And then you took all the trees and turned them into pens to use that ink, and all of the land turned into paper, you wouldn't be able to write the Torah that Rabbi Eliezer ben Hurkanos knew in his head. Rabbi Eliezer ben Hurkanos says, and all of that Torah that I know, that there's not enough space in the world to fit, is not even a lick of a dog in the water of the ocean, next to my rabbis. You know, imagine a dog comes to lick the water in the ocean, to drink. Does it make an effect, an impact on the ocean? Nothing. He says, all that Torah that I know is not even that lick from that dog next to my rabbis. Who's the rabbi? Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai. Doesn't reach it. Doesn't reach it. Nothing. Zero. And guess what? Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai was not even a prophet. You go to the prophets, talk to HaKadosh Baruch Hu face to face. Yechezkel, Zechariah, Yeshayahu.

1:41:57talk to HaKadosh Baruch Hu face to face. Daniel—G-d says if a generation of Daniel, Mashiach came, it would be Daniel. David HaMelech—HaKadosh Baruch Hu spoke to him, says, David, by the way, you're the fourth of the Merkava. Everything David HaMelech says became halacha. Everything we say, not exactly halacha. And guess what? Everyone, everyone, everyone I just mentioned is a zero next to Moshe Rabbeinu. Do you understand? So when someone thinks of themselves in the right perspective, they realize how much of a zero they are. Why? Because Moshe Rabbeinu has pesukim in the Torah where it says he was the humblest of all. So if the greatest of all—that's part of our 13 Principles of Faith—to remind ourselves every day that he was the greatest of all. The one that HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, Moshe Avdi, Moshe my servant, Ish HaElokim, the man of G-d. I spoke to Moshe face to face like a friend. If he himself thought of himself as nothing, Va'anachnu Ma, he said about himself, we are nothing. Moshe Rabbeinu said, "I'm nothing." If he is nothing, you go back to what I just said, starting with me. Where am I? Where am I? Where am I?

1:43:23understand, so that's the thing. The more a person learns, the more he realizes how much of a nothing he is in comparison to the rabbis that came before him. If a person thinks he's a big deal, that means that he's not connected to all of those great people that I just mentioned. He's not connected at all. He's starting something new, a new religion, a new ideology. You're not connected. Why? Because all of the greatest people I've ever mentioned to you, all of them were humble. All of them thought of themselves as nothing. I'm actually really a nothing, but they actually were great somethings, and they thought of themselves as nothing. The more of a nothing you think of yourself, the more of a possibility that you're something. ...the more of something that you think you are, for sure you're nothing. And that's the thing, when somebody skips and just says, "No, no, I'm not going to study humash, I'm not going to study. I'm going to go straight to the source." And foolish people send me messages all the time, "Yeah, God talks to me. God talks to me. Yeah, I get, I get messages from Him. I get messages from, you know, He talks to me. You know, He tells me things like...".

1:44:44Go to a mental institution, please. Get yourself out of the misery. Put some drugs in your system. You know, chaval, you're living like this, thinking God talks to you. Probably somebody talks to you, but it's definitely not God. Shedim. They like to torture people, so they make you think that you're talking to God sometimes. Why? All the tumah that you created in the world, all the filth that you created in the world, you think that God's talking to you. People are ludicrous. with the things that they say. You have to understand, Torah is not given to anyone just for no reason. You have to be willing to kill yourself for it. That's what Reish Lakish says at the end of Masechet Berachot. You want to inherit Torah? You have to be willing to die for it. not die for it. No, no, I'm not saying to jump off a bridge. No, die for it meaning your whole life: learn, learn, learn. Fight for it every opportunity. Give everything for it. Invest everything into it—all your time, all your money, all your heart, all your everything. Why? Because it is everything. But you think you can just skip, skip everything, and you're going to make a new thing?

1:45:54Can't help people like this. Simply cannot help people like this. Because they're so far removed from reality that it's like, what do you do with such a person? Nothing you can do with them. The only way that such a person comes back to reality is when Hashem rebukes them and they realize that they really are nothing. And that eventually happens. Hopefully, it's not too late. Next question. We're almost done. Maybe one question. Yeah. So the world was created in such a fashion that HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave us a certain system of how He runs the world. And he said that this world, the Gemara says it, in Masechet Shabbat, and I believe in a few other places, that this world will exist for 6,000 years. Just like this is the 7,000th world, this is the last of the worlds that Hashem created. Hashem created other worlds before this. We don't have very much knowledge about those worlds and what happened in those worlds, but nonetheless, this is the last of the worlds.

1:47:10And this world will exist for a total of 7,000 years, but the last thousand, from 6,000 to 7,000, will be the days of Mashiach, where the Mashiach is actually already here ruling the world and so on. Complete peace, no war, and so on. But this world, if you will, will exist for a maximum of 6,000 years. Now, so people think that that means that Mashiach is going to come at the year 6,000. Wrong. Why is it wrong? Because the sages teach us in the Gemara and many other places that the Mashiach will come before Shabbat. So what does that mean? It's not before Shabbat the day, rather before Shabbat the year. So we know from Tehillim that David HaMelech tells us that every thousand years is considered a day in the eyes of Hashem. So first thousand, we're at 5780. So the first 1,000 of 5,000, that's Sunday. Yom Rishon, that's how the week starts. Second 1,000, Monday. Third 1,000, Tuesday. Fourth 1,000, Wednesday. 5,000, we've completed Thursday, right? That's the first 5,000. But then we have 780.

1:48:29Now, 750 is three-quarters of a thousand. So that means that we are three-quarters of the 24 hours, which is the 18th hour. That's already 6 p.m. on Friday. 6 p.m. on Friday, plus there's some change. It's 750, but it's 780 right now. So every 41 years is an hour. So right now we are almost at 7 p.m. on Friday. And the Chachamim tell us that the Mashiach has to come before Shabbat. So the year 6000 is already far into Shabbat because Shabbat doesn't start at midnight. you know, the day starts at, you know, 12 or 1 a.m. Shabbat doesn't start at midnight. Shabbat starts, you know, 7, 7:30, throughout the year it changes a little bit, sometimes as early as 4 o'clock, sometimes as late as, let's say, 8:30, but nonetheless, on average, it's around 7, meaning that it's almost here. It's coming. Right? Tomorrow is Shabbat.

1:49:36So the mistake that people make is they think that Mashiach will come in the year 6000. That's a mistake. The issue is that the world itself will exist for six thousand years in this capacity and then change form, if you will, for the last thousand years. This time is the Days of Mashiach. where we are in the stage, final stages before the war of Gog and Magog will start and get to the, it already started, but get to the culmination point, which is the final stage that the Gaon of Vilna says will last nine minutes. Somebody says 11, but either way, everybody knows it's a very small amount of time. Where two-thirds of the world are going to die according to the prophecy by Zechariah in chapter 14. And then during that time, Mashiach is going to come, and some part of the last third that's left in the world will survive. Not all of them, but some parts of them will survive. So all of that is going to happen over a period of time. After this war is completed, it's going to take seven years to bury all the bodies.

1:50:49And 40 years after Mashiach comes, there's going to be the resurrection of the dead. All the tzaddikim that have ever lived will be resurrected 40 years after Mashiach comes. There are going to be certain things that happen. Now, this is all going to happen soon. It's not going to happen in the year 6000. It's going to be before that. So, but some people think that it's the year 6000 because of what I just explained, which they mistake and misunderstand that the existence of this world in its current nature will last that long. But once we get to that 7,000th year, the nature of the world, if you will, will change to some extent. Even though the Rambam writes that there's still going to be basic ways of the world that remain, there is going to be a different nature to the world also. So it's going to be some parts the same, some parts very, very, very different. But nonetheless, there's not going to be any more yetzer hara in the last thousand years. So it's going to be quite a different world. B'ezrat Hashem, we will live to see it. Last question, and then we can call it the week. Connecting with that thing you said last week on parsha,

1:51:57There's a commentary that says that in the whole Tanach, there's only five times that Yaakov's name has an extra Vav. And there's only five times that Eliyahu's name is missing a Vav. And it says that it means that when Eliyahu comes to announce Mashiach, Yaakov is going to return those Vavs. I was thinking, there's been four exiles. Does that mean there's going to be one more exile? We're in it. We're in the last stages. We're in the end of days. We're in the last stages. The last exile has been the longest and most difficult out of all. Because the first one was a couple hundred years. Then we had the destruction of Beit HaMikdash. But the last exile is the 2,000 years of darkness that we've had. Of course, there have been periods of time where we did better than others. There was a time that we were doing really, really well in Spain.

1:53:04But then the Spanish Inquisition came. You know, there was a time that we were doing really, really well in Germany. And then the Holocaust came. And there was a time that we were doing okay in Eretz Yisrael. And now came. So the point is that there was a time that we were doing really well in America. And again, now came. So things were good at times. It wasn't all bad. But nonetheless, we never had the true salvation throughout all of that time. Even if you live in Eretz Yisrael, you're still considered like you're living in exile. You know, we're still in that part. But nonetheless, once the Mashiach comes, all of that will end, and each person will be judged for wherever he's at at that time. There's no more teshuva once the Mashiach comes. So a person has to already prepare now for when the Mashiach comes, or perhaps if a person dies, because that's also the same thing. He's going to be judged at that moment. There's no more teshuva after you die. So every person needs to do whatever they can to do teshuva. A lot of times people tell me, "Oh, I pray for the Mashiach to come." I don't know. Well, the sages that I just talked about, they were scared for the Mashiach to come because they didn't think they were ready. When you're praying for the Mashiach to come, that means that you think that you're ready. Either you are the biggest tzadik in the generation, or you're completely ignorant of what it means for the Mashiach to come.

1:54:25You know, and you should know, yeah, you expect the Mashiach to come, you have to believe the Mashiach is going to come, but there's no actual obligation for you to want him to come. You want him to come for the sake of sanctifying Hashem's name, but it's not necessarily, that's not the 13 principles of Emunah. You just have to believe he's going to come, and you have to get yourself ready for him to come. You know, because even the sages in the Gemara, Masechet Sanhedrin, say that they want the Mashiach to come, just not when they're alive. Which, in essence, you want Hashem's name to be sanctified, but you don't want to deal with the real tragedy that's going to happen beforehand. But we are at that time where pretty much this is the last train for everyone. Whatever life a person has, this is it. There's no more reincarnation, there's no more nothing. So everybody has their last chance. And everybody has to literally pray for HaKadosh Baruch Hu to give them all the strength and willpower they need in order to complete their teshuva while they're alive. That's what you have to pray for the most, for you to do teshuva. Then after that, for Am Yisrael to do teshuva, which includes your parents, your brothers, your sisters, your spouse, your kids, all of Klal Yisrael that you don't know. You have to pray for Am Yisrael to do teshuva.

1:55:38But not just pray, do something about it. Help people do teshuvah, share the lectures, sponsor kiruv, do all types of things that are going to help Am Yisrael do teshuvah. Because when you help other people do good, HaKadosh Baruch Hu will give you strength to do good. Why? Because it's midah k'neged midah, it's measure for measure. You help Hashem's other children, Hashem will help your children. And that's the biggest gift that you could possibly get. And that's why the Chachamim always try to teach us different things for our prayers to get answered, different tools, and there's a segulah that you're allowed to use, that I just learned today for you from Rabbi Ephraim, that one of the Gedolei HaDor in the previous generation, Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, taught, that when a couple came to Rav Mordechai Eliyahu and they told him, "Rabbi, we need a special prayer for salvation to come, something good to come, whether it was parnassah or children or whatever it was, what should we do?" So Rav Mordechai Eliyahu said that you should accept upon yourself a very big mitzvah, but fulfill it.

1:57:01...accept upon yourself something and don't do it because the Mishnah says anyone that makes promises and breaks them, Hashem will—the same God that destroyed the generation of the Flood—will destroy him too. It's not good to break promises, especially not promises to Hashem. So if you're not keeping Shabbat, that should be your first promise. You have to do it. If you're still wasting seed, that should be a promise. You've got to do it. You've got to start doing everything possible to protect your belief... everything possible to protect your weight. If you're not eating kosher, then you got to eat kosher. And so on and so forth. Make a big promise. Make a big acceptance on yourself. I'm going to do this. You don't have to say, I am making a neder. Bottom line is, make a big commitment. From now on, I'm doing this. From now on, I'm going to give tzedakah. From now on, I'm going to do this. From now on, I'm going to give ma'aser. From now on, I'm going to do kiruv. From now on, I'm going to learn Torah a few hours a day. From now on, I'm going to take something big. After that, after you take on something big,

1:58:05You say that I'm doing this big mitzvah for the ilui neshama, for the elevation of the soul, that will bring this mitzvah, this request of mine, that I have for salvation, for the ilui neshama of that neshama that brings this request to Hashem Himself. So the couple said to Rav Moshe, but Rabbi, we always pray for you know, for the sake of Rabbi Meir Baal HaNes, Rabbi Shimon, all these big sages. He says, yes, it's good, but it's better if you do take on a big mitzvah for the elevation of the soul that will bring this request of yours to Hashem Himself. He says, why? He says, because the neshamot that are in heaven now, there's one thing that they suffer in. What do they suffer? They cannot do anything for Hashem anymore.

1:59:05they cannot elevate themselves even more, so they look for opportunities to do something for Hashem. So now you're going to say, "Listen, for the neshamah that brings my mitzvah, my request to Hashem, I'm going to do this mitzvah." What's going to happen? The neshamot that are looking to do good for Hashem are going to fight over who's going to bring your mitzvah. You're creating competition in heaven. That's a good competition. It's good competition. And that's what Mordechai Eliyahu says. It's a very good thing to do. But again, make sure you deliver on your promise. And make sure it's not like one of these little tic-tac candy promises. Oh yeah, from now on I'm going to give a dollar to the homeless guy. That's not a promise. It has to be a serious mitzvah. And deliver on your mitzvah. If you fail one day, try again the next day. just decide that because you failed once, you're always going to be a failure. Do whatever you can to deliver, and you'll see big, big things happen in your life. But again, it always has to be based on a solid foundation. You have to have a Rav; you have to have a seder limud, a certain type of learning that you're doing every day. If you're just starting out, it should be mainly shiurim.

2:00:18After a little while, you start learning the Chumash and other books. After a little while after that, you start learning Gemara and so on. But the point being is that everything has to have a solid foundation of the Torah HaKadosha. That way, you'll be able to enjoy life just like the sages who enjoyed this world as if it were heaven because their minds were already in heaven. Be'ezrat Hashem, one day we will reach that mindset. we'll reach the mindset of our forefathers, we'll reach the mindset of the sages, and sanctify Hakadosh Baruch Hu's name to the highest level. Baruch Adonai le'olam. Amen ve'amen.