ELUL IS HERE (Aur Torah New York)

0:13B'ezrat Hashem, great to be here. In a way, the shiur will also be for Ilui Nishmat, Menachem ben Chana. So, B'ezrat Hashem, today we'll go over a few things. First of all, it's amazing to be at the siyum masechet of my own father. If you would have told me ten years ago, even five years ago, this would be life, I would think that you're making a practical joke because a person lives his life thinking that he has everything under control and he knows what he's doing.

1:19and he's got everything planned and he's got his IRA in a certain way so his retirement should look a certain way. He's got his kids going to a certain school so his kids should grow up a certain way, and his wife looks this way so he thinks that the marriage is going to last this much. The husband looks this way so the marriage will last this much. But Hashem runs the world. Many of us say blessings every day. But Elul, Elul is here to remind us what we are actually saying when we're saying Melech HaOlam. The month of Elul encourages us to reflect on our relationship with HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Every day, the average Jew will mention Hashem. And, Baruch Hashem, many people who have learned a little bit about Torah will recite a bracha before they eat something. After they go to the bathroom, before they drink something, before they go to sleep, there are many blessings, Baruch Hashem. David HaMelech made it a very important ma'aseh for each person to be diligent in his mitzvot to such an extent that he ensures to say 100 blessings per day. It is indeed a significant practice to make 100 blessings per day.

2:41I know that our Rav Ovadia used to be very makpid on making a hundred blessings per day. Now, some people say a hundred blessings a day, some people say ten blessings a day, some people say one blessing a day, but the question is still the same. When you say, Baruch Atah Hashem, Elokeinu Melech HaOlam, "Blessed are You, Hashem, King of the World," what do you mean? What are you saying? Most people have an easy time saying "Melech HaOlam" and a blessing, but have a very hard time in their real life. As the Rav and my father were finishing the Masechet Berachot, they were talking about emunah, emunah for parnasah, emunah for Hashem to run your world and you not necessarily having to help Him so much. It talks about hishtadlut.

3:42The problem is that sometimes people have so much hishtadlut that they don't allow Hashem to help them. They work so hard every day and every night that even if Hashem wanted to help them, He wouldn't have the opportunity. Why? Because they're already working 24 hours a day. So, as the Rav was saying, sometimes you have to just let things go. You can't push things; you can't force them. But then you're going to say, yes, but I need to make parnassah. I need to work. The kids need to go to school. Yeshivah is going up every year. Kosher food is going up every year. Everything we need goes up every year. We need to make money. Now, you'll see that in the Gemara, the same Masechet Berachot, it says, what does it mean? What does it mean? The Talmidei Chachamim bring peace to the world. What does it mean that they bring peace to the world? Are they running the UN? The UN, which seems like a modern-day hostile entity with certain troubling anti-Semitic campaigns and constant criticism of Israel. Does it mean that the Talmid Chacham works for the UN? What is meant by "Marbim Shalom"? What does it mean that the Talmid Chacham brings Shalom? If you look at the Gemara, Masechet Bava Metzia, page 59A...

5:10...Gemara, it says that a regular house, a normal house, is not going to have any fighting as long as there's food on the table. If there's food, there's not going to be regular fighting; there may be fighting from time to time, but it won't be a regular occurrence. Why? Because if there's food, there's peace, meaning there's parnassah. If there's parnassah, there's peace. Now, going back to the... Page 17a, it says the whole world gets its sustenance, gets food, because of Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa. So when I read the Gemara, I thought he is so holy that he has a lot of merits. Because of him, the whole world gets sustenance, gets parnassah. Good. Okay, but the problem is that Rabbi Hanina has been gone from the world for 2,000 years. What about now? We don't have a big Hanina. But Baruch Hashem, everybody is eating. The Gemara is trying to teach us that kol ha'olam kulo niz'on bishvil Hanina beni. The Maharal of Prague explains that bishvil means "for Hanina," where shvil means "for."

6:30for Rabbi Chanina, but also it means that Chanina became the shvil. Shvil meaning the vessel. Rabbi Chanina was so holy in all the Torah that he learned that he became the vessel that Hashem says, ah, for you I'll let the world exist. For you I'll let the world exist. Why? Because anyone that sees what you do, understands the significance of it, will repeat it, and I can continue doing it forever. Rabbi Chanina lived almost 2,000 years ago, yet Baruch Hashem, the world continues to exist today. Why? Because people like Rav Ze'ev, my father, and other Talmidei Chachamim across the globe are learning Torah. Hashem declares, ah, for them, they're the Rabbi Chanina of the generation. For them, they become the vessel. For them, I'll bring parnasah to the world. So what about everyone else who goes to work and trades on Wall Street like I did for nearly 20 years? Thinks that's such a great mind, a great idea, and great everything. What about you, who wakes up at five o'clock in the morning to fix a house, a refrigerator, an AC, and everything else? Are you really making the parnassah? No. That's what the Gemara says: you're not making the parnassah. Who is making the parnassah? Rabbi Chanina. Why? Because Hashem said to the Prophet Yirmiyahu (Jeremiah), if not for my covenant being learned day and night, I would not sustain the heavens and earth.

7:56If not for my covenant, meaning for learning Torah, being learned day and night, the rules of the world would cease to exist. Meaning the things we call gravity, oxygen, the entire table of contents, everything and anything that you see, the atom that makes up all of creation, that spins—all of these things that you see and you depend on would cease to exist if there isn't somebody in the world learning Torah. When the Gemara says that Hashem gave sustenance to the world because of Rabbi Chanina, He's telling you today that you're supposed to learn it because you're supposed to be like Rabbi Chanina. Now, Chodesh Elul is one of those months where a lot of people call it the month of Teshuva. The month of Teshuva, this is the time that every person is supposed to do Teshuva, get some chizuk.

8:57Some people say, "Okay, maybe it's a good time to get a new car because usually there are sales during the summer." Some people want to get new clothes for back-to-school sales. Different people use Elul for different reasons. Now, in the days of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, about 150 years ago, when Rabbi Yisrael would say, "Rabbotai, Elul," people would fall down and pass out. Why would somebody pass out just because you say the word Elul? I said Elul. Did anybody here pass out? I think he just woke up. Nobody's passing out. Nobody's passing out. How come 150 years ago, you said Elul, and people fell and passed out? 150 years ago. We're not talking about Moshe Rabbeinu. We're talking about great-grandfather. That's it. The generation before the Holocaust. A generation before the Holocaust, if you said that, they would fall down and pass out. How come? And us, over here, we're like, "Oh yeah, it's nice. Maybe I'll get a new car this year. You know what, I think there's a good sale at Macy's; I'll get my kids some new shirts. I just saw a commercial; there's a new car, you know, there's a new lease, buy one, get one free." No one's passing out. Why?

10:24You ask a child how big a star is. There are so many stars in the world. The little kid will tell you it's this big, the size of a coin. But anyone who has done a little research or studied a little science in their life knows that the star is most likely not only not this big; it's bigger than Earth. Some stars are thousands of times bigger. Thousand times bigger than Earth sometimes. They're even a million times bigger than Earth. But from here, they all look the same; they look very small. So, how come the kid, the little boy, the genius child, thinks that the star is this small? Because he's far away from it. But the difference between us and the generation of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter... Not that the Torah has changed. The Torah is the same Torah that we've had for three thousand three hundred years plus. Nothing has changed. Even a maaseh, meaning an event, happened about sixty years ago where a child was born who miraculously knew the entire Torah by heart at three years old. They were trying to teach him Chumash, starting with Bereishit Bara Elokim. He finished the entire Chumash by heart. They didn't have to teach him the rest of the Chumash.

11:44Itomoke, Gemara, Masechet Berachot, he finished the entire masechet. He knew the whole thing by heart. Okay, Masechet Beitzah, he knew the whole thing by heart. The Zohar, he knew the whole thing by heart. Shulchan Aruch, he knew the whole thing by heart. They went all the way to the Sifrei Chachamim, to the Ben Ish Chai. He knew the whole thing by heart. The same Torah that we had 3,300 years ago, this little boy, three years old, knew everything. Nothing changed. The Torah didn't change. What changed? Us. We changed. 150 years ago, we still had a little bit of an understanding of what it means to sin. What does it mean to be away from Hashem? Today, we have no concept of that. Today, we think that if we take something that doesn't belong to us, it's not really such a big deal. If we violate Shabbat, Hashem has a lot of other people keeping Shabbat. What's the big deal? He doesn't need me too. He'll be fine without my Shabbat. If we eat something that maybe has a little worm on it, maybe it's only six sins, not one. Six sins to eat a worm. It's a salad. It's from Subway. It's cheap, and it's convenient. We don't understand the concept of sin.

13:04Rabbotai, there's a pasuk that the prophet Yirmiyahu also tells us. In chapter 2, verse 25, Yirmiyahu tells us something that every Yehudi is supposed to know, especially now during Chodesh Elul. Yirmiyahu, for anyone who doesn't know or forgot, is one of the main nevi'im of Am Yisrael. Jeremiah was alive during the time of the Beit HaMikdash, but he's also the one that saw it get destroyed. So a few weeks ago, when we mourned and cried over Tisha B'Av, we learned the book of Eicha, the Book of Lamentations. Jeremiah wrote it. Eicha means "how do we get to this point?" That's what Eicha means. I actually, my whole life, thought Eicha was a name—some guy's name, Eicha. It's kind of a strange name, but Eicha, I didn't know.

14:05But Eicha actually means how did we get here? There are three times in the Torah where the word Eicha is mentioned: by Moshe Rabbeinu, the prophet Isaiah, and the prophet Jeremiah. Now, in the third chapter of Eicha, Jeremiah says, "I know suffering." That's how he starts: "I know suffering." Meaning, I'm an expert. How is he an expert? He said, "I saw the Churban of the Beit HaMikdash. I saw the entire Beit HaMikdash destroyed. I saw a river full of the blood of the people of Am Yisrael, a river turning from city to city. They killed so many people. Hashem (Hashem shemo ve-zikro) had no mercy on us. I saw it," he says. "I saw the Kodesh HaKodashim get desecrated. The Shechinah was there one minute, and it's gone the next." I saw miracles with my own eyes disappear. The types of things that he writes in the book of Eicha are very sad and very scary. It's sad because it happened. It's scary because it happened more than once. Now, the same Yirmiyahu was one of the greatest prophets that ever lived. Anyone that reads his sefer will know that every verse, every time he says something, you could write a whole book about it.

15:25How many things did he see in his life? How many things did he witness? How many conversations did he have with Hashem? It's really unbelievable. If somebody talks to Hashem, you should listen to him. He knows a few things. So the Gemara in Masechet Megillah asks how many prophets did Am Yisrael have? The text should read as follows: "...says at least double the amount of how many left Mitzrayim, meaning 1.2 million. 600,000 men between 20 and 60 left Mitzrayim. At least double that were prophets throughout all of Am Yisrael, 1.2 million at least. So the Gemara asks, wait a minute, if there were 1.2 million prophets, how come we only have a Tanakh that has 55 prophets?" Missing a few 1.2 million minus 55 is a few. There are a few left, not that many, a few. How can we understand the number of 1.2 million prophets? The Torah is not obsolete. My answer is it's perfectly fine. It's just that the prophecies of the 1.2 million were only relevant to their specific generation.

16:43And whatever is mentioned in the Tanakh is relevant to every single generation. Yes, even us 3,300 years later. So if anybody ever tells you, "Yeah, but the Torah is old, it's not really relevant to our generation," this is one of the best gemarot, one of the best proofs, to show them it's the exact opposite. We had the prophecies of all the prophets we ever had. Yes, you're right, some of the prophecies are not relevant to us, but any pasuk that we have in our Torah today is relevant to us today. So, how is the prophet Yirmeyahu relevant to us today? The prophet Yirmeyahu tells us the following in chapter 2, pasuk 25: verse 35, I'm sorry, verse 35, he says, so the prophet tells Am Yisrael

18:00He says that you say, "No, I'm pure; His anger will subside for me. Behold, I am entering into judgment with you because of your saying, 'I have not sinned.'" So, the prophet tells Am Yisrael, the fact that you committed sins is a problem. It's not good. You violated Shabbat. You ate non-kosher. You didn't keep niddah really well. Your business is halfway kosher. All those things are not good. No one in the Torah is going to tell you it's okay. No way. But, he says, that's not the problem. Yirmiyahu says, that's not the problem. Hashem says that's not the problem. What's the problem? He says, the problem is when you said, no, no, I didn't sin. I didn't do anything. That's the problem. The problem is when you say, I didn't sin. He says, "I enter into judgment with you, not because of the sin, but because you denied it. Because you got so used to the sin that you thought it's a blessing. You thought it's a mitzvah. And unfortunately, we live in the days of Mashiach today, Baruch Hashem, that on one hand, we know the end is near, which is good. On the other hand, we know it's terrible."

19:10Because even the Gemara in Masechet Sanhedrin, Rabbi Eliezer Ben Hyrcanus says, "I don't want to see Mashiach." Why? It's going to be fraught with many challenges before Mashiach comes. This is one of them. You sometimes see people going against the Torah thinking they're doing a mitzvah. You see a person going against Hashem, and he says, "No, I didn't do anything. What did I do? What's the big deal?" Denying everything that they've done. Now, I'll give you an example. Chodesh Elul is a time for each one of us to ask ourselves, when we say "King of the world," what do we mean? What are we saying? A person can go into a store and steal a piece of chocolate. Either he stole it because he thought it was funny, he stole it because he didn't have any money, or he stole it because he just wanted to take advantage of the shop owner. Bottom line, it's a dollar. What's the big deal? A dollar. How much disaster can possibly happen from stealing one dollar? Because if I start telling you, listen, every single person has to learn Hilchot Shabbat. If you're Sephardi, you have to learn Yalkut Yosef. There are three books. It's going to take you a little while to learn it. If I tell you you have to finish Masechet Shabbat, it's going to take you a little while to learn it.

20:30If I tell you, you have to keep kashrut, you have to know every single law and detail, right and left. It's going to take you a little while to learn it. Everyone says, "Listen, I'm a good person." I used to say the same thing: "I'm a good person. I'm an honest guy. I don't steal. I give tzedakah when I can. I'm nice to my wife; I'm nice to my husband. My kids go to yeshiva, even if we don't keep everything or do all the mitzvot, but we're decent people." So what if I took a dollar KitKat bar from the store and I forgot to pay? So what? What's the big deal? One dollar, what's the big deal? In Shamayim (Heaven), they look at everything as a big deal. Because they look at the entire picture. If a guy started putting rocks into a hole, he doesn't know where the rocks are going. He puts a hole, every day he places another rock, and another rock, and another rock, and another rock. Nothing seems to change. After a while, he becomes kind of bored. So the boss says, no, no, keep going, keep going. He asks, why? So the boss removes the veil and shows him, look, all those rocks, and he shows him half a castle.

21:34Wow, I did all this? Yes, you did all this. You did all this. The little rocks, one at a time, for the last several years. Look, you built half a castle. Wow, I didn't know. Okay, so I'll continue now. Why? Because now there's a different perspective. Now he sees, oh, it's worth it. I see what I'm doing. Sometimes, we don't think about what we're doing. We think we take $1 from a person. What's the big deal? We took $1. It's $1. I'm not talking about if you stole with a Ponzi scheme or if you stole $50 billion or even $50 million. I'm not talking about that. I'm not talking about you overcharged the guy by $5,000 and he's so rich he's not going to notice it. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about $1. But the omek hadin, the depth of judgment, is on one dollar. If it's the depth of judgment, it's critical on one dollar, then needless to say it's on a lot of it. If somebody took one dollar, this could be the picture: He took one dollar, the wife...

22:35And the owner of the store saw it. But the owner was like a nebach. He was like a little weak, humble, naive little guy. Couldn't defend himself. So he didn't say anything. Why? He's afraid of you. He's afraid you're going to take a dollar. Ah, it's a dollar only. What can I do? If I tell the guy, maybe he'll yell at me, embarrass me. He doesn't say anything. Nebach. Nebach doesn't say anything. His wife, Gila. His wife is a little superhero for the bad guys, though. She doesn't like it. She doesn't like it. But she's not going to say anything either, not to the customer. Who does she say something to? To the husband. She starts yelling at the husband. "You loser. You weakling. You, this. You let people take advantage of you. What a loser you are. What a degenerate you are. You can't even manage your own store. One dollar you can't even protect. The kids are going to starve because of you. What is this? Is this what you teach them?" Miskin, the guy doesn't know what to do and wants to bury himself in the ground. Now, his kids saw it. The kids saw the mom abuse the husband. So what happens? The kids lose respect for the father. Why? He says, if Ima thinks he's a loser, then I agree with her. He's a loser. So now, the father loses the respect of his kids. He starts getting depressed, he starts drinking, and...

23:57He doesn't want to live life anymore. The wife says, oh, before you were a loser, now you're a verified loser. I'm leaving you. She leaves him. Now the kid sees, oh, Ima and Abba are not together anymore. They joined the statistic of a 94% divorce rate in America. I don't have an Ima. I don't have an Abba. I have nothing. And who is at fault? The thief. The guy that stole. The kid becomes bitter, starts hating life, starts failing at school, gets out of yeshiva, doesn't want to keep Shabbat anymore, doesn't want to keep mitzvot, wants to be a goy, and has violent thoughts towards others. The mom feels helpless. She says, "Listen, I have to move on with my life." She gets remarried to another man. This man doesn't actually like her son, especially since her son is a troublemaker, so he mistreats him. Now the old husband who became an alcoholic sees that his ex-wife got married. He can't take it. He gets a heart attack and he dies. The kid can't take it. He doesn't know what to do, and he wants to fight the new husband. The new husband gets him arrested, and the kid goes to jail. The story can continue to roll and roll and roll. These are real stories. Now in Bais Din of Shamayim...

25:17Guy that stole the one-dollar chocolate, he's gonna go up to Shamayim, and he says, "What did I do? I did nothing. Wait, one dollar? Hold on. Let me get your dollar. I'll get your dollar. What's the big deal? Why'd you give me a dollar? Do you know what you did? Do you know what you did with the one dollar that you stole? The chocolate bar that you stole. They're gonna show you the entire picture." going to show the person the entire picture of how he led to a divorce and how he led to the child disrespecting the parent, and how he led to the remarriage and leaving the path, and how he lit the whole thing, why he stole one dollar. It is a time for us to be reminded that if Hashem said it, it's a big deal. HaKadosh Baruch Hu could have said anything He wanted. No one was limiting Him. No one told Him, "Listen, Hashem, You're limited to three hundred four thousand words, not one more." No one told Him, "Listen, you're limited." He could have said whatever He wanted, meaning that if He said it in the Torah, He meant it. He wasn't joking. If He said you have to keep Shabbat, He meant it. If He said that a person doesn't keep Shabbat...

26:27cannot be counted as part of Am Yisrael because he's considered an oved avodah zarah, an idol worshiper. He meant it, he wasn't joking. He didn't say, no, no, you know what? The other people, not you, you're cute, you're cute, I love you, you're funny, you're nice to everybody, I'll let this one go for you. He never said that. When Hashem said that you have to keep kosher both in your business and in your mouth. He said it all the time. Everything he said, he meant it. And Rabotai, the depth of judgment, if it's so severe for the one dollar, what about the bigger things? Now, someone can go up to Shamayim and say, "Listen, I didn't learn Torah, so I didn't know." And they're going to come back to that person and say, "Oh, you didn't learn Torah? Why not?" "Oh, you know, I was busy with work. I was busy with work." I asked you, "Wait, did you believe in Hashem?" "Yeah, I believed in Hashem." So how come you didn't learn Torah? "No, I was busy at work." Okay, so did you believe in Hashem? "Yes, I believed in Hashem." So how come you didn't learn Torah? "Because I was busy at work." So the question goes back to, "Wait a minute, if you believe in Hashem, didn't you hear that He's the one that gives sustenance to the whole world? He gives parnasa to the whole world."

27:49Didn't you hear that He's the one who opens His hands and feeds everyone? Didn't you hear that before? Oh yes, I heard it. So how come you had to help Him? A person who doesn't learn Torah every day, doesn't make time to learn Torah, cannot have a share in the World to Come. Without continual engagement in Torah study, one is missing out on the fundamental way to connect with Hashem and fulfill His mitzvot. And the reason why is because there's no way for him to fulfill the mitzvot, to even know what to do, not to know right and not to know left, without learning Torah every day. When someone is learning Gemara every day, learning Halacha every day, learning Parashat HaShavua every day, he's not doing the rabbi a favor. He's doing himself a favor. It's the only chance he has. Chodesh Elul, the month of Elul, is the time when Hashem says, the whole year you've been playing around. Now there's Judgment Day. Now I have to evaluate whether I want to continue this deal we have. You say you want parnasa. The Gemara in Masechet Rosh Hashanah, page 16, and also in Beitza, page 16, one is A and the other one is B, says that Hashem Yitbarach provides parnasa on Rosh Hashanah. On Rosh Hashanah, He decides how much parnasa you're going to get. Whether you're going to make $100,000 a year, or $10,000 a year, or $10,000,000 a year, He decides on Rosh Hashanah. How does He decide? Based on how you act. He says, what is he doing with the money?

29:15He spends money on going to the bars and clubs. Okay, so let's give him less money so he makes fewer sins. It's better for him. Oh, he is giving tzedakah. He is mezakeh harabim. Oh, let's give him more money so he gets more merits and perhaps does teshuva. This is how parnassah is determined. But sometimes you're going to see a person that goes against Hashem every day on purpose and... He drives on Shabbat. He eats non-kosher. He socializes with non-Jewish people. He does everything against Hashem. Any way that he can defy Hashem, he does. But yet, he accumulates more and more wealth every day. And everyone asks the same exact question: How is it possible? There's a righteous person who has a tough time, suffering, and there's a wicked person who has a lot of money. How could it be? All you have to do is go to parashat Va'etchanan, and Hashem tells you exactly why. He says, sometimes a person is considered my lover. Why? Because he keeps Torah and mitzvot.

30:25If he keeps Torah and mitzvot, I love him. And I know he loves me because he's proving it. To say you love Hashem in words means nothing. Saying, "I love you, Hashem," means nothing. Someone that tells his wife, "I love you," while he has a girlfriend on the side, it means nothing. It means nothing. He says, "I love you, honey. What do you think of her? Is she cute?" It doesn't mean anything. When a guy says, "Listen, boss, I love this company," when in reality stealing from them every day, it doesn't mean anything. Words mean nothing; actions mean something. Hashem says, "Those that keep My mitzvot are My lovers, and for them, I'll pay them for a thousand generations. But my haters, meaning the ones that don't keep My mitzvot, I pay my haters cash to their face to destroy them." Sometimes you're going to see a person who looks like he's very, very rich, like Robin Williams, who had a hundred million dollars before he committed suicide, or Anthony Bourdain, who also had about fifty or a hundred million dollars before he committed suicide.

31:34Of the other celebrities, right before they commit suicide, usually they reach their peak, just like Haman. Haman is not just a story; it actually happened, and it continues to happen every year. Haman happens all the time. Hashem builds someone up to a very, very high level. He gives them a whole lot, to the point where they can't take it anymore. If you like steak, but I feed you steak for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, eventually you don't like it anymore. And... A person that all they want is parnassah, parnassah, parnassah—they want money, money, money, money. Hashem says, "Okay, I'll give you money. When are we going to talk? When are you going to learn My Torah? When are you going to learn what it says in 'Bereishit bara Elokim et ha-shamayim ve-et ha-aretz'? When are you going to learn that? When are you going to learn Gemara? When are you going to learn what Gemara even means, to learn something that's for benefit, for usefulness? When?" "Oh, after you make more money? Okay, I'll give you more money, and then more money, and then more money." And eventually, Hashem says, "Oh..." So now you just want money. Okay, so you don't have me at all. And Hashem, what can happen is that Hashem can punish the person to such an extent that He can give them so much money that the money itself destroys them. This is why you see, literally on a monthly basis, celebrities—the people that have all the money that everybody else wants and the so-called life that everybody else wants—kill themselves. They have everything that everybody else wants except life.

32:59Because life is not something you can buy with money. So Chodesh Elul is a time that each and every single one of us has to reflect. What's the point of my life? What did I contribute to the world? What did I do? Okay, so you made money. Good for you. After you die, no one cares. What else did you do? What else can you take from this world other than money? There's a story that we're making a movie out of, a short film on, that puts things into perspective. One of the rabbis, right before the Holocaust began, or even during the time of the Holocaust, and was actually murdered during the Holocaust, was Rav Elchonon Wasserman. Rav Wasserman was one of the Talmidim of the Chafetz Chaim, and was someone that you didn't need to ask anything to know that he was holy. He was so holy, and he respected his Rav so much, that one time they heard the drasha of the Chafetz Chaim. One of the other talmidim said, "Yeah, the Rav said the same drasha last year." He said, "No, you're wrong. Last year, he used eight more words." Meaning, in his mind, he was counting the words and mamash looking at everything—what's the difference between this year and last year?

34:29was the only thing that he had and the only thing that he wanted. At the time of the Holocaust, when the war broke out, he found out that his students were still back in Germany. He went back—he was visiting America, and he went back to Germany to join his students, even though everyone was telling him that if you go back there, it's very likely you're not going to survive. His famous statement was, "I'll die with my students." Now, Rav Wasserman, before all of this happened, was trying to raise money in America, and a few chachamim told him, listen, Kvod HaRav, instead of going door to door, you just came from Lita, you came from Lithuania, it's far, it's a far trip, you, gadol hador, wasting your time going door to door, asking for a hundred dollars. Why don't you solve the problem in one shot? How? He says, go to this one guy. Go to this one guy and ask him for the money. He says, okay, well, so why don't you go to him? He says, no, no. He hates us. He hates religion. He hates Judaism. And he hates to give. He says, so why should I go to him? He says, because he knows you. He was in class with you many years ago, and his name was Pinchas. Go visit him. He made a lot of money in the textile business and clothes.

35:53He said, fine, for my children, for the talmidim, even if I get embarrassed, it's worth it. Once Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman went, he called, he made an appointment, he went to see him. At first, Pinchas, now named Peter—once you have money, usually you change your name sometimes. Your old name becomes obsolete, like milk. So Pinchas said, let me show you my stuff. Let me show you my factory. He showed him the factory. He showed him this section. We make 5 million. This section, we make 10 million. This section, we make 100 million. This section, we make this. He shows him his glory. Every king likes to show his glory. So he says, what about you, Elchanan? What about you, Abba Salomon? What did you do with your life? And Rav Elchanan Wasserman says, me? No, you know, I studied under this rabbi and this rabbi and this rabbi, and eventually, I went to the Chafetz Chaim and studied under him.

37:01after that, I opened my yeshiva, and I have all these students, and they're becoming talmidim, little by little. Rav Elchanan Wasserman sees his old friend Pinchas starting to hate himself because Pinchas realizes that with all the money in the world that he has, he cannot buy even one percent of the Torah of one of the talmidim of Rav Wasserman. He cannot buy one percent of the happiness that the talmidim of Rav Wasserman have. So then he ends the conversation and says, "Okay, so why did you come here?" And Rav Elchanan Wasserman responds to him, "Just to see you." He says, "Okay, great, you saw me, fine, so what else do you need?" Rav Wasserman replies, "Nothing. Just wanted to see you. Say hello." He goes, "Okay, fine, hello, hello. Maybe you don't feel comfortable. Fine, you can tell me, between us. Why are you here?" Rav Wasserman insists, "No, no, no reason. Just wanted to say hello." At this point, Rav Wasserman had no interest in getting money from him.

38:06He saw that everything that everybody said is true. They said he has a lot of money, and he acknowledged it's true. Actually, he has more money than they said. They claimed he had 5 million, but he probably has 100 million. However, I don't want it anymore. I don't want the money from him. Why? I'm too busy feeling bad for him. I'm too busy feeling bad for him because although he's so rich in money, it made him poor in everything else. Some people are so poor, all they have is money. He says, "Yes, but you came here all the way from Lithuania. It took you a long time. Why are you here?" He responded, "Well, you know what? I have a button over here. The button on my jacket is falling off. If you don't mind, I heard that you're well-versed in tailoring. Maybe you can fix my button." And he looks and he says, what do you mean fix it? You came all the way for the button. Because you know the button. See, I'm a rabbi. People see me. And if they see that the button falls off, it's Chilul Hashem. Chilul Hashem is the biggest sin in Judaism. I don't want to go to Gehinom. I want to go to Gan Eden. Can you fix my button? Can you help me out a little bit?

39:13The guy didn't know what to do with himself. He said to one of his people, "Fix the Rabbi's button, please." Then he goes back again to the same Rabbi and he says, "Listen, you didn't come here for the button. Please tell me, why are you here? Why are you here? You didn't come here for the button." The Rabbi goes, "No, I'm here. I have to go now. Thank you very much. Bye." And he leaves. Peter/Pincus cannot sleep at night. He tosses and turns and just can't sleep. He starts dialing the phone, looking for Rav Wasserman all over the city, asking who and what and waking up people throughout the whole night, trying to figure out who knows where he's at. He finally finds him and gets him on the phone at two o'clock in the morning and says to the Rav, "Why did you come here? I can't sleep. You're killing me. You have to tell me why you came here." Rav Wasserman replies, "I came here for a button." He goes, "There's no way, there's no way you came here for a button. There's no way you came from so far, you have to talk. Please come to my office." He says, "You're my old friend, I'm leaving soon, so I'll come to you." Comes to his office. It's almost three o'clock in the morning, and he says, "For the love, I know you're not a fool. I'm not a fool either. We went to the same school together many years ago. There's no way that you traveled on a boat all the way from Lita, two weeks on a boat, to get here. You stayed in the Bronx, then you came to me in my office in Manhattan, just to what, to get a button for five cents? There's no way." Rav Elchonon Wasserman looks at him and says, "Oh."

40:39It bothers you. It bothers you that I traveled on a boat for two weeks to come all the way to America to fix a button. But it doesn't bother you that your neshama came from the Kisah HaKavod. That's 3,500 light years away. To go from one level of the Kisei HaKavod to the next one is another 3,000 years. And to go to the next one is another 1,000 years. And all the way until you got here, the Gemara Masechet Chagigah says, each level is thousands of light years' separation until your neshama got to this world; it doesn't bother you. So what did you do here? You're here to fix buttons. So what did I do? I came here to help you. The only thing you do is fix buttons. So I said, okay, fix my button, because that's what you do. Pinchas wanted to bury himself, like I did when I heard the story. The reason why is because sometimes we could spend 50, 60, 70 years being a button, a meaningless button.

41:51Did nothing in this world that came to this world like the wind and left the world like the wind contribute nothing? A person needs to use the month of Elul to evaluate: What have you contributed to humanity? If you made money and you built a house, it means nothing, because someone will destroy the house one day and build a bigger one. If you build a company... No one will care. Someone will eventually buy it, break it up into pieces, keep what he likes, throw out what he doesn't, even if you liked it, and move on. And your memory disappears. All of these millionaires that put their names on buildings because they want people to know who they are, you know the first thing people do after they die? Erase the name and look for a new donor. Material is not something that can help you beyond your life here. A person needs to know that, at some point, he's going to go up to Shamayim, and they're going to ask him, "What have you done? Were you a button, or did you actually bring something here?" Now, the only thing that's meaningful in Shamayim is Torah and Mitzvot. That's what Hashem said. He's the One that wrote the instructions, and...

43:09Buttons, he says, leave it for the people that are still living here. That's why he said to the prophets, he told them instructions time and time again: Don't be a button. Don't be a nothing. And if you think that you're supposed to be here to make money, to spend all of your time building things that won't last much beyond your life, then you're mistaken. There are countless proofs. There are countless stories that all of you know and all of you have heard and all of you can hear about people who spend their lives building a fortune only to realize that they can't even enjoy it. A person builds a restaurant empire only to learn later on in life that he can't eat because he has diabetes. A person spends all of his time making beautiful things only to realize that he can't see them because he went blind. A person tries to develop every single sense that he has in his body to enjoy every part of it, only to realize one day that he can't feel his body anymore. This means that when you're spending your whole life chasing material, you're bound to be disappointed. We wrote in the Alon HaKodesh, the newsletter that we have. person spending all of his time making beautiful things, only to realize that he can't see them because he went blind. A person trying to develop every single sense that he has in his body, to enjoy every sense of his body, only to realize one day that he can't feel his body anymore. Meaning that when you're spending your whole life chasing material, you're bound to be disappointed. We wrote in the Olam HaKodesh newsletter that we have.

44:33that the vast majority of people in the world have no idea what happiness means. Everybody says that they're looking to be happy, they're sometimes happy, and sometimes they're not happy, but the vast majority of people have no idea what happiness really means. The reason why is because they try to define happiness by something that's momentary. They won a game, so they're happy. They won some money, so they're happy. They got married, so they're happy. They had a child, so they're happy. The problem is that all of these happiness moments are like an adrenaline rush. When I was a child, I used to play football. Sometimes during a game, you'd get injured, but you don't feel it until after the game. The reason why is because you have adrenaline going through your system, and you don't feel the pain until afterward, until you calm down. People are so confused about happiness that they think it is supposed to be something momentary, like an adrenaline rush. It's not. Happiness is supposed to be something that is constant. You're supposed to wake up happy, go to sleep happy, be happy in the afternoon, during disasters, in good times, always happy. That's what it's supposed to be.

45:47That's how life is supposed to be. When Hashem gave us the Torah at Mount Sinai, He provided the instructions for how to be happy. So, how come everybody's miserable? Why are there so many people, both religious and non-religious, who are miserable? The reason, rabotai, is because we're trying to become happy by following the wrong instructions. We're trying to be happy by following our own instructions, by buying a new system, by buying a new car, by buying a new house, by increasing the material consumption that we have, and we end up realizing, "I have everything I want and nothing that I want" at the same time. People like Robin Williams and all of these other celebrities eventually realized they can't even buy more stuff. Why? They bought everything already. There's nothing else to buy, so they lose hope, and they kill themselves. Happiness, rabotai, is one of the first things that a person needs to think about. How am I going to get to happiness? Maybe I'm not going to be like Moshe Rabbeinu. For people to think about becoming a tzaddik, it's hard for them.

46:55Maybe I'm not going to become the best businessman in the world. To become a billionaire is not always possible in most people's minds. But everyone has a common denominator. Everyone wants to be happy. No one wakes up in the world and says, "I can't wait to be miserable today." No one says that. Everybody says, "I can't wait to be happy." Now, happiness is a spiritual feeling, not something that you can achieve with physicality. You cannot achieve it with material wealth or possessions. It's something deeper, tied to our neshama, our soul. not something that you can achieve with physicality; you cannot achieve it with material possessions. The only thing that can give you even a small chance, or any chance whatsoever, of being happy is to show up at the shiurim, learn the purpose of life, and start evaluating what you are doing here. Why are you here? What's the purpose above work, marriage, kids, eating, drinking, the restaurant, and the game, and all this that we do every day? After you finish all that...

47:57After that, what's the point? Let's say you went to the game. Let's say you went to the show. Let's say you ate the steak and another steak. You finished all of that. Then what? That's happy? Happiness is an understanding that you have to have a purpose in life. You can't have a purpose in life without Hashem. All of these people that claim to be atheists, that claim they don't believe in anything, they love to attack religious people. Why? Because they need a purpose in their life. Without Hashem, there's no purpose in life, so they create a new purpose. What is it? To attack the people that have a purpose. Rabotai, Elul is a time for us to reflect. When you arrive at Rosh Hashanah, in less than a month from now, Hashem is going to want to decide. Why should I give you another year? Why should I give you more money? Why should I give you a wife? Why should I give you kids? Why should I give you a husband? Why should I give you health? Why should I give you anything?

48:58Why? You're not even happy with what I gave you. Why should I give you more? Why should I give you anything? So at least, Rabotai, spend the next few weeks learning about Hashem and trying to figure out what's the point? What's the point of why I'm here? And is what I'm doing going to help me become happy? Any questions? Baruch Adonai Le'olam, Amen ve'amen. Amen.

50:08Shabbat Shalom Shabbat Shalom! Shabbat shalom.