Emunah During TeShuva Difficulties In Los Angeles

0:14Very good to be here, Baruch Hashem, another shiur in Los Angeles. Thank you for having me, Baruch Hashem. Some new faces, some old faces, Baruch Hashem. Mostly new faces. A lot of people that I hear from Facebook, sometimes it's good to see people behind the actual profile. This shiur will be refreshed for Iluy Nishmat, Yechezkel ben Estel, and also Refuah Shlema, Sara Rivka bat Bat Sheva, Refael ben Anat, Doris bat Jora, David ben Esria, Levana bat Sara, Sara bat Levana, Chaya Liel bat Tali, Aliza bat Hilda, and Noam ben Sara. and also Refuah Shlema, Sara Rivka bat Bat Sheva, Refael ben Anat, Doris bat Jora, David ben Esria, Levana bat Sara, Sara bat Levana, Chaya Liel bat Tali, Aliza bat Hilda, and Noam ben Sara. And all of Am Yisrael, Be'ezrat Hashem, will have Refuat HaNefesh and Refuat HaGuf. Now, as I always say to people, since nothing has to do with me here in the shiurim, it's really all Hashem, and all about the Siyata Dishmaya that you guys have, the ideal situation is for you guys to ask questions. There's no question that's too big, there's no question that's too small. The Torah, Baruch Hashem, is endless. And if Hashem wants me to know the answer, I'll have the answer.

1:41So, if you guys have any specific questions, a doubt that you have—scientific, rational, philosophical, anything and everything—please ask now, during, after, whenever. The key is for you guys to walk out of here with something. If you came here and left the same, then I failed you and wasted each other's time. Good to waste two or three hours of each other's time, so it's good that you guys ask questions. Most of the time, people don't ask questions because they're shy or they can't think of it yet, so they forget. But baruch Hashem, Hashem doesn't forget, and He gives me the answer anyway. You get the answer anyway for a question you didn't even know you had. But if you have specific questions, please ask. Anyone wants to volunteer to be first? You had a good question, but we didn't record it. Anyone? Anything? So we just celebrated Pesach, and all of us had a seder. All of us celebrated that we left Egypt. All of us celebrated that we had Kriyat Yam Suf. Hashem split the ocean into 12. All of us ate matzah.

3:05Then all of us came back to work and went back to Egypt again. We're back to being slaves—chasing money, chasing a dream, trying to be the next Jones, trying to be the next Trump, trying to be the next big thing in many cases, and aspiring to be something that is more than what we are financially. If only we aspired to be big spiritually as we do financially, Mashiach would already have come. But the reality is the Yetzer Hara convinces us that money is much more important than Torah. He convinces you if you're in Torah, he convinces you if you're not in Torah. Now, the question is, Am Yisrael got the Torah. They're called Dor HaDeah. They're called the generation of knowledge, meaning they saw things that no one in history before or after them ever saw.

4:05They say that during Kriyat Yam Suf, when Hashem split the ocean into 12, and the Ramban actually wrote, you know, he had a little drawing of how the ocean was split, not like the Goyim think that it was split into two and went from one side to the other, like Hashem made a bridge. In reality, it was a half circle. We went from, let's say, if this was the... side and this was the other side. The goyim think that we went from here to here. In reality, that's not what happened. What happened is we started here, we went in a half circle, and we came back to the same side. And it was 12 different splits, meaning 12 different tunnels. The Midrash of Me'am Loez says 12 different tunnels. Why? One for each tribe. And So even then, we had a little bit of machloket. The Ashkenazim, the Sephardim, the Yemenites, the Moroccans—everybody had a little thing. They said, okay, I want my own. You have your shul, I have my own shul. We had 12 different shuls, 12 different tunnels. But nonetheless, Rabotai, the idea is that Chazal tell us that only 20%, at the best-case scenario, 20% of Bnei Yisrael...

5:30Survived Egypt. Only 20% left Egypt; some say it's much worse, some say only 1%. Meaning we had 300 million Jews, and only 3 million left. Some say, no, we had 15 million, and 3 million left. Either way, the numbers are horrendous. The question is, why didn't the rest of them come out? Why did they stay in Egypt? And the answer is because Hashem killed them. Why did He kill them? They didn't want to do teshuva. Now, we have already talked about this a couple of times over the last couple of weeks in shiurim, and we asked this question last night. Why didn't Am Yisrael want to do teshuva? Why didn't Am Yisrael want to do teshuva? I mean, you saw the miracles. You saw how Hashem destroyed the largest, greatest civilization in size and power in history. The Egyptians were collecting taxes from every single country in the world. You know, a lot of people think that America is strong because they have weapons. America was not even like an employee of Egypt. Egypt was collecting taxes from every country in the world. Egypt was the powerhouse of the world. And yet, Hashem destroyed all of them.

6:49We saw miracle after miracle, week after week, month after month, the biggest civilization in the world went to nothing. The slave became the master, the master became the slave. First and last time in history such a thing happened. So you would think, all the people that saw it, what are they going to do? Hashem Melech, Hashem Malach, start singing. All the songs should have come out already 3,000 years ago. What did they say? We're going to stay here in Egypt. Go to the desert, tell us what happened. Send me an email. Send me a text. We're not interested in going to the desert. So, last night, we had a shiur, maybe 20 minutes from here, in Ohr Rachel. And the question was the same, and the answer was, one of the chiddushim, one of the options is, that most of Am Yisrael thought they didn't have to do teshuva. Similar to today. Why? Look how much we suffered. We've suffered so much. We were in Egypt for 210 years. We endured hard slavery for 86 years. We've already suffered enough. You want us to go to the desert now?

8:01Now, my grandfather suffered, my father suffered, I'm suffering. That's enough for Hashem. That's enough for Hashem. Hashem doesn't need me to go to the desert and suffer more. You, Moshe, you're Chareidi. You go do it. I'm okay where I'm at. My father was a rabbi. My grandfather wrote a book. My great-grandfather was a big... Everybody's good. I'm okay over here in Egypt. I don't need to do teshuva. Today, every time I go to somebody and tell them, "Listen, you know, Hashem commanded us to keep Shabbat, Hashem commanded us to keep kosher, Taharat HaMishpacha, all the different things," they say, "Oh no! You know what kind of rabbi my grandfather was? You know my great-grandfather wrote a book? You know this one, I know this one, and I know this one, and I went to the shiur of this one." I say, "Okay, all of those people, great, Baruch Hashem, what about you?" What about you, though? The fact that he wrote a book doesn't help you. How do I know? What's my proof? There was a guy in history. You're never gonna believe it. This guy, really unbelievable. He knew the entire Torah. He knew for sure. How do I know he knew the Torah? His father was Gadol HaDor.

9:16His father was Gadol HaDor. His grandfather was even bigger. His brother was the next Gadol HaDor. But in the Torah, it says, his name was Esav. His father was Yitzchak. His grandfather was Avraham. His brother was Yaakov. But in the Torah, there's only one person in the entire Torah that Hashem says, "I hate him," and that's Esav. Hashem says, "I hate him." He didn't say, "I hate Pharaoh." He didn't say, "I hate Nebuchadnezzar, who destroyed the Beit HaMikdash." He didn't say, "I hate all the Resha'im." But Esav, "I hate him." Why? Why do You hate Esav? What did he do? He had a long beard and everything. What happened? How come You hate him, Hashem? Esav knew the truth, but he still chose otherwise. He knew he had to keep Shabbat; he chose not to. He knew he had to keep kosher; he still wanted to eat treif. He knew his wife had to put some clothes on; he never said anything to her. He told her, "Honey, you look good in tights." He never said anything. Your grandfather being a tzaddik, good for him, he's in Gan Eden. What about you? Am Yisrael said, "My grandfather is bigger than you. I don't need to do teshuva."

10:37they didn't want to do teshuva. Hashem says, you don't want to do teshuva? I'm not going to take you to Mount Sinai. There's only two options. You stay here, you die. You go to Mount Sinai, you live. They didn't want to leave. They had to die. That's the first answer. Tough, harsh, but it's reality. There's another answer. The Rashbam says that Am Yisrael in Sefer Shemot, chapter 6, verse 9, says: "Vayidaber Moshe ken el Bnei Yisrael v'lo sham'u el Moshe mikotzer ruach u'me'avoda kasha." Moshe Rabbeinu comes to Am Yisrael. He tries to get them to say, "Listen, I know it's tough right now. I just spoke to Paro. He says he's not freeing you and he's also going to make the conditions worse." But don't worry, Hashem is going to free you, everything is going to be okay. Since Am Yisrael, they don't want to listen to him. They don't want to listen to him. Why? They were out of breath, and they had a lot of hard work. So the Chachamim say, what do you mean they had a lot of hard work? They were slaves for a hundred years already. What, now it's hard work finally? What was the last hundred years? It was freebie, nothing? What is this hard work? The hard work, Rabotai,

12:02that they weren't mentioning in the pasuk, not the pshat, was that Am Yisrael was having a hard time. What's the hard time? The Rashbam says, they realized that doing teshuvah is very difficult. They said, listen, you came over here, you said do teshuvah, keep Shabbat, keep taharat mishpacha, keep this, keep this, put kisui rosh, parnasah is gonna come. I did all those things. Now, all of a sudden, no parnasah. My wife doesn't like me. The kids are rebuking me instead of me rebuking them. Everything is upside down. My whole world turned upside down. What kind of teshuvah is this? I'm not doing teshuvah anymore. Am Yisrael says, we started. Look what Pharaoh gave us. We started doing teshuvah. All of a sudden, we get worse life. The Rashbam says as soon as it got difficult, Am Yisrael says I'm not interested in doing teshuvah. I'm staying in Egypt. I'm gonna stay a slave. I'm gonna stay an idol worshiper. I'm gonna stay the same. I'm not doing anything. The reality is, Rabotai, the situation has not changed in 3,000 years. Doing teshuvah

13:13Not easy. It's not easy. Anyone who doesn't know my personal story, I brought you guys CDs. They're all free. It has about 80 hours' worth of Torah on there, including my personal story. The black CD's first track talks about why I left Wall Street and decided to do this. Instead of making three thousand, two hundred dollars an hour, I make zero an hour. Oh And it's not because I left with all the money. It's because all the money left. But something more important arrived. It's a very interesting story. If you've had crises in your life, business crises, financial crises, marriage crises, intermarriage crises, health crises, life crises, all those crises, all of it is in that story. Baruch Hashem.

14:14On Tisha B'Av, two years ago, the organization Chazak hosted me in New York, maybe 600 people, listening to a lecture. And I started off the lecture with the first verse in chapter 3 of the book of Eicha, Lamentations. I know suffering. It's one thing I know. I know suffering. I'm very good at suffering. I had, Baruch Hashem, a lot of experience with suffering. And the reason why I do what I do is because I'm scared other people are going to suffer, chasing the same dream that I chased, chasing the same falsehood that I chased, chasing the same falsehood that Am Yisrael has been chasing for 3,000 years. The reality is, Rabotai, There's nothing new under the sun. Shlomo HaMelech mentions it seven times in the book of Ecclesiastes, Kohelet. Nothing new, nothing changed. But yet, we continue making the same mistakes. Why? We always think we have a better idea. We always think we're gonna do it differently. Moshe didn't do it, but I'm gonna do it. Zvika didn't do it, but I'm gonna do it. Steve didn't do it, but I'm gonna do it. My father didn't do it, but I'm gonna do it. I'm always gonna do it better.

15:35tries to talk to us in different ways. One of the most prominent ways is through money. And the reason why is because it's part of our day-to-day life, like it or not. It's part of our day-to-day life. You can work on Wall Street. You could do kiruv. You can sell houses, cars, whatever you do, money is part of our life. It's a very critical part of our life. It's necessary to The problem is not money. The problem is what we've done with money. On the U.S. dollar bill, it says, "In God we trust." A very noble statement, "In God we trust." Very nice, whoever wrote it might have believed in God. The reality is, most people that are using that bill think that the dollar is God. The dollar is who they’re talking about. That's who we trust. And we chase the dollar like it's really God. We forget about our wives, our kids, our lives. Most of all, we forget about Hashem. So Hashem tries to talk to us through parnassah. And many people have parnassah problems. Even if they have millions in the bank, they have parnassah problems. Why is it less millions than the year before, it's not growing as fast as it should, and so on and so forth. A million different stories of why there's everyone in the world. There's not a single person that doesn't have parnassah problems.

17:04Adelson, Adelson, whatever, the guy from Las Vegas. He has, I don't know, 50 billion. Ask him, "What do you want? What blessing do you want for next year?" He says, "Good parnassah." Not refuah shlema, not the big door-to-door in Torah, not Gan Eden, not nothing, parnassah tova. Somebody came to our Rav Nissim Yagen, alav ha-shalom. He gave him a check in the morning. He did a shiur or whatever. He gave him a nice check to help his organization, for his kollel and so on. And the rabbi again says, okay, ask me for anything. Ask me for anything. And b'ezrat Hashem, I'll pray for you. And the rabbi again says, honestly, I really want to know what he's going to ask for. Because I know the guy has everything. He has a hundred million dollars, no less. Not a dollar less than a hundred million dollars in the bank, cash. We're not including the real estate and the this and the that and everything else. A hundred million cash is sitting there getting a suntan. He has kids, he has a wife, he has everything. I honestly wanted to know, what does the guy who has everything ask for? So I said, "Give me anything you want. Ask me for anything you want, I'll pray for you all year." The guy says, "Please, I have everything. I just need one thing, help with Hashem." What do you need? Anything, anything you want. He's thinking, maybe a sartan (cancer).

18:20He has a disease, maybe he's a poor guy. He has a disease, no money in the world is going to help you. Steve Jobs had six and a half billion dollars, but he couldn't afford a single liver. He couldn't afford a single liver. He was an atheist his whole life; now he believes in God 100%. The only difference is he found out too late though. The reality is that money is not going to help you with sartan. So he's thinking, oh, this guy maybe has sartan, he has cancer. Or maybe he has this, maybe he has that. What does he have? The guy says to Rav Nissim again, he says, I just need a little bit of help. What? parnasah tovah. Parnasah tovah. It's all you have. A multi-millionaire asks for parnasah tovah. Eizehu ashir? Hasameach bechelko. Who's really ashir? Who's really rich? Mishnah in Avot says someone that's happy with his share. How do we get to that point? How do we get to be happy with our share? How do we get there? Now, Am Yisrael got the man every day, as I was telling him earlier, and whoever overheard, they got the man every day. Why didn't they just get a pill every day or once a year to save the whole thing? I mean, each person had maybe 60-70 kids...

19:39Hashem made a miracle in Egypt with every birth of six kids. Now, in the average family, you're going to get pregnant maybe ten times. There was no birth control in those days. They weren't trying to save money, thinking, "Listen, we're going to get two dogs and a cat and maybe one kid." In those days, you just had kids. So every family had 60 kids. By the time you finished giving them breakfast, the tractor trailer had to leave to get lunch. Just for breakfast, you needed a tractor trailer. Hashem says, let me give them manna every day. Why don't you just make it easy for everybody? This guy wants eggs. The other one wants steak. The other one wants beans. The other one wants candies. Instead of this whole balagan, just give them one pill, and they're not hungry for the rest of the year. Hashem says, that's my connection to my sons. That's my connection to my daughters. If I gave them food once a year, if I gave them parnassah once a year, they're only gonna pray to me once a year. They're only gonna talk to me once a year. But if I put them in a situation where they don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow, I gave them food today, but I didn't send them a love note saying, hey listen, tomorrow same place, same time. They don't know if they're gonna get manna tomorrow.

20:58That means they're going to pray to me. They're going to ask me, Hashem, parnassah tovah, please. Parnassah tovah, please, Hashem. Tomorrow. But the Gemara in Masechet Berachot, Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, the rabbi of Rabbi Akiva, he says, any person that ate today but is even wondering what's going to be tomorrow has no emunah. There's no emunah. Why does he have emunah? He ate today, good. How do I know I'm going to eat tomorrow? He says, that's the problem. If you already had today, you should have realized it's coming from Him. It didn't come from nothing. It didn't just appear at your house. It didn't appear at your office. It came from Him. If, after you ate, after you were satisfied with the food, you liked the taste, it made you full, you survived the day, and you still didn't get to the conclusion of where it came from, you have a lot of problems.

22:03Your problem is not your diet. Your problem is your emunah. You're not realizing where it's coming from. You're thinking it's you. You're thinking you're the one that made the money to buy the food, to pick the steak, to put the sauce on it, and take a bite. You've got everything, but you missed the whole point. An old business friend of mine, we were doing an analysis. We were on the board of some company. And this woman, who was the CEO of the company, was telling us about all the different problems that the company had. And she wants to do this, and she wants to do that. Three hours of speech about different things, different goals, and aspirations that she had. And he summarized the whole thing of what she said in a single sentence. Very brilliant. He says, "You have the right amount of worry, but you're worried about the wrong thing." The amount of worry you have is good. It's just misplaced. If, let's say, there's from zero to a hundred levels of worry, you have a hundred. That's the amount you're supposed to have—a hundred levels of worry. The problem is you're wasting it on something that's completely meaningless. It's supposed to be something else. It's no different from us. We're constantly looking for ways to help G-d. I'm going to open another business so I can help G-d give me more parnassah.

23:32I'm going to donate to the Beit Knesset that already has more than enough seats and locations and sifrei Torah. I'm going to donate another sefer Torah. They already have 15 in the closet. I'm going to donate another one. That's going to help my parnassah. I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. We keep doing things. Because we think that this is going to be a cure. People sometimes say, listen, I'm going to put a string, put a red string on my hand, that's going to help something. Some woman said she had a lot of problems. She went to this fake baba in Brooklyn. And he told her, listen, buy this book. It'll solve all your problems. She comes to my friend, Rav Zitron, in New York. She says, ever since I bought this book, my problems have magnified, become much worse. Much worse. He says, what does the book say? She goes, I have no idea. He goes, why not? She goes, I don't know. It's in a different language. He opens the book. It's a language only people that are Chachmei HaTorah know how to read. He says, you know how to read this? She goes, no. He goes, why did you buy it? She goes, I don't know. He said it's $15,000. It's going to help me. Now Rav Zitron, he says to her, did he tell you anything about Shabbat? She said, no.

24:50Did he tell you anything about modesty? She says, no. Did he tell you anything about kosher? She says, no. He said the only thing I need to do is buy this book. He says, oh, okay. This book is not going to help you; the other things are going to help you, and all of them are free. We keep looking for shortcuts. It's not going to work. Now when it comes to parnassah, when it comes to having beracha... Hashem tells us there are many different things that we need to do. There are many things that can help. One example is, there's a segulah that if you wash your hands, a lot of people like to go through it very quickly, like they're doing God a favor. They take the natlan, but the bread they eat in two seconds.

25:53This is bad for parnassah. Why? You want shefa. You want wealth. You want a lot. You're doing something that's the opposite. You're shortchanging what Hashem gave you. Hashem told you to use water to wash your hands. You're giving drops of water. You barely touch your hand sometimes. You're looking at the guy talking to him. You miss your hand. You put it on your leg. But you say, ah, it's okay. It's enough. As if the whole mitzvah turned into this whole balagan where it became like you're doing Hashem a favor. The reality is, this is one thing, one kabbalistic secret: if you actually want parnasah, something to help parnasah, you actually pour a lot of water. And sometimes you'll see, there are certain people that know this, and you'll see that they pour the whole thing, one. The whole thing again, two. The whole thing again, three. These people are greedy. They want a lot of money. But this is one simple thing. Another thing that's even bigger...

26:56Meaning the point is to be generous with the water and have focus and don’t talk. Have focus, don’t talk, and be generous with the water. The second thing is Birkat HaMazon. People always have enough time to eat a seven-course meal for three hours. Birkat HaMazon, they never have time for. You ever notice that? They have time to eat for three hours, but they don’t have time to bless Hashem. Yeah, give me another one. The dessert. The dessert's friend. Oh, you're not gonna eat that? Oh, give me that too. To eat, we have time. To thank Hashem for the food, we don't have time. Is there a shorter version? How many times have you heard this question? Is there a shorter version of Birkat HaMazon? Is this really HaMotzi or is this Mezonot? How many times do you see a guy eating pizza the size of his head, but asking, "Is this a Mezonot?" It's not Mezonot. The pizza is the size of his head, but he said, "It's only one bracha, one simple bracha." By the way, to actually have a pizza that's mezonot, it doesn't only have to do with what the makeup is. It also has to do with how much you're eating. If you're eating half the pie, it's not mezonot anymore.

28:10If you're eating two slices, it's not mezonot. In reality, anyone that knows the halacha and knows the stringency of the halacha, if you're eating even one slice, you should do birkat hamazon. But anyway, the point is, rabotai, is that birkat hamazon is actually the most important blessing in the entire Torah. It's actually more important than kriyat shema. It's more important than tefillat shemoneh esrei. How do I know? Because it's the only blessing in the entire Torah that actually says it literally in the Torah that you have to do it. You ate, you were satiated, bless Hashem. There's nothing in the Torah that says go do Kriyat Shema. We know you're supposed to do it from the Oral Torah, but there's no literal instruction in the Torah that says do Kriyat Shema twice a day. There's no literal instruction that says go do Amidah three times a day. You're supposed to do it as part of our Oral Torah, but it's actually not as literal as Birkat HaMazon. Meaning that the Gemara in Masechet Berachot says that every single time you enjoy food or really anything in this world without blessing Hashem, you are considered 100% a thief.

29:27A thief. Nope, no more, no less. 100% a thief. And thief from whom? You stole from Him. If you steal from me, it's not nice. It's not nice. You steal from the baal habayit, it's not nice. They'll probably beat you up. But if you steal from somebody else, not nice. But maybe you're going to get away with it. You steal from the government, you're going to get away with it. They steal from themselves, they get away with it. A few years ago, Donald Rumsfeld, the former Secretary of Defense, told the government, "Listen, there's $2.3 trillion that we have no idea where it went." You know what $2.3 trillion is? Two point three. A trillion is a thousand billion. A trillion is a thousand billion, so $2.3 trillion went missing like a cat. Climbed a tree, never came down. Just disappeared. This was in one year. It's not like historical. It's one year. It lost. It went. Poof. Gone. Sometimes the birkat ha-mazon also goes gone. The food went gone. Birkat ha-mazon also went gone. We ate the birkat ha-mazon. So Hashem says, You ate. You ate. Say thank you.

30:50It's minimal, minimal, minimal stuff. You don't do it, you're a thief. Now what does Hashem do with thieves? He's going to give them more parnassah. There's no parnassah. He gives them onesh. He gives them punishment instead of parnassah. Instead of parnassah, they get onesh. Sometimes you'll see people eat for three hours because Amazon is 47 seconds. They think they swallow all of the words. They barely know what they're saying. They're in the middle of a conversation, they stop, they look, they listen. It takes three, four, five minutes—ten minutes max if you're a slow reader. After a while, you become a fast reader if you read it enough times and... because Amazon talks to everybody, after focusing on the rest of the world, after you ate for three hours with one hundred percent focus, bless three minutes with one hundred percent focus. If you don’t, it kills parnasa. These are two easy ones. Remember I told you we do teshuva first? When you do cheshbon nefesh, do the easy ones. Grab the easy ones. You can’t miss out on the easy ones. You miss out on easy ones like the easy money.

31:58It's the apple that fell off the tree, right? That's the first one you grab. You don't go to the one on top of the tree. What are you, a hero? You're a superman? You go to the one that already fell. Grab that, put it in the basket. These are easy ones. If you have to die in the Amazon, easy. Now we get to the hard one. The hard one, Rabotai, is Shabbat. Now I'm assuming most people, if not everyone here, keep Shabbat. Or at least they think they keep Shabbat. the reality is that most people don't really know the full spectrum of what Shabbat really means. And you don't need to believe me; just go to the Beit Knesset on Shabbat and listen to what people talk about. Forget about how they pray. It says after a person dies, he goes to Shamayim. There's a trial. Just like here, there's a trial, there's a trial in Shamayim. They ask him a few questions. The first question they ask him, first out of all the questions they ask him, is: did you conduct your business with emunah?

33:11First question, of all the questions you can ask, you can ask the guy, is he nice, did he learn Torah, is he big, is he small, is he this? No. Did you conduct your business with emunah? Why do you conduct your business with emunah? What don't they know? Why do they ask him, did you go to the Beit Knesset? Why do they ask him, did you pray every day, lay tefillin every day? I mean, they know the answer to everything anyway, why do they even bother asking them? They're not going to ask you how you were in a Beit Knesset. Because in Beit Knesset, especially during Shacharit, you can't tell the difference. Everyone looks like Moshe Rabbeinu, Avraham Avinu, Yitzchak, Yaakov, David, Shlomo; everyone looks like a Tzadik. They have the Tallit, sometimes they have Tefillin, everyone looks like a Tzadik. He gets an aliyah. Sometimes the guy does the blessing like he just came back from Mount Sinai. He tells the whole world he's doing the blessings. See those people? The guy, first blessing of the week, he's doing an apple. Relax, guy, it's just an apple. Relax. Is every one of your blessings this loud? Everyone needs to know you're eating an apple? Is that how you do it all the time? Or is the whole gas just for me? The whole show is just for me. I don't need the show.

34:27Sometimes the guy is doing such a loud blessing in a beit knesset, he wants everyone to know he's laying tefillin. He wants everyone to know he's putting on a talit. So the Gemara says we're not even going to ask him how he was in a beit knesset. Why? It's all a show anyway. Everyone looks like Moshe Rabbeinu in a beit knesset. We want to ask him how he was in his business. Why? Because business is when the real face shows up. you're a thief in business, you're a thief everywhere else. If you're honest in business, you're honest everywhere else. If you had emunah in your business, you didn't steal. If you had no emunah, everything else was lost. You stole, you cheated, you did this, you violated Shabbat, everything else fails when you have no emunah in business. Why? Think about it this way. A guy that has emunah, that means he knows that the Torah says Hashem decided how much parnassah you're gonna get. On Rosh Hashanah, He says, "David's gonna get X amount of millions this year."

35:34Torah says He decides on Rosh Hashanah. It doesn't matter if he works seven days a week, or he works six days a week, or a day a week, or he doesn't work at all. He's gonna get this parnassah. That's what Torah says. If you believe in the Torah, that's what you have to believe. If you don't believe this, you're a kofer gamur. That's according to Torah. If you think that you're the one making the parnassah and it's not Hashem, you have a serious problem with Hashem. So now Torah says Hashem decided how much parnassah you're gonna get. Hashem decided already. But we want to help Hashem. I'm going to help Him because I'm going to start a new business. I'm going to help Him. I'm going to buy another building. I'm going to help Him. I'm going to get another house. I'm going to expand the house. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. We're going to help Hashem with all these different things. Fine. No problem. You want to do hishtadlut? No problem. There's nothing wrong with hishtadlut. The problem is when the hishtadlut becomes obsessive to such an extent that you forget that it's Hashem giving you the money all along. And you're thinking that you're the one that's doing it with your ideas and your product and your marketing and your hard work and your this and your that, and now we have a problem. Why? Because now you have no emunah. Now what happens when a person has no emunah? He starts cheating. First, he starts cheating the easy fish. Who is it? Usually the government. He starts cheating on taxes.

36:57Little extra right off here, a little extra right off there. That doesn't really matter. Little extra this, little extra that. They're not gonna know they lost 2.3 trillion dollars. They're not gonna find my million. They're too busy looking for theirs. You cheat a little bit here. Okay, but the government is one victim. Now, I say, listen, this vendor that's sending me a hundred thousand dollars a month in goods, I'm his whole business. gonna have to renegotiate now. You're gonna say, "Listen, I know I'm paying you like clockwork every month a hundred thousand. It's not really working for me. I need 90 days from now on. You're going to carry my debt for 90 days, meaning I'm always going to be $300,000 behind. Why? No reason, simply because you can." What's the guy gonna do? What's the guy gonna do? He said, "No, I don't want your business anymore. You need your money." You're not allowed to do such things. You're not allowed to force people, put pressure on them for no reason. Now, it got to a point where actually something happened, and now you actually missed the payment. Ninety days passed, you don't have the money.

38:07Listen, I don't have the money. The guy says, "What am I gonna do? Cut the business down now?" He gives you six months now. It's even worse. They said, "Listen, I owe you six hundred thousand. I don't have six hundred thousand, but listen, if you want six hundred thousand, I'm closing shop. I'm gonna go somewhere else. Or if you want, we could settle for a quarter million. Or if you want, I could just declare bankruptcy and you can get nothing because the American bankruptcy system allows you to just take advantage of people for no reason and declare bankruptcy and do what you want." You're allowed to declare bankruptcy if you have no choice. But if you really have the money, you're not allowed to declare bankruptcy according to the Torah. So now you declare bankruptcy without being allowed to do so. And you stole $300,000 from this guy, misken. So that's just a vendor. Then you have sometimes you have people who don't like to pay their employees on time. Misken, the guy worked five, six days the whole week. He hasn't seen his family. He hasn't seen his kids. Even his dog is sending him emails, "When are you going to come home? I need to eat." And the guy comes for a paycheck. He's like, "Listen, I'll pay you Monday. I'm busy. I can't pay you today. I'll pay you Monday." You delay the payment by a couple of days. You're going to pay him, but you delay it unnecessarily. It's a sin from the Torah. It's like eating pig. It's no different. It's no different than eating pig.

39:36But for every second now, you pig, it's only one sin. Now you delayed the guy for a few days, every single minute that goes by, and he suffered because you didn't pay him on time. It's more sins in your account. It's more pig in your account. Why? You have no emunah in your business. You started cheating on the big ones, small ones, everyone starts getting cheated. And the ladder gets bigger and longer, and the problem grows bigger and bigger. And that's why, Rabotai, the Gemara says we first ask him, he conducted his business with emunah. Because if he conducted his business with emunah, then we know the rest of his life is going in a certain path. If his business has no emunah, we know it's a completely different path. It's a different chart altogether. Now, all of these things are problems between us and people. A guy stole from his friend, his vendor, his supplier, his official, whatever it is, his mortgage company. The problem is that when a person goes against his friend, it's only a matter of time before he goes against God too. It's only a matter of time before he goes against God too. This is why there's a certain list of people that Hashem says, "I hate them."

41:03It's Esav sanei, and then there's also a few others. One of them is someone who is kafui tovah. Someone who is an ungrateful person. You give him, you do him a favor, and he not only doesn't say thank you, he returns bad to you. Someone who is kafui tovah. Hashem says, "I hate such people." Now, when a person is against his friend, it's only a matter of time before he's against Hashem. Hashem gave him the parnassah, and now the guy says, "Listen, it wasn't enough; now I have to work, I have to help out Hashem. I'm going to help out Hashem. I can't buy a new business. I can't do this, I can't do that. What can I do? I can work more. When? On Shabbat. Now I'm going to work on Shabbat." Obviously, if I go to the Knesset and I can't work in the office on Shabbat, what happens? People start talking business on Shabbat. So you go to the Knesset. Instead of talking about parashat hashavua, Moshe Rabbeinu, Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, the mitzvot, all the things that we're supposed to do. What do you see? "So, which building are you buying?"

42:08Yeah, I bought that one. I'm gonna do remodeling on Tuesday and the kitchen on Wednesday. And this, and everybody starts talking about their plans for the week. Oh yeah, did you buy Bitcoin? Did you buy Shmitcoin? Did you buy the stock? Did you buy this? Did you buy the diamond? Did you buy? People start talking shop. This is 100% chilul Shabbat. It's 100% violating Shabbat. They say, "Well, I'm not actually working." Liar, you're working. today's world, most business is simply talking. Most people don't actually do manual labor anymore. They don't build houses; they have employees. It's, "Listen, Steve, build a house. Here's $5,000, $10,000, a million—whatever it is—build a house." So the guy that built the house, he worked, but the guy that told him to build the house, he also worked. He wrote a check and he told him—that's work. I You're telling, "Listen, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do this on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. I'm gonna buy the stock. I'm gonna sell the stock. I'm gonna buy the property. I'm gonna sell the property. I'm gonna fire this one. I'm gonna hire that one." What is that? It's 100% what you're gonna do on Monday. Anyway, it's work. This is why most people that think they're keeping Shabbat, in reality, are not keeping Shabbat.

43:30They're going to go up to Shabbat and say, oh, here's Steve, the Mechalel Shabbat. What do I mean? I went to shiur, I was keeping Shabbat for seven years. No, that's seven years you talked about business every Shabbat. Now, this is for people that are already keeping Shabbat. Or at least they think they are. And there's another side of people that are simply not keeping at all, like I didn't for most of my life. And the reason why anyone who doesn't keep Shabbat doesn't keep Shabbat is because we're convinced that it's an elective. Meaning, if you want to keep Shabbat, good for you. If you don't want to, good for you too. Live and let live. Am I telling you to do something? No, don't tell me what to do either. Who are you to tell me what to do? Were you Moshe Rabbeinu? If I want to keep Shabbat, I don't need you to tell me. Sometimes people tell me this: "I want to keep Shabbat, I'll do it myself." Means that this person thinks that it's an option. Now, most people, you tell them, "You think you have free will?" They'll tell you, "Of course, that's how you know." Even if I'm assuming people believe in God. If they don't believe in God, we have a different lecture for them. It's in a zoo, usually with the monkey. The monkey's gonna convince them. You didn't come from me. I already know that the monkey knows there's a God. You didn't come from me. So now the point is...

44:59A person that believes in God, he's a Jew, he's lucky enough to be one. He says, listen, I believe in God, but I believe in my own way. That was my belief most of my life. I believed in God, but in my own way. I didn't work on Shabbat, but instead, I did some other things. That's because I thought that I had free will. Free will means I could do whatever I want. But the Torah says, "Hakol bidei Shamayim chutz mei-yirat Shamayim." Everything is from Shamayim except yirat Shamayim. What does it mean, everything is from Shamayim except yirat Shamayim? Whether you're tall, short, rich, poor, male, female, alive, dead, anything and everything, that's from Shamayim. That's from Hashem. Meaning, even the choice of whether you live or die is not yours; Hashem will decide. There was a guy who thought he could decide for himself, so he decided to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. He jumped from the bridge a few years ago. Apparently, this is a bridge from which many people jump. Only two people have survived in history, and he was one of them.

46:15And he tells the story. It's a short video I saw. He tells a story, young guy, maybe in his 20s. He says, "My life was this, my life was that, suicidal. But the second my feet left the bridge, I regretted jumping. The second I left, all of those problems that caused me to jump became meaningless. I regretted jumping because I realized that all of those problems are temporary." Jumping is permanent. Apparently, that was enough teshuva for Hashem to save him too. And he was one of literally two people that survived in history to tell the story. Meaning that even to live or die is not really our choice. On the other hand, fear of Hashem, that's a choice. What does it mean, fear of Hashem, that's a choice? Whether you're going to listen to what Hashem says or not, that's your choice. Whether you're going to keep Shabbat or not, that's your choice. Whether you're going to eat kosher or not, that's your choice. Whether you're going to be modest or not, that's your choice. Whether you're going to fulfill the Torah, that is your choice. What's going to happen, the outcome, not your choice.

47:30How much money you're going to have, if you're going to get married, if you're going to have kids, how long you're going to live, whether you're going to wear a mitpachat, all of those different things. Everything changes. So now, Hashem says, you don't really have free choice. You have choice. difference. Free choice means I could do whatever I want. There are no consequences. Choice is free. There are no consequences. If I go to work, I get paid. If I don't go to work, nothing happens. That's what we believe we have. Hashem says, "No." We have 13 principles of faith that every Jew is obligated to believe, or else their Judaism is on suspension. One of them is that Hashem rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked. Meaning, if I go to work, I get paid; I get rewarded, I'm a tzaddik. If I don't go to work, I'm a rasha. What's a rasha? He gets punished. Meaning, Hashem sends people to beat him up. Instead of not getting paid, now he gets paid with a punishment. So now, the issue of Shabbat is no longer a choice. Now, what's the best proof?

48:51What's the best proof of this? The first Mechalel Shabbat in history. Anyone know who the first Mechalel Shabbat in history was? In Parashat Shlach, in the Book of Numbers, chapter 15, verse 32. It says, "The children of Israel were in the desert; they were in the wilderness and they found a man gathering wood on Shabbat." When was this? When was this? This was one week after we got the Torah. We were at Mount Sinai, the climax of creation, and we received the Torah. A week later, this happened.

50:01Meaning that at this point, I mean, Torah is big, Baruch Hashem, 304,805 letters. Big Torah, five books from Moshe is big. A lot of mitzvot. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of mitzvot, halachot, different details. You would say that even if someone's a genius, a week is not enough time to read the whole thing. Even halachot Shabbat, I mean, it's books and books of halachot Shabbat, you know, how to keep Shabbat. Most people don't even know how to eat pistachios on Shabbat. I'm not joking. I'm not trying to be... Most people don't know how to eat pistachios. I had a guy. I was talking about Shabbat in one of the lectures. He's like, "I have nothing to worry about." I said, "Why?" He says, "I keep Shabbat already seven years." I said, "How often do you learn Torah?" He said, "Once, twice a week." I said, "You definitely don't keep Shabbat." He said, "No, no, no. I just said I keep Shabbat seven years." I said, "You definitely do not keep Shabbat." Was what you're my house. I said no to your profit. He says no. I said, but one thing I know for sure: you definitely don't keep Shabbat. How do you know? Someone who doesn't learn Torah cannot keep Shabbat. It's not possible. Why? You don't know how. You don't know how someone who doesn't know how to invest in the stock market can't make money in the market.

51:21Why? They don't know how to press the buttons. They don't know what to buy. They don't know what selling is. They don't know anything. Someone doesn't know business because there's no way for them to make money. They don't know what to do. They go into a store; they think it's theirs. Really, they don't know it. They're a customer. Meaning you need to know the instructions, what to do. If you're not learning Torah, there's no way you know how to keep Shabbat. He goes, no, no, I know. What do you do? You have kiddush, you have this. I said, how about this? I'll prove it to you. I said, you eat pistachios? He says, yes. I said, Baruch Hashem, you're a perfect example. How do you eat pistachios on Shabbat? There's a certain way to eat pistachios on Shabbat. I said, yes. How do you eat pistachios on Shabbat? He goes, what do you mean? I said, show me, give me an example. How do you eat pistachios? He says, okay, I take the peel, I open the peel, I eat the pistachio, I throw it in the garbage. Or I throw it in the bowl. He goes, usually, actually, I have a bowl. I take the pistachios out of the bowl, I eat the pistachio, and then I throw the peel on the other side. He said, what's wrong with my pistachios? It says, it's called borer. You're not allowed to separate the good from the bad. If you took the pistachio and you ate the whole thing, it's one thing. But no one eats the peel. But now you took the bad, the peel, and you put it in a different side. You separated it and you ate the good. You've separated the two. You're not allowed to do such a thing. So, how do you eat pistachios? You have to have good pistachios on both sides, in both bowls.

52:47both bowls have to have good pistachios. Obviously, you don't want to throw out a lot of pistachios. You can even have one or two good pistachios in the waste bowl where you put the peel. So now you're not really separating good from bad because both are considered good. I said, does that prove my point that you're not keeping Shabbat for seven years? If you don't know how to eat pistachios on Shabbat, how do you think you're doing the rest of the halachot? Why? Because you go to the Beit Knesset? A donkey could also go to the Beit Knesset. It doesn't mean you keep Shabbat. You can train a monkey to go to the Beit Knesset to keep Shabbat. What does that mean, go to the Beit Knesset? There are a lot of halachot of Shabbat. If you don't know how to keep Shabbat, you have a problem. It's the foundation of Judaism. Now, the Mekoshesh Eitzim wanted to prove a point. He says, "A week ago we got the Torah and..." The Gemara in Masechet Shabbat says the Mekoshesh Eitzim, who is he? His name is Tzelofchad. His name is Tzelofchad. He says, "I want to prove a point. I want to show Am Yisrael forever that Hashem is not kidding. He gave us the Torah a week ago. We don't even have enough time to read the whole thing. I'm gonna violate Shabbat. Let's see what he does." So Am Yisrael saw the Mekoshesh Eitzim. They saw Tzelofchad gathering wood.

54:09So some say, what was the melacha? What did he do? What was the actual violation? Some say that he did borer, separating the good from the bad. Others say, no, he carried from reshut harabim to reshut hayachid. You're not allowed to carry on Shabbat unless there's an eruv. There's a machloket, a debate, about what was the actual sin itself. Nonetheless, the punishment remains the same. They saw this man, and they arrested him. They brought him to Moshe Rabbeinu. "We found this person gathering wood." They brought him to Moshe and Aharon, and they placed him in custody. They put him in jail. Why did they put him in jail? According to the Torah, someone says they should kill him. So why did they put him in jail? It says because it had not been clarified what we should do with him. So Moshe Rabbeinu comes to Hashem and he says, "Hashem, what should I do?" Hashem says to Moshe, in the next verse, "The man shall be put to death. The entire assembly, millions of people, should pelt him with stones outside of the camp." Meaning this is the worst type of death penalty there is.

55:30Not to give you too many details, but just to give you an understanding. First, there's stoning. There are four different types of death penalties. For stoning, they throw him off a two-story building. After that, a boulder is thrown after him to crush him. And just in case he's still alive, a bunch of people throw stones at him until he dies. Vicious is an understatement to say. This is what this guy did, and this is what he got for it. Hashem says, make sure you kill him with the worst possible death penalty, in front of everyone, in front of millions and millions of people. Now, I asked the question to my Rav: I said, listen, they just got the Torah a week before. Do you think they even had enough time to read the whole thing? If there was ever a time for there to be leeway... He didn't have enough time to read this one halacha. He didn't have enough time to know. Something, you know, if there was ever a time where Hashem said, ah, don't worry about it. Let this guy pass. Let this guy pass. This would be it. My Rav says, exactly. If Hashem didn't let it go after we only had a week to learn Torah, what makes you think He's going to let it go after we've had 3,300 years?

56:54If He didn't let it go a week later, what makes you think He's gonna let it go 3,300 years later when you're talking about your real estate on Shabbat? When you're talking about your stock market on Shabbat? When you don't even know how to keep the laws of Shabbat. What makes you think He's gonna let it go? Violating Shabbat, Rabotai, the Gemara says... Someone that violates Shabbat, it's like as if he's running in the middle of the street screaming to Hashem, "Hey, I don't believe You created the world in six days and rested on the seventh!" It's going to war with Hashem. Does anyone still think it's an option? Does anyone still think, "Ah, it's not such a big deal?"

57:56used to, and then I realized it's a big deal. And I realized it's a very big deal, and you have to start learning a lot about the good news about Shabbat. It's the biggest segula of all. Hashem says that's the biggest segula for everything—it's the biggest segula for teshuva. It's the biggest segula for parnasa tova. It's the biggest segula for everything. Why? Because that's the foundation of the connection between Me and you. And If there's something wrong in your life, there's usually something wrong with your Shabbat too. If there's something wrong in your life, there's usually something wrong with your Shabbat. You sleep too much. You eat too much. You do a lot of the oneg part, but none of the Shabbat part. We eat like we've never eaten before, but we forget that we're supposed to learn Torah on Shabbat too. Oh no, but I heard this shiur from the Rabbi for 15 minutes. That's not learning. A Rabbi would not sleep on Shabbat. At all. They asked him, "Rabbi, how come you don't sleep on Shabbat?" He looked at him and said, "You think I'm going to miss out on an opportunity to learn Torah on the most important day to learn Torah of the entire year?" He goes, "Yeah, but you always have next week." He goes, "Who tells you that? Who tells you you have next week?"

59:23What makes you think you're going to survive next week? I have a cousin. I didn't know him. He was 23 or 26 years old. A year ago, on the second day of Rosh Hashanah, he fell off a scooter. He hurt his head. He went to the hospital. They said everything was fine. He believed them. He went home, went to sleep, and never woke up. Do you think that he thought that he was going to finish his journey on earth at 26? Do you think his family, that has more money than they can count, thought that he's going to finish his journey at 26? With the amount of money they had, they thought they could cure cancer. But they couldn't even save him. Why? God decides who lives or dies. Most of us have issues in our lives. Most of us are looking for shortcuts. We think that if we put on a red string, that's going to fix something. We think that if we give the homeless guy five bucks, it's going to do something. Yes, these are all good things. The string is fake, by the way. But other things are good. There are good things. There are real things that you can do.

1:00:41But the reality is, every single prophet we've ever had, from the beginning of time until the end of prophecy, said the same exact thing. All of the nisyonot, all of the tests you have in your life, all of the problems you have in your life, everything is Hashem talking to you and saying, my son, my daughter, it's time for you to do teshuva. What do you mean? You donated a million dollars to the Beit Knesset? Good, it's time to do teshuva. What do you mean, teshuva? I pray five times a day like the Arabs. Good, now it's time to do teshuva. Teshuva is not just doing one or two or three mitzvot that you like. Teshuva is a lifestyle. Teshuva is a lifestyle. Just like Hashem thinks about you 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with no break, you're supposed to think about Him too. If you only think about Him when you're in a Beit Knesset, if you only think about Him once in a while, that already shows you there's a missing link here.

1:01:54If you started keeping mitzvot, but the character traits stayed the same, you're still an angry little gremlin. You're still cheap and think that you have to make sure that you survive on one sandwich the whole week. You're scared to go to the bathroom because then you have to buy another sandwich. Some people are so cheap they don't want to eat. Some people are, you know, it's a disease. Some people have such bad character traits, they actually think that they're helping God. Their arrogance is so big, they think that they're God's little helper. If your middot, if your character traits haven't changed, you haven't begun to do teshuva. Now, middot is very difficult. Fixing our character traits is very difficult. That's teshuva. That's what Am Yisrael has been commanded to do from day one. Hashem says, "The Torah I gave you, mitzvot I can get the monkeys to do. The monkeys can do the mitzvot. So what's the point of the mitzvot? To fix you. To fix you. To make you a ben adam. To make you a better human being."

1:03:11Sometimes you see people with the uniform—they have the hat, they have the beard, they have everything, the whole thing. But you see the guy is acting worse than the worst of the worst. Why? Because it's just a costume. Now, of course, the exterior is supposed to match the interior. But the reality, Rabotai, is that Teshuvah is not just going to the Knesset. Teshuvah is not just giving some money. Teshuvah is not just saying brachot here and there. Teshuvah is making it your life. What does it mean to make it your life? Is anybody here jealous of the Arabs? If you're jealous of the Arabs, don't be ashamed. Raise your hand. I am. Why am I jealous of the Arabs? In the book of Daniel, Hashem tells Nebuchadnezzar in a dream that Daniel gives him the insight of what it means, that at the end of days before Mashiach comes, the Arabs are going to run the world. The Arabs are going to actually take over Eretz Yisrael for nine months. Shema Yirachem.

1:04:27Look how many problems they're causing without it. Imagine under their control. And they are going to be punished worse than anyone else, even worse than the Christians who have been torturing us for 2,000 years. This peace we have with Christians right now is relatively new. Before this, they've been killing us for 2,000 years. Now they're just pretending to be us. they call it Messianic Judaism. It's Christians, but they really call themselves Jews. Or Jews for Jesus. Christians, just with a costume. First time in history, by the way, Rabotai, that the Christians are pretending to be Jews. For 2,000 years, they were focused on killing Jews. Now they're pretending to be them. Why? It's a better recruiting tool. It's more politically correct. But the reality is, that the Prophet says the Arab will get punished worse. Why is the Arab going to be punished worse? Because he used the name of God to punish God's children. He said "Allahu Akbar" to go kill a Jew. He actually made it as if it's a mitzvah to go kill Jews. He says he deserves a worse punishment than all. So why, in my right mind, would I ever tell anyone that I'm jealous of the Arabs? I'm not jealous of them per se; I'm jealous of their passion.

1:05:52Now, an average Jew that keeps some Torah and mitzvot, he goes on a flight, some trip that he has to, he has to go to the airport really early, so he doesn't have time to go to Beit Knesset. So what does he do? He prays at the airport. I'm sure everybody that's been at the airport has seen early in the morning, saw Jews praying at the airport. Where do they pray? In the corner where no one sees. Always in the corner next to the wall. Make sure you're not disturbing anyone. No one's looking at you. You're not looking at anyone else. You look in the corner. The Arab, where does the Arab pray? Five times a day in the middle of Broadway in moving traffic. You go to New York, you can see this on the internet if you want. Every single day, they stop traffic. Thousands of them in the middle of Broadway in New York, they stop traffic. They pray on their prayer rugs in the middle of the street. don't pray five times a day in the middle of the street. They don't care about the cars. They don't care about the traffic. They don't care about anything. They don't care about what you think and

1:07:01Jewish people on television, if you want to go out there, one of his non-Jewish friends tells me, "You want to go out to eat?" "Yeah, sure. I want to go out to eat." "Okay. We're going to go to this Italian restaurant." And the Jew thinks, "Oh, you know, it's not kosher." But he doesn't really feel like he's going to tell them it's not kosher. Instead, he might say, "You know, I have an appointment. I forgot. I got an appointment." The Italian doesn't understand kosher steakhouse. I'll tell him, "It's kosher food. I'll tell you what's kosher food. Ah, it's a certain type of food. It's kosher. It's for Jews." The non-Jew might say, "Okay, we bless it. I'll bless it for you. I'll bless the food for you." That's what my non-Jewish friend used to tell me. "Why? You want to eat? I'll bless the food for you. No, Baruch Atah, something. It's good. No, eat. Cheeseburger." They don't know the difference. So the Jew, he's not going to tell his Italian colleague, "I have to go to a kosher restaurant." What is he going to do? He's going to come up with an excuse. "Oh, you know what? I have an appointment. I forgot. I got an appointment. I got to call my wife." "Are you not married?" "Yeah, the wife I don't have. I have to call her. I need to get a wife. That's why I have to call somebody."

1:08:02He's coming up with excuses, and he's stuttering. He doesn't know what to do. What does the Arab do? The Arab puts halal on all of his shops as he sells food. The Arab tells you, "No, come, come, Jew, Christian, whatever, come, come, eat." Why? The Arab's proud. The Arab is so proud. doing what they call dawah, which they love to do. But in Judaism, it's called kiruv, getting people to do teshuvah. In their world, it's called dawah. It's actually become the most critical part of their religion, to such an extent that even the guy that sells food at the kiosks is He gives people CDs and stickers and books and so on to his customers. Why? To make them Muslim. Us, we're embarrassed to be Jews. That's why I'm jealous. I'm jealous because the ones that have falsehood are so proud of their falsehood, you would think it's real. And us that have the truth,

1:09:22We're so embarrassed and ashamed we pray in the corner just to make sure we don't disturb anyone. That's what I'm jealous of. Teshuva means you're so connected and glued to Hashem, you bleed Torah. You bleed Judaism. When someone says you want to eat, you tell them, yes, there's a kosher restaurant we can go to. When you go to the airport and you're gonna pray, pray in front of everyone. If anyone looks at you, finally say, oh, don't worry. This is what the Mashiach is gonna look like. It's just a preview. When you see someone that's violating Shabbat, say something. Why? You're saving the neshama. You're saving the neshama. Rabbi Yonatan HaIvshi, זצ"ל, says the biggest sinat chinam, he's ever seen still exists in his day and even more so today. Now, all of us— we all talk about

1:10:29how the destruction of the Beit Hamikdash was due to sinat chinam, baseless hatred, pretty much hating each other for no reason. I hate him because he's Moroccan. He hates me because I'm from Tripoli. We hate the other guy because he's from Yemen. Everyone hates the Ashkenazi because he's from Ashkenaz and this and that. We hate each other for no reason. The guy didn't do anything, but we hate him. But he's a Jew. Yeah, yeah, we hate him. That's why. But you're a Jew too. Exactly. If you don't hate, you're not a Jew. we all talk about. We hate for no reason. Sinat chinam. 2,000 years we've been thinking that's the real hate. Rabbi Yonatan Eybeschutz says, wrong. That's not the real hate. That's not the real. The Moroccan and Ashkenazi and all this stuff, it exists. But that's not what sinat chinam is. Sinat chinam, baseless hatred, is when one Jew sees another sinning and doesn't say anything. We hate for no reason. Sinat chinam. For 2,000 years we've been thinking that's the real hate. Rabbi Yonatan Eybeschutz says, wrong. That's not the real hate. The Moroccan and Ashkenazi and all this stuff, it exists. But that's not what sinat chinam is. Sinat chinam, baseless hatred, is when one Jew sees another sinning and doesn't say anything.

1:11:29If you see another Jew driving on Shabbat, you see another Jew smoking on Shabbat, you see another Jew doesn't keep Taharat HaMishpacha (family purity), Tefillin, any mitzvah, and you don't say anything, you hate him. You hate her. Why? Because you understand the consequence. Hashem said to Moshe Rabbeinu, "Moshe, we just got the Torah last week. This guy violated Shabbat. Kill him in front of everyone. I wasn't kidding when I said Mot Yumat. There's no leeway. There's no leniency. Not a week later, not 3,000 years later." Drive on Shabbat, mot yumat. What does mot yumat mean? No this world, no next world. Now there are plenty of people driving Ferraris on Shabbat. What do we say about them? At the end of Parashat Va'etchanan, Hashem Yitbarach says, "I pay my haters cash to their face to destroy them."

1:12:37Sometimes a person can make so many sins to the point where Hashem says he only has one punishment left in this world. The rest of it, I'm reserving for the next world. What's the one punishment in this world? He's not going to be able to do teshuva. No teshuva for him. The Rambam says that's the worst punishment a person can get in this world. Hashem decides no teshuva. He's not even going to think about teshuva. Why? I'm going to give him so much stuff. He's going to be too busy with it. Too busy with the wife, with the kids, with the millions, with the billions, with the news, with the papers, with this, with that. He's so busy running his stuff. He has no time to think about what's the purpose of life. Why did I come to this world? Why did I come to this world and someone, whoever put me in this world, made me a Jew? I mean, there are 8 billion people in the world. What are the chances of being a Jew? Did you ever think about that? Did you ever think how special you are?

1:13:43There are 8 billion people in the world. Now, in reality, there's really not 8 billion people in the world. It's like 7.92 or 7.93 billion, meaning that they round off 70 or 80 million. The 20 million Jews we have in the world that we know about are not even a rounding error. And you happen to be one of them. To make matters even more intricate, out of the 20 million Jews, only about 3 million keep Shabbat. 3 million out of 8 billion, that's not really 8 billion, actually keep Shabbat. 3 million fulfill the Torah, at least to some extent, where Hashem doesn't punish them like Tzelafchad. 3 million have Olam Haba, b'ezrat Hashem, if everything else goes well. Until the rest do teshuva, b'ezrat Hashem. You happen to be one of them. Do you know what the chances of that are?

1:14:47Go home, do the math. Actually go through the process and realize how special you are. The chances of you being a Jew are already a statistical anomaly. For you to be a Jew that actually keeps Shabbat, you can't even calculate it. If you're not proud of that, what else is there to live for? What are you going to be proud of? The next building you build? Who cares? Someone will destroy it one day. The next company you build, who cares? Someone will buy it and bankrupt it one day anyway. That's what happens to all businesses. You succeed, you succeed, you succeed. Assuming you succeed, some bigger company buys it and destroys whatever you built and starts something new. They just take the patents or whatever they actually like out of it. Your baby is meaningless to them. So what are you going to be proud of? Your kids, they're gonna move away one day and have their own lives and have their own thing. What else is there to be proud of in this world if it's not to be a Jew, not to be you, not to be a servant of Hashem? If you're not the guy that's screaming, "Mashiach, Mashiach, Mashiach," and to everybody in the airport, telling them, "Yes, this is what Mashiach is gonna look like with the tefillin on."

1:16:10If you're not the first guy at the shiur Torah, if you're not the first guy at the kollel, if you're not the first guy jumping and running after a mitzvah, that means you don't know what it means to be a Jew. If you're still having a doubt before you tell your friends to go to a kosher restaurant, before you tell your friends that you're not willing to date such and such because she doesn't wear tzniut (modest) clothes, If you're not the first guy to run after the next halacha, the next mitzvah, the next thing to do for the will of Hashem, that means you don't know what it means to be a Jew. It's time to find out. Start with a calculator. Look at the chances. Mamash, look at the actual chances. What are the chances of you being one of them? Once you know how rare it is, automatically you realize how special it is. The only reason anything is valuable in this world is because it's supposed to be rare, even though they fooled the system. For example, diamonds. Diamonds, for a long time, people thought were rare, and they were rare for a long time, but it was artificially rare because De Beers took control of the market. They only gave a certain part to the market and limited the supply. Everyone that's in the jewelry business knows this, but no one cares.

1:17:33No one cares. People still think. There's a perception. Same thing with stocks. People think that if you don't buy Microsoft today, it's going to go bad. Like milk. No. You can buy it tomorrow. You can buy it the next day. Nothing's going to happen. It may be more expensive. It may be cheaper. But the guy that's selling you Microsoft or Google or Facebook or whatever stock he's trying to sell you, he's trying to put urgency into you. How do I know? I did it for 16 years. You have to buy today. Why? Because today I make commissions. Tomorrow, who knows what's going to happen tomorrow? Tomorrow I may go on vacation already. I need to make money today, which means you need to send it today. It's urgency. Today, today. Today you need to buy the tractor. Today you need to buy the building. Today you need to buy the engagement ring, even without the girl. Be ready. Find a girl in the middle of the street. Dude, marry. Here's the ring. Finished. Be ready. Today you have to buy it.

1:18:34How come we're not like that with our mitzvot? Avraham Avinu, Avraham Avinu, Avraham Avinu was given a mitzvah by Hashem. Hashem says, go take your son and make him a korban. What does it say? Avraham woke up early in the morning and took his son Yitzchak to become a korban. Now, Hashem Yitbarach never told Avraham, go do it tomorrow. He said, "Go do it." Meaning that Avraham could have technically used his logic like we do. He said, "Listen, Hashem never said when." What He did say is that all my descendants are going to come from Yitzchak. So, obviously, it's needless to say that the children have to come from Yitzchak. So that means that, at the very least, I have to marry him to somebody. He has to have a few kids. Because it can't be just one. What if the kid dies? What if the kid can't have kids? So, he has to have a few kids. and a few kids have to get married. Once I know they've all been married and had kids, Yitzchak is 137 years old, then I can make him a korban. Logically, he's right. Meaning he could have enjoyed Yitzchak for at least another 100 years. What did Avraham Avinu do? The next morning, first thing in the morning, he woke up at 3:30 in the morning to fulfill a mitzvah. Why? Because Hashem said so.

1:20:01Yeah, but he didn't say, "Precise doesn't make a difference." He said, "I'm doing it now, as soon as possible." Why? I don't know if we're gonna live to see tomorrow. Urgency, today, now. Right now, I have an opportunity to do a mitzvah. Who said I'm gonna be here tomorrow to do the same mitzvah? Who says I'm gonna be here tomorrow to do the same mitzvah? People tell me all the time, "Oh, listen, Rabbi, I love what you do. We do kiruv, b'siyata d'shmaya, this, oh, great. Listen, I got this deal going on. As soon as I finish the deal, I'm definitely going to contribute." I said, "Don't worry. You don't have to contribute at all. Once you finish the deal, you can just give whatever you have now." "No, no, it's going to be a lot more once I finish the deal." I said, "I don't want a lot more. Whatever you have now is good, too." And they never understand it. But the reality is, it's a joke for me. Why? Because I know they're not going to give now, and they're not going to give later either. Why? That's just the way it is. The yetzer hara is playing them now to make them think that once they have more, then they'll give more. Once they have more, they say, "No, listen, I have more now, but that means I can make more. If I can make more, then I can give more later." And they keep delaying, delaying, delaying, delaying, and it never happens.

1:21:22Now the Gemara says in many places, and most Jews know this, tzedakah tatzil mimavet. Tzedakah—Shlomo HaMelech said it originally—tzedakah will save you from death. Now, there was a person who used to donate to Rabbi Ovadiah, alav hashalom, every year he would donate a BMW. Now, Rabbi Ovadiah wasn't exactly a big driver. But he donated the car, and he would give it to his family. BMWs in Israel are very expensive. So, everyone thought this guy was very generous. Wow, he's donating, I don't know, like a million shekels. Cars over there, Hashem, it's like five, six times the price of a car here. You have to be a millionaire just to ride a little toot-toot. But anyway, he donated a BMW every year. You know what happened to the guy one day? One day he was on a chopper with some other members of his family, and the chopper crashed, and everyone died. So everyone asked, didn't they say that charity will save you from death? This guy died in the worst possible death. What's the answer? What he was giving was not considered tzedakah.

1:22:47Giving Rabbi Ovadia a BMW once he's already Rabbi Ovadia, it's not tzedakah, it's a present. There's no verse in the Torah that says that presents save you from death. Giving Rabbi Ovadia five bucks, a hundred bucks, a thousand bucks, whatever it is, before he becomes Rabbi Ovadia, when he's a simple avrech in a kollel no one ever heard of, helping him, that's tzedakah. It's not as much fame. It's not as much for, it's not as good, not as popular. No one's gonna know I'm gonna donate if it doesn't say my name on it. So there's a Midrash that says that Nakdimon ben Gurion gave a lot of tzedakah, but one day Rabban Yochanan saw his daughter looking through the waste of the donkeys for food. He said, "How could it be? Your father was so rich and..." She says, yes, he used to be rich. He goes, "But he gave a lot of tzedakah. It doesn't say that tzedakah will save it." The daughter says he gave a lot of tzedakah, but according to his level, it wasn't enough. So the Maharsha gives a chidush. He says it wasn't that it wasn't enough in terms of quantity. He gave the 10% or the 20% you're supposed to give.

1:24:13That wasn't the problem. The quantity of money was a big tzaddik as far as his deeds and everything else. Everywhere else, it was very good. He's one of the only people in history where Hashem stopped the sun for him in the middle of the sky, not just an average Joe. So obviously, he knew that he had to give ma'aser or even 20% and so on and so forth. So what's the problem? He says that Nakdimon Ben-Gurion failed in one aspect, the Maharsha says. He says the tzedakah he gave was for the wrong reasons. He gave it for his own honor and not for the sake of Torah. Once you give it for honor, it's not only not a mitzvah, it's actually a sin. And from sins, Hashem doesn't protect you from death. He doesn't protect you from poverty. So these few things, Rabotai, are three or four ingredients. Four ingredients that can help each and every one of us when it comes to working, when it comes to parnasa, when it comes to everything. Because the reality is that everyone is working. Not everyone is an avrech, not everyone is at Kollel 24 hours a day, and not everyone is supposed to be either. Some people are workers, some people are learners. Everyone is obligated to learn. There's no such thing as a Jew that's righteous without learning Torah.

1:25:35because you don't know how to be righteous without learning. But some people are learning full-time, and some people are learning part-time. That's not a problem. In fact, according to the Rambam, you should work and learn at the same time. Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai says no. Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai says that if you have the talent, you should learn 24 hours a day and never waste even a single moment working. But, There is another opinion that says, no, that's not for everyone either way, rabotai. It's well known that some people are like Rav Kanievsky and Rav Ovadia who are meant to learn. Even though they could achieve anything in the world, some of the greatest minds of our past generation said that Rav Ovadia, if he would have gone into medicine, would have found a cure for cancer. If he would have been in astronomy, he would have found a new planet. His mind was at such a high level of genius that anything he would have applied himself to, he would have been as great as he was in Torah. But that still means that everyone has their certain things. You're going to work, you're going to learn, and so on. But if you're already going to do it, do it right is my point. If you're going to work, have emunah in your work.

1:26:59Don't steal. Don't be dishonest. Don't be a walking Chillul Hashem. And the reason why is because eventually, the Mishnah in Avot says anyone that desecrates the name of Hashem in privacy, eventually their punishment, Hashem exposes them publicly. You steal from the government, from your employees, from your vendors, from people that are naive, from people that are vulnerable, and you're desecrating the name of Hashem? The name of Hashem, Hashem eventually exposes you in front of everyone. Madoff was not a happenstance. It was bound to happen. And there are many other little Madoffs out there too. Eventually, when you see the big craziness, one guy goes from the top to the bottom, it's because something went wrong. Maybe not business-wise, but with Hashem something went wrong. He did something wrong to Hashem. Hashem says, oh, you desecrated My name privately, I'll desecrate your name publicly. People that go from the top to the bottom, it's not for nothing. There's a reason for it. So if you're already gonna work, protect your work. Have a kosher business. It's not that hard to not steal. It's not that hard. I'm telling you, it's not that hard. And the reason why is because once you see that doing honest business will make you a lot more money anyway in the long run. And the reason why is because you'll survive.

1:28:29You can make ten million dollars a week, but if you end up in jail anyway, it's worth nothing. So the reality is if you do honest business, it eventually pays off. You could actually have a real life. So if you're already gonna work, have an honest business. The second thing is to have emunah in your business. Having emunah in your business is... First and foremost means you have to remind yourself all the time, every day, literally like tattoo it into your brain: Shiviti Hashem lenegdi tamid. Everything you have to always think, what does Hashem think? He's right next to me. He's right next to me right now, right now. He's sitting next to you, next to you, next to you. He's next to everyone. He's next to you all the time. Before you do that deal, before you do this, before you look, what is Hashem thinking? What does it try to think of this deal? Is it honest? Is it good? What are the financial pros and cons? What about the spiritual pros and cons? Is this deal promoting things that are against Hashem? The easiest thing for somebody, for example, in jewelry, people don't think like this. Somebody told me that they lost some jewelry recently.

1:29:48I told them, "Listen, I'm not here to say 'I told you so,' but did it happen to be those two crosses you told me you bought?" He says, "Yeah, how'd you know?" I said, "Oh, okay, good, now I know. Oh Hashem, Hashem El-Melech Ne'eman. When you say 'amen,' say 'amen.' Amen stands for its roshei teivot: El-Melech Ne'eman." El Melech Ne'eman. Meaning what He says, He does. He doesn't want you to promote idol worship. You're selling crosses because you want to make money from the goyim. Even though you could have leniency upon leniency upon leniency, why would you do it? There's plenty of other things you can sell. You don't have to sell crosses. The guy went to a show. He bought a bunch of different things. Two of the things that he bought out of a hundred things were crosses. I thought, nah, he shouldn't have bought this. Because why? I'm not wearing it. I'm not worshipping it. I said, hey, you're a Jew with a kippah on. You're selling crosses. It doesn't look good. It could qualify as a chillul Hashem. Ah, no, you're machmir. You're this, you're that. I'm always machmir. I'm always more. I'm always... I said, okay, no problem. Mamash, two, three weeks later, he tells me,

1:31:03I lost the pieces. I don't know where they went. The ground swallowed them. Baruch Hashem. Hashem is stopping you from sinning. He likes the rest of your teshuvah. He's stopping you from sinning. Kosher business means not just don't cheat the government and the employees and everything else, but also don't cheat yourself. Don't cheat yourself. Always ask, is what I'm doing kosher? Part is also a shame. He gave you a hundred percent, whatever the hundred percent means to you. It can mean ten thousand, a hundred thousand, a million, a hundred million, whatever it is. Remember, the only reason He gave you a hundred percent is for you to give at least ten percent. For what? For Torah. For Torah, b'ezrat Hashem. And not just any Torah. The most important Torah is two parts. Either one, people that are learning full-time, or two, people that are actually doing teshuva, people that are helping people do teshuva. Kiruv organizations and kollelim. That's what makes the world go round. You want to go buy another Sefer Torah like I did? I spent sixty, seventy thousand dollars when I had a lot of money on a Sefer Torah.

1:32:20Very nice mitzvah. Maybe they use it once or twice a week. I get once, twice, three mitzvot a week. Great. I could have used the same amount of money to finance at least ten avreichim for a year or two. A lot more mitzvot. Think about the return on your investment. Don't just buy things that are fancy. Buy things that have return. Same thing like your business, do with your mitzvot. Hashem gave you 100% in order for you to give 10%. That's having emunah. There was a guy that had a business, a textile business, and he competed with another guy. He said, "What's your secret?" He says, "My secret is that I give ma'aser." He asked, "What's ma'aser?" "I give 10%, whatever it is." "Okay, good, very good. So I'm going to give it too, all right." So he started. Five years later... The guy is in worse shape than he started. He goes back to the original guy. He says, "I don't understand. I gave this ma'aser of yours. Everything went bad." The original guy asks, "Well, what did you do exactly?" He replies, "When I first started, I was making $5 million a year, so I figured I would give $500,000." The original guy says, "Good." He continues, "Because the second year started, as soon as I did this big mitzvah, I don't know, something happened. Teshuvah became difficult. And all of a sudden, my business was cut in half."

1:33:43Now I said, "I can't give five hundred thousand anymore, and two hundred fifty thousand is already a stretch as my business is rough. So maybe this year, I'm only going to give fifty. So I gave fifty—that was my ma'aser. And you know what happened? The next year, the business went down to five hundred thousand. I said, 'Five hundred thousand? I can barely survive, so I only gave five thousand.' And then it was one thousand, then two thousand, and I haven't given in a year or so. Did I do it wrong? It's not supposed to be; you're not supposed to project." As soon as you get, you're supposed to give. Don't wait till the end of the year. Don't wait till the end of the quarter. Do it as soon as possible. Why? There's too much yetzer hara when it comes to it. Especially if what you're giving is for a good cause. So eliminate all the hurdles in front of you. These are the few simple things when it comes to your business. When it comes to your life, if you're having issues, when you're having marriage issues, financial issues, or other issues, remember, Hashem told every one of the prophets the same thing. All of the messages are the same for all of Am Yisrael. It's for you to do teshuva. Teshuva means you have to learn Torah every day.

1:34:54Every day, morning and night, maybe you can't do five hours or ten hours a day. You should be able to do an hour in the morning and an hour at night if you're already considered religious. If you're just starting out, if you haven't even started to keep Shabbat yet, then start with something you can handle. When I first started, I was on a kindergarten level. I started with 15 minutes a day. I committed to 15 minutes of learning Torah every day that I knew for sure I could do. Sometimes I did more than 15 minutes, but I knew 15 minutes out of 24 hours I could definitely do. Whether busy or not busy, with health issues or without health issues, 15 minutes I could do for sure. If you're not learning Torah every single day, you have no business talking about Olam Haba. Why? You're not going to be there. I'm not joking. There's nothing. Don't talk about Mashiach. He's not going to talk to you. If you're not learning Torah every single day, you have no business talking about Olam Haba. You're not going to be there. I'm not joking. There's nothing. Don't talk about Mashiach. He's not going to talk to you. Every day. If you're a little higher at first grade, 20 minutes, 25 minutes, a half hour, an hour, whatever. But every day. Why? You eat every day physically, you have to eat every day spiritually. Now sometimes you have issues where there's a married couple and one of them doesn't want to do teshuva.

1:36:02every day. If you're a little higher at first grade, 20 minutes, 25 minutes, a half hour, an hour, whatever. But every day. Why? You eat every day physically, you have to eat every day spiritually. Now sometimes you have issues where there's a married couple and one of them doesn't want to do teshuva. The husband starting is Moshe Rabbeinu, but the wife still wants to be Haman's wife. She doesn't want to do teshuva. Or the opposite, the wife is Chana or she's Sarah Imeinu, but the husband wants to continue being Paro. He doesn't want to do teshuva. So now, how do you get your spouse to do teshuva? Most people are making this mistake, They think that just because it's important to you, it's going to be important to them. Just because you keep Shabbat and you like it, that means they're going to like it. Just because you like to put tefillin on, doesn't mean she's going to like you putting tefillin on. No, it doesn't mean that. You like it, good for you. She likes going to get her hair done. She says, you go do tefillin, I go get my hair done. What's the problem?

1:37:11And the reason why is because sometimes when people start doing Shabbat, they do it separately. They start learning, and they figure that she'll just catch up eventually. If I start keeping Shabbat, she's going to keep Shabbat. If I start learning, she's eventually going to want to know what I learned. No, that's not how it works. If you're a man and your wife is not ready yet to do what you're doing, that's because you're making a mistake. And the mistake is that you're actually separating your Judaism from your marriage. It's like the Americans who separate the laws of business from the laws of religion. The state and the religion are two separate things. Same thing in your house. That's the problem. You have to make sure that your studying is part of it with her too. So instead of watching shtuyot, some, I don't know, whatever there is on TV these days, if you still have TV in your house, or the internet, or watching YouTube with some cop saving a duck in the middle of the road, instead of watching that during dinner, tell her, honey, listen, we're eating dinner anyway. Let's watch 15 minutes of Torah together. Learn with her.

1:38:17making it our thing, not just your thing. You're doing it and you're just telling her what to do all day. No one likes to be told what to do—not your wife, not your husband, not your kids. No one likes to be told what to do. If you come and tell her, "You're annoying now. I don't want to be religious. I don't even want to be Jewish anymore." You're actually making her hate it. That's what she'll tell you. "You're actually making me hate it. I... Why? Because you're just telling her what to do. She doesn't want to be told what to do. So what do you do? Don't tell her what to do. Have me tell her what to do. How? Through the video. Honey, instead of watching, I don't know, MTV Cribs or some housewives that are, you know, whatever they're doing over there, instead of watching that, let's watch this shiur. What is it about? I have no idea. We're both going to find out at the same time. Press play. Don't think too much. Don't think, "Oh, it starts here, starts there." Just press play if she agrees before she changes her mind. Eat your little pasta, eat your burger, eat whatever you're eating, and have me or Rav Mizrachi in the background, or whoever you're motivated by, and listen.

1:39:26After a while, in the beginning, you're the one that's going to be affected by it the most. After a while, you'll see she's starting to be affected by it. Why? It's not coming from you. It's coming from somebody else. If it's coming from somebody else, she'll think it's her idea. She'll make it her own. You'll start seeing your wife, or whoever is not doing teshuvah, you'll start seeing them become more religious than you. "Hey, you didn't do tefillin yet? No, no, batlan. No, no. Do tefillin. It's already 6 o'clock in the morning." She'll send you to the Beit Knesset. Why? Because she realizes how serious it is. But if your studying is outside, and all you're doing is telling people what to do all day, no one's going to want to be religious around you. So that's advice on how to help the world around you, especially your spouse. Same thing with your kids. A lot of people send their kids to religious schools and they think that's enough. The kid comes home from a religious school, takes off the tzitzit, takes off the kippah, and goes and plays basketball. He doesn't want to be religious, he doesn't want to be a Jew b’klal, but you're forcing him, so what is he going to do? He's 10 years old. Why? Why does this happen in so many houses? Because kids are pure. They're pure. Pure, meaning they don't have a single bone in their body.

1:40:42That's evil, but also they have a very, very big BS radar. A very big BS radar, meaning they know when their parents are full of it. They know that I can always tell them, but they know if I... The rabbi is dressed like Moshe Rabbeinu, but Abba is dressed like he's going to the beach. He says Abba is full of it or the rabbi is full of it. Someone is full of it. I'm not listening to anybody. If you want your kids to be religious, you have to start taking Judaism seriously. If your kids are not serious, it's your fault, not the rabbi's fault. It's not the school's fault. You can send them to Mount Sinai. It's not gonna help. If your kids are coming home and they want to put miniskirts on, it's your fault. Don't blame the rabbi. Don't blame the environment. Don't blame Donald Trump. Don't blame, it's your fault. You, the parent. Why? Your kid called you out. He's saying, Ima, you dress like this, I'm going to dress like it. You dress with a miniskirt, I'm dressing with a miniskirt. You take off your kippah, I'm taking off my kippah. Your kids are going to be your mirror.

1:41:59They're going to be your mirror. Reality is, those kids, in Hashem's eyes, each one of them is considered Mashiach. Each one of them has the opportunity to be Mashiach. Each one of them. That's why He says to the prophet, "Don't hurt My Mashiachim." What Mashiachim? There's only one Mashiach. He's not talking about the Mashiach. He's talking about the children. Don't hurt the children by your bad middot, your bad character traits, your fakeness, your falsehood. Either be a Jew or be a real person. Say, listen, I can't do it. I'm a loser. But son, you should be better than me. At least admit to the kid. But don't tell him, listen, you're supposed to be religious when you're going to the beach every Shabbat. Why? Because that's going to make the kid an atheist. It's going to make him think the whole thing is a joke. A lot of the people that come to me that fell off the derech, they grew up in religious houses, and then all of a sudden became little mini apikorsim. What happened? Every single one of them blames a major person in their life: their rabbi that did crazy things, their father that did crazy things, their mom. Something happened with somebody important in their life. The kid couldn't take it and eventually broke.

1:43:14Meaning in Shamayim, who are they blaming? The kid? No, they're blaming whoever influenced them. He became someone that caused other people to sin. All the sins go to his account too. That's the other thing, Rabbotai. Be real. Don't be a faker. Because your kids are going to know if Torah is important to you, you're going to learn Torah instead of watching CNBC. If on TV all day there's CNBC and there's no Torah in your life, your kid's going to care about CNBC. If you're talking politics on Shabbat, your kid's going to talk politics. He's not going to talk about Moshe Rabbeinu. Like everybody tries to make themselves feel good by having the kid give a dvar Torah for three and a half minutes that no one wants to listen to. "Oh yeah, what did you learn in school today? Yeah, yeah, Donald Trump. Oh, okay, Moshe, yeah, yeah. Yeah, Donald Trump, I can't believe he put that guy. Oh yeah, yeah," they smile at the kid, make the kid feel good. In reality, the kid hates it. Why? It's like, why are you even making me do this? they're not listening anyway. They're talking about Donald Trump next week. I'm gonna give up news about Donald Trump. Next week, I'm gonna give up news about CNBC. They care more about that than this. Your kid is gonna be your mirror. Your kid’s gonna be a mirror. Last but not least, here's the deal: you're gonna spend an X amount of money, an X amount of time, and an X amount of effort to be the best you possibly can be in your career and

1:44:41Your career at best will survive your lifetime, in the best-case scenario. If you, I don't know, if you're like Warren Buffett, who never seems to age, the guy. He's 90 years old, still healthier than all of us. Or Kirk Kerkorian, the guy's like 190 or something, and he's still doing business deals. If you're like one of these people, at the best-case scenario, you're going to live 120 years and you're going to make billions of dollars. Best-case scenario, you're going to, okay, fine. At some point, it's going to end. It's going to end. Everyone knows it's going to end. So now, invest at least as much effort in something that's not going to end, and that's Olam HaBa. Olam HaBa doesn't end. At the very least, be fair with yourself. Be fair with Hashem. You're gonna invest an X amount of effort, energy, money, and so on into something that's temporary anyway. At the very least, put just as much effort into something that's permanent. It really should be more, but at the very least, it should be just as much. You work nine hours a day? Find a way to learn nine hours a day. If you can't learn yourself for nine hours a day, find a way to contribute to learners who do learn nine hours a day. Do something.

1:46:02To make it an even trade. Hashem, I want 100% of the shefa. Okay, Hashem says, I want you to also give. I want you to also give. And the reason why we know that Judaism is something that's from God and no other, unlike any other religion. unlike Christianity or Buddhism or Islam or any of the other nonsense things that people created is because in our Torah, even giving money to the poor has a certain way, has a certain halacha, has a certain strategy. You're not allowed to give to the poor with disrespect. You actually have to give them the best of your goods. You have to give them in a certain way, at a certain time. Our religion is so divine that even giving has laws. Even giving to the poor, to the needy, has laws. Only God can think of such things. So, Rabotai, God is thinking about you all day, all night, 24 hours a day.

1:47:09All we need to do is think about Him just the least as much. And b'ezrat Hashem, this will help all of us get to the olam ha-emet, olam haba, that's full of bracha and hatzlacha, in this world and the next. Any questions? Same price. Go ahead. I know as soon as I turn off the camera there are 500 questions. We did it this year in New York. And two and a half hours, two hours, almost three hours shiur. I said no questions, no questions. Everybody ran out of questions. Baruch Hashem. Finished. Turn off the camera. Four more hours. Four more hours. I was there until four o'clock in the morning. Baruch Hashem. Four o'clock in the morning. Why? Because there was one guy that was arguing. He didn't want to keep Shabbat. So I had to stay until four o'clock in the morning until he agreed to keep Shabbat. Yeah. Baruch Hashem. So earlier you were talking about like the worst form of sinat chinam is like watching your fellow Jew do a sin, right? I feel like a lot of people watch other people do sins because they're looking at themselves. They're like, I'm not so perfect, so who am I to judge? You're not judging. It's not that. You're not judging. What you're doing is, let's say, for example, it says if you saw your friend standing on a track, on a train track...

1:48:29Now, you saw the train coming. Your friend, I don't know, is blind, deaf, stupid, whatever he is, he's on the train track. Now, what are you going to do if you're a friend, if you love him, if you even care about him remotely, even if he's your enemy and you're a human being, what are you going to do? At the very least, you're just going to push him off. If he's not going to listen, you're going to yell, move, no, something you're going to do. You're not just going to sit there like a pessi, brainless person, and say, oh, no, tough luck. Tough luck, yeah. Yeah, you know, Donald Trump should do something about this train track. You know, you're not gonna sit there and do nothing. Do something, right? That's the thing. You're not thinking at that point. You're not thinking, listen, who am I to judge? He's on a train track. Maybe he has a reason to be there. Maybe the train has a reason. Maybe Hashem wants it to happen. You're not thinking like that. Why? There's a danger. You're a human being. You have a heart. You're like, listen, let me get him out of danger. Same thing here. You're not thinking, oh, I'm not perfect. I'm not this. That's not your business. Your business is, you know Shabbat is a mitzvah. He's violating it. Tell him, listen, like me, don't like me, whatever it is, at the very least, I need you to know, Hashem says you have to keep Shabbat. Why? Look at the story of Tzlofchad. If He didn't give him leeway, what makes you think He's going to give you leeway?

1:49:49Don't think about, "I'm not perfect, I'm not this." It has nothing to do with anything. There's poison in this water. You're telling me, "Hey, hey, hey, before you drink it, there's poison here." You want to continue drinking it? Enjoy. But at least you know. At least you know. By the way, after you drink it, you're going to die. But at least you know. It's not a surprise. That's it. You're not doing the rest of the math. Just like you wouldn't do the rest of the math when there's a train track. It's the same exact thing. Because all you're caring about is delivering the message. That's it. deliver the message. Now, the Rambam says up to what point is this mitzvah? We have 613 mitzvot. One of the mitzvot is to rebuke our brother, to tell our brother the truth. When you see them sinning, you're obligated to do it. So, the Rambam says up to what point? Literally, up to the point where they're hitting you. Meaning, you said it, he doesn't listen, next time you see it again, you say it again. up to a point, really, up to the point where he's threatening to hit you. And some say until he actually hits you. Now, obviously, you don't necessarily need to get to that point because most normal people will either listen to you by then or stay away from you by then. But the reality is that all of these other calculations that we do in our head—I'm not good enough, I'm not perfect enough—all of that stuff, that's the Yetzer Hara in your mind saying,

1:51:00mind your business, he'll mind his business, it's your business, and that's it. And the reason why we cannot allow ourselves to continue doing that is because it's not only that it's sinat chinam, but also the Gemara in Masechet Shabbat, page 54b, says that anytime you see another Jew sinning and you don't say something, the sin goes to your account too. So now, it's not just saving him, it's saving you too. And the proof they use is in Masechet Shabbat, page 56b, which says, Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, one of the greatest Tannaim that ever lived, had a neighbor, a woman, a widow, who had a cow. And the cow carried some bills on Shabbat. You're not allowed to use your animal to carry things on Shabbat; it's considered work. So he felt bad. to tell this widow, and some say he didn't really think that it was a violation. The point being is the Chachamim say, Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah almost lost his Olam Haba. Why? His cow violated Shabbat. So the Gemara asked, which cow? He had one cow? Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah was a multi-billionaire.

1:52:16His ma'aser was 120,000 cows a year. He had one cow? No. The one cow that belonged to his neighbor is counted as if it's his cow. Why? Because that cow violated Shabbat. He never said anything. It's as if his cow violated Shabbat. He almost lost his Olam HaBa because of it, and he fasted for the rest of his life until all of his teeth turned black. For one thing, that was an accidental sin. And that's someone that's holy. So the point is, rabotai, is that rebuking is not just a mitzvah to help our brothers, it's to save us. And that's the one thing that people just don't do, because they do the same accounting that you do, and I've done, and everyone does. Eh, he'll do his own thing, I'll do my thing, and everybody's going to take care of themselves. We have no right to do it. Yeah? I remember reading somewhere, I'm going to do a ta'anit, or the Brisker Rav, or maybe... Some rabbi said that nobody in this generation is able to rebuke somebody properly. They don't know how to rebuke somebody properly. So we shouldn't do it. That's one thing that I remember reading. As somebody who has responsibilities as a boss and all kinds of different things, I tried many times

1:53:38in my way to rebuke people and to try to tell them or point out in a way to try to get them without sounding like doing it wrong. And a lot of times it just goes unheard or goes unnoticed or doesn’t change anything. So, I mean, do you need to repeat? Like, let's say you're right, you have to say something to somebody and you mention it to one person one time and you see that it just goes in one ear and out of the other. Or, so do you then have to keep saying it to that person again? Or just once in a while, whenever you come across a similar situation with somebody else, you can say it because you have to say something in whatever way, and then you just don't repeat it if you see that it doesn't make any change. How many times do you repeat yourself to the same person? Do you even say anything? Because again, we were told maybe we shouldn't rebuke. Right, so there are two questions. The first question is, how many times? And the second question is, do we even have the permission to rebuke? So the first question is easier. How many times? It's the same thing as in your business. If you have a business and the customer says no, what do you do? You try to sell it in another way. Oh, maybe you want this? Okay, you don't want this? I'll give you something else. Why? Because you're trying to make a sale. If there's a house. Oh, you don't want this house? Okay, I'll sell you another. I have another house. What kind of house do you want? Oh, you want a house with three bedrooms? Okay, I'll find you a three-bedroom. Oh, not this three-bedroom? Okay.

1:54:58you keep trying to do something else, different strategies. So, telling him directly didn't work? Do it indirectly. Bring him to a lecture, give him a CD, send him a video. Do it in different ways. If you see that something that you're doing is outright not working with him, the message may be good, but the way you're delivering the message may not be. So, you try a different way, right? You try the same message in a different way, a different way that he may not want you to be the vessel. Sometimes the wife will never want to listen to the husband; sometimes the husband will never listen to the wife. Sometimes the parents will never listen to the children. Why? Because they're always going to look at their children like I look at my kids. They're in diapers. I don't care if they could be 30 years old; I'm always going to see them in diapers. So the parent is never going to listen to their kid rebuking them. "Oh, Abba, you should keep Shabbat." "What, keep Shabbat? I changed your diaper 25 years ago. What, keep Shabbat? You go mind your business, little kid." So the reality is that... The message is good, but the way you're delivering it is not. So what do you do? You try a different way, a more creative way, just like you would do in your business. He doesn't want this house, you get him a different house. He doesn't want this meal, you give him a different meal. He doesn't want this diamond, you give him a different diamond. Meaning, be creative. Hashem Yitbarach gave you a creative mind; use a different way to deliver the same message. If it's not from you, it's from me. It's from Rabbi Mizrachi. It's from Rabbi Yaron Reuven. Somebody that could deliver the same message in a different way. So that's answering as far as delivering the message.

1:56:24The second question is a very big misunderstanding that people have as far as that we're not allowed to rebuke. And the reason why it's outright incorrect is because it's one of the 613 mitzvot. None of the 613 mitzvot are ever canceled. Even the Beit HaMikdash It's not canceled. The only reason why we don't bring korbanot in the Beit HaMikdash is not because it's canceled, chas v'shalom, it's because we don't have it. We're anusim. We can't do it. But if we have the Beit HaMikdash tomorrow, immediately all the korbanot go back into play. So the only reason we don't fulfill that mitzvah is because we're anusim. We can't do it. It's beyond our control. So any one of the 613 mitzvot never goes out of style, never goes out of, we're always obligated to rebuke. And the mitzvah is, and the chachamim were saying, is that very few people know how to rebuke completely on everything without sinning. And that's right. Why? Because there's very few tzaddikim gemurim that can rebuke on everything. But we're not seeing rebuke on everything. We're seeing rebuke on one specific thing.

1:57:36You keep Shabbat, tell the guy to keep Shabbat. You keep modesty, tell the guy to keep modesty. We're making a bracha, let's say, something like HaTov VeHaMeitiv. Right. Wrong. And I know it's wrong, but I don't know myself the real reasons why it's wrong. But I know it's wrong, and I know that I can tell him, "You're not doing it right." But unless I know the halacha completely 100% myself, then maybe I shouldn't care. Right. In that case, he's not going to listen to you anyway if you don't know it yourself. So the thing is that you're clear on, you're clear that you're not allowed to drive on Shabbat. You're clear that you're not allowed to steal. You're clear that you're not allowed to murder. You're clear that you're not allowed to walk around immodestly, man or woman. You're clear on certain things. Those few things that you're clear on, focus on those. Things that you're not clear on, get clear on them and then do that too. But the point, that's what the Chachamim were really referring to, that there's not anyone that's clear on everything. So there's no Moshe Rabbeinu in our generation. So there's no one that's there that can do everything. But for the little things, for the individual things, we're all obligated to do it.

1:58:39And that's so, people took the big statement and made it like a small statement, and made it really big. That's the answer that completely took us off track and pretty much made everybody think that rebuking is a bad thing, which in reality, the biggest, most important job for every single one of the prophets we've ever had from the beginning of time until the end was to rebuke the people. That was the number one mission for every single prophet. Yeah, yeah. Again, like I said, you have to use your creativity. Now, it depends. If, let's say, for example, it's a big rabbi, and he respects the big rabbi, he probably will not drive in front of him. But if it's his boys, that he goes out with them to have a couple of drinks here and there, he's probably not going to respect them as much. But he's not going to disrespect them either. What I'm saying is that if I see him driving on Shabbat, my neighbor, he knows that he's not supposed to drive.

1:59:51But if it's his boys, that he goes out with them to have a couple of drinks here and there, he's probably not going to respect them as much. But he's not going to disrespect them either. What I'm saying is that if I see him driving on Shabbat, my neighbor, he knows that he's not supposed to drive. He says that shalom is actually above His name; even He's willing to leave His name for shalom, shalom with your neighbor because you can't fight with your neighbor either. And now you're going to go and tell him, "Hey, you shouldn't drive on Shabbat," and this specifically who I know he's talking about is an ass, and he'll come and he'll take... He says that shalom is actually above His name; even He's willing to leave His name for shalom, shalom with your neighbor because you can't fight with your neighbor either. And now you're going to go and tell him, "Hey, you shouldn't drive on Shabbat," and this specific person who I know he's talking about is an am ha'aretz, and he'll come and he'll take... Problem: You create machloket now in the neighborhood over this issue. Every time you see each other now, it's dirty looks. Okay, so there's a verse that answers your question. There's a verse that Hashem... And everybody gets angry when you tell them. So this is a two-part answer. First part: there is a verse in the Torah. Yeshayahu says, "Ein shalom, amar Hashem lareshaim," there's no peace to the wicked. Someone who is driving on Shabbat is not an achecha, he's not considered your brother. There's no shalom; there's no machloket. He's not considered your brother, he's considered an oved avodah zarah.

2:01:00Someone who violates Shabbat is considered an idol worshiper. So now, Judaism is on suspension. The rules, all of the rules, don't apply to him. You're even allowed to lend a Jew who violates Shabbat on purpose money with interest. To that extent. Why? Because he's considered a goy l'kol davar. Now you tell him that he's not gonna be your friend anymore. So you have to do it in a creative, smart way. If you stop him in the middle of the street, he's gonna come out and beat you up. Obviously, that's not gonna get anything going. So what do you do? You do it in a different way. He drove already; he's not gonna stop anyway. The next time he comes over for a barbecue, the next time you see him walking, the next time he's more calm, the next time you see him laughing, the next time you see an opportunity, and... That's when you're a sniper. You're thinking and you're planning that one opportunity. It could be for a month. It could be for a week. It could be for five hours. But plan that time when it's a better opportunity. It doesn't necessarily... Obviously, if you're a Pinchas, the Kohen, you're going to do it on the spot. You're going to stand in the middle of the road and kill the guy if you have to. But we're not.

2:02:05So you have to use our brain. We have to use our mind. We have to use our intuition. And the guy that's going to create a lot of problems is not going to listen to you anyway. Wait for a time when it's a better opportunity. He's going to come home at some point. He's going to smile at some point. He's going to be in a better mood at some point. Maybe give him a beer. Wait for the right opportunity. Wait for it. But don't just eliminate yourself from it. And again, like I said, sometimes coming from you is the worst place. Sometimes he's just not going to listen to you. So what do you do? There are a bunch of CDs over here. Take a few, give them to people. Take a listen. What is this? It's really interesting. What is it about? Try it. Well, I don't know why. It's too long for me to explain to you. Just try it. Let his curiosity get him to listen. Something happens. That's how a lot of the people that, Baruch Hashem, have done teshuva, that have been listening to the shiurim—somebody gave them a CD, somebody sent them a lecture, somebody shared it. They didn't know what it was. Curiosity made them press it. They listened. They got hooked. Baruch Hashem. Now let's let it keep. So it doesn't always have to come as a direct message. Sometimes the most effective attack is like a stealth where no one knows it's even you. Plenty of people that have actually sent them CDs, they don't even know it came from me. Be smart, don't be right. Right, exactly. Chazak U'Baruch. That's what he said. He summarized the whole thing in a few words. Sometimes you don't even want to tell them you gave them the CD, you just put it in his mailbox. Where did it come from? Who cares where it came from?

2:03:29Keep them shomer mitzvot. I'm saying if you direct mail, who cares where it came from? Send it from an anonymous email. Do different things that are creative just to make sure that Hashem sees all my son's at least trying. We don't really know the guy. You know, he's a neighbor though. I'm not sure. Neighbor you see, we see, and it's 100%. That's one thing, one really bad thing that I have to ask about specifically. This is before Pesach. Everybody was cleaning their cars. Okay, so he had a Some guy, a medium guy, came to him and cleaned and detailed the guy's car. He was there for three and a half hours detailing the car. After he was done detailing the car, my wife, while he was detailing, went over and asked him how much he would charge to detail ours or something like that. My wife said, "Okay, sure." So after the three and a half hours, he came crying to my wife that they only gave him $30. and um, and the wife said, "No, I'm sorry, my husband's not here. I don't know, you know, whatever." She gypped the guy out of money. They straight gypped the guy out of the money, like, you know what I mean? And then this guy sent his friend to come clean our cars. He's a gangster Armenian, all tatted up from head to toe. Yeah, I mean, like, don't let, like, you're not gonna get over on me, you know what I'm saying? Because...

2:04:50Now he did it, he made Jews look bad. Then, when he gypped them, and now they're scared, they're gonna come after us Jews, thinking maybe we're gonna do the same thing. So he brought some gangster guy, just in case we don't gyp him. That's why it's important to have, and when I visit. And I went to the guy, and I'm like, I can't believe that, you know, because I hope we would never do that, you know? I can't get a hundred percent, but that's the thing when someone has no yirat Shamayim whatsoever. The Gemara actually says you're not even allowed to be in a room alone with him. in a room alone. Why is it, in my sense, if he doesn't have yirat Shamayim, you're not even allowed to be in a closed room alone with him? Why? He may kill you. Why? Kill you? He's a nice guy, he says. No, if he has no yirat Shamayim, you make him mad, he'll think that he has the right to take your life. Why? If he's not afraid of God, that means he thinks he's God. And he has a right to your life. So when someone doesn't have yirat Shamayim, it's very, very dangerous, unfortunately. But the reality is that we have to do our best to try to get people to change in some way. Somebody like that, who is so far away, who is dishonest, you know, just completely a terrible person—to go tell him to go fix one bracha...

2:06:01Don't even waste your time. Somebody like this, get him to learn—get him to, uh, learn something like that. Somebody like this, you have to—it's like a whole few, yeah. It has to be something he has to realize that he has to change his entire life. Somebody like this, you tell them that they should do Kiddush or something like that, it's not going to work for them because, to them, with that mindset, they think it's all elective; it's all like a culture. So once he actually starts hearing the truth and it shocks his neshama back to life, then those people can actually be some of the best Ba'alei Teshuva in the world because they have a big heart. They just think that they can pretty much run the world the way they want. Some of them are really good people. They just don't have any idea, right or left. So again, you tread carefully. You use your wisdom. Some things you do obviously. Some things you do behind the scenes. And b'ezrat Hashem, you don't make them your only candidate. There's baruch Hashem, there's many Jews out there. Some are friends. Some are family. Some are strangers. Go everywhere. as many places as possible and share the message, and you'll see that you'll have complete strangers all of a sudden pointing teeth on keys to your ocean. Things are changing from something that you had a hand in. For something like that, that's the biggest segulah of all because Hashem says to the Prophet Yirmiyahu

2:07:22If you bring somebody to make him do teshuva, you make someone yakar, precious, when he used to be a zolel, he used to be a mezalzel b'mitzvot, you make him be a shomer Shabbat, you'll be like My mouth. What does it mean you'll be like My mouth? Just like I said words and the world came into being, you say prayers and I make it so. Meaning your prayers have VIP treatment in Shamayim, higher than anyone else in Am Yisrael. Even higher than a prophet. To that extent. So that's the biggest segulah of all. That's the biggest thing of all. And you have to make zikui harabim, mamash, like a daily part of your life. Five minutes, ten minutes, an hour, five, whatever it is, you have to do something. If everybody does something, then we'll get something. Anything else? Everybody else? Thank you for coming. Thank you for hosting us. We have another shiur tomorrow. I forget where, but look at my Facebook page. I think it's called Hac or something. I don't know. It's some other place in Los Angeles. Baruch Adonai l'olam. Amen ve'amen.