Emunah In Queens

0:14Very good to be in Queens. Last time we had also a nice turnout. I think a few people from the shiur called me, told me that the shiur helped them a lot, the teshuva. Once a day could put a kisui rosh on finally, Baruch Hashem. If Am Yisrael, when a woman does a kisui rosh, it's no different than Akedat Yitzchak. It's no different. So this shiur, b'ezrat Hashem, is going to be l'iluy nishmat, Zura Yisrael ben Raya Rachel, Leah Galena bat Nora, Yaffa Marousia bat Xio, refuah shlema Yamin Netanel ben Bracha Tova, Daniel ben Miri, Levana bat Sara, Sara bat Levana, Doris bat Jora, David ben Esria, and all of Am Yisrael, b'ezrat Hashem, will have refuah shlema, refuat hanefesh, refuat haguf. So, as I told you guys, the—oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. Tizkeh lemitzvot. Tizkeh lemitzvot. Perfect. A little high. A little high.

1:36Actually, yeah, you can just take this thing down, it's fine. Yeah, if you take this thing down, it's good. Yeah, perfect, okay. Perfect, perfect. When Hashem is happy with a person, even his enemies are going to come and say, "I'm sorry." So usually my enemy is technology. So you see, Baruch Hashem, Hashem helps me. He says to help me out with the failure of technology that I have. But like I told you guys, the topic is whatever you want. Sometimes we start a shiur, I go in one direction, and then somebody asks a question, and we go in a different direction. So don't feel like you're interrupting. If you have a question that's burning in your heart, ask it. Now, later, after, ask. Don't feel ashamed. The reason why is because I probably asked the same question. So there's no question that's off limits. Anything. And I'm really serious. Any question. Don't worry about whether it has to do with the shiur or not. If you have the question, that means it has to do with the shiur. Because the point is for you to leave here with something to take home. Something that you're going to be able to do something with. Something that's going to give you chizuk in this world full of lies, where everything is upside down.

3:00People have no idea what's right or left. People are confused. Sometimes you go to somebody for help, and he ends up becoming your enemy instead. Sometimes you think you're going to get married, and you end up getting divorced instead. You know, all types of shigayon. There's a lot of craziness in the world. People are confused. People don't know what's right or left. And a lot of people have excuses for why they're not religious, why they're not keeping Shabbat, why they're not keeping Taharat HaMishpacha, why they're not honest in their business. One guy told me, "Listen, your way of doing business, it's going to take me a really long time to make money." I said, "Yeah, but at least you're going to stay out of jail. And at least you're going to go to Gan Eden." He goes, "Yeah, but I just want the money now. What do I care what the customer does after I sell him something?" I said, "Oh, so you're like Hitler." So you're like Hitler; he didn't care what people did after they went into the gas chamber. He didn't care. Same thing. The reality is, Rabotai, a Yehudi, a Jew, is supposed to think about these things.

4:04A Jew is supposed to be wise. He's supposed to see what's going to come out of his actions. No one can go up to the Beit Din of Shamayim and say, oh, I didn't know. I didn't know you have to keep Shabbat. I didn't know you had to cover your hair with a mitpachat. I didn't know you had to keep kosher. I didn't know that I wasn't allowed to date her. I didn't know this and that. You're not allowed to go up to Shamayim and say, I didn't know. And the reason why is because anything that you actually came to this world and really wanted to know, you found out. You wanted to find out how to make a million dollars. So what did you do? You went and you learned about it. You read some books, you went on the internet, you watched some videos, you talked to a few people, you made a few deals, you made a few mistakes, you screamed, you yelled, you prayed, you did everything you possibly could. Maybe one day I'm going to strike it rich. Why? Because you wanted the money. Hashem says, You have to chase Torah, you have to chase the emet of the world, the same way you chase money. Like an otzar, like a treasure. Once you chase it like a treasure, then you're going to find it. But if you chase it like you're looking for a second pair of keys, you're not going to find it. You're not going to find it. So the Chodesh Elul is a time of reflection for Am Yisrael. And the reason why is because, unlike what most people think,

5:26Rosh Hashanah is not just another day of the year where you just get to eat with the family. Most people think that the most important day of the year is Yom Kippur because that's when everybody fasts. That's when everyone's a little scared. Judgment Day, Judgment Day. But in reality, it's not Judgment Day. Judgment Day is Rosh Hashanah. Each and every single one of our neshamos, alive or dead, goes up to Shamayim and has a trial. I know. And in Shamayim, on Rosh Hashanah, they're going to see, they're going to decide a lot of things. When you say, when you do Lechaim, when you do Kiddush, what does everybody say? Lechaim. Why? Because in the Gemara, at the times of the Sanhedrin, when somebody would be a desecrator of Shabbat, and there's proof, there's evidence that he violated Shabbat on purpose, he drove on Shabbat on purpose, everyone saw it, he lit fire on Shabbat, everyone saw it, he had witnesses, he got warned, everything, the Beit Din would say, meaning, what is your decision? And the Dayanim would say,

6:54to death. Kill him. This is why today we say, why we want life. We want to live. Especially during Kiddush. Because we know that if we violate Shabbat, we're putting ourselves in. What kind of danger we're putting ourselves in. So on Rosh Hashanah, every single one of us has the same exact judgment day. Just like a person finished his life. Chachamim ask, how come we have judgment day every year? Why don’t we just do it once a lifetime? Just do it once. Chalas, give me one time. Let me go do my thing. One time give me judgment. Tell me yes. Tell me no. Tell me what to do. Tell me right. Tell me left. I'm finished. The rest of my life I’m going to the beach. The Chachamim say that logically it makes sense for us to have judgment day only once a year. Logically, it makes sense. But unfortunately, it's not possible. And the reason why is because once any one of us goes up to Shamayim and we see the trial that we have for an entire lifetime, they're going to show us everything we did. There are no questions. It's not a trial like here. They ask you, did you do it or did you not do it? No, no. The trial in Shamayim is that, oh, this is what you did.

8:11And they show you video evidence of everything you did. Everything that was in your mind. Everything that was in your pocket, even if it wasn't yours. Everything you said. Everything you thought. Everything. Just the thought of it is scary. And the Gemara Masechet Yoma says that a person needs to understand that even his thoughts can become a sin. Even a thought, a bad thought, he thinks of Hashem, some girl that's not his wife. Even that's a sin. And some say it's even worse than the actual action itself because the action itself is over, but the thought can live your whole life. So every single person goes up to Shamayim, and they do it. The Beit Din shows them everything he did, and he's saying, yeah, I admit, I did it. Guilty. So what's the bill? And they're gonna tell him the bill, bar minan. Share with you what bill he has. He says, listen, you're right. All the things you said, I did. I mean, you have evidence. It's not like I can't even say no. I did it. You have a video. You have it. Yeah, this is me. Yeah, the guy with the mustache. And he had a beard. And he had long hair. And he had short hair. And this is me with hair. This is me with this one. It's me. Yeah, it's me in the video. I can't deny it. What's the bill? And they show you the bill. It's like, yeah, but it's me. But I can't pay the bill. It's too expensive.

9:36Why didn't you come to me sooner when it was a smaller balance? Why didn't you come to me sooner when it was 200 bucks a month? You're coming to me with 2 million dollars. Who has 2 million dollars in Shamayim? Come to me with 200 dollars a month. I can afford it. 2 million dollars? Who can afford 2 million dollars? Imagine you bought a house. Everything is due up front. What due up front? What are you talking about? How can I buy the whole house up front? Especially in New York. Every house is a zillion dollars. You have to be a billionaire. Mortgage 900 years. I tell you, you have to pay everything up front. Whatever you have, everyone will live on the streets. The whole New York will become homeless. There's no mortgage. So in Shamayim, I tell you, listen, you owe the money. He's like, I owe, I know I owe. I agree with you I owe, but I don't have it. So HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, El Rachum V'chanun. HaKadosh Baruch Hu is El Rachaman. He's a merciful God. And He said, I know you're not going to have it. That's why I made Rosh Hashanah every year. because every year you have a small balance. You have a small balance. And even if it's a big balance, it's a big balance for one year. A big balance for one year is much different than a big balance or even a small balance of 70 years. That's why we have Rosh Hashanah every year, and not once a lifetime. Yes? Ask. Is it true that that's because

11:04so you see that the youngest student here is already talking about my favorite subject. Don't blame me for bringing it up again. Oh, it's his fault. He mentioned it. Everybody says, "Oh, you're scary. You're scary. You make me..." I know I didn't bring it up, it's his fault. But you know, the funny thing is, the funny thing is that people are Especially the English-speaking public is very scared of the topic of Gehenom. Very, very scared of it. They don't like to hear bad things. Anyone that watched my shiur about Gehenom, three hours, the walls did teshuva. The walls. They said, we did teshuva. The walls did teshuva. I did teshuva in the shiur, in the middle of the shiur. When I was studying for this shiur, I started crying. I started crying. You know what's going on over there. And I told people, after we finish the shiur, by the way, everything I said is not even 1%.

12:14Why do we have such horrible things in the Torah like Gehenom? Hashem is merciful, Hashem is loving, Hashem is this, Hashem is that, all these wonderful things. Why would He have such a place as Gehenom? When we went to Har Sinai, Hashem spoke to Am Yisrael for the first and last time in history. First and last time in history He spoke to the public at large. the people were not, even though they were all prophets, able to handle His voice, and they all died. Everyone died from the shock of Hashem's voice, and Hashem had to bring them back from the dead. Imagine, He brought back from the dead millions of people at once. Then He said the second commandment, and they all died again. It says they died a second time; He brought them back from the dead again. He wanted to start saying the third commandment. They said, "No, no, no, Moshe, Moshe, you go speak to Him. We'll do and then we'll listen." Meaning, just tell us what He said and then we'll listen another way, another time. Why? Because if He continues to talk, we're going to die. That's what it says in the pasuk. If He continues to talk, we're going to die. Now we understand what it means "if He continues to talk, we're going to die," because they actually died twice. So Moshe Rabbeinu answers them, "No, don't be scared."

13:33He's trying to scare you because He wants you to make sure that you are scared so you don't sin. He's scaring you so you don't sin. So, theoretically, Gehinnom is there in order to scare you to death so you don't sin. But Hashem is not our friend. He doesn't just make pretend just for pleasure. He actually has a place called Gehinnom, and it's a very, very scary, horrible place. And He wants you to know about it. He wants every single one of you, including you, little boy, who mentioned Gehenom, to know about it. Why? Because as soon as you know a little bit about it, it's going to help you not sin. Now, how much does He want you to know about it? Because a lot of people say, no, this is not for today's kehillah, it's not good, it's scaring people, it's turning them off, all that stuff. I'm not going to go into the details of Gehenom, but I want to explain to you, just give you, anyone that still has ruach shtut in their mind, thinking that Gehenom is not for Klal Yisrael, it's not for everybody. It's actually in your Siddur.

14:46In your Siddur, it talks about Gehenom. I always say the best Mussar book in the world is the Siddur, right after the Sefer Torah, right after the five books of Moses. The best Mussar book to learn Yirat Shamayim is your Siddur. So how come most people don't know? Because most people don't understand what they're reading. They just make the sounds. People know how to make sounds. Like dogs make sounds, monkeys make sounds, people make sounds. The mashmaut is much more important. The meaning of the words is much more important than making sounds. So if you only know how to make sounds in Hebrew, read in English, read in Russian, read in Italian, read in Spanish, read in a language you actually understand, and not just make sounds. Don't just make sounds. Why? Because when you make sounds, eventually the sounds become meaningless, just like the prayer. And then you're just wasting your time. You need to know what you're saying. You need to know what you're saying in a Siddur, not just make sounds. Because as soon as you understand what you're saying, your entire prayer will change. Now, I bet that most people, including frum people, including religious people, didn't know this, unless they studied the Shas, unless they studied the Gemara. But the Gemara in Masechet Eruvin

16:03says that there's a Tehillim that we read in Mincha. Where? Right in the beginning. Beginning of Mincha, you just read it a little while ago. I'm assuming everybody read Mincha. This is a song for the sons of Korach who did teshuva at the last minute. and then it continues. So it says here in the beginning of Mincha Those who pass through the valley of tears into the wellspring, they transform it also with blessings; they will be clothed by rain. This is some analogy. What does it mean? So you look at the Gemara HaMasechet Eruvin, it tells you exactly what it means: Ovrei Be'emek HaBakha—those that pass through the valley of tears.

17:16The Gemara says these are the people that didn't do teshuva and they're suffering in Gehinnom. Hashem made an extra deep Gehinnom for them; that's how much they sinned. They have tears because they're crying over there, but it says there's blessings. What's the blessing? They're blessing Hashem: "Hashem, you're right, I did sin. You're right, Hashem, everything you did, you're right." Ashrecha Hashem for punishing me. Chazak Baruch Hashem for punishing me. Why? Because in Olam HaEmet, when you go up to Shamayim, there are no questions. There are no doubts. No, I didn't believe. Oh, I wasn't sure. No, no. They show you the whole thing. They show you everything. And you say, you're right, Hashem. You are right. Look at how much you gave me and look how much I went against you. You're right. I can't deny it. You're right. Please punish me. We ask for the punishment. Chazal wanted us to know about Gehinnom. Why? Because it helps us to stop sinning, especially in a generation like this where it's very easy to violate Shabbat simply with an iPhone.

18:27With a smartphone, you can violate Shabbat in two seconds. With one word, you could put out Lashon Hara that can never be healed. Write something on the internet: "I hate Rabbi Yaron." Okay, Ashrecha, you said something. You were proud of yourself that you hate me. Somebody else is going to say, "Oh, Rabbi Yaron, I hate him too now." He doesn't listen to the shiur. So what happens now? He doesn't do teshuva. He doesn't do teshuva. Every single sin he ever does for the rest of his life goes to your cheshbon. You said it one time, one comment only. Yes, one comment. One comment. It's such a difficult generation that, on one hand, you can make one tiny little sin and mamash lose Olam HaBa. But on the other hand, there's a good thing. What's the good thing? With one button, you can do teshuva. One button, you can say "share" and you can get somebody else to do teshuva. One button, you can say "play" and learn a shiur and do teshuva. In the old days, you had to go to a different town, a different place, a different city just to go study a book because not everybody had, Baruch Hashem, books like here. You wanted to read Gemara, you didn't have every masechta. You had to go to a different country sometimes, go sit in somebody's house for six months until you finished the masechta and then come back home.

19:37Today, if you want to learn Torah, all you gotta do is press a button. Press a button and the book arrives at your house. Press a button, you can press play for a lecture. Press a button, you can read any book you want. In this generation, every single one of us can be bigger than Rav Moshe Feinstein. Every single one of us can be bigger than Rav Ovadia Yosef. Every single one of us can be bigger than the Rambam. Why? We have more Torah than them. We have more access to more Torah than they did. Now, of course, what I'm trying to tell you is not that we're bigger, but in essence, we have the potential to be. And the reason why is because we have access to a lot more. But that's the prosecution against us. That's the case against us. We're going to go up to Hashem, and we're going to tell Him, "Listen, Hashem, I didn't really have much time to learn Torah. Maybe once in a while, I pressed play on the CD or on the app, and I listened to five minutes in between gas breaks. In between, I was filling up gas, so I didn't listen to music; instead, I listened to a shiur for five minutes. The rest of the time, I listened to shtuyot, I listened to music, I listened to sports, I listened to CNBC telling me the same news every day. I listened to this, I listened to politics."

20:48I didn't have time to learn from a book. I had time to learn from a book for my school, learn from a book for my job, but not for Torah. So, Hashem says, "Yeah, but look how much Torah I gave you. How could you abandon all this Torah? Look how much Torah I gave you." And that's the case against us. So, the question is, Rabotai, why is it that it's so hard for a person to learn Torah every day? You have... How hard? It's hard for some people. For you, Baruch Hashem, you're a tzaddik. Not everybody is born with a neshama like yours. Some people are not born with such a neshama; theirs is like a ba'al mum, has a deformity. They have a hard time; they learn Torah, and they fall asleep like I did, five minutes into it. You come to yeshiva, you prepare for it the whole day, five minutes into it, the rabbi starts talking, you fall asleep, like I used to. Now I don't fall asleep. Well, the reason is because I'm speaking, so I have to stay up. so why is it so hard? Part of the reason is because our mind is in everything else. Our mind is constantly working on everything else, so it's hard for us to be focused. We're constantly thinking about money, we're constantly thinking about girls, we're constantly thinking about bills, we're constantly thinking about the materiality of this world, some type of physical pleasure, some type of desire.

22:15And Torah is the exact opposite of it. Torah is the opposite of material. It's purely spiritual. In order for you to learn Torah, first and foremost you have to understand that you have to eliminate as much material as you possibly can. you're going to learn from a book, take your phone, put it in a drawer, and close the drawer. Shut the phone off—no vibrate, no half-sound, low sound, nothing. Set the clock: "I'm going to study for two hours, one hour, whatever it is. Until this clock hits one hour, two hours, five hours, whatever you can do, I'm not looking at the phone." It's the only chance you're going to have to succeed in learning from a book because if you have a book and but next to it there's a phone, you might as well close the book. If you have a book, it doesn't matter how great the book, it could be the best book in the world. If you have a book, but next to it there's a phone, close the book. You're wasting your time. Why? Every two seconds, everybody gets a text. A WhatsApp, a Facebook, a Twitter, a Pinterest, an Instagram, or every single two seconds, somebody comes. And then, if you forgot that the whole thing is off, somebody says, "Can I use your phone for a second?"

23:32And then you remind yourself, oh, I have a phone, I need to check it first. The Yetzer Hara doesn't leave. The Gemara says the Yetzer Hara is like a zvuv on your heart. It's like a fly on your heart. Why like a fly? Because a fly, no matter how many times you shoo it away, it always comes back. It comes back on your steak, comes back on your cholent, comes back on your pizza, comes back on your head, comes back on your arm, it comes back constantly. Right after it parked on the dog poop outside, it comes to your pizza. You and your nasty self, go away. No, he's coming back. That's the Yetzer Hara. The Yetzer Hara brings the sins of somebody else to you also, to remind you you should do something also. Yes? Your heart, because your heart, ולא תתורו אחרי לבבכם ואחרי עיניכם. The Torah says, and you say it in your prayer and your siddur every day, twice a day in Kriyat Shema, you should not follow your heart and your eyes. Why your heart and your eyes? Because your eyes are going to lead your heart to want something, your desires. So if you look at something, you're going to want it. You look at a woman that's not your wife, you're going to want her, even if she's 90 years old.

24:47Because you're a man. Once you b'ezrat Hashem, you will see, you'll grow up, you have certain desires that women simply don't have. Men have certain desires that women simply don't have. They don't think like that. When a woman looks at a man, she thinks about his personality. When a man looks at a woman, the last thing he's thinking about is her personality. It's the truth. He's actually doing teshuvah. Hopefully he doesn't have a personality so I can just... That's what he's thinking. But the reality is that your heart, that's your desires. That's symbolic of your desires. And the Yetzer Hara is constantly pressing on your heart to push this desire or that desire. Desire for money, desire for women, desire for this, desire for that, desire for food, desire to show off your ego, show off this, show off that. Constantly pressing buttons on your heart.

25:51So the Yetzer Hara is not leaving. The Yetzer Hara is here to stay. Until Mashiach comes, the Yetzer Hara has a permanent job. So how do we deal with it? The Gemara in Masechet Berachot says, "Barati Yetzer Hara, barati Torah tavlin." I created the Yetzer Hara, I created the Torah as a tavlin, as a way for us, some type of ingredient, to kill him. How? Torah. So if he's interrupting me while I'm learning Torah, if he's interrupting me while I'm learning Torah, how can I learn Torah? So that's where Yirat Shamayim comes in. The same Gemara says, if a person is thinking about sinning, he's thinking about picking up his phone, Instead of learning Torah, he's thinking about going to a website he's not allowed to go to. He's thinking about overcharging a client dishonestly. He's thinking about all these different things. He says the person first should say, Kriyat Shema. Why say Kriyat Shema? To remind himself there's a God in Shamayim who is watching and recording everything. And one day, he's going to have to show up at the trial in Shamayim and answer, "Hey, what did you do? What did you do?" Well, Rosh Hashanah is coming up in less than a month. How could you still be stealing? How could you still be looking at forbidden things? How do you do all these things?

27:10say Kriyat Shema, but sometimes Kriyat Shema is not enough. We do it twice a day; most of us don't even know what it means. So then what? He says, tell him to go learn some Torah. Yeah, but the problem is, while he's trying to learn Torah, the Yetzer Hara is interfering with his learning. Okay, skip that. So what do we do now? He says, remind him of the day he's going to die. Why remind him of the day he is going to die? Because if he is somewhat of a kosher Jew, he prayed today. He prayed today at some point. And if he prayed today, he understands, whether it's Shacharit, Mincha, or Arvit, that after this world, there's a Beit Din in Shamayim. And the Beit Din in Shamayim is not your friends. It's not your friends. The Gemara in Masechet Megillah, page 21a, says what happens if a person makes a mistake with Shema Yisrael and says Shema Shema. You know, sometimes you say Shema Yisrael, sometimes you forget, you were thinking about something else, and instead you say Shema Shema. Most of us think, "Okay, just continue saying Shema Yisrael Hashem Elokeinu Hashem Echad." What's the big deal? The Gemara says no. We quiet him. Meaning give him a nice chopchop to the head. Give him a nice slap to the head.

28:34Why? He said, we make sure that this person, next time he says Shema Yisrael, realizes that he's talking to G-d. And G-d is not his friend. So even if we have to, the Gemara says, even if we have to smash his head against the wall to make him realize he's talking to G-d, that's what we have to do. Why? Because G-d is not your friend. That's what the Gemara says. G-d is not your friend. G-d is not your friend. G-d is G-d. He's the King of Kings. Meaning that sometimes the only thing that works is Yirat Shamayim. Sometimes the only thing that works is fear. ...ideal we get to a point of loving Hashem and understand that the relationship is so important to us and we want the relationship to stay strong. However, we can't get there without fear. We cannot get to loving Hashem without fearing Him first, and the reason why is because as soon as you understand who Hashem is and how He's responsible for everything in your life, immediately you're going to fear Him. Yes... What if you say Emet twice? Shema Yisrael, Hashem Elokeinu, Hashem Echad? No, when you say the whole Shema Yisrael, you say Ani Elohim, Emet. When you repeat with the Chazzan, you say Emet again. Oh, no, that's fine. That's fine. That's fine. You're saying Emet; you're supposed to say Emet a second time. If you said it yourself also, that's also fine. Yes? I wanted to bring back two points that you said. You said that about the recording...

30:04Who told you that He must love you? He must love you. Do you want to know why He loves you? Because someone that loves... sometimes has a little bit of a bias. Bias means you don't necessarily want to tell somebody the whole picture because you're scared of how they're going to react. Most people are scared to tell people the whole picture. And we don't necessarily tell the whole picture, but sometimes we're so careful to tell people so many parts of the picture that we paint a new picture. So, for example, some people will say, well, as soon as you do teshuva, everything is good. It's not 100% true. It's not 100% true. And the reason why is because, thank you, tizkeh lemitzvot, first we have to determine what teshuva means. Does teshuva mean you just kept Shabbat? What if you keep Shabbat but you're still stealing in your business? So does teshuva mean you stop stealing in your business?

31:28What if you're not stealing in your business, but you're violating Shabbat? What does teshuva mean? Okay, I'm not stealing, and I'm not violating Shabbat, but I still have an ego the size of the equator. I still have an ego the size of this building. Is that okay? No, it's still not okay. Meaning that teshuva, rabotai, is not so simple. It's not something that you do just in one second. So, even though a certain person can do teshuva for certain things, a full teshuva... To such an extent that they can get all of their past sins on that particular issue to not be erased but to turn into something called Shogeg. Shogeg means accidental. So, for example, if a person never kept Shabbat and all of a sudden after he hears the shiur today, he's going to start keeping Shabbat. And now the reason why he didn't keep Shabbat until now is because he didn't understand the cost of not keeping Shabbat. He knew that you're supposed to keep Shabbat, but he didn't really know why. He knew that some Jewish people keep Shabbat, but they choose to keep it. I choose not to keep it. What's the big deal? He didn't know it was a big deal. Like I didn't think it was a big deal. So he didn't violate Shabbat dafka (intentionally) to go against Hashem. He just violated Shabbat because he didn't care. He cared less to learn about it. He cared less about it in general.

32:51One day he finds out, he comes to a shiur and he says, "Oh, what the Rambam says in the whole Shabbat chapter 30, last halacha: That a Jew who violates Shabbat, drives on Shabbat, smokes cigarettes on Shabbat, plays with his phone on Shabbat, cooks on Shabbat, works on Shabbat—any of those things and many other of the melachot—is considered 100% an idol worshiper." To such an extent that Judaism is on suspension. Now, what does it mean to have Judaism on suspension? Judaism on suspension means Rabbi Ephraim in Ech Tov Yisrael, Perek Bet, the second book out of the three that came out so far, in the second one he talks about whether the Ishmaelim, the Arabs, are considered idol worshippers. And he shows proof from the Rambam and several other sources that the Yishmaelim, the Arabs, are not considered idol worshippers. And the Rambam says that in the halachot that talk about forbidden foods, the seventh halacha, the Rambam says that if a Yishmaeli touches your wine,

34:06You're not allowed to drink it, but you're allowed to sell it. You're allowed to enjoy it, meaning, enjoy it by selling it, making money out of it. But you're not allowed to drink it because you don't know what they did to it. But it's not like the Christians, because if the Christian, who's an idol worshiper, touches your wine, not only are you not allowed to drink it, you're not allowed to sell it. And the same Rambam says, this idol worshiper, the Christian, is the same din as the Mechalel Shabbat too. Meaning, that someone that's a Jew, has a Jewish mom, Jewish father, a grandfather was a big rabbi, great grandfather was Moshe Rabbeinu's cousin, whatever you want, if he's a violator of Shabbat today, if he drives on Shabbat today, he's worse than an ISIS terrorist, according to Hashem. I didn't ask for permission when they wrote the Torah. Now, once a person hears what I just said, after the heart attack heals, he says, "I’ve got to keep Shabbat. I don’t want to be worse than an ISIS terrorist in the eyes of Hashem. I don’t want to be like this. I don’t want my Judaism on suspension. I want to go up to Shamayim and be a Jew. I'm your son. I'm your son. Me. Not the ISIS guy. Me." So, a guy starts keeping Shabbat.

35:29Once the guy starts keeping Shabbat and he realizes the only reason he didn't keep Shabbat until now is simply because he didn't know. Most of the poskim say that his past sins of violating Shabbat turn to shogeg, turn to accidental sins, meaning as if he didn't know, like somebody that turned on the light on Shabbat, not because he meant to turn it on, but because he forgot it's Shabbat. You know, sometimes you're like half asleep in the middle of the night, you want to go to the bathroom and by reflex you turn on the light, but it's Shabbat, you're not supposed to turn on the light on Shabbat. So he did that, he made that mistake. Shogeg, that's not an issue; that person is still a hundred percent Jewish. He's still kosher. He's still good. Everything is good. It's just that he made a sin. It's shogeg. In the times of the Beit HaMikdash, somebody that made such a sin by accident would have to bring a korban, would have to bring a cow to the Beit HaMikdash, press on the cow's head... then admit that he made a sin. I turned on the light on Shabbat by accident. Why? Because after he said it, he would be embarrassed. You'd be embarrassed. Everybody's listening to him. He's embarrassed of the sin.

36:41that embarrassment is a big part of his teshuvah. That embarrassment, having embarrassment, is worth a lot in Shamayim. And his heart breaks, he starts hearing the Levi'im sing, he starts doing teshuvah. And then he sees them slaughter the cow and he thinks to himself, the Gemara says, he thinks to himself, wow. Look at this. Hashem is so merciful that instead of taking my soul for violating Shabbat, He's taking the cow's soul. Instead of taking my life, He's taking the cow's life. This is great. Because in reality, even for an accidental sin, it's supposed to be my life. Hashem is so merciful that He's killing the cow instead of me. So he does teshuvah, he goes home, he never does it again. Why? Next time he's worried. Why? Because every time he violates Shabbat, it's a $10,000 cow. So a person needs to understand that even for an accidental sin, a person needs to do teshuvah. Even more so for a sin that's on purpose. How do you do teshuvah for an accidental sin? You bring a korban. In today's world, you have to give tzedakah. In today's world, you have to pray a lot, you have to learn about the subject, and you have to give tzedakah. How much teshuvah?

37:54You have to give. It depends, it depends, all relevant. If you're barely making ends meet, you're making $500 a week in New York, you barely have food to eat, then obviously you can't give $500 to God. Maybe you give $5, $10, $20, but if you're making $500 an hour, then obviously you have to give a lot more. Depends on who and what you are, where you stand, how much parnassah Hashem gave you. But so far, I didn't give you any chiddushim. What's the chiddush? Sometimes a person starts teshuvah initially because he's scared of getting punished, but later on, he falls in love with Hashem. He starts learning Torah and he starts falling in love with it. He realizes that this Torah is helping his marriage. This Torah is helping with his kids. This Torah is helping him with everything that he wants. This Torah is giving him blessing in his life. He realizes that every time he has questions, he opens the Torah, there's answers in the Torah. Every time he has problems, he looks at the Torah, he realizes, oh, there's a reason for these problems. There's an answer for these questions.

39:18falls in love with Hashem in His Torah. Now that person has escalated to another, higher level, and now his previous sins turn into mitzvot. Not only are they no longer shogeg, accidental sins, anymore... Now it's that he has to do teshuva in his life, but now they've actually turned into mitzvot. Now his old sins have turned into mitzvot. Because he's now learning Torah to such an extent that he fell in love with Hashem, now his old sins have turned into mitzvot. He got to such a high level of teshuva, like your rabbi said, that everything stops, but it actually goes a little higher. It's even more so. His old sins have turned into something good. Now, why do I say that your rabbi loves you a lot? He didn't tell you the full story. It's because to do teshuva, complete teshuva, takes a lot of time. Because first and foremost, we have to know what we're doing in order to do teshuva for it.

40:28When you first started doing teshuva, when I first started doing teshuva, I thought, okay, I have to keep Shabbat, I have to keep kosher, I have to get my wife to convert, I have to learn a little bit here and there, and everything is fine. I didn't realize that Shabbat had hundreds and hundreds of halachot. I didn't know that tefillin had hundreds and hundreds of halachot. There are so many different details. So in the beginning, when I first started keeping Shabbat, I heard of something called Oneg Shabbat. Oneg Shabbat means to enjoy Shabbat, extra pleasure on Shabbat, extra good food on Shabbat, extra good sleep on Shabbat, extra good Torah on Shabbat, extra, extra everything. So I said, you know what? I like jachnun. Jachnun is a Yemenite food. I like jachnun. I like to make sauce. So I said, you know what? For Shabbat, I'm going to make the sauce so special and so fresh, I'll make it on Shabbat. So I grind the tomatoes on Shabbat. Why? It's extra special. It's fresh. I didn't know you're not allowed to grind on Shabbat. So for months, I was grinding tomatoes on Shabbat, thinking I'm doing a mitzvah. But it's not a mitzvah, it's aveira, it's a sin.

41:32It's a sin. So a person needs to understand that doing teshuva, complete teshuva, takes a lot of time and a lot of effort, a lot of learning, in order to know what to do teshuva for. It's not just the very basics. There's a lot more to it. And yes, over time, you can get to such a high level that not only does your past stop, your past turns into a good thing. But to get to that level takes a lot of learning, takes a lot of effort, and a lot of hishtadlut. So I'm not trying to discourage anyone. What I'm trying to do is to give you at least an understanding of how much work you have so you get started now. Because most people think, "Oh no, you know what? I don't have to do teshuva now. I'll do teshuva when I get married. I'll do teshuva next year. I'll do teshuva when I have kids. I'll do teshuva after I make a million dollars. I'll do teshuva right before Mashiach comes. I'll do teshuva at that time." And they think that they can do teshuva in one minute. But in reality, Rabotai, teshuva takes a while. Teshuva takes a lot of work. Teshuva takes a lot of learning. And teshuva is beautiful. Teshuva is pleasurable. Each and every single step of teshuva is something that you enjoy because each time you're learning something new about yourself. It's not just learning about the Torah. You're learning about yourself. Can you do me a favor and just sit down, please? You're interrupting. I understand you want to ask questions, but you have to sit down and stop interrupting.

43:01So teshuva, Rabotai, is something that is pleasurable; it's something that you can enjoy each step. Each time you open Parashat HaShavua, you learn something new. Each time you learn halachot, you learn something new. When you learn something new, it gives you an extra pleasure that you can't get anywhere else. So, on one end, your rabbi is 100% right, but he's too early. Meaning that we can't just skip and say, okay, everything that I did in the past is shut off right away. Why? Because we still have to learn what we did. And the more you learn, the more you realize, wait a minute, oh, I actually, I didn't even realize what I did was a sin. I have some bachurim, to tell you the truth, I have some bachurim that are chareidim, religious guys, religious their whole life, born with a kippah, tzitzit, tefillin, everything. You're supposed to laugh at this point. So the guys are religious their whole life, 20, 30, 40 years, whatever it is. And one day they turn on my shiur about wasting seed, and their whole world collapses. Why? They went to yeshiva for 20 years. They went to school for 20 years. They went to Beit Knesset for 20 years. But they never knew how bad it is to violate the issur of Gammabrit.

44:27Wasting seed—they never knew how bad it was. They knew it maybe wasn't allowed, it wasn't good, but they never knew it's considered, according to the Shulchan Aruch, the biggest sin in Judaism. They never knew. So the reality is, rabotai, sometimes we make certain sins, and we don't even know it's a sin. So how are we ever going to find out? If Hashem sees that your teshuva is real and you're really looking to have Yirat Shamayim, you're really looking to connect to the truth, you're really looking to... to connect to Hashem, He's going to little by little unfold and peel the onion, in essence. Show you the truth. Oh, you didn't know this? Let me show you here. He's going to introduce you to a certain rabbi. He's going to introduce you to a certain shiur. He's going to introduce you to a certain book. He's going to show you the truth. Why? Because you're looking for it. But if you're not looking for it, He's not going to show it to you. Next question. You have questions? The second one, last one, and then... My other rabbi said that... I'm not opposing your rabbi. I'm just telling you the rest of the picture that he didn't tell you. A different rabbi told me this. Good rabbis. I have a student from there too. So he said that whatever you think does not mean that... Like if it's a bad thought, it doesn't mean it's a sin.

45:58Gemara Masechet Yoma, page 29a. Look at Gemara Masechet Yoma, page 29a. It says that thoughts of sin are worse than the sin itself. The thoughts of a sin, he thought of—I don't have to give you examples of thoughts of sin because we think of enough sins anyway. The thoughts of a sin are worse than the sin. The Rambam says The reason why the thought of a sin is worse than a sin is because when you commit a sin, it's between you and another person. You're sinning, you stole some money, overcharging, taking something that doesn't belong to you, whatever it was. You sinned with sheim Hashem, a woman that wasn't your wife, a man that wasn't your husband. You sinned, there was another person involved, meaning, People were watching, and you still didn't care. Why? You wanted to do it. Your desire was so big to sin, you didn't care if anyone was watching or not watching. So Hashem is not taking offense to it. He says, listen, my son sinned, my daughter sinned, she's walking around, Hashem, she's walking around, she doesn't have any clothes on, but she doesn't care. She doesn't care if anybody's looking. She wants everybody to look. So she doesn't care about Me, and she doesn't care about anybody else.

47:19But the thought of a sin is much worse. Why? Because no one knows what you're thinking except God. Meaning, the crime is only against God. The crime is only against God. Why? He's the only one that gets to see the filth that's in our mind. So, on one hand, we don't get punished for the sins that we think about until we actually do them. But the Gemara in Masechet Avodah Zarah says, You should watch your eyes during the day, so you do not end up sinning at night. Shlomo HaMelech explains it in Mishlei, also in Kohelet, in several places. They use him as a source, that you should not sin during the day, meaning you should not look at things that are immodest. Because if you look at things that are immodest during the day, it'll cause you to sin at night, which every guy understands what happens. Even if they go to sleep, they can still end up wasting seed. Why? Because you think about what you saw during the day, even if it was three months ago or even three years ago. You saw some woman three years ago that wasn't dressed modestly, and you had a dream about her.

48:39Now most people think, yeah, but it's not in my control. I dreamt, I was sleeping. I didn't do anything. No, that's what the Gemara says. No, it is in your control. The dream only happened because you didn't watch your eyes during the day. So even though it's not the same level of sin of doing it mamash yourself, It's not the same level of sin. It's still a sin. Why? Because it started when you're not watching your eyes. So the thoughts are actually a sin. But it's obviously much worse... You still have thoughts that happened years ago. Exactly. So how do you do it? How do you fix it? You can erase your thoughts. Yes, you can. You can. Not erase them. You can put them on the back burner. For example, sometimes if you're in a retail business... You have a lot of storage. You buy a certain amount of goods, and not all of it sells. Sometimes you buy a bunch of shirts, and no one likes your shirts. Sometimes you buy a bunch of toys, and no one likes your toys. So somebody else is selling it for cheaper. So you have a lot of inventory left. You try to offer discounts. You sell half of it in bulk.

49:46Another discount, another quarter, but there's always a little bit left. A little bit left, you have nothing to do with it. You're not going to throw it out. It's worth money. So you put it somewhere in the back, on the shelves, in the attic, in the warehouse, and little by little it goes deeper and deeper and deeper. It's never gone. If you ever move, you have to take it with you. But it's there. It's in the back, and you forgot about it. That's our old thoughts. Before you do teshuva, that's our old thoughts. The more you learn Torah, you're replacing those thoughts with new thoughts. You're replacing the goyishe nefesh thoughts, the evil thoughts that we had in the past, the disgusting thoughts we had in the past, with new Gemara that you just learned, with new Mishnah you just learned, with new Halakha you just learned. So little by little, all those old bad thoughts go in the back, and further in the back, and further in the back, and further in the back. And that's why the Arizal says that part of the teshuva, specifically for wasting seed, is to learn Gemara.

50:47And the reason why is because when you learn Gemara, it's the highest level of Torah. It's very, very difficult. And it forces all of those old thoughts to go in the back. Why? Because it's replaced with a lot of new thoughts, a lot of new chiddushim. So you learn to the point where you actually sweat. Yes? This world? So the Rambam says that if you live in a place where it's surrounded by reshaim, everyone's a rasha, you have to move. You're not allowed to stay in a place where everyone's a rasha, and What if there's no other place? Everywhere you go, we live in a world of Sodom and Gomorrah. There are reshaim everywhere, there are evil people everywhere. You're the only Jew left on earth, you're Noach. He says, then move to the desert. Over there you're going to have two neighbors, the scorpion and the snake. And the third neighbor, the Gemara in Masechet Berachot says, I got the chidush from one of my students, Sani, he says, oh, also, the Gemara says you're going to find in the desert another thing, it's called shedim.

52:05Demons, meaning it's better to have the demon, the snake, and the scorpion as a neighbor than a person who is a wicked rasha that steals and is mechalel Shabbat and so on. But the reality is, rabbotai, that there are many good places in the world. They're not Yerushalayim with the Beit HaMikdash like we used to have, and... But there's plenty, Baruch Hashem, of decent communities where you have, Baruch Hashem, a Beit Knesset like this. You have other Batei Knesset. You have sinners everywhere. There's no place on earth without sinners. Even if you go to Bnei Brak. Even if you go to Yerushalayim, to Har Nof. Anywhere you go in the world, there's always going to be sinners. There's always going to be immodesty. We're still in this world. Question is: how much Torah is there in this community? Versus the things that are against Hashem, you have to weigh. If there's 90% immodesty and 10% Torah, obviously you have to leave. But if you have a balance, you see, okay, you know what? There's a good rabbi here. I go to a shiur here at least once or twice a week. I make parnasah over here, so I have shalom bayit. There's a good yeshiva over here for my kids. Okay, so half the people are walking around immodestly, but half the people are walking around immodestly everywhere.

53:19It's not a bad place. But if you live in certain areas where, for example, the problem is not the streets but the synagogue, then you have to move. Then there's no hope for the place. For example... This is not considered Lashon Hara. Just for anyone that's worried about me saying Lashon Hara, it's not considered Lashon Hara because anything that's already been done in front of three people, according to halakha, is not Lashon Hara. Meaning if somebody announces that they are, let's say, I don't know, homosexual in front of three people in public and you told somebody, "Hey, hey, he's homosexual," you're not saying Lashon Hara. He said it already himself. So, when I moved from New York, I moved to Boca Raton in Florida. Only later did I find out that in Spanish it means "mouth of the rat." And then, a couple of years into it, I found out the rat actually lives there still. Now, I don't usually go outside much, Baruch Hashem. I either go to shiurim with wonderful people like you, or I'm learning at home. It's what I do. I spent enough time wasting my life on Wall Street. So, Baruch Hashem, I try to spend as much time doing this.

54:31wasting my life on Wall Street. So, Baruch Hashem, I try to spend as much time doing this. So, the public, the outside, doesn't affect me much. It doesn't make a difference if it's a desert, if it's New York, if it's Florida, it doesn't make a difference to me. What makes a difference is usually the Kehillah. Because I go to Beit Knesset. Now, I found out that the Kehillah wasn't exactly what I thought it was, but I know no Kehillah is perfect. Every Kehillah has a problem. You live with it. Some Kehillot have this, some Kehillot have that. Every Kehillah has an issue. But I decided to leave. I decided to leave Boca Raton after living there for a few years. And the reason why is because the head rabbi over there, a Rasha by the name of Ephraim Goldberg, who is actually a Dayan, Shem Yirachem, decided that it's a good idea to bring the number one Catholic missionary in the world to the Beit Knesset to speak to the Kehillah and talk to them about the purpose of life. A Catholic, oved avodah zarah, an idol worshiper, is going to come speak to a thousand Jewish people on Shabbat about the purpose of life. And not only that, the Beit Knesset paid him $40,000 for it.

55:50So we fought this in public, and Baruch Hashem, with a lot of siyata dishmaya, all siyata dishmaya, all help from Hashem. The event got canceled, but once I saw that such a thing is not only happening here, but there's virtually no one other than us fighting against it, I realized this is not the place for me. It's not the neighborhood that was the problem. It's not the immodesty that was the problem, that the beach was 15, 20 minutes away, and that no one wore any clothes at the supermarket, and it was expensive, and the school wasn't great. None of that stuff was the problem. What was the problem? The kehilah was the problem. Kehilah was the problem. So I had to leave. So that's the thing. If you have a nice kehilah, you have a good rabbi with Yirat Shamayim, you have decent schools, Baruch Hashem, you have that, listen, you're not going to get Gan Eden yet in this world. So that's what we have to understand. You have to see, what do you actually have? All the things we don't have, we can count in two seconds. We have to also look at what we do have.

56:51What do we actually have? Do we have a good rabbi? Baruch Hashem. Do we have good shiurim? Baruch Hashem. Do we have this? Count everything you have. If you have the basic necessities, you're fine. And always realize that the grass always looks greener on the other side. It always looks greener. It's not always greener though. It's just a reflection of the sun. Yes? Somebody in the back had a question. I had a question. Why not stay in that community and improve it and continue fighting it rather than just let it rot? Because if the problem was the kehillah itself, if it was people in the kehillah, as a public speaker, I could speak, I could get people to come, do teshuvah, and little by little influence the people. You're right on that end. But what you're wrong about is, and not you particularly, just the thought itself is wrong, is that the problem is not the kehillah. The problem is the leadership. Once the leadership is the problem, there's nothing you can do about it. they're never going to listen to me over him. Not only is he the rabbi of the kehillah of a thousand families, one of the biggest Jewish kehillot in all of America, Orthodox, or at least they call themselves, but he's a Dayan. He's very well known. And he's their rabbi. So automatically, by default, they're not going to accept my thoughts.

58:16Even more so, every single time I helped the kehillah by bringing a lot of people to do teshuva from the community, they started coming to the shul. But it happened many, many times where they would start coming to the shul and then stop coming to my shul. Only later on, I found out that they would start coming to the shul and the rabbi would tell them to stop going to the shul. And one of the other rabbis there, another rasha by the name of Shabtai, I call him Shabtai Tzvi, Of the false messiahs that happened throughout history, he used to take my CDs. I would give my CDs, put my CDs on tables and mikvaot in different places, and he would take the CDs and throw them in the garbage. so here you see there's a lot of sinat chinam. So when there's such a level of sinat chinam, such a level of hatred, baseless hatred for no reason, the problem is you can't fix it. You have to walk away, you have to go look for other people that are interested. Now of course it's hard everywhere, there's issues everywhere, but it's not like that big. It's not this. You cannot allow, let's say, for example, you see a secular person,

59:23Violating Shabbat or you know that he's just secular by the way he looks or acts and so on, you are obligated to do everything you can to try to help this person do teshuva. But if you see somebody who has reformed, if he goes and he's a rabbi in a reform shul, you're not even allowed to talk to him. You're not allowed to talk to him. You're not allowed to go give a shiur at a reform shul. Why? Because once a person is secular, that's simply because of lack of knowledge, ignorance, and just simply carelessness. But if a person actually goes against the Torah b'shita (with an actual strategy), like a reform or conservative so-called rabbi, then he's going against the Torah on purpose. Then he's changing the Torah and manipulating the Torah on purpose. Somebody like that, you're not allowed to associate with. So, that's the thing. Those are certain things that we have to consider because even though we would all love to love all of the Jews in the world, we're not allowed to love all the Jews in the world according to the Torah. If a Jew is secular, do everything you can to help him. If a Jew is just clueless, do everything you can to help him. But if a Jew is manipulating people and trying to encourage them to leave Hashem, either by going to Christianity or to Reform or to Conservative, all the things that are against Hashem,

1:00:38You're actually obligated to hate them. It's a mitzvah to hate them. Just like it's a mitzvah to put tefillin on every day, it's a mitzvah to hate a Reform rabbi. Mitzvah from the Torah. So again, as politically incorrect as this sounds, you can check it out yourself. Check it out yourself. You actually pray for such people to die every day in Amidah, three times a day. La'minim ve'la'malshinim al tehi tikvah. Those three people that came to the town of the Chafetz Chaim, and they wanted people to become secular. They wanted people to become Mechalelei Shabbat. The Kehillah came to the Chafetz Chaim, and the Chafetz Chaim put a curse on them. One guy went crazy, the other guy died, and the third one ran away. After a while passed, He sent him a letter. The guy that ran away sent to the Chafetz Chaim a letter. Please, stop the curse, and so on and so forth. The Chafetz Chaim wrote him a letter back. He says, what do you mean, stop the curse? I pray for you to die every day. The Chafetz Chaim says, I pray for you to die every day. What stop? You wanted to destroy my brothers. You wanted to destroy my sisters. You wanted to walk around with miniskirts. I pray for you to die. Why? You're destroying neshamot.

1:02:07For us, it sounds politically incorrect because we're thinking about humanity. Humanity based on the visual of the goyim. You should be nice to the dolphin. You should be nice to the butterfly. Maybe you should start a butterfly fund. Save the butterfly in Africa from crashing. Save the dolphin from drowning. Maybe we should donate to the Red Cross because the little African-American kid that has a fly on his head in the middle of Africa needs some money. It's the same kid for the last 30 years, by the way. The kid's grown up by now. It's the same commercial for 30 years. He's grown up. He's probably running the Red Cross by now. The reality is, we have to stop looking at the world based on a visual of the goyim. We have to look at it as people of Am Yisrael. Some are good, some are bad. Some are wonderful, some are terrible. That's just the reality. You have to look at things based on a perspective of Hashem. And Hashem told us many, many times in this week's parasha, Shoftim v'shotrim titen lecha.

1:03:18judges and officers shall you appoint in all your cities which Hashem your God gives to you. So here, the basic meaning, the pshat, is that Hashem is saying to have law and order. Have law and order, have people monitor things. But the sages also explain that you also have to have a fence around the fence. You have to have a certain line that you're not willing to cross. And He gave that line to the Chachamim. The Chachamim said, listen, there are, excuse me, biblical laws; it is not allowed to light a fire on Shabbat. But that's not enough. Why? Because if you violate a biblical law, a Torah law, the punishment is too severe. So we want to make sure not only are we not violating the Torah, we're not even getting close to it. So we have to have officers, like guard officers watching us, that as soon as we get even close to the sin, immediately an alarm goes off. So what did the Rabbis create? They created the law of muktzeh.

1:04:28Muktzeh means there are certain things that you're not allowed to touch because they're set aside for Shabbat. They're not something that you would ordinarily use for Shabbat either because it's not allowed or it's simply something that you typically don't do on Shabbat. So, for example, if you have a saw, you're not allowed to saw anything on Shabbat. But that, everybody knows, is the biblical law. But the rabbis said, listen, we can't even—this is such a big sin that we can't even get close to it. So from now on, you're not even allowed to touch the saw. You have a saw? Don't touch it even. Why? Because there's nothing that you can do with the saw that's ever allowed. So therefore, on Shabbat, it is a law that you are not even allowed to touch it. Why? Because we want to make sure that you realize you are not allowed to touch it. Why are you not allowed to touch it? Oh, because you are not allowed to use it. So you put a fence around the fence. Each person has to have these fences for themselves. Each person has to have this red line. This is a red line I'm not willing to cross. This is a red line I'm not willing to cross. If you don't have a red line, then you'll cross every line. If you don't have anything you'll stand for, you'll fall for everything.

1:05:40Every Jew has to have that line. Okay, so I'm going to keep kosher at the house and outside, but you know what? Maybe over here I'm not going to always eat chalav Yisrael. Okay, that's fine. You're allowed to have, as long as it's kosher chalav, it's fine. As long as it's kosher milk, you're allowed. But sometimes certain people, when they don't know much, they say, listen, I'm going to eat kosher at home, but outside I'm going to eat salad. Even if it's not a kosher place. Even though it's not allowed because technically the salad is supposed to be washed, and if it's not coming from a kosher place, that means there's still going to be a likelihood of having worms, maggots, and all types of bugs on it. And every time you eat this little piece of salad, it's like eating pigs six times. But a person that doesn't know the halacha doesn't know this whole issue; he's still going to eat salad at Subway or at the deli or at all of these different places because he doesn't know anything and... But still, he has a line. What's his line? "I'm going to eat non-kosher salad. I'm not going to eat non-kosher meat." That's his line. No, it depends. It depends on how early he is in his teshuva. If he just started last week. If he started just last year. No, he knows dairy and meat have to be kosher. Creams are another halacha.

1:07:02So, it depends. It depends on how long he's been religious for. If he's been religious for, let's say, a few months, then he's still learning the halachot, and he didn't get to this halacha yet, then it's still considered shogeg. But if he's already been religious for several years, and the reason why he doesn't know this halacha is simply because he doesn't learn, because he's too busy playing sports, and he's too busy gambling, and he's too busy making aveirot, and he's too busy doing everything else but learning Torah, then the actual sin is not shogeg, because him not learning is the reason why he didn't know. It's not because he didn't learn this specific halacha, it's because he didn't learn anything. So it all depends on the reason why it's shogeg. It can't just be shogeg forever. 20 years he's religious, and he still doesn't know that you're supposed to wash the leaves of the salad. You can't. 20 years he's married, and he still doesn't know he's supposed to tell his wife he loves her. You can't. It's not shogeg after 20 years. So, it all depends on how long. It all depends on how long he's religious, how long, what he knows, what he's learned, and so on and so forth. But the key is that yes, Hashem is merciful. Hashem wants all of us to do teshuva. Hashem wants all of us to win. But we have to always remember, Hashem is not our friend. He's our God. Once you understand He's our God, then okay, now I know who I'm dealing with. And there's a Mishnah in Pirkei Avot that says, "Gagata al-Limud, Ola Zadon."

1:08:27if the reason why you're making a shogeg sin an accidental sin is because you didn't learn, but you didn't learn on purpose, meaning you wanted to waste time doing other things, then Ola Zadon, then it becomes a purposeful sin. Why? Because you didn't learn on purpose, so therefore the sin is on purpose. But if you didn't learn simply because you didn't get to it, you're learning, you're learning other things, you just didn't get to this one, then it's still shegaga, then it's still shogeg. But if you've been religious for 25 years, and you still don't know anything, then we have a problem. And there's a problem. If you're married for five years, and you still don't remember your wife's birthday, you have a serious problem. If it's the first year, your shidduch just started, you're still not really sure what it's like to be married yet, you haven't even had a kid yet, okay, so you forgot a birthday. It's not the end of the world, hopefully. It's not the end of the world. Depends on what kind of wife you have. But hopefully, it's not the end of the world. But if you've already been married for five years, ten years, and you still haven't bought your wife a single set of flowers, then it's not Shgagah. Then it's Zadon. Then it's Ahavah and Purpose. You don't love your wife. Yeah? Besides Teshuvah, what is more significant about Elul? Well, Elul is a time when we are supposed to prepare for Rosh Hashanah, Rosh Hashanah being Judgment Day.

1:09:49So Elul, there's an Ani L'dodi V'dodi Li. There's a pasuk in the Torah and the Tanakh that Shlomo HaMelech says, "I am for my beloved and my beloved is for me." The beloved meaning God. So what Shlomo HaMelech is trying to explain to us is that right before Judgment Day, Hashem is coming to the field. He's coming closer to us. coming closer to us to listen to all of our prayers. He's coming closer to us to listen to all the things that we want, all the things that we care about. He's coming closer to us in order to see how much we actually care about Judgment Day. If you use Elul as a time to reflect Go up to Hashem and say, you know what, Hashem, I wasn't exactly the best. I could do better next year. But if you give me another year, I'll do such and such. And you give Him a reason. Not just I'll do it with words. But you already start doing teshuva during Elul. You already start listening to shiur Torah during Elul. You already start praying on time during Elul. You already start eating more kosher food during Elul. You do everything you can already now. So when it comes to Judgment Day on Rosh Hashanah,

1:11:00Hashem says, yeah, yeah, yeah, this is Steve that's been with Me all month. Yeah, he wasn't here all year, but he's been with Me all month. Okay, no, Steve, let him go another year. Give him 150,000 this year. Give him a little more money. Maybe he'll get some encouragement to do more mitzvot, more tzedakah, more ma'asim tovim, more good things. Give him more. Why? Because I saw he's serious during Elul. And during Elul, figuratively speaking, Hashem is closer to us, meaning He's more receptive to our prayers, especially when it comes to issues of parnasah. A person that actually wants a lot of parnasah, this would be the time to ask for it. But not ask for it by simply saying, "Hashem, give me more money." That you did already all year round. During this time of Elul is when a person is supposed to give the most amount of tzedakah. Why? Because you want to show Hashem, "Hashem, look what I'm doing with the money You're giving me. You gave me 100%, You told me to give 10%." This month I gave 20. This month I gave 15. This month I gave 10. The whole year I didn't give 10. But I did something. Look how much I gave. Look how much I did. It's worth it for You to give me even more next year. During this time. This is the time to do it. Why? Because right now you're closing off the year. This is the time where we have... This is if you're... As an example, I used to play sports when I was a kid.

1:12:23Reality is that the whole game didn't matter. If I played football, American football, the four quarters didn't mean anything. What mattered were the last five minutes, the last four minutes, the last two minutes, the last one second. Why? Because you fought, you tried to kill each other for four quarters. With two seconds left, the score is tied. seconds left, meaning that everything that happened until now, no one really is ever going to remember or care. What are they going to remember? What happened in the last two seconds. Did you score or miss the score? That's what matters. Elul is that, figuratively speaking. Elul is that the whole year, the whole year. No, it counts, of course it counts. But, meaning that the whole year, you could change the whole year in two seconds. Not the whole year. That's why I said figuratively speaking. The whole year counts, of course, in Torah. But you could change the portion of the entire year by what you do now. Meaning, if a person was a rasha the whole year, violated Shabbat the whole year, did this all year, did that all year, but in Elul he said, I'm doing teshuvah. But now I'm just doing teshuvah for this month and then I'm going back to being a rasha next month. No, because somebody like that, you should know, goes in a different class.

1:13:40Some people do this. They go to the beit knesset on Yom Kippur and they say, but they already have a vacation planned for next weekend to the beach. They already have a barbecue planned for next Shabbat. They think that they did teshuvah. And there's a Mishnah in the Torah that says someone... That says I'm gonna sin and then do teshuvah. I'm gonna sin and then do teshuvah. They do not let him do teshuvah in Shamayim, and Yom Kippur does not help him. Hashem does not forgive him on Yom Kippur. He forgives everybody else except that person. Why? Because that person never did teshuvah. He's going into Yom Kippur trying to beat the system like it's the IRS. He's trying, oh no, no, I'm gonna do teshuvah. I'm gonna wear white clothes like I just came from those clouds. I'm gonna wear white clothes, and I'm gonna pray like, you know, like somebody just died the whole day. I'm not leaving the Beit Knesset. Pretend like I'm a tzaddik. And then, five minutes after the Beit Knesset is over, the Shofar, everything else, I'm gonna eat. I'm gonna drink. I'm gonna do everything else that I did. Everything, nothing changed. Except that one day, he thinks that he can beat the system that way. There's actually a special Mishnah in the Torah for such people. It says, Yom Kippur doesn't help them. In fact, it hurts them. It hurts them.

1:15:06Why? Because they're making a mockery of the system. They're making a mockery of Hashem. So, it's important to come to Judgment Day prepared to do teshuva. to Rosh Hashanah prepared to do teshuva. If you already started the teshuva during Elul, you're already hitting the ground running. You're already doing good. Why? Because Hashem already knows who you are. You already started doing some things. You already started fixing a few things. And anyone that thinks that he doesn't have anything to fix because he's fine, has a much bigger problem than he can imagine. Because most people that come to the Beit Knesset think that they only need to do teshuva for this one small thing. Because the Gemara says, a person does not see an obligation in himself. Everybody thinks they're fine. They look at a mirror, but they see the mistakes in everybody else behind them. The reality is, during Elul is that time where you look at the mirror and see yourself. See all the chesronot, all of the deficiencies you have.

1:16:06All the deficiencies I have. Look at them. Okay, you know what? I got to fix my mood. I got to fix my this. I got to fix stuff. Okay, so let's do a list. Let me write down some of the things that are not exact, that people are complaining about. My wife's complaining that I am an egotistical maniac. Okay, so I got to fix that. My wife's complaining that I'm cheap. Okay, it's probably true. Okay, I'm cheap. Okay. My mom's complaining that I'm this. Okay, so you write check, check, check. You pick five, ten, twenty, fifty, depending. Maybe I'm a lek. Who knows? But the point is, pick all the things that are not good. Pick all the things that are not good and then pick what am I going to fix? What am I going to find? There's a list. You can't fix everything. No one can fix everything. No, you're not Moshe Rabbeinu. But you can fix something. Okay, the skirts are too short. Okay, so this year, all the skirts are too short. Ripping them, burning them in the garbage, not even selling them. Throw them in the garbage, finished. Okay, so this year from now on, I'm going to wear a long skirt. Okay, that's good. That's a good way if we want to do teshuvah. This year, no more wig. This year, only modest clothes. This year, I'm going to lay tefillin every day. And so on and so forth. A person needs to pick things. If you start now...

1:17:18Then you can go to Rosh Hashanah already feeling, you know what, I'm already in the system. I'm already in the system. I have a better chance of having a better year. Whereas the guy that just shows up for the first time all year, he shows up on Rosh Hashanah. "Hey, how you doing, guys?" Gives everybody a big hug. It's like a meet-and-greet at the shul. Oh, do you see what building I just bought? Do you see what car I have? You see the one? Yeah, that's the one. The white one I parked outside right in front of the Beit Knesset. That's mine. Yeah, you see this watch? You see this? Everybody's a show and tell. Everybody comes with bling bling like they're 50 Cent to the Beit Knesset. They're coming with their bling. Everybody has their jewelry. Everybody has their car. Why? Because they're showing off. No one cares about God. Now, if you start doing teshuva during Elul, by the time Rosh Hashanah comes, you're not even paying attention to these people. Why? You're too busy praying to Hashem. You're already in His system. You're already connected to Him. You're already starting your teshuva. You're not going to ruin it talking to this guy. So that's what Elul is for. Elul is for us to already get ourselves prepared for the big day. Anyone that understands the significance of a trial,

1:18:26knows that every single person that ever had a trial in their life, whether it's for a parking ticket, a speeding ticket, IRS audit, a regulatory audit, or a bankruptcy, every person can't sleep before the trial. Even if you're innocent. Even if you're innocent, you're like, "Oh, but what if they don't see it? What if they don't believe me? What if this? What if my lawyer's incompetent? What if this? What if that?" One time, I tell you, I spent over half a million dollars on lawyers in my life. I had the best lawyers in the world. All of them were the worst lawyers. I can give you stories about lawyers from here until next year. One time, I actually had a trial. I'm serious. This is not even an exaggeration. I had a trial. The other side didn't show up. Meaning, we had a trial. The other side didn't come. My lawyer, whom I paid a lot of money, still lost the case. It was supposed to be a mistrial. It was supposed to be a win by default. Somehow, my lawyer still lost the case. Do you understand? So what happens if you go up to Shamayim and your lawyer is incompetent?

1:19:35...happens, this happens in this world. So, a person understands there's a risk. If there's a risk in this world, so that's what a person says, "Listen, I have a big trial coming up in a month." Trials with Hashem both say the parnassah is judged on Rosh Hashanah. All the money you're going to make all year round is decided on Rosh Hashanah. Doesn't matter how much you work. Doesn't matter what business you have. Doesn't matter if you're a stockbroker or you collect garbage. Or you collect Q-tips for hotel chains. It doesn't make a difference what you do. You sell jewelry. Or you have some big building and you rent out houses. It doesn't make a difference what you do. All of your parnassah is going to be decided in a month from now. All of your parnassah. Only thing that you can do... Improve or ruin it as far as not necessarily the quantity that you get, but how you get it. So one time the Baal Shem Tov sees a person carrying water. He says, how you doing? And the guy carrying water says, Baruch Hashem Kvod Harav, everything good. I have this job 20 years, Baruch Hashem, everything is good. I have parnassah, kids are good, wife is good, everything is good.

1:20:54He says, Baruch Hashem. The next day, he sees the same guy. He asks, how are you doing? The man replies, ah, this job, it's so hot outside, 90 degrees every day, I'm carrying this water, and the wife is yelling, and the kids are failing, and this and that, but nothing changed. It's the same job as yesterday. 20 years he has this job. 20 years he's carrying the water. 20 years he's married to the same wife that doesn't like him so much. 20 years he has the same kid that maybe doesn't listen sometimes. But yesterday he said, "Baruch Hashem." Today he says, "Why?" The Baal Shem Tov says, "You give me a chiddush." He tells the guy carrying the water, "You give me a chiddush." He goes, "Me? I barely know what chiddush I give you." He says, "You give me a big chiddush." He says, "The Gemara says..." That on Rosh Hashanah, Hashem decides how much parnassah we're going to get. But the Mishnah that came before the Gemara says that Hashem decides our parnassah every day. So, I always ask, the Baal Shem Tov says, I always ask, how could it be? If He already decided on Rosh Hashanah that I'm going to get $100,000, why is He still deciding again the next day and the next day and the next day? Of course, Hashem doesn't change His mind.

1:22:12Hashem doesn't change His mind. He says, "And you, water man, you finally helped me." He said, "Hashem decides how much you're going to get on Rosh Hashanah. But every day, He decides how you're going to get it." Meaning, based on our actions. If we did good, our neshama goes up to shamayim. Every day we go to sleep, a part of our neshama goes up to shamayim. Hashem, this guy is a tzaddik. He learned one daf Gemara today. Three halachot. A little bit of mussar. A little bit of Yaron Reuven. He did good today, Baruch Hashem. And he even gave some money. Tomorrow, it's going to be good news for him. He wakes up the next day happy. Why? His neshama already knows today is going to be a good day because in shamayim, they judge him favorably because he did good. But sometimes, he goes up to shamayim, and the neshama says, "Hashem, this guy, nebach, this guy is a tragedy." looked at the girls, not his wife. He stole from his partner. He did this, he did that. He even took money from the homeless guy. In his skin, this guy is the worst guy. "I don't want to come back, Hashem. I don't want to go back to this guy. Please, Hashem, I don't want to go back to this body." Hashem says, "You have to go to the body. Maybe he's going to do teshuva." "No, no, no, Hashem, please do me a favor. Put somebody else there." He goes, "No, no, you're the neshama for the body." That's why we say...

1:23:36Every day we say Modeh Ani to Hashem for bringing back our neshama. Why? Because Hashem has emunah in us. What emunah? Hashem has emunah in us. What emunah? Emunah that we're going to do teshuvah today. So He forces the neshama to go back to the body. But the neshama knows in Shamayim they just judged them negatively. Why? Because he stole, he looked where he shouldn't have, and he did all these bad things. So the neshama knows today is going to be a bad day. Why? Because in Shamayim they said, "Oh, what did you do yesterday? Today is judgment day." Today you're going to make a thousand dollars. But how are you going to make a thousand dollars? By breaking a leg at the store. The thousand dollars you're going to get, but you're not going to get it from your job. They're going to fire you from the job. How are you going to get it? By breaking a foot. Who wants that kind of parnassah? Who wants that? Okay, you're going to make the 100,000. But it's bar minan, it's through an accident. The guy becomes paraplegic. Who wants the 100,000? Who wants the 100 million becoming paraplegic? You understand? So that's what the Baal Shem Tov chidesh, what he gave is a new insight in regards to parnassah. It's decided in Shamayim. It doesn't make a difference if you work overtime or less time. What you're going to get is decided. How you're going to get it, that's determined every day based on your actions.

1:24:56You do good, but you get good. Yes? Is there also an opinion, I might be wrong, but I think I heard it, that on Rosh Hashanah it is truly decided that you're really going to get a lot of parnassah, but you bring it upon yourself to get less because of all the sins that you commit during the year. Oh yeah, I mean, of course, there are certain things that a person can do to destroy the parnassah. So, parnassah is not just money. That's one of the things that I think we definitely need to elaborate on. When we talk about parnassah, we're not only talking about, strictly speaking, money. Parnassah in the Torah is called damim. Damim means blood, or bloods in plural. And the Torah says that money is blood because people chase money with all of their blood, with all of their time, their whole life, they're chasing money. When you buy a car, when you buy a house, instead of saying, oh yeah, this cost $500,000, this cost $50,000, instead you say, oh, this cost six months of my life, this cost 30 years of my life, because that's how long it took you.

1:26:00That's how long it took you to make this money. It took you 30 years to buy this house. It took you 50 years to buy this car. It took you college tuition, a million years, whatever it is. The point is that all of this stuff costs life. There's a certain amount of life you've invested into these things. Now, another thing that's blood is seed. Your seed is your blood. In fact, blood is a second level from seed. Seed is the essence of man, meaning the sperm of a person is the essence of the person. It's even a more precise makeup of the person than the blood itself. Blood is just part of the seed. So when a person wastes it, then, in essence, he's wasting the damim, he's wasting blood. And therefore, the shefa, the parnasa that's given to the person in Shamayim, Hashem gives it to him, he's just wasting it. And that's why people that waste seed tend to lose all of their money. then, in essence, he's wasting the damim, he's wasting blood. And therefore, the shefa, the parnasa, that's given to the person in Shamayim, Hashem gives it to him, he's just wasting it. And that's why people that waste seed tend to lose all of their money.

1:27:04Or if they don't lose all their money, they lose a lot of what they have. Even if they make a lot of money, let's say, for example, you see some people who are very promiscuous and do everything they want, but they still make a million dollars a year. The reality is, if they didn't commit all the sins they do, they probably would make a hundred million dollars. They don't realize it because they're happy with their million, and they think that they'll always have the potential to make more, but in reality, they're destroying themselves. So one of the ways, one of the many ways to ruin a person's parnasa is by wasting seed. Another way to ruin parnasa is by having problems with the house, having problems with shalom bayit. Because one of the key roots to parnasa is having a happy wife. The wife's prayers mean much more than the husband's prayers because a wife has a much easier time crying. To get a guy to cry, sometimes you have to punch him in the face a few times. To get a woman to cry, all she has to see is maybe she doesn't like the way she looks in the mirror, and she cries for a week. One of the kids does something cute, and she's crying for five minutes because it's so cute. The kid, she starts emotional. A guy, nothing, nothing. Churban Beit HaMikdash, he barely cries. On Tisha B'Av, I saw in a Beit Knesset, one guy, Baruch Hashem, a tzaddik, started crying. Crying for the Beit HaMikdash.

1:28:23Tisha B'Av, you're supposed to cry. The ideal state is to get to a point where you connect to the Beit HaMikdash, to the Shekhinah, that you cry about it. You cry because we don't have the Beit HaMikdash. One guy sees another guy crying. He says, "Ah, you should relax. Don't take it so seriously." He tells the guy that's crying, "Don't take it so seriously and start crying on us." Missed the whole point. It was better if he didn't come to shul, the guy that said that. But that's the thing. Some people, they're so macho that they think that it's a good thing. So a woman can cry and can talk to Hashem. Now, if a woman is crying for Hashem to help her with the kids, help her with parnassah, her husband, help the husband become a talmid chacham, She cries with tears, and even if all of the gates of heaven are closed, the gates of tears are always open. But if the woman is crying for a husband because he's cheap, because he's violent, because he's nasty, because he's cheap on compliments and he's cheap on money, and he's a bad person and so on and so forth, and they'll answer that too, but if they're answering that, they're not answering the parnassah prayers.

1:29:36So it's very, very critical to have shalom bayit when it comes to parnassah. And there's obviously other things as well. But the point is that, yes, a person could be shooting himself in the foot. Every year, simply by the way he acts, where they decided, Shem, I'm all yet this year we're gonna give Steve half a million dollars, but with all of the things that he does, by the end of the year he was only able to keep $25,000. Why? Because he had $475,000 of unnecessary expenses that he caused himself because of all the sins that he made. So yes, he still made the half a million, but he only kept $25,000 at the end of the day. There are a lot of people I know in New York, especially. I remember when I lived on Wall Street and... My building was full of high-income people, people that made a lot of income, but very few people that actually had a lot of money. It's two different things. A lot of people in New York make a lot of money. In order to survive in New York, you have to make a lot of money. Everything's expensive, but very few people, at least statistically, actually have a lot of money. People make $100,000, $200,000, $300,000, $500,000, a million dollars, whatever it is, people make a ton of money.

1:30:47But very few actually keep most of it. And it's not just because of taxes. It's because of the show-off. It's all because of the "ta'avah," all of the show-off. Why? The guy just made his first check. He made $15,000 for the month. He has to buy a $2,000 a month expense car. You go to people's parking lot, you see $3,000, $4,000, $5,000 a month in expenses just for their parking lot. So now already 30% of his income is his car. Then he has a mortgage. The car has to match the house. So he goes into a house, $5,000 a month. Now, 66% of his income is gone. Now, of course, you can't have a car and a house like this and stay home. You have to go to a restaurant 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, or 10 times a week. So now he goes to restaurants. And now the rest, the other $5,000, is gone. So even though he makes $15,000 a month, he's barely making ends meet. Because he has to show off the car, show off the house, and show off the watch that he can't really afford, show off the shoes that he can't really afford. The guy walks on mud all day, but he's wearing $300 shoes. It's just foolishness. So yes, Hashem gives him parnasah, but he's an idiot. What do you want? It's not Hashem's fault. He's doing it to himself. So this is about us. It's not always Hashem's fault.

1:32:03what we have. It's us. Sometimes we're just overspending. Sometimes we take the berachah and we throw it in the garbage. And sometimes we throw it in the garbage because we literally waste our money to show off to people because we have a big ego. We want to show off to people that we have a fancy watch. We want to show off to people that we have a fancy car and a fancy this and a fancy that. And sometimes it's because we're constantly making big sins and not doing real teshuvah. So Hashem takes away that parnasah in different ways. Where is the line? If there's no problem being rich, so that's rule number one. We should always know there's no problem being rich in Judaism. If Hashem gave you the money, no problem, you're having money. There are plenty of people in the Torah who were very rich. Moshe Rabbeinu was very rich. After he broke the first set of the Ten Commandments, there were little sparks of the rock that Hashem told him to keep, and he became very, very wealthy because of it.

1:33:22Rabbi Akiva inherited his fortune in three different ways. He became very, very rich, one of the richest people in the land. Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, the one who compiled the Mishnah, which preceded the Gemara, was very, very wealthy. He had hundreds and hundreds of horses. Rav Elazar ben Azaria had cities, cities. The Gemara in Masechet Shabbat says that every year he would give his maaser, his maaser, how much he would give. I did the math; according to today's calculation, he would make 1.2 billion dollars. He would give maaser of 1.2 billion dollars. He was kodesh kodeshim, able to revive the dead, talmid chacham, but he was so rich, his maaser, 10% of his income, he would give 1.2 billion dollars, according to today's money. So, there's no problem being rich. It's not a problem. It's not a sin to be rich. It's a sin if that's all you are. If your whole life is just about money. If all you have is money, then you're a very poor person. You're not rich. Some people are so poor; all they have is money.

1:34:29So if your whole life is just about money, if your whole life all you're thinking about is the next car you're going to buy, the next house you're going to buy, and the next house you're going to remodel, and you just finished remodeling this kitchen and it's not good enough, so you're going to destroy it and build a new one—like this doctor whose house I went to for Shabbat a few years ago. Another guest said, "Oh wow, we like your kitchen." He goes, "No, no, we just finished it, but I don't like it, so we're going to destroy it." We just did the whole kitchen. The kitchen was no less than a quarter million dollars. we don't like it, so I'm going to destroy it and build a new one. And she looks at the Talmid Yeshiva that barely has food to eat and goes, do you think that's excessive? You just threw $250,000 in the garbage, and you're asking a kid that makes $1,000 a month if it's excessive. Obviously, it's excessive. It's foolishness. Because all she has is money. If that's a person, then obviously it's a very sad scenario regardless of whether they're religious or not. Even if they're not religious, it's a sad scenario. But,

1:35:30If a person is living a life... Excuse me, let me put in the second battery. To be like MacGyver, for anyone that's old enough to know who that is. Anyway, if a... Who stays? If a person is a Shomer Torah u'Mitzvot, he makes time to learn Torah every day, in the morning, at night, no less than an hour in the morning and an hour at night, hopefully more. If he's very, very wealthy, it should be more, obviously. he's using the money and he's giving no less than 10%, and in reality, if he's rich, he should give much more than 10% of his money to Torah, to kiruv, to talmidei yeshiva, and so on. The other 80 or 90% that he has, enjoy yourself, no problem. There's no limit to what you can do with it as long as you're doing good things with the money. The reality is that the really rich people

1:36:48it's very hard for them to be righteous because money is a very, very big test. So if a person is learning Torah, keeping mitzvot, and he's using the money to do a lot of good things, then buy whatever car he wants and whatever house he wants as long as he's going to use those tools to somehow sanctify Hashem's name. So if he's going to buy a big house, he should use that big house to have rabbis over and have shiurim and have talmidei chachamim there, and not just a house to show people off that he has 87 rooms. "Oh look here, this is number 86, this is 87. Yeah, we'll bring another extension, there'll be another 90 rooms next year." So he could be on some show on TV. He has the house to publicize Torah. Now, at the same time, he's allowed to have a nice car. Just like Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi used to have nice horses. Why? Because a person that's wealthy is not allowed to go and drive around in a little jalopy and a little piece of garbage car that's $50 if he's really rich. Why? It's a lack of kavod. If a person is rich, he has to look rich. He even has to dress rich.

1:37:54He's not allowed to dress like a bum if he's really rich. So there's no problem being rich. It's the problem if that's all you are. If all you have is money, that's all your whole life. So if you spend your money wisely, you invest it into Torah, you invest it to sanctify Hashem's name, you're always opening your door to give chesed, to give tzedakah, to do good things with your money, it's no problem. Enjoy your money. Mabrouk. Have as much as you have, even a billion. But if the reality is that money is controlling your life, and you can't even think about Gemara because you're thinking about another deal, then it's a disease. It's not a blessing. It's a disease. It's a curse. Meaning, how do you do teshuva? Person's been a rasha his whole life. How is he gonna become a tzaddik overnight? That's what you're asking, tachlis, bottom line, right? So the Torah mentions your question. Rabbi Yisrael Salanter has a wonderful book of Mussar.

1:39:14that has the letters of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, and also some of his talmidim, Rabbi Yitzchak Blazer, and he talks about your question. At the end of the book, maybe page 475, 476, and he says the generation of Yehezkel, the prophet Yehezkel, when the prophet came to them and he says, The Torah says that the people said, "We're embarrassed. We're embarrassed to do teshuva. Why are we embarrassed to do teshuva? Because the Prophet lived at a time of the Beit HaMikdash." And the people lived at the time of the Beit HaMikdash, meaning that every day they saw a miracle. Open miracles, not like a private miracle where a person's life was saved, or this happened, or that. No, no, no. Public miracles every day. There was a fire coming from heaven in the shape of a lion, coming down all the way from heaven, the size of a city block, coming down to the Beit HaMikdash, taking the korban, and going back. Who's not going to believe in God?

1:40:25every day you see things; you see the actual incense offering, a pillar of smoke goes from the Beit HaMikdash all the way to the heavens, all the way to the sky. Even if there's a tornado, it can't move it; nothing happens. It doesn't make a difference—rain, shine—nothing moves the smoke. It's like a pillar, as if it's a pillar of stone. So, they're seeing open miracles constantly. So after they sinned, the prophet Yechezkel told them, do teshuva. They said we're embarrassed. Why? We know that Hashem is real, and we still sinned. So it doesn't make sense to us that He would accept our teshuva. It doesn't make sense to us that He would accept our teshuva because we know He's real, and we still sinned. So it doesn't make sense that He would accept our teshuva. And Rabbi Yitzchak Blazer says that was their mistake. They were trying to make sense of teshuva. But the reality is teshuva doesn't make sense. It's against nature. But that's the kindness of Hashem. The more a person tries to make sense of teshuva, the less likely he is to do teshuva. Why? Because teshuva doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense that a person will rob a hundred million dollars

1:41:41and then go to the judge, and the judge says to him, you know what? If you say you're going to stop doing it, not only can you keep what you took, you already made the sin, you can't give it back. Not only do you keep the $100 million that you stole, but I'm going to give you another $100 million as a prize because you said that you stopped. If you're really serious though, I'll give you another $100 million as a reward. It doesn't make any sense. Today you tell somebody, listen, I'm sorry, judge. Okay, give the money back. No, I want to keep it. Well, keep it, go to jail, go to a mental institution instead first. Something's wrong with you. Teshuva doesn't make any sense. The people at the time of the prophet Yechezkel tried to make sense of it, and it didn't make sense, and therefore they didn't do teshuva. That's why the Churban happened, because they were trying to make sense of it. So it's important that a person understands. Teshuva doesn't make sense, but that's actually part of the kindness of Hashem. That's the kindness of Hashem. That's how much Hashem wants you to do teshuva. So all of the sins you've ever made, there is a teshuva for them. Most of them, with the exception of one, you can do teshuva for in this life. Whether you stole money and you give it back. Whether you violated Shabbat, you get other people to keep Shabbat.

1:42:58Whether you wasted seed, get other people to stop wasting seed. And you stop, obviously. Whether all the different things that a person did in his life, you can do teshuva for. In this world, there's one thing you can't do, which is Chilul Hashem. Chilul Hashem's teshuva only starts after you die. Either way, why is that the case? Why is it the case that Chilul Hashem is something that you can't do teshuva for in this world? The reason why, the Chafetz Chaim says, that the punishment for Chilul Hashem is that it's the biggest sin in the entire Torah because, in essence, what you're doing is you're desecrating Hashem Himself. You go and tell people to stop listening to Hashem. That's, in essence, what a person does anytime he wears his black and white Hasidic clothes and has a beard, a hat, and a kippah, but instead of going to shul or the yeshiva or the kollel, he goes to the casino. That's Chilul Hashem.

1:43:59a secular person like I used to be looks at the chassidish guy at the casino and says, "Hey, if that's what religious people are like, I don't want to be religious. At least I'm not fake. I know where I belong—I'm here. You don't belong here. You're representing God, yet you're here with me playing poker. It doesn't make any sense." That's the example of... The sin is so big, there's not enough punishment in this world to give to such a person. The Gemara says there's no way you can do teshuva in this world. The sin is so big, even the Holocaust times a thousand is not enough to punish such a person that goes to a casino wearing his black and whites and he's a chassidish guy and he's a religious Jew and so on and so forth. There's not enough punishment in this world. So what does a person do, the Horah Yisrael says? Every one of us desecrated Hashem's name this year. If it's not at the casino, it's at the store. If it's not yelling at this one, it's yelling at that one. Every one of us did it this year, this week maybe even. This week, this year. All of us, we go up to Rosh Hashanah, we don't even know what we did. We don't know how we chatanu. We don't know how we avinu. We don't know all the sins we made, but we know we messed up.

1:45:18Now, what we don't realize is that some of the mess up is Chillul Hashem. How do we fix it? The Horah Yisrael explains a chidush that could change your life. The Gemara in Masechet Chagigah, page 4, says, if a person doesn't find a way to do Kiddush Hashem, to sanctify Hashem's name, it's better off he didn't come to the world. Why? That's your purpose. If anybody ever asks, what's my purpose in life? That's purpose number one. Before everything else, that's purpose number one. Sanctify Hashem's name. Kiddush Hashem. If you didn't do it, there was no purpose to your life. Even if you did everything else, and you're a wonderful person, and you give this, and you do this, if you didn't sanctify Hashem's name, there's no point. That's the purpose. That's purpose number one. So now, the Or HaYisrael says, how come we don't get the reward for Kiddush Hashem in this world? He says, because if the punishment for Chilul Hashem is too big for this world, we know the reward for the opposite is at least 500 times bigger. If the punishment is one, the mitzvah is 500 times fold. So just like the punishment...

1:46:39too big for this world. The reward for kiddush Hashem is 500 times too big for this world. So, how do we fix the kiddush Hashem? Have so much kiddush Hashem. There's not enough time for kiddush Hashem. How do you sanctify Hashem's name every single time you have an opportunity? To talk about Hashem in public, tell somebody to do teshuva, tell somebody to come to the shiur Torah, tell somebody that you're doing such and such because you're a Jew, you're being honest in your business because you're a Jew, you're helping this one because you're a Jew, and every time you're mentioning it, that's a form of kiddush Hashem. Every time you arrange a shiur, you arrange a shiur Torah, it's a huge kiddush Hashem. You help somebody do teshuva, it's kiddush Hashem. There are so many ways to sanctify Hashem's name. and constantly spread it around the world. The biggest way is to do Kiruv, to be involved in Kiruv, to be involved in getting Am Yisrael to come back to Abba. Why? Because if Am Yisrael does not come back to Abba, doesn't come back to Hashem, no one's going to be there to sanctify His name. But every single time you get a Jew to do teshuva, start keeping Shabbat, start keeping Taharat HaMishpacha, start putting on Kisui Rosh, start being modest, start being a Jew, and a proud one too, now every mitzvah he does,

1:48:00It's another Kiddush Hashem for you. It's another mitzvah for you. Then he has a wife. Then he has little kids, little tzaddikim running around, and every single time these little tzaddikim go in the middle of the street and they say "Baruch Hashem" when you ask them how they are doing, and they say "Mazal Tov" when there's a good thing, and they say "Shabbat Shalom." That's Kiddush Hashem. You can have little armies of Kiddush Hashem just working for you all day. How? Get shiurim like this together, Baruch Hashem. Get people to do teshuvah. And that helps you fix all of the things that we've done in the past. It's not so difficult. It's not so difficult. But you have to invest some time into it. Next. It says that if you run a business and it doesn't go well, so open the Daf Yomi or something and study. Then you're going to have customers in. So how can we finish the Daf Yomi? It's like in the course maybe? Like you start... meaning if you're asking me if you're studying at work and a customer comes, so the Talmud, the Gemara, and Torah in general are not only meant to be studied at work. It's supposed to be studied when you're not working. When a person loves Torah, he's going to make specific times to learn Torah when he's not working, before work. So, for example

1:49:29He prays in the morning, I don't know, 5, 6, 7 o'clock, 8 o'clock in the morning, whenever he prays. So if he has the luxury to show up to work later, then he'll study after prayer. So let's say if he prays at, I don't know, 8 o'clock in the morning, and he doesn't have to go to work until 10, then he'll finish prayer from 8 to 9, and then study for 45 minutes to an hour, and then go to work. If that's not possible, because he has to be working early, like most people in New York, most people in the world, then what he would need to do is try to find a way to wake up a little earlier and start studying before he prays. do the morning prayers and already study before he prays. That's because you're obligated to learn in the morning. But the biggest wisdom you're going to get is learning at night. Meaning that as soon as you get home, whenever you get home—5, 6, 7, 8 o'clock at night—you spend some time with the family, you spend some time with the kids, remind them that you're a father, remind them that you're a mom, remind them that you're in their life. You can't just be an absentee parent.

1:50:31you have to be there. You have to tell them that you're there. You have to show them to come to life and not just be one of these people that, you know, say "No, no, I'm learning, I'm learning," and you know the kids are abandoned in the streets. You have to obviously make sure you take care of your kids, make sure you pay attention to your wife, and so on. But after that's done—after, I don't know, half an hour, an hour, an hour and a half, whatever it takes, it doesn’t necessarily need to be five hours every day—after an hour or so, they go to sleep, they go do whatever they do, and you go into your study and you learn for another hour or two. And that's your learning at night. That is the basic minimum that's going to get you by. Now, if a person loves Torah, he's also going to do both of what I just said, and he's going to learn during the day. Now, of course, if somebody is working for another person, he has to make sure that the person that he's working for allows him to learn while he's working. Because if you work for a certain company, and they don't want you to learn, they want you to work. you work in the stockroom, and every time you're learning, you're thinking you're doing a mitzvah. But in reality, you're stealing because they're paying you for your time. Even if they say, "Listen, we don't need you to do anything, but we don't want you to learn," you are not allowed to learn. If they want you to just stay there, look pretty, and stay at the cash register all day, but they don't want you to learn, you're not allowed to learn. Why? It's their time; they're paying you for that time.

1:52:00They're paying you for that time; you're not allowed to learn during that time. But if they don't care, which is the case for most people, especially today with this fear that people have of the law—freedom of religion, freedom of this, freedom of that, freedom of everything—you can put some headphones on and listen to a lecture or open a little Gemara. As long as you take care of your business, most bosses are not going to care. Just make sure you have permission and that you're being an honest person. Of course, once a customer comes, attend to your business, because at the end of the day, you're there to work, not to learn. Your learning is above and beyond. But the Gemara is trying to explain to you that there's a time for that. But you should never get to a point where your only time to learn is while you're working. Because then you're never going to get to anything. You're never going to get to anything. You have to learn when you're not working. And b'ezrat Hashem, each one of us takes some time. I can tell you that some of the things that I mentioned seem like they're impossible to people that are brand new. And that's because you're brand new. I remember when I first started, Somebody said, oh yeah, I have this avrech, he learns 10 hours a day. I said, learning 10 hours a day? You must be, something's wrong with you. If I could learn for 15 minutes, that was a lot for me. So...

1:53:14My rabbi told me, "Listen, you have to start learning every day." I said, "Yeah, but I learn with you once a week for seven hours." He said, "Yes, that's good, but you need to learn every day." "So how do I start?" I asked. "I can't learn seven hours every day." He replied, "No, don't start with seven hours. Start with a certain amount every day. What can you do every day for sure?" I said, "Fifteen minutes." He said, "Okay, fine. Start with fifteen minutes a day. You can do fifteen minutes. You just started. Do fifteen minutes, but every day." And that's how I started, fifteen minutes a day. And then little by little, it got to a half hour a day. And then little by little, it got to an hour a day. And so on and so forth. And it continued growing, Baruch Hashem. The key is to make sure it's every day. No skips. It doesn't matter if it's Yom Kippur or Tisha B'Av. There's always some form of Torah to learn. Even during Tisha B'Av, you can learn the book of Iyov (Job). You can learn the book of Eicha (Lamentations). There's different Torah that you learn during that time. But the point is you can learn every single day. Once you make Torah a part of your life to the point where it's literally like breathing, Then you can achieve something big in your life. But until you get to that point, you're not going to achieve anything big in your life, and that's because you're not going to have the beracha. Yes, so the question is, do I miss anything about Wall Street? So I'll answer the question with a story. I...

1:54:42It's a good question. And a lot of people are going to have a hard time understanding if I say no. If I say no, I don't miss it. Because anyone that knows the story knows that on bad months, we'd make $200,000, $300,000. On good months, we'd make over a million dollars. There's plenty of money, plenty of material. I had an apartment, a $4 million apartment on Wall Street, literally on Wall Street and Broad on the 35th floor. The balcony was 400 square feet, which in New York City is considered big. The apartment was 2,000 square feet, which even for a house is big. So whatever material things people want, I mean, for the most part, we had it. We had access to whatever we wanted. We had whatever we wanted. If I simply told you that the best day of all of that time, a 16-year career, I All the money that you can imagine and want and had and didn't have, all the things, all the good—let's say you take 16 years. I had some good times and some bad times. Let's say we just eliminate all the bad—the surgery, the pain, the agony, the lawsuits, the friends turning—all of the bad. You stick all the good of those 16 years, plus everything before, into a little box and...

1:56:09All of that is not worth one minute of today. And if I tell you that, it all sounds wonderful. You want to maybe make a movie about it, but you don't understand it. Why? Because it's hard to understand unless you were there. So I'll explain it in a different way. Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz, zatzal, said one time he was walking in the street... And he saw that there were guys working in the street fixing the sewer. Now, you don't have to be a genius to associate the sewer with filth. But he said what puzzled him is that he saw that all of the people who were working in the sewer, in their uniforms and everything, were happy and enjoying themselves. A few of them decided to go on break and start eating their lunch. And they were eating their lunch with their little...

1:57:10potato chips and knick and cucumbers and plates and everything, though eating it in the sewer. And the guy is laughing; he takes another bite, and the other guy's laughing and taking another bite. A rat walks around on the right, left, and there's poop over there, and this over there, and everybody's eating and they're enjoying themselves. Rav Chaim Shmuel Levitt says, that's when I understood the Baal Teshuva before he does Teshuva. Before he does teshuva, he doesn't realize he's in the sewer. So he's enjoying himself. He's having a sandwich inside the sewer. He thinks it's fun to go to a casino, to waste his life watching TV, going to the beach, and going against Hashem. He's having a good time. The rats are walking on his head. It's a good time. He doesn't know any different. He thinks it's good. He thinks it's fun.

1:58:12He's the miskin because anyone that has clear vision from the outside sees, "What are you doing? What's the matter with you? Don't you see the rat and the tzo'ah and this? Don't you see where you're standing?" But you can only see from the outside. Rav Mizrachi, sheyichye, gives a slightly different example. He says you go sometimes to these public bathrooms and there's always a guy working there whistling. He's having a good time. As soon as the guy comes outside, you know, and he has his lunch and does what he does, then he goes back inside and he immediately smells. What happened? Nothing changed. You just walked in, you walked out. What happened? When I was in there, I didn't smell the horrible thing. I left, then I came back. Oh, now it smells terrible. Same concept. Same concept, same principle. When you're in that world, it's very, very difficult to smell the filth around you. The rat does not smell the terrible food that he's eating. Why? He's part of the filth. The rat doesn't find the food he's eating disgusting. You're never going to see a rat say, "No, no, this is not for me." You're never going to see a rat say, "No, no, I want cheese on this one. Can you put some salt?" You're never going to see a rat say, "Sir, sir, it's not enough salt on this cholent." You're never going to see that.

1:59:39Shlomo HaMelech says that sin is like a dog that goes and eats its own vomit. Now, if you ever had a dog, you know that dogs actually eat their own vomit. Why is he comparing sin to a person eating their own vomit? Because anyone that understands sin knows it's disgusting. To sin again means you are actually accepting the disgust in your life. Why does the dog keep eating disgusting things? Because he doesn't realize it's disgusting. He hasn't done teshuva yet. So, before a person does teshuva, when he's in the mundane world with money and this and that, he doesn't realize he's surrounded by filth. So, he likes it. He's enjoying himself even though he's swimming in filth. So if you tell him, "Listen, you have less money or more money," it affects him because that's his life. But once the person leaves... And he realizes where he was, there's nothing to miss. Who would miss filth if he saw that it's filth? So Baruch Hashem, Hashem had mercy on us, and He gave us the ability to do teshuva through all of the difficulties, the trials, the tribulations that we continue to have. It didn't just end at some point. You continue to have them throughout your whole life. But He gave us an understanding that where we were,

2:01:07was filth? Surrounded by gold. Surrounded by gold and money and so on and so forth. It looked good from the inside. But once you go from the outside, you realize it's not good. Now, that doesn't mean that every single person that's rich is terrible. It just simply means that the life that we had, that was all about money, with no Torah whatsoever, was filth. If you gave me the same money today as I had before, of course, life would be very different. But I also wouldn't do the same thing. I wouldn't spend my money on the same things I used to spend my money on, and so on and so forth. Life has changed. If you gave me $20 million today, I would use it all for kiruv. Why? Because Hashem needs more Jews, not more business people. Business people, He has plenty. Jews, not so many. So, missing that, no. As far as the other parts that people think that you would miss from a lot of money, it's to have comfort. People think that money comes with comfort.

2:02:08The opposite is true. The more money you have, the less comfortable you become. The reason why is because the more money you have, the more concerned you are about, number one, losing it. The biggest fear that rich people have is losing their money, even if they have billions. There is a billionaire, or former billionaire, by the name of Eike Batista. A few years ago, he had almost 40 billion dollars. In one year, he lost 99% of his money. He still has 100 million or so left. He's not homeless in the streets. But in comparison, if you ask him how he feels, he feels homeless. Why? Because if you go from 40 billion to 100 million, you feel homeless. So when all you have is money, you're already poor to start with. So when you have a lot of money, you're worried about money. The second thing is, the Gemara says, when all you have is money, you're always going to want more. Meaning that you're never going to have enough. You give him a hundred, he wants two hundred. You give him two hundred, he wants four hundred. You give him four hundred, he wants eight hundred. And then the Gemara in Masechet Sukkah says that no person ever dies with even half of what they desired. Meaning not only do they want double what they had at all times,

2:03:27But they never achieve it. They'll never be able to achieve what they want because they always want more. Because when a person, when all he has is money, then there's no amount of money that will ever be enough. So comfort is actually something you don't have. Now, you may not have the same problems that the poor person has. You know, poor people have a problem of, let's say, they can't pay rent, or they can't pay the mortgage, or they have problems paying tuition. and so on and so forth. But the rich person has different problems. The IRS, the FBI, the competition—you have different problems, more expensive problems. The poor guy's problem is coming up with $2,000 a month for the rent, or maybe $6,000 because he hasn't paid it in three months. He doesn't want to get kicked out on the street. The rich guy has an IRS audit that, if they prove him guilty, he's going to jail for 25 years. Because he didn't pay taxes for the last few years. The problem doesn’t disappear; it just changes. So even the comfort that people think you have when you're rich, you don't have. There's no such thing as comfort. The only comfort you could ever have is comfort with Hashem. Comfort when you actually understand that Hashem is running the world. Meaning that no matter what problem you have, it's from Him. It's not that He could fix it. Of course, He could fix it.

2:04:54That's a given. You don't need to be a genius. The issue here is that once you understand He runs the world, then you understand that the problem is from Him, meaning He did it. He's giving you the problem. Why? Because He's talking to you. He's telling you it's time to do teshuva. Yeah, but I already kept Shabbat. Okay, so don't do teshuva for Shabbat. Do teshuva for something else. You have something else to do teshuva for. People always think, oh, it's just, no, it's not just Shabbat. There's more to Judaism than Shabbat. There's middot, there's Torah, there's so on and so forth. So the comfort is an illusion. There's no such thing as comfort. Problems exist in everybody's life. The goal of the Torah is not to fix your problems. The goal of the Torah is to give you a reason for them. Hashem will give you a reason why you have problems. So once you actually have this Torah, then, number one, your old life It's something you're never going to miss. Why? Because your new life is going to be so wonderful. You're going to be so connected to Hashem because you finally have the answers to everything.

2:06:01What's the purpose of life? Why is my marriage like this? How do I fix it? Why is my job like this? How do I fix that? You can literally have the answers to everything in the world. There's no question that you could ask me right now that I don't have the answer for, or I can't get the answer for. I may have it already, or I can at least get it for you. But for sure, there's no question. That's why you can ask any questions you want. There's no preparation needed. Give me a crowd of 50,000 people. Same thing. Either I have the answer, or I can get you the answer from one of these sefarim. Why? Once you have Torah, you have literally the code, the blueprint for creation. may not remember all of it, obviously, not uh or something, but you can get it. Once you have Torah, you realize where it's all coming from automatically. Ah, I'm okay. I know where it's coming from. I know there's a solution too. There's a sickness, but there's a cure. Once you realize those things, then you have happiness. Then it doesn't make a difference how much money you have. Why? Because you know that money also comes from a certain firm place.

2:07:05And that, Rabotai, is true happiness. B'ezrat Hashem, each and every single one of you will not only get to that happiness and more but also influence your neighborhood, your community, your peers, your friends, your enemies, everyone to have this happiness. Because that's, in essence, the goal of this world. You want to arrive at Rosh Hashanah saying to Hashem, Hashem, this year is going to be different. this year is going to be different. This year I'm going for the whole thing. This year I'm going to be happy. This year I'm going to have You in my life all day, every day, in the beginning, in the afternoon, at night, when I'm sleeping, all the time. I'm gonna have You in my life. Why? Because that's the only way to get to happiness. That's the only way to get to real success. Once you have that, the rest of it is just keeping count. Doesn't make a difference. I'm serious. Just keeping count. People that have a lot of money, after a while you can't buy more stuff. So why do you keep making it? Because they have nothing else going for them. So you just keep making more money to keep count. Once you have real happiness because you're connected to Hashem, all of life just becomes keeping count. You have money, you don't have money, you have a house, you don't have a house. Doesn't make a difference, really. Why? You have everything that really matters.

2:08:21You have what matters. Once you have what matters, every day you wake up, you're really happy. Thank you, Hashem, for giving me life. But you're really saying thank you. You're really thanking Hashem. Thank you, I'm alive. Why? I'm already happy. But nothing happened. No, everything happened. I'm with Hashem. Already you wake up in a good mood. That, rabotai, is what you want. But the only way to get... The higher level is to start at step one, then step two, then step three, then step four, and so on and so forth. First, you understand that Hashem is not our friend. Have a little bit of fear of Hashem. Then learn more and more about Him. Then start doing more and more of what He says. And little by little, you're going to see yourself get to such a high level, such a wonderful level, that all the things that you read about in the books of how this one was happy no matter what happened, and that one was happy no matter what happened, it's going to become you. You're going to be that somebody. You're going to be that somebody. Your kids are going to be that somebody. Don't waste your time chasing happiness through material things. It's just not possible. It's not possible. Have money, don't have money, it doesn't make a difference. All of you have plenty of money, so you have plenty of time to learn Torah. But the reality is, the real blessing is to have the Torah, not to have the money. Because if you have money with no Torah, your money is a curse. If you have Torah, and you happen to have money, Baruch Hashem.

2:09:44When Hashem gives us a gift, we say thank you. But when He just gives us the money and no Torah, then it's not a blessing. A person should set aside time each day to learn Torah. What subjects should he start off with? Very good question. Five minutes. How many? How much? If he has five minutes or he has ten minutes, which subject should he start off with? So if he only has, somebody came to Rabbi Yisrael Salanter and asked him, I only have a half hour to learn. What should I learn? Should I learn Gemara? Should I learn Shulchan Aruch? Should I learn this? Should I learn that? Rabbi Yisrael Salanter says, you learn Musar. He goes, no, no, but Kvod HaRav, if I don't learn Halakha, then I'm not going to know what to do. If I don't learn Gemara, then I'm not going to know how to get to what to do. He says, yeah, learn Musar. He goes, no, no, but Kvod HaRav, if I don't learn Parashat HaShavua, then I don't have this. He goes, yeah, learn Musar. He constantly went back to the same answer. He goes, Kvod HaRav, why? Why Musar for a half hour? Because once you learn Musar for a half hour, you're going to realize you have more than a half hour.

2:10:51Once you learn Mussar for 10 minutes, you're going to realize you have more than 10 minutes. No such thing as I have 10 minutes. No such thing as you have 10 minutes. Everybody has more time, you just don't want to make more time. So, first thing first, you have to learn Mussar every day. Rabbi Yosef Karo, alav hashalom, who wrote the Shulchan Aruch, his chavruta was a malach. And the chavruta, he wrote in a book called Maggid Meisharim, He wrote, the angel rebuked him one time. Why? He didn't learn enough Mussar today. He didn't learn Mussar today. Rabbi Yosef Karo didn't learn Mussar. If he didn't learn enough Mussar, we have to learn Mussar for the rest of our lives, all day, all night. The point is that Mussar is going to help you attain Yirat Shamayim, fear of Heaven, fear of Hashem. It's going to help you fix the flawed character traits we have. If we're stingy, if we're arrogant, if we're egotistical, if we're this, if we're that—all of the bad things that are part of our nature.

2:11:57Mussar is going to help you. It's the only thing that can help you. After that, you learn Parashat HaShavua. After you've achieved at least your 10-15 minutes a day quota of Mussar, you learn Parashat HaShavua, the weekly Parashah. And the reason for that is because the Shulchan Aruch says that you're obligated to learn Parashat HaShavua three times a week. The same Parashah three times a week. You read the Parashah three times, one time with commentary. So if you read it at least once before Shabbat, at least you fulfilled part of the chiyuv that you have. Now that means that you're learning more than 15 minutes. Now you're probably learning a half hour or an hour because you're learning a little bit here, a little bit there. You do that for a little while. After you've done that for a little while, then add halachot. Add at least two halachot per day. Learn two halachot per day. A lot of people do it between mincha and arvit. Somebody says two halachot, but don't be one of these people that's watching like a movie. You know, they sit there, they wait for the prayer. Somebody says a halacha, that's most of the time not relevant to real life. They talk to you about Beit HaMikdash. Okay, Beit HaMikdash, it's great when it happens. You think I'm going to remember what you just said?

2:13:06Tell me something I can use in my life. Something I can do today. What am I going to do with this? What am I going to do with that? So whoever is teaching halacha in your beit knesset, make sure that you pay attention if it's relevant to your life or not. If it's not, say something privately. Don't embarrass them. Say something private. Can you teach us halacha that's lema'aseh? That's for real life? For day to day? Not something that may happen, will happen, happened. Something today. And don't be one of these people who just sits there and looks pretty. What do you do? He says something, write it down. So you remember it, because if you just listen to it, you're not going to remember it. So write it down. Have a little notebook with you. Have Post-its with you. And whatever he said, write down as much of it as you can. Write down, okay, not allowed to light fire on Shabbat. Done. He might have said a thousand words. You wrote five words. It's fine. At least you're going to remember it. But write it down. A lot of people go to the Knesset, the guy says something, everybody says, and no one knows anything. You ask the guy, oh, you're allowed to do this, you're allowed to do that, no one knows anything. They learn Halacha every day for 20 years, still don’t know anything. Why? They didn’t write anything down. So, write something down.

2:14:16So after you have Mussar, Parashat HaShavua, and Halacha, after that, after you've achieved, you've gotten to a point where you're already learning an hour a day, start increasing the time. Once you've achieved the point where you're learning almost two hours a day, now it's time to start learning Gemara. The Gemara you need to learn with a chavruta or with ArtScroll. whichever comes first. If you're able to get a good chavruta, a good rabbi that's going to teach you how to learn Gemara, then learn with him partly and learn ArtScroll on your own. It should never be just one. It should be both. And at that point, you're learning Gemara, and little by little, you add more time. Then it gets to a point where you're just adding more time to the same things. Always learn Mussar, always learn Parashat HaShavua, always learn Gemara, and little by little, increase all of these things, including Halacha, and that's it. But once you get to a point where you're learning at least two hours a day, for a month, two months, three months, little by little, you're going to see that your life is changing.

2:15:19Your job may be still the same job. Your wife is still the same wife. Your kids are still the same kids. Everything stays the same as far as it could be. But your life changed. How? Your perception of things starts to change. Your priorities change. Once you've committed at least two hours a day to talking to Hashem through His Torah, your life changes. So the problem is that most people start but they don't finish. They start and they do an hour here, two hours there, four hours, then they're back to 15 minutes again. It's not consistent. Now, I don't know what you all do for a living, but if you came to work one day for 10 hours, the next day for 3 minutes, the next day for 2 hours, the next day for 1 minute, the next day for 18 hours, and the next day for 3 minutes, you're probably not going to succeed in life. Why? It's not consistent. You have to be consistent with Torah. You have to be consistent with mitzvot. And if you do that, anyone who has any specific questions, by the way, whether it's halacha or what happened during the parasha or whatever it is, you could always either... look up our shiurim on the application that we have, or on the internet, on the website, bezratHashem.org, or you can just send me a text, and I'm more than happy to answer all the questions that you have. The key is to be committed to learning every day. That's the main thing. That's the potion that's going to help you do teshuva. If you're learning Torah every day, it's only a matter of time before your teshuva is going to become really serious. But if you're just wasting time, and it's like here and there,

2:16:46you're going to have a very, very hard time succeeding in life. Next? Or we're finished? You guys probably want to get some sleep. Besides, b'ezrat Hashem, hopefully I answered all of your questions. And listen, the key is to always remember, Hashem wants you to win. He's rooting for you. Elul is the time you have to root for Him also. Elul is the time to think, okay, now what? I want to show up to Rosh Hashanah ready. Take whatever you learned here today. Listen to it again tomorrow when we put it online. Make a list of a few things that you have to fix. Everybody has to fix something. Make a list of a few things you have to fix. Pick one or two of them to try to fix. And show up to Rosh Hashanah with this in your hand. Okay, Hashem, I have 18 things wrong with me. I'm going to fix these three. to fix these three. At least you have something to show up on Rosh Hashanah with to fix, and little by little, you'll start seeing your life change because of this. May you attain real happiness. Amen.